Repeat: FIX THE GURU SYSTEM

[RicardoRix]

You're also talking about 'voting for the next arena season' in which only the Arena guru players will be interested in voting in.

This might be a tendency but not as absolute as you state it

If that's not the case, then why would anyone not a guru be interested in voting?
Is this the smallest of marginal cases not even worth pointing out because a single extra vote the wrong way wouldn't change the result of the vote, and also changes nothing of the argument to a rotation system?
A pointless point to a pointless argument. That's not the Silene I know.

[Silene]

You're also talking about 'voting for the next arena season' in which only the Arena guru players will be interested in voting in.

This might be a tendency but not as absolute as you state it

If that's not the case, then why would anyone not a guru be interested in voting?
Is this the smallest of marginal cases not even worth pointing out because a single extra vote the wrong way wouldn't change the result of the vote, and also changes nothing of the argument to a rotation system?
A pointless point to a pointless argument. That's not the Silene I know.

I just don't like absolute statements on things that are not absolute. I've always been this way
Just because some people are within "smallest of marginal cases" doesn't justify making a generalization that excludes them. I prefer words like "most" over "all" and "mostly" over "only". Otherwise you can be easily proven wrong by just 1 counterexample .

However - I don't have a very strong opinion on this matter anyway... Rotation seems to be a good thing if that is possible. Idk how the TM players got there - I think it's probably not easy to design a fair rotation for all games with options.

[MrBeardy]

well BGA want to keep their regular players happy, and so give them the say. The gurus are simply that, those people who play most in a given season, and who have good reputations. If you want to be a guru play more.

[MrBeardy]

But do not forget there's also a drive in the other direction. People who are not satisfied with the status-quo are more likely to try to act for change. I think among those, that like the current system, there are a lot of inactive gurus who do not bother to even look into guru-voting-section and just ignore the fact that they are a guru. Those that don't like the system are far more likely to check + vote. But of course that cannot overcome a vast majority.

You're also talking about 'voting for the next arena season' in which only the Arena guru players will be interested in voting in.

This might be a tendency but not as absolute as you state it

it's not helped by several games not publishing any voting deadline reminders. I missed the chance to vote for three games as the deadline closed 24 hours earlier than some other games who did send a reminder. I assumed all the games would have the same cut-off, but apparently not!

[Tharnduil]

However - I don't have a very strong opinion on this matter anyway... Rotation seems to be a good thing if that is possible. Idk how the TM players got there - I think it's probably not easy to design a fair rotation for all games with options.

TM got there because there are a core group of players that have their own discord and active events and well lots of other stuff. They use BGA as their preferred medium for events. Because of this the community as a whole asks what would everyone prefer. That answer is far reaching and ranges to many different settings.

Because of this those that had/have Guru power decided the best was to vote for a rotational setting so that different arenas could be for different players and everyone wins.

Now obviously TM is the exception to the rule and this isn't going to happen with each game on BGA, there are just too many. However, trying to change up settings that seem to get stuck on one over and over is the issue here. And again asking and suggesting and continuing to point out how it is broken is the only real option we are given by the BGA admins. Thus the point of this whole post. (Not the fight of 3p vs 4p Catan as our poor friend ufm couldn't figure out.)

I've given lots of possible fixes to the Guru system in this post, but if others have some thoughts that would be great to suggest them. My issue isn't that I don't get to play the game my way. It is that it seems I will never get to play settings I prefer again (best example is Kingdom Builder stuck in 1v1 for about a year).

As to the arena vs regular matches and who gets picked as Guru, well even that is a problem because if you only play non-Arena matches and don't enjoy the arena play, but then vote for the Arena settings your vote may in fact be hurting the community. Because you are just voting on what you enjoy playing and not giving thought to what the settings were the previous season or what might be a good change for the community.

[MrBeardy]

My issue isn't that I don't get to play the game my way. It is that it seems I will never get to play settings I prefer again (best example is Kingdom Builder stuck in 1v1 for about a year).

As to the arena vs regular matches and who gets picked as Guru, well even that is a problem because if you only play non-Arena matches and don't enjoy the arena play, but then vote for the Arena settings your vote may in fact be hurting the community. Because you are just voting on what you enjoy playing and not giving thought to what the settings were the previous season or what might be a good change for the community.

Ok 1) you can play the game how you like, just not in arena. So your gripe is actually you can't play the game in arena. Why does arena matter so much to you? It doesn't prevent you playing the game.

2) Why would your vote as guru (if you play enough to get there) hurt the community? That is a completely illogical sentence. Gurus have private threads where they can discuss things related to the game. That usually includes some conversation on which way to vote and why. Next Station London had a good chat on changing the options to include pencil powers this season, for example. The point of being allowed to vote is to allow the regular community to choose the arena format. Why would exercising that vote harm the community? I don't follow your argument.

[Tharnduil]

Why would your vote as guru (if you play enough to get there) hurt the community? That is a completely illogical sentence. Gurus have private threads where they can discuss things related to the game. That usually includes some conversation on which way to vote and why. Next Station London had a good chat on changing the options to include pencil powers this season, for example. The point of being allowed to vote is to allow the regular community to choose the arena format. Why would exercising that vote harm the community? I don't follow your argument.

It does if it never changes. Then it becomes a cycle of one type of settings over and over. Not all games are as commonly played as the ones covered here.

Personally what I enjoy doing is selecting a few different arena games and the one that matches first I play. Then if I am bored of that one the next time I will not select it and instead only select the other and so on until I usually cycle through the games I enjoy. That is my preference for how I interact with the gaming system. I don't like going to the regular games if for no other reason it makes me kick out of the arenas I'm already in queue for but that is a whole other issue.

What you described above is a working example of it being handled correctly. I have no issue with that and obviously it is good for the community. I gave the TM example of how it can work well as well. What BGA needs to do is use these few good examples and try and better refine the current method with Gurus and the settings they pick

9 times out of 10 though it comes down to some type of rotation of settings so all players get a chance to enjoy the games they love. When they get stuck in one format and thus get the same Gurus over and over then it doesn't become fun for the whole community and only for the select few that like that style.

[MrBeardy]

you do know you can set the standard area to autostart games the way arena does right? You can have that queing option in there too.

[ahyangyi]

Since you are probably the minority opinion anyways, I don't think you are right to push your own opinions and views on everyone.

However, since it's Catan and Kingdom Builder, two of the most played games, I think a question worth asking would be:

Can BGA afford to support two settings for a popular game in the same season?

[MrBeardy]

For arena the answer is no because the point is everyone in arena should be playing the same format.