Arena points

[Col Rosenberg]

I'm not sure how flexible Arena is at the moment.

What if you took out matched games when playing in the Arena?

Example: Put together all the fun (greater balanced) Scenario's in a random pool. Players are charged to play a random Scenario; players get to choose which side they'd like to play. Each side of the Scenario is given a point value (depending on how unbalanced it is). Players then choose and bid (giving up points) which side they wish to play. The winner, of the game, gains the point value of the scenario...for future bids.... for the fun of it.

Just an idea. I want to have fun playing M44. I think it has become all too competitive.

(This Idea; might be better suited leaving all Scenarios in the mix)

[Tisaac]

I'm not sure how flexible Arena is at the moment.

What if you took out matched games when playing in the Arena?

Example: Put together all the fun (greater balanced) Scenario's in a random pool. Players are charged to play a random Scenario; players get to choose which side they'd like to play. Each side of the Scenario is given a point value (depending on how unbalanced it is). Players then choose and bid (giving up points) which side they wish to play. The winner, of the game, gains the point value of the scenario...for future bids.... for the fun of it.

Just an idea. I want to have fun playing M44. I think it has become all too competitive.

(This Idea; might be better suited leaving all Scenarios in the mix)

Not possible. Arena points are computed as ELO, only the win/lose matter, and you have no other way to influence its computation other than that.
It's weird to say that Arena became too competitive, that's the whole point of Arena ! You can just keep playing regular games if you dont like the arena spirit and/or setup, no shame in that

[Col Rosenberg]

Arena points are computed as ELO

I'm not sure you (or I) understand. In short: Example: 100 Games • 97 Victories • 150 % wins • 16 bid points.
No bother, it was just an idea. you didn't connect.

It's weird to say that Arena became too competitive

You're stuck on competitive mode. Here on BGA, you introduced matched games to M44, because you wanted the point distribution to be fair. So now everything doing with M44 - has to do with matched games. Arena doesn't deal in points, so why bother with Matched games? I think M44 arena would be better suited focusing on a single battle mode...providing two separate skill sets. Having top rank for M44 match game's (non-arena) and having a separate top rank for single match game (aka arena)...Maybe even having the two, top ranking players battle it out in a final showdown.

too competitive

School sports give all the players Medals...all you have to do is show up...playing for the fun of it. Fun being in the position of its rival, Competitive opponent's.

I keep hearing: "we play for fun." That is proving to be something of the past (DoW). Competitiveness is taking hold of this game and its players.

competitive, that's the whole point of Arena !

What happened to entertainment (fun)? How many Scenarios have to disappear from Arena before it will be considered fun or even competitive?

[Tisaac]

Arena points are computed as ELO

I'm not sure you (or I) understand. In short: Example: 100 Games • 97 Victories • 150 % wins • 16 bid points.
No bother, it was just an idea. you didn't connect.

It's weird to say that Arena became too competitive

You're stuck on competitive mode. Here on BGA, you introduced matched games to M44, because you wanted the point distribution to be fair. So now everything doing with M44 - has to do with matched games. Arena doesn't deal in points, so why bother with Matched games? I think M44 arena would be better suited focusing on a single battle mode...providing two separate skill sets. Having top rank for M44 match game's (non-arena) and having a separate top rank for single match game (aka arena)...Maybe even having the two, top ranking players battle it out in a final showdown.

too competitive

School sports give all the players Medals...all you have to do is show up...playing for the fun of it. Fun being in the position of its rival, Competitive opponent's.

I keep hearing: "we play for fun." That is proving to be something of the past (DoW). Competitiveness is taking hold of this game and its players.

competitive, that's the whole point of Arena !

What happened to entertainment (fun)? How many Scenarios have to disappear from Arena before it will be considered fun or even competitive?

Again, you can't have such a point system because the only thing left from a game is who win/lose and the calculation of ELO/Arena points (aka EAS). You can't add any additional system to that with the current BGA framework.

The whole purpose of Arena is to have a competitive place, and competitive usually imply that setup is fair with respect to the players level, because otherwise the ELO calculation makes no sense. Enforcing match games means the output of a game is more correlated with the level of the players, which is a good thing in a competitive environment. Sure, if you play a great amount of times, the odds of playing a single way unbalanced scenario will probably be evened out, but I am not sure an arena season is long enough for that.
Once you get a competitive-compatible setup for Arena, then you can start wondering on whether it's "fun" enough or if it could be changed to improve the fun while keeping the competitiveness as much as possible. That's probably why Memoir44 Gurus voted for this "short list scenarios" suggestion for next Arena format.

But again, if you dont like the competitive mindset of Arena, just stay away from it. You can still play ranked games, which again will enforce matched game since it's ranked. Or if you really don't care/don't like about rank/competitivity, feel free to just play in training mode and you will be able to play single way game as much as you want.
We dont have to all agree about Arena format, as long as everyone is able to find games that suit him.

[T72on1]

Arena points are computed as ELO

I'm not sure you (or I) understand. In short: Example: 100 Games • 97 Victories • 150 % wins • 16 bid points.
No bother, it was just an idea. you didn't connect.

It's weird to say that Arena became too competitive

You're stuck on competitive mode. Here on BGA, you introduced matched games to M44, because you wanted the point distribution to be fair. So now everything doing with M44 - has to do with matched games. Arena doesn't deal in points, so why bother with Matched games? I think M44 arena would be better suited focusing on a single battle mode...providing two separate skill sets. Having top rank for M44 match game's (non-arena) and having a separate top rank for single match game (aka arena)...Maybe even having the two, top ranking players battle it out in a final showdown.

too competitive

School sports give all the players Medals...all you have to do is show up...playing for the fun of it. Fun being in the position of its rival, Competitive opponent's.

I keep hearing: "we play for fun." That is proving to be something of the past (DoW). Competitiveness is taking hold of this game and its players.

competitive, that's the whole point of Arena !

What happened to entertainment (fun)? How many Scenarios have to disappear from Arena before it will be considered fun or even competitive?

...
We dont have to all agree about Arena format, as long as everyone is able to find games that suit him.

That last sentence of Tisaac pretty much sums it all up. There's different modes here on BGA, for every type of player. Arena is the competitive one. If you don't like that, fair enough. Regular games or training games will suit you fine, I'd think.

Btw, for me competitive and fun aren't mutually exclusive. Arena can be tense, but part of the fun actually comes from that aspect.

[Jeronimon]

I keep hearing: "we play for fun." That is proving to be something of the past (DoW). Competitiveness is taking hold of this game and its players.

We do play for fun, but we also want to win. That is part of it.

Meeting more than 60 players in a weekend of Memoir’44 for the Belgian Open for instance gives me great pleasure. And trying to crush them when I meet them on the board is a good part of that.

[Col Rosenberg]

Again, you can't have such a point system because the only thing left from a game is who win/lose and the calculation of ELO/Arena points (aka EAS). You can't add any additional system to that with the current BGA framework.

The whole purpose of Arena is to have a competitive place, and competitive usually imply that setup is fair with respect to the players level, because otherwise the ELO calculation makes no sense. Enforcing match games means the output of a game is more correlated with the level of the players, which is a good thing in a competitive environment. Sure, if you play a great amount of times, the odds of playing a single way unbalanced scenario will probably be evened out, but I am not sure an arena season is long enough for that.
Once you get a competitive-compatible setup for Arena, then you can start wondering on whether it's "fun" enough or if it could be changed to improve the fun while keeping the competitiveness as much as possible. That's probably why Memoir44 Gurus voted for this "short list scenarios" suggestion for next Arena format.

But again, if you dont like the competitive mindset of Arena, just stay away from it. You can still play ranked games, which again will enforce matched game since it's ranked. Or if you really don't care/don't like about rank/competitivity, feel free to just play in training mode and you will be able to play single way game as much as you want.
We dont have to all agree about Arena format, as long as everyone is able to find games that suit him.

No prob. I get it.
The fact that you bring up training games is just ridiculous. Nobody plays for fun; nobody is going to go for training game.

You might as well exclude some of the longer scenarios from Arena while you're at it.
I don't mind the competitive mindset that Arena offers.

There's different modes here on BGA, for every type of player.

No, there is NOT! You will get the same (if not more) competitiveness regardless, whether it be one game or two. You're sacrificing fun for fair.
Your mindset has been manipulated. At one time (DoW) M44 was set up having one game only.

As it is now, who would you admire most: Top ranking player in Arena or top-ranking player in regular? Pretty much the same.
Now let's switch it up - Arena being one game and regular being two, who would you admire most?

DoW didn't placate to the crybabies. "HEY! he didn't give me a chance for a rematch, Boo hoo! Welcome to arena, Baby!
Now, now children, we got to play fair...After all, we all know War is fair. play fair now. What fun is it if you can't make em cry!

War is never fair - Bring the Warfare back into the Arena - Welcome to ThunderDome!

Or leave it the same as regular and training mode...Same Fun for everyone.


Switch it up a bit.

[Col Rosenberg]

We do play for fun, but we also want to win. That is part of it.

We play for fun until it isn't fun anymore. We play to win because it is part of our competitive nature. Difference being the fun is in the game. M44 Match games: both players will have the greatest fun playing the first game of the match...the full game. Tell me, is the second game of the match going to prove to be as fun as the first game? No. It won't. Reason being, neither player need win (winner can be determined short of game's victory conditions) the game itself = no longer fun for the game and no longer fun winning the game.

Dow had it right. Play for the fun of it. Ok, so we have matched games, good for BGA. Arena itself speaks Game, play the game as it was meant to be played. Matched games limit players fun and reduces the game function. Those players who aren't having fun playing the game...total disregard for those of us that are still having fun playing the same "game."

If you think fair overrides fun, you aren't getting it.

One game Arena worked for DoW.

[Col Rosenberg]

We do play for fun, but we also want to win. That is part of it.

I'm sure all the football players of the 70's played for fun - when they invented all those killer (out to Mame) moves. And then there's Tonya Harding...that was their idea of Winning while having a bit of fun doing it. If you were playing for fun (as you say), you wouldn't want to eliminate so many Scenarios from the game...stop kidding yourself.

It always sounded pretty stupid when I heard of kiddie socker, and some of the other sports giving out trophies to all the participants (fair overriding fun). I think I understand now. - "But we're not kids" - we might as well be, we are playing with "little Green army men."

@BGA and fellow comrades -We have matched games, give M44 a chance - put single games back in Arena - you won't have to worry about which Scenarios belong, you won't have to quit, it will bring real time players to the board, it will shorten game time and most of all: it will be fun for all, for all time. Right now, there is no different playing Normal M44 vs M44 arena...Make a difference - Don't turn into a quitter!

I'll leave it at that.

[Jeronimon]

@Col Rosenberg
Thanks for bringing your passion and enthousiasme to the community.

Digitally
Your different point system wil not happen with the BGA Arena, but on the forum here and DoW you can find tournaments that count points differently (e.g. Bewolf, the league)
In the tournaments organized here on BGA the ranking of players with the same amount of wins is determined by score difference. So every last medal counts (yours and your opponents) and on BGA it sometimes comes down to not just the last medal but the last figure to determine the win.

Physically
If you are willing to travel you could visit the Chattanooga Open, Dutch Open, French Open, Belgian Open (two day tournaments) And there are also one day tournaments, but the ones I know of are in Western Europe which I think would be a stretch for a US citizen.
Those all use point systems where you want to squeeze the last drop out of the game so you can outclass your competitors. Some tournaments have been decided on 0,1 point.
But on real boards you could also visit the World Board Gaming Chamionships where there is straight knock out. I imagine some players in that tournament also concede so they can get to another game faster.

See you on the battlefields where I promise you I will fight to the last figure!