Please fix the #1 Arena Mode issue

[Ba3henov]

This one issue is the sole reason I'm not renewing my subscription. The site does not always properly identify when a player is present. For example, on mobile, it can't tell when you're in a different tab or even a different app. I hate losing elo and reputation to this bug, but I also hate starting a game and wasting my time because someone else isn't here. The fix is so simple:

ADD AN 'ACCEPT' BUTTON TO ARENA TABLES JUST LIKE REGULAR MODE

If you're worried about players manipulating elo, then simply hide who the opponents are in the accept screen.

However, this wouldn't be such an issue if people had the decency to abandon instead of expelling the players who aren't here. You don't even get any elo for "winning" a game by expelling someone, but if you get expelled at the start of your game you lose the MAXIMUM possible elo and points. It's just such a horrible system.

I always try to abandon in these situations, but it takes just one petty player to decide to expel instead of abandon, and there's nothing I can do. Not once has anyone abandoned for me.

[Salvidrim]

If the other player(s) are not present and playing, how are YOU losing ELO?

There are only two possibilities:

• Either the opponent is within their allotted time limit, in which case everything is working fine and there is no reason to complain; even if the player is not "present" right now, if their time is not expired, they are allowed to return later while they still have time on the clock to make their move. That's how turn-based play works.
• Or the opponent has gone beyond their allotted time limit, in which case you are entitled to kick them out and claim table victory, leading to an ELO gain for you (proportional to how far into the match you were).

If you are complaining about the first situation, where opponents are within their allotted time limit, then are you complaining that other players are abiding by the rules? If you wish for "faster" play you should adjust your matchmaking preferences to play either real-time tables, or turn-based tables with faster time control than the typical "1 move per day".

[Ba3henov]

Hello Salvidrim, thank you for your reply and an explanation of how the in-game timer works, but the issue I'm bringing up is that the website does not always properly identify if players are on it when starting an Arena Mode game. It sometimes does, in which case the absent player would show the sand timer icon and other players can refuse to start the Arena game. But not always.

It looks to me like you didn't understand my original post given this:

proportional to how far into the match you were

The whole point is that there is no "how far into the match". The game starts and one or more players simply aren't here from the very start. This creates 2 situations:

1. Sitation 1: I am the one who isn't present, hence I'm the one losing ELO and reputation. This happens when I get tired of waiting for an Arena game and try to leave. I have to be very careful when exiting the site to close all the tables I'm waiting on. Sometimes I forget, sometimes I miss a table, and sometimes I'm pretty sure the site simply doesn't properly register my click when I hit 'cancel'. As a result, when I come back I find myself expelled from a game that has started minutes after I left.

2. Situtaion 2: One of my opponents is the one not present when the game starts. When this happens that makes the time we spent to start the game completely wasted, on top of having to wait the missing player's entire turn timer. I experience this about 1 in every 10-20 games. When this happens, I abandon the game since it is not fair to the victims of this bug, but even if I did expel them, I would gain absolutely nothing since the game has no progression. Anyway, it's not about the ELO, it's about the wasted time.

I do not want this bug to limit me to only turn-based tables. I want to play real-time arena games. It's just so frustrating how easy the fix is yet the developers are ignoring our complaints.

[Ba3henov]

I would also like to add that it is actually possible to lose arena points when YOUR OPPONENT is the one who is expelled. Here are a couple examples:
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=109420233
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=109437075

[Salvidrim]

1. Situation 1: I am the one who isn't present, hence I'm the one losing ELO and reputation.

That is 100% your own fault if you are queuing for real-time Arena tables but do not play your move within the allotted time control due to being absent.

There are good reasons to not allow players to accept/reject a table in Arena matchmaking, to avoid players picking and choosing their opponents. Arena is specifically designed so that all matchmaking is handled by BGA systems; players are unable to play Ranked Arena with specific friends or chosen opponents, all matchmaking is automatic. The ability to not accept an assigned table would break that fairness. If you are not willing to automatically accept the Ranked Arena table you should not be initiating matchmaking.

[Jellby]

sometimes I'm pretty sure the site simply doesn't properly register my click when I hit 'cancel'.

If that's the case, that is the bug you should be reporting.

I would also like to add that it is actually possible to lose arena points when YOUR OPPONENT is the one who is expelled.

I would say that's a bug too. At least with ELO you cannot lose it when someone is expelled, I believe the intent is that AES (Arena ELO Score, I guess) should behave the same, so this looks like a bug or oversight, but it may be intentional too.

[Ba3henov]

That is 100% your own fault if you are queuing for real-time Arena tables but do not play your move within the allotted time control due to being absent.

We love BGA but let's be real, this site is not up to 2023 standards. If I was the only one with this issue I would accept that it is on me, but since I see a ton of other people have the same issue regularly, I know it is not true that I'm 100% at fault: the imperfect UI and bugs are at least partially responsible. Instead of working with us and trying to solve the issue to make the site a better place, you don't offer a viable solution and don't address a majority of my points:

1. You explain my suggestion should be discarded because of elo manipulation, but do not consider this:

If you're worried about players manipulating elo, then simply hide who the opponents are in the accept screen.

2. You do not address the fact that EVERYONE's experience is ruined, not just the expelled player.
3. I showed you a couple games where I literally lost Arena Points because another player was expelled at the start of the game. Even you cannot victim blame on this one, so you just ignore this point altogether?

[Romain672]

Two things I see from this subject:
- 1) reduce the penality of elo when someone leave before his first action. It could be to make he lose 50% of a potential last place.
I checked the top100 of games to see which game it could be abused, but I find none.
On some abstract games, it seem it could became problematic, so that's a problem. Maybe don't do it for games labelled as 'abstract game'?
But that would be weird since many abstract game would gain from this feature.

edit: I just find "Can't stop". So yeah it's a problem from non abstract games too. But even though, someone who got a full column, and two good tokens, does the other player have <25% winrate? It seem so. But maybe it's wrong.

- 2) When someone leave a game make the gain from other being at least 0.
This causes problems like what happen with elo on coop team games, but it's one step in the right direction.

Both of those propositions aren't great, but should reduce the impact of your problem.


About having an 'accept' button, you can check which people are online when starting a game, and so even not showing the opponent could be annoying. Bga assumed it was and don't do it.
I'm not sure if this is wrong. If you are connected the whole day, it seem you could already do that: check who is online, and queue up only when people you want to be against/don't want to be against is actually not in a game/is actually in a game.

[Ba3henov]

- 1) reduce the penality of elo when someone leave before his first action. It could be to make he lose 50% of a potential last place.

- 2) When someone leave a game make the gain from other being at least 0.

Two wonderful suggestions, but yeah the former might incentivize leaving in games where you can potentially have a strong disadvantage before making a single move.

check who is online, and queue up only when people you want to be against/don't want to be against is actually not in a game/is actually in a game.

This would be a great counter-argument to my suggestion except for one thing: it is currently possible to simply give a Red Thumb to anyone you don't want to play an arena game against. You can, for example, RT everyone at the top of the leaderboard to only play against weaker opponents. Therefore, adding an accept button won't make it any easier than it currently is to avoid playing with specific people.

However, it is possible to look at a specific person to see if they are waiting on the same Arena table as you. This also isn't really an issue for the aforementioned reason, but if it is, just make the "Playing now at" status hidden for Arena tables until everyone hits accept.