I was 300 ELO for 300 games. Now I'm 500 ELO. Here's what I learned

[DoctorFianchetto]

I agree with all of this. Spot on expert assessment of the game. I actually wish you never posted so these plebes can forever be stuck in the dirt.

Why do you wish that "plebes" can forever be stuck?

[bialix]

I agree with all of this. Spot on expert assessment of the game. I actually wish you never posted so these plebes can forever be stuck in the dirt.

Why do you wish that "plebes" can forever be stuck?

I suspected there were "Sarcasm" banner implied ))

[bialix]

About income and money for the last round.

How much is enough? I suspect you need around 45-60 to play good big points animals in the last round plus donation on your last association project. Am I wrong?

Btw great post, I've improved my game strategy thanks to this

[calvaria]

Ever since I wrote this, I played about 200 more games and got to revise some of the things I wrote.

Mostly on point number 5, income is not king, but rather money is important. You should be considerate of the animals you want to (or could) play and plan your money accordingly. While super experienced players do this instinctively, I remember I used to find myself struggling for money every now and then.

Things that you need money for:
- Expensive animals.
- Building enclosures (for big animals, or achitectural zoo)
- Many animals (playing more than 2 animals per break)
- Getting occasionally piflered.

Things that can help with money:
- Certain sponsors - Explorer, Science Museum, That sponsor that gives you a size 5 enclosure for free, Expert in small/big animals, Ornithologist and the likes, Sponsorships that give you 3/6/9 income, and many many more. The thing with sponsors is that the more experienced the player is, the more they'll lean into each sponsor they play and try to utilise it as much as they can, while inexperienced players will play a sponsor and forget about it.
- Upgraded Sponsors and break management. More than a few times I've seen players upgrade sponsors and break with it for money, and build momentum that way better than I could do.

That beind said, while @JDansp heavily disagrees with me on #5 because of his experience, and in his right and position is most capable of doing so, I found that as a mediocre player it was very useful to plan my kiosks/pavilions placement and build up some income early on. It essentially avoided the too little money trap I sometimes fell into.

[DrakeStorm]

15. When you play arena, the expel button is part of the game. If you run out of time, expect to be expelled immediately, even if you ask nicely for extra time. Arena = competitive.

Competitive does not equal being a d*ck.

Sure if you are playing Yahtzee you could kick someone out after 30 seconds, but for a heavy game like Ark Nova it is just poor sportsmanship to kick someone out quickly, especially when it is near the end of the game.

Hope I never meet you in an Arena game.

[Andrewsmile]

Hope I never meet you in an Arena game.

*checks profile, sees 14 kicks and 28 time penalties with 100 elo*

Don't worry king I'll red thumb you for the both of us

[DrakeStorm]

Hope I never meet you in an Arena game.

*checks profile, sees 14 kicks and 28 time penalties with 100 elo*

Don't worry king I'll red thumb you for the both of us

Thanks for helping to prove my point.

[DoctorFianchetto]

Hope I never meet you in an Arena game.

*checks profile, sees 14 kicks and 28 time penalties with 100 elo*

Don't worry king I'll red thumb you for the both of us

Not the first time I've seen you randomly bring up a player's ELO on an issue unrelated to rating. Do you think that a person with a low ELO rating is not allowed to have an opinion?

[Andrewsmile]

Not the first time I've seen you randomly bring up a player's ELO on an issue unrelated to rating. Do you think that a person with a low ELO rating is not allowed to have an opinion?

A fair question; he's absolutely allowed to have an opinion that kicking someone from an arena game is poor sportsmanship. My personal opinion is that players who use far more than their allotted thinking time (hence all the time penalties and expulsions) in arena and then don't even play well should play friendly mode or turn based if they want to go over their time and not be kicked. I bring up elo because of the stated purpose of arena:

We created Arena Mode because playing "for fun" and playing "competitively" is not really the same thing. We want to regroup players who are playing "for fun" together, and players who are playing "competitively" together.

If you aren't very good at the game but want to play in a "competitive" game mode and not respect the rules of competitive (time limits) then yeah I'm going to kick you and not feel bad about it and then point it out when you complain about it on the forums. If he was making a comment on normal play mode then I would kind of agree that kicking is poor form especially at the end, because the purpose of that mode is for fun, but just... don't play arena if you want to take a long time. It's not a mode with your preferences in mind.

I'll note that I don't think high elo players should go over their clock either in arena, but its never the high elo players that complain on the forums.

[DrakeStorm]

Not the first time I've seen you randomly bring up a player's ELO on an issue unrelated to rating. Do you think that a person with a low ELO rating is not allowed to have an opinion?

A fair question; he's absolutely allowed to have an opinion that kicking someone from an arena game is poor sportsmanship. My personal opinion is that players who use far more than their allotted thinking time (hence all the time penalties and expulsions) in arena and then don't even play well should play friendly mode or turn based if they want to go over their time and not be kicked. I bring up elo because of the stated purpose of arena:

We created Arena Mode because playing "for fun" and playing "competitively" is not really the same thing. We want to regroup players who are playing "for fun" together, and players who are playing "competitively" together.

If you aren't very good at the game but want to play in a "competitive" game mode and not respect the rules of competitive (time limits) then yeah I'm going to kick you and not feel bad about it and then point it out when you complain about it on the forums. If he was making a comment on normal play mode then I would kind of agree that kicking is poor form especially at the end, because the purpose of that mode is for fun, but just... don't play arena if you want to take a long time. It's not a mode with your preferences in mind.

I'll note that I don't think high elo players should go over their clock either in arena, but its never the high elo players that complain on the forums.

I did not come on the forum to complain about being kicked out of Ark Nova, not sure where you got that from. I came to read this thread, and I found the last bullet point to be questionable.

If you want to win on time and not on skill, that is up to you, but I think it is pretty low. As long as someone is actively playing, I just don't think it is sportsmanlike to kick them, especially if the time level is set to slow. I could see it being frustrating if someone joined a fast arena game and then played slow, but if I set it to slow and a high level person hasn't set their preferences to 'I never want to play with slow', then they should be respectful of that in my opinion.

You assume that since I have expulsions and time penalties, I shouldn't be playing Arena mode. If you did a little more digging, you would see that 99% of my penalties is from waiting for an Arena game to start, I forget I'm waiting, and then someone kicks me out. Or the nicer people wait and I realize the game started but have a time penalty. The really nice people abandon the game, but I've come to not expect that. I am assuming you are the type of person who will hit the expel button 1 millisecond after it shows up.

Having low ELO is not a reason not to play Arena - you need at least 100 ELO. That's what the different levels are for. I'm in the Bronze level of Ark Nova, obviously I'm not that good, that's why I was reading this post. As someone who is 533 why are you here.

I don't understand the "we created arena", were you involved in its creation? If so, bravo, if not it is just a condescending statement. If you looked at my other games, you would easily see that I am a competitive level player. And as a competitive player I just don't get the appeal of winning on time.