Make arena more competitive

[zaperok0]

I think that adding a rating delay to arena would give an advantage to people who mostly play real time, and have plenty of time towards the end of the season - they'll be more able to "time" their run and stop playing at a peak score that won't be subject to delay.

For games like Wingspan, Arena is pretty much a push your luck meta game. You need to go on a win streak to hit a good score, the best players are more likely to do that, but no guarantees - and at a certain point each game played will lose you arena points, from a long term perspective, so it makes no sense to play.

As an example, SpaOwner has been playing arena games recently, and picking up 3 points for a win and losing 35 for a loss. Their long term win rate is 81%, which gives an expected result of around -3.5 points per game. The only reason they are playing is to try to string together a win streak that elevates them in the rankings.

I get what you are saying but the purpose of this topic was to make people try to play More. Because even though i I'm 600 elo sometimes I get matched with 150 elo or 200 elo and I have configured my arena to play against people around my rank but that seems to not happen since there are few top rank players playing.

[zaperok0]

Rating decay has been discussed ad nauseum. There is nothing new to add to the subject. Pros and cons are well-known and which side you land on is totally subjective. Here's a good thread discussing it: viewtopic.php?t=18601

But you can find loads of other discussions by simply googling around about rating/elo decay.

Oh I see but they didn't do anything at the end in the post you shared. The thing is that ranked here at bga SHould change because like I said this is to encourage a better matchmaking. Since you can't put in a match the top 1 and idk the top 2000 and this happens despite the filters applied. So if top 1 looses it hurts it really does. That's why top 1 should be match with somebody around they rank and this can only happen if people play more. Doesn't matter if it is at the beginnin at the end or in the middle. There has to be some playing so ranked marches are worth it and not just luck. Because I get unlucky 1 every 20 games AND Since that game I lost was against idk a top 2000 that got very lucky I get degraded alot And that is not fair.

To conclude the rank or elo decay should encourage people to play at least a bit more ranked marches and make arena more competitive.

[PaulB-UK]

I get what you are saying but the purpose of this topic was to make people try to play More. Because even though i I'm 600 elo sometimes I get matched with 150 elo or 200 elo and I have configured my arena to play against people around my rank but that seems to not happen since there are few top rank players playing.

It works based on arena level, so you'll get matched with anyone who is elite - so in some ways the issue is that elite is "too easy" to obtain. (By that I mean you can big elo gaps between elite players).

[SpaOwner]

I would lean towards adding an incentive to play more games that, while not giving you a penalty for sitting on a high ranking, makes it a less appealing strategy.

One large issue with the rating system is Wingspan has inherent variance, and the probabilities associated with the point distribution does not account for that variance. There are many players where the 'system' thinks the game is a 95% win probability, but in reality it is closer to 80-85%, this a negative EV. So we are incentivized to not play once we get a big win streak (as PaulB noted).

If we added a play-based accumulating bonus pool to the Arena system, you would have your incentive to get a few games in over time, since you have a solid expected value to play. This is a similar system as I have seen in some video games, which incentivizes logging in to play a few games each week over overplaying in one or two days, or not playing often at all.

The way it works is each day you accumulate maybe one half or one game's worth of 'bonus pool elo' that you gain if you win. This bonus pool accumulates each day, and caps out at about seven days (so you cannot just hoard 85 days worth of bonus and play at the end of the season). This bonus would move your expected value to positive for top players to keep getting games in, and it would most benefit those who play consistently all Arena season long, not just those who play for a week and rank. So essentially, you would win twice as much as you would lose by playing for a few games each day or week. After your pool is exhausted, you go back to playing for one-to-one. If you don't play for a while, you don't build anymore bonus. If you play too much, you are not playing for bonus.

Other little things I think could add some value to the competitive nature in Arena:
1. Rework the 'abandon game' feature. I think it's ripe for abuse in a competitive landscape, and limiting non-time based abandonments to 1 per week or so (or 1 per 10 games, or give an abandonment a karma penalty) could solve that problem. I understand folks might want to abandon if they link up with their friends on the ladder, but it is anti-competitive if you have a bad start against your opponent's good start, and you sweet talk them into abandoning the game instead of you taking the loss.
2. I would recommend we add an Arena rating range for matchmaking. I would rather wait 5-10 minutes for a game to meet someone close to my level than to get a game quickly where I am risking 39 points to win 1, and the only way out is to play for 30 minutes. That's a great risk/reward for the person only risking a single point, but I often feel like I am wasting time for little reward. The bonus pool system would also help that.
3. A final (and potentially bad?) idea would be to add some sort of mulligan to games with high variance. Maybe 1 per 50 games. I don't know how this would work in practice, but an idea I wanted to float, anyway (sorry if it has been mentioned before).

I am trying not to take this all too seriously; this is supposed to be a fun game, and despite this being a competitive format, we're just getting bragging rights and internet karma from it.

[tonymok977]

But actually I am not sure why we care able the arena that much, just remove it entirely and only rely on the tournaments might just solve it

but tbh, I think those ranking and elo are fair because you wont have the same win rate against stronger players, and the same issue would exist when we just match players in the same level
The only issue is it takes 30-50 mins per game and it is not cost effective to play a lot of games with weaker players

[stanning]

I get what you are saying but the purpose of this topic was to make people try to play More. Because even though i I'm 600 elo sometimes I get matched with 150 elo or 200 elo and I have configured my arena to play against people around my rank but that seems to not happen since there are few top rank players playing.

It works based on arena level, so you'll get matched with anyone who is elite - so in some ways the issue is that elite is "too easy" to obtain. (By that I mean you can big elo gaps between elite players).

True, I sometime see someone with 100 elo in elite

[Meeplelowda]

I get what you are saying but the purpose of this topic was to make people try to play More. Because even though i I'm 600 elo sometimes I get matched with 150 elo or 200 elo and I have configured my arena to play against people around my rank but that seems to not happen since there are few top rank players playing.

It works based on arena level, so you'll get matched with anyone who is elite - so in some ways the issue is that elite is "too easy" to obtain. (By that I mean you can big elo gaps between elite players).

True, I sometime see someone with 100 elo in elite

Seeing as you can't be relegated from Elite until the next season, this shouldn't be surprising. Even if you didn't slide into elite near 100, you could have been 200 ELO when you made elite, then lost 10 in a row.

[RazorOz]

The problem with doing this is it disincentives playing early in the season. Why play early in the season where if you get a good rank you just lose it to decay anyway? Why not just pile all your games at the end of the season then.

Also you mention about getting people playing more in Arena, but at the same time you don't want Arena to just become who plays the most games wins.

[stanning]

From what I see, I guess the way to go it to simply shorten the season then everyone are packed in like 2 weeks

[RazorOz]

From what I see, I guess the way to go it to simply shorten the season then everyone are packed in like 2 weeks

Would favour real-time players too much.

Arena is one of those things where you can argue the current setup isn't perfect, but the solutions tend to great their own new different problems. In terms of giving everyone a chance the current setup probably has it right. I don't really see parking as a problem, as it gives you months then as a target to aim at, at games that are majority lucky that's giving a lot of time for someone to go on a luckier streak at, at other games it's not that easy to park given that it's easier to get Arena points at the end of a season than the start when the average Arena points in the player pool are higher.