Why do people play for second?

[RoyalRook]

I said no such thing as to seek lower ranked opponents. I seek only expert and above players in my games, but sometimes match making bugs out, and put me with much lower ranked opponents. I AM saying that I find lots of fun in those games as well, because you will be solving puzzles that higher ranked opponents won't put you in, sometimes in extreme edgy cases. Of course I prefer closer ranked opponents in my game, because they are much easier to control, they do less king making, but play much loser to the main lines, lines that I can predict and mastered myself.

You won't be keeping your points if you don't know when to take 2nd. At my rank come in 3rd means -40 arena points, and I gain around 5-10 pionts per win. Knowing when you are beat is a skill, charging always forward is a fool's errand and how an inexperienced player plays.

[Cile]

But the issue here isn't that the game broke, it's that you played a game where you can interact with other players and are salty that someone chose to interact with you instead of someone else. Oh well. Maybe that was a mistake on their part, players are allowed to make mistakes. If you don't want people interacting with you maybe you should try a different game. You don't get to dictate how other people play the game. Saying people aren't allowed to play for 2nd (and end up coming in 3rd as a result) is as invalid as saying players aren't allowed to rush certain Terraforming tracks, or Milestones, or purchase Awards early, because you personally don't like it.

The fact remain that BGA does encourage Type C (playing for 2nd if you can't get first). You might not care about ELO or Arena rankings, I know I don't, but other people do and it is valid for them to play in such away that maximizes their rank.

I want to play the better people. I don't want to play easy people like Rook suggested, I want a challenge. That's why I play arena. I don't want people who openly admit they target you so they can get second. That's not sporting and I understand you will never see my point of view. It's fine that you are okay with people playing not to win, but I guess I am in the minority in that I will always play to win at all times. BGA does not "encourage" a type of play, it just supplies the means to play. It's the player that is satisfied with imaginary points being their obsession.

It's like the people who are really good, get high rank, then quit and play non arena because they want a digital badge reward that nobody looks at. I mean that gold star from the teacher really means so much......

Getting higher rank in the arena will match you against better players.
Getting second place instead of third will help increase your rank in the arena, which will help match you against better players.
Therefore, BGA encourages you to play for 2nd if you cannot get 1st, because doing so increases your rank and allows you to match with better players.

[Artemos]

If you are not playing for first, why bother playing at all.

Continuing your reasoning, why bother to play if you clearly can evaluate that first place is out of reach? Yeah, sometimes this evaluation can be wrong, so this is a part of learning and developing skill in game.

In games I am clearly losing or coming in last, I would continue to play out of sportsmanship. I continue to target the leader to make sure everyone has a fair chance. I don't see how some of you don't understand sportsmanship. I play board games 2-3 times a week and never would the people there play just for second. There are times when you play against someone or target them as revenge for them targeting you, but that's human nature.... but when I asked, no one in one of the groups said they would play for second.

I don't like players who just mindlessly targeting current leader or player with most production without any consideration of impact and potential of players, especially in early or mid game. For example, we have two players: the first one is leading and have the same or slightly better production of iron or titan but less cards in hand and zero card draw and the second one with the same or slightly worse production of iron or titan but with bigger hand and 2+ card draws. The second one has a much more potential and have a lot of chance to become leader in time. But with your decision to target current leader you just turn probability into certainty. What is "fair" in this situation?
Also sometimes when someone decreases your production and not leader's you think that he is just targeting you, but in reality he could play against both of you: he is not targeting leader production because in TM there is such a thing as overproduction but he denies any high points card or card with card draw ability from leader in draft. The first interaction you can see, the second one is invisible to you.

[Jellby]

And what is the reward for being first?

The goal of any game is to win. I don't understand how you make an equivalency.

To win what? Virtual points on a website?

Unless you're a "professional" and there's money involved in some way, I guess most people play games "for fun", because they enjoy playing the game. The ultimate goal of playing a game is to have a good time. Of course, part of what makes games enjoyable is the fact that you're "competing" for something, trying to something faster/better than the other players, which is what we call "win the game". If you thing it's worth "fighting" to end a game in 1st position instead of 2nd, why is it so difficult to understand that it may also be worth fighting to end 2nd instead of 3rd? Regardless of elo score of rankings. As long as a game has some kind of score, people would value 2nd place more than 3rd. Then it becomes a matter of managing your changes, a 20% chance to finish 2nd may be better than a 0.01% chance to finish 1st, and as noted, people also make mistakes.

[alltaken]

Within reason? What reason? Because website gives you points? What do you do with these points? Is there monetary value? What am I missing that is so important to you about website glory? You won last season....good for you. What you get, a badge and some points? Okay. I just don't get the point of not even trying for first. It literally happened where the guy probably would have won had he tried, but he didn't. He decided he couldn't win. He wanted points on website.

I'm sorry you don't care about it, some people do and it's their prerogative. Also there's no better or worse players tied with that concept. You're pushing your vision of how things should be played when you don't like the incentive system.

[Mazey Gamer]

When watching the Olympics the OP is presumably confused about what the other two people are doing on the podium and why they have a silver piece of metal and a bronze piece of metal hung around their necks for absolutely no reason.

[cosmosis]

What exactly do you get for second....meaningless points, or less lost points on a website?

Arena is literally the part of the site where points matter. I'm sure you understand why people play for second when they (maybe even falsely) believe that first is no longer in reach. It's just that you don't like being the target in that situation.

Playing for second is just part of arena. For me it seems like a natural thing to play for when you're not winning. If the behavior bothers you that much you could also stick to non-arena games?

[Meeplelowda]

Within reason? What reason? Because website gives you points? What do you do with these points? Is there monetary value? What am I missing that is so important to you about website glory? You won last season....good for you. What you get, a badge and some points?

It is one thing to say these reasons don't matter to you. That's fair. It's a personal preference. They don't matter to me all that much, although I usually play two-player games in Arena so these types of strategic considerations aren't in play.

It's quite another thing to say these reasons shouldn't matter to anyone just because you don't care about them. You don't get to decide what motivates other people and how they define fun. If playing for second place to maintain their Arena rank is fun for them and you don't like it, that's too bad.

[brh2113]

One thing that frequently happens:

Player 1 pulls out to an early lead in an early gen.
Player 2 is in 2nd and competitive
Player 3 may or not be competitive, but regardless decides they can't catch Player 1, and starts hating on Player 2.

Now you have a situation where both Player 1 and Player 3 are using all the plant hate, heat trappers, power tapping, city hate etc. on Player 2, basically ensuring that they get cannot catch Player 1.

Knowing that this happens a lot, it should encourage you to play lines that make it look like you're cruising to an easy victory early on. Then your plants won't get hated on, you'll get even further ahead, and it will often become a self-fulfilling prophecy since 2nd place gets dumped on by both players

[HighlanderKG]

These are the reasons why I don't play Arena. 3p is a competitive format only if all three players are high skilled and very similar in that department. There are too many kingmaking and unreasonable choices which affect the state of the game, that introduce random factor to the game.

In 2p there is no kingmaking, and if you make a mistake, you'll learn from it. That's why you will raise your level quicker in 2p as well.

Why would people play for 2nd in 3p game? It is better to be second than the third, for ranking points. Even if you don't get anything, it is reasonable to assume that everyone wants to be as good as it is possible, so scoring more points than at least one opponent, if the second opponent is unreachable, is a perfectly fine goal.

I hope that gurus will put 2p for the next arena season. You will see an influx of much better players in that format and it will be beneficial for every player, because they'll get better by playing better opponents.