Season 19 thoughts, 2p vs 3p Terraforming Mars

[Rutabaga00]

Fun and competetivness are two seperate things (although for some like myself they go hand in hand), it's quite easy to imagine that 3p might be more enjoyable for more players looking for strictly "fun" factor, and 2p for palyers looking for a more competetive approach. It's just a matter of what arena is supposed to be, if it's goal is to create a competetive environment with a ladder people are aiming to climb it should be 2p. If its supposed to be the place where its easy to find opponents for whatever people find fun to play it can be 3p, 5p or whatever other setting. I'm completely fine with either approach to arena. I'm just not entirely sure if arena's puprose is to treat the game like a monopoly or game of life ^^

Why should the most competitive environement be 2 instead of 3 if the game is a better fit for 3 ?
How can a suboptimal version of the game could be the best way to compete on it ?
I mean, its not my imagination or a personal belief, its the result of a consensus on how to play to the game.

Chess could be played in blitz mode, it doesnt mean its a more competitive version of the game. Its a nice one, but its different The same way 2P is different from 3P, its basically different games. If i play a game, that game being Monopoly, chess, TM or whatever, the game is to win.

If its a matter of ladder, then we have a different problem because ELO cant be taken seriously when different game-modes co-exist within the rankings. I mean, even in Chess (and thats where ELO is coming from) they have different ELO depending on game-mode.
When 2P players can play more than twice the number of games a 3P player do in the same timeframe, we just cant compare, the competition is just broken.

[brh2113]

Very sad to see 3p yet again in arena, but oh well. Playing normal games and working on the elo ladder instead is fine, though I was looking forward to someday playing TFM Arena! Maybe next season!

[Kortex786]

Very sad to see 3p yet again in arena, but oh well. Playing normal games and working on the elo ladder instead is fine, though I was looking forward to someday playing TFM Arena! Maybe next season!

Same here.

I saw in the rules « 2 players », I was Happy

Then I launched a game and saw « 3p »

Very disappointed

[HighlanderKG]

Fun and competetivness are two seperate things (although for some like myself they go hand in hand), it's quite easy to imagine that 3p might be more enjoyable for more players looking for strictly "fun" factor, and 2p for palyers looking for a more competetive approach. It's just a matter of what arena is supposed to be, if it's goal is to create a competetive environment with a ladder people are aiming to climb it should be 2p. If its supposed to be the place where its easy to find opponents for whatever people find fun to play it can be 3p, 5p or whatever other setting. I'm completely fine with either approach to arena. I'm just not entirely sure if arena's puprose is to treat the game like a monopoly or game of life ^^

Why should the most competitive environement be 2 instead of 3 if the game is a better fit for 3 ?
How can a suboptimal version of the game could be the best way to compete on it ?
I mean, its not my imagination or a personal belief, its the result of a consensus on how to play to the game.

Chess could be played in blitz mode, it doesnt mean its a more competitive version of the game. Its a nice one, but its different The same way 2P is different from 3P, its basically different games. If i play a game, that game being Monopoly, chess, TM or whatever, the game is to win.

If its a matter of ladder, then we have a different problem because ELO cant be taken seriously when different game-modes co-exist within the rankings. I mean, even in Chess (and thats where ELO is coming from) they have different ELO depending on game-mode.
When 2P players can play more than twice the number of games a 3P player do in the same timeframe, we just cant compare, the competition is just broken.

Because it simply is. Every board game that can be played 1v1 is the most competitive that way, because of the nature of the game. In each sport you get teams playing against each other, you don't get football or basketball with 3 teams randomly trying to score on one another. That's chaos. It is the same for TfM, or any other game.

It is not a consensus of any sort. The game is balanced for 3p, as many other games. But the most competitive, or professional setting of any game is 2p. As simple as that.

You have Wingspan which is balanced for 4p. But in Arena people play 2p. And not only that, since some of the cards are overpowered, they excluded them from the deck for the competitive game. Game designers are not always right, obviously.

Your example with chess is another bad example. That's only the time control. It is still one player vs another player, although there are versions of chess allowing 4 players, nobody serious suggests that for a competitive game.

In terms of ELO - I agree, the ladders should be counted separately, but that's not the case for any game on BGA. Btw, number of games played are mostly allowing you to be great at Arena. In the regular ladder, you don't need many games to be on top of the ladder at all. You just need to beat top opponents. With Arena it is much more randomized, and you can't choose opponents - you will play all the leagues and ranks all the time, if there are not enough players online. While in regular, you can put a high level filter and just play a game against 500+ elo opponent all the time.

[Kulikk]

Fun and competetivness are two seperate things (although for some like myself they go hand in hand), it's quite easy to imagine that 3p might be more enjoyable for more players looking for strictly "fun" factor, and 2p for palyers looking for a more competetive approach. It's just a matter of what arena is supposed to be, if it's goal is to create a competetive environment with a ladder people are aiming to climb it should be 2p. If its supposed to be the place where its easy to find opponents for whatever people find fun to play it can be 3p, 5p or whatever other setting. I'm completely fine with either approach to arena. I'm just not entirely sure if arena's puprose is to treat the game like a monopoly or game of life ^^

Why should the most competitive environement be 2 instead of 3 if the game is a better fit for 3 ?
How can a suboptimal version of the game could be the best way to compete on it ?
I mean, its not my imagination or a personal belief, its the result of a consensus on how to play to the game.

Chess could be played in blitz mode, it doesnt mean its a more competitive version of the game. Its a nice one, but its different The same way 2P is different from 3P, its basically different games. If i play a game, that game being Monopoly, chess, TM or whatever, the game is to win.

If its a matter of ladder, then we have a different problem because ELO cant be taken seriously when different game-modes co-exist within the rankings. I mean, even in Chess (and thats where ELO is coming from) they have different ELO depending on game-mode.
When 2P players can play more than twice the number of games a 3P player do in the same timeframe, we just cant compare, the competition is just broken.

chess is perfect example of a game where reducing variance and increasing player ifnormation leads to more competetive format (given proper depth of the game, we can argue whether that's the case with tfm). There are tons of chess variations which are very fun but aren't played seriously competetively like atomic chess, bughouse, 4 player etc. (even though the have seperate rankings on lichess and chess com). Also until very recently noone was taking seriously rapid and blitz chess and to this day noone cares about rapid and blitz ra nkings. There are no "blitz GM" and that's precisely because classical chess is the most competetive format while undoubtly it is boring compared to faster time controls

[Sarevain]

There are multiple sports with interactions between players that are regarded as highly competitive and have more than 3 players. A lot of racing sports where estimating the pace of the race is very important wether you need to tired out your opponents or keep some stamina for final sprint. Or even sport in snowboard or bikecountry cross with even more agressive interaction where you can lose first place because another runner bumped into you and made you fall.

I do find the 3p format to be more interesting in a competitive setting than the 2p one for TM especially with official rules.

Initial hand drafting and drafting prelude with 2p makes for a more interesting game but that's not implemented there as far as i know.

[RicardoRix]

I believe a few popular games like 7-wonders and Terra Mystica have a predefined rotation of Arena settings for upcoming seasons.

Seems like a good solution to this 2p vs 3p battle.

[Kulikk]

I believe a few popular games like 7-wonders and Terra Mystica have a predefined rotation of Arena settings for upcoming seasons.

Seems like a good solution to this 2p vs 3p battle.

Agreed, it could go 2p, 3p and 4p

[RoyalRook]

Rotation would definitely work, b/c season 20 is essentially a wasted season. We could have used it to test out another format rather than keeping it same, especially with a newly implemented game.

[Rutabaga00]

Because it simply is. Every board game that can be played 1v1 is the most competitive that way, because of the nature of the game. In each sport you get teams playing against each other, you don't get football or basketball with 3 teams randomly trying to score on one another. That's chaos. It is the same for TfM, or any other game.

It is not a consensus of any sort. The game is balanced for 3p, as many other games. But the most competitive, or professional setting of any game is 2p. As simple as that.

You have Wingspan which is balanced for 4p. But in Arena people play 2p. And not only that, since some of the cards are overpowered, they excluded them from the deck for the competitive game. Game designers are not always right, obviously.

Your example with chess is another bad example. That's only the time control. It is still one player vs another player, although there are versions of chess allowing 4 players, nobody serious suggests that for a competitive game.

In terms of ELO - I agree, the ladders should be counted separately, but that's not the case for any game on BGA. Btw, number of games played are mostly allowing you to be great at Arena. In the regular ladder, you don't need many games to be on top of the ladder at all. You just need to beat top opponents. With Arena it is much more randomized, and you can't choose opponents - you will play all the leagues and ranks all the time, if there are not enough players online. While in regular, you can put a high level filter and just play a game against 500+ elo opponent all the time.

It is because it is cant be an answer.
Like Sarevain said, there are multiple sports and kind of competitions that allows for plenty of opponents playing/racing at the same time.
Most of competitive settings are between 2 opponents, but its a card game, its not like soccer or basketball.

And i am sorry, but on BGG,(its not an absolutely sure thing , but over 2.000 people is a serious sample) did vote and express their preferences, and 3P is largely (almost 3 times the number of votes) considered to be a better fit for the game. Its not the only fit, its just better.

I used the example of chess to illustrate the fact that different Elo should be considered for different gamemodes co-existing. Because you cant consider Elo as a way to pick who has the right to vote for arena or not.

Wingspan is a game i dont know. But what i see is that its (once again) mainly (but not exclusively, i know) setup to be played at 3 or 4, but here, in Arena, we play at 2.
Its a common feature of the website and how gurus are chosen, and it saddens me, because we always, eventually, get to play the lowest player count possible for way too many games, even when its clearly not the best option. I am not saying that it is absolutely sure its the case here, lets be clear.

I am happy to see that a predefined rotation sitation could be acceptable for others, thats i think, the best answer for that kind of problem, and it might help a lot of games in order to gain popularity and visibility.
I dont know about Terra Mystica, but 7 wonders was eventually hit by the same problem with player count, the last season was played at 3, which is a nonsense.

A pool of 4 options chosen/modified once/year is something that, i believe, could be a nice way to have everyone on board.