Season 19 thoughts, 2p vs 3p Terraforming Mars

[ChesterDeBester]

While I agree that in 3P and 4P you suffer from more volatility, that volatility is an inherent part of the game's design. I am aware that there is a very large 2P community that wants to eliminate that volatility and call that competitive. Which is a fair take. In my opinion maneuvering that volatility is part of the game and part of trying to become an Arena champion.

And yes, posting whole essays here with an attitude of "I am the champion therefore my opinions are more holier than yours" will most likely make it harder to navigate that volatility

The main takeaway is that a supermajority of the eligible voters consider the 3P, including it's volatility and it's flawed playerbase the more enjoyable format.

[Fusselkopp]

While I agree that in 3P and 4P you suffer from more volatility, that volatility is an inherent part of the game's design. I am aware that there is a very large 2P community that wants to eliminate that volatility and call that competitive. Which is a fair take. In my opinion maneuvering that volatility is part of the game and part of trying to become an Arena champion.

And yes, posting whole essays here with an attitude of "I am the champion therefore my opinions are more holier than yours" will most likely make it harder to navigate that volatility

The main takeaway is that a supermajority of the eligible voters consider the 3P, including it's volatility and it's flawed playerbase the more enjoyable format.

If I mentally replace the word „competitive“ with “predictable”, these discussions suddenly make sense. These players want their games to be more predictable. I just wish they were honest about it.

[ChesterDeBester]

While I agree that in 3P and 4P you suffer from more volatility, that volatility is an inherent part of the game's design. I am aware that there is a very large 2P community that wants to eliminate that volatility and call that competitive. Which is a fair take. In my opinion maneuvering that volatility is part of the game and part of trying to become an Arena champion.

And yes, posting whole essays here with an attitude of "I am the champion therefore my opinions are more holier than yours" will most likely make it harder to navigate that volatility

The main takeaway is that a supermajority of the eligible voters consider the 3P, including it's volatility and it's flawed playerbase the more enjoyable format.

If I mentally replace the word „competitive“ with “predictable”, these discussions suddenly make sense. These players want their games to be more predictable. I just wish they were honest about it.

Yea, you are absolutely correct. I have known and been playing these players for 5+ years and they use the word competitive as an euphemism voor predictabel.

[Kulikk]

Obviously decreasing variance leads to better skill expression given the game has enough depth (is not solved). That's why you don't roll a dice while playing chess. I don't think anybody would deny that 2p is more predictable both in game and in outcome. The higher player count the less "predictable" the game becomes. I just personally prefer to play games where my actions have consequences, both good and bad.

[HighlanderKG]

I will say this and bow out - not predictable - sane. You pick cards in draft you need, thinking the 2nd player will cut Terraforming Ganymede from Saturn. You play the game without any mistakes, hated but enduring and leading at the end, just to get beaten by one point because the second player in early draft picked Solar Power because they really needed energy to dump into Cupola City, and passed TG to Saturn. That player ofc ended 25 points behind both players. And yes. Similar things happened to me many times, because I played at least 2000 3p games and I know what I'm talking about. If I lose, I don't want to lose because a noob interfered.

[RoyalRook]

I will say this and bow out - not predictable - sane. You pick cards in draft you need, thinking the 2nd player will cut Terraforming Ganymede from Saturn. You play the game without any mistakes, hated but enduring and leading at the end, just to get beaten by one point because the second player in early draft picked Solar Power because they really needed energy to dump into Cupola City, and passed TG to Saturn. That player ofc ended 25 points behind both players. And yes. Similar things happened to me many times, because I played at least 2000 3p games and I know what I'm talking about. If I lose, I don't want to lose because a noob interfered.

But you are the noob who trusted a low level player to cut TG from Saturn after over 2000 3p games played. I would simply cut TG in a Saturn game in that situation. Especially in early drafts in late draft that's even a worse mistake while you are leading. You can't even be that mad with the TG passer, bc what if he needs the science tag for AI or Anti grav? You didn't know it was only for cupla. Finally, You were the strongest player on the table, therefore, you should have trusted in your skills to manage the rest of the game and hate draft TG for good with Saturn in town.

It's the constant weakness of your game, even in 2p. I mentioned this to you before, in drafts you tend to leave unnecessary outs for your opponent(s). I am a control, I grind my opponents down and leave them little or no outs, so I am always in the best position to win. You need to play more 3p arena games, that way you are not always single minded and understand sometimes losing is winning in a long season.

[SuperPikasso]

3P has two big problems. Matchmaking is one of them. The second one is even worse in my opinion. This is exactly why I hate 3P arena. Situations like this: I'm already winning the game, final greening phase, the losing player goes afk, second player kicks him. I get 0 arena points and 0 elo points for winning the game. The other player gets quite a lot of points for second place. Or the same situation, but the second one goes afk, and the losing player kicks him. And then the loser gets all the points. Happened to me many times. Why do I get 0 points and the other player gets a lot of points? Because the game counts tie between the two remaining players. And the player with the higher rating loses points for the tie, and the other one gets points. And often I lose more for tie than I get for winning against the kicked player. This system is absurd. Many players abuse this. When they can't win, they kick opponent at the first opportunity and get points. Probably people playing turn-base don't encounter this. In real-time games, this happens quite often, more than 5% of all games. This system is absolutely not designed for competitive play. And this would be impossible in 2P. Here's what the final points look like in such games for example: https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=609278139

[RicardoRix]

Happened to me many times. Why do I get 0 points and the other player gets a lot of points? Because the game counts tie between the two remaining players.

This is a recurrent bug that seems to have popped back into play, it had been fixed previously.

[HighlanderKG]

I will say this and bow out - not predictable - sane. You pick cards in draft you need, thinking the 2nd player will cut Terraforming Ganymede from Saturn. You play the game without any mistakes, hated but enduring and leading at the end, just to get beaten by one point because the second player in early draft picked Solar Power because they really needed energy to dump into Cupola City, and passed TG to Saturn. That player ofc ended 25 points behind both players. And yes. Similar things happened to me many times, because I played at least 2000 3p games and I know what I'm talking about. If I lose, I don't want to lose because a noob interfered.

But you are the noob who trusted a low level player to cut TG from Saturn after over 2000 3p games played. I would simply cut TG in a Saturn game in that situation. Especially in early drafts in late draft that's even a worse mistake while you are leading. You can't even be that mad with the TG passer, bc what if he needs the science tag for AI or Anti grav? You didn't know it was only for cupla. Finally, You were the strongest player on the table, therefore, you should have trusted in your skills to manage the rest of the game and hate draft TG for good with Saturn in town.

It's the constant weakness of your game, even in 2p. I mentioned this to you before, in drafts you tend to leave unnecessary outs for your opponent(s). I am a control, I grind my opponents down and leave them little or no outs, so I am always in the best position to win. You need to play more 3p arena games, that way you are not always single minded and understand sometimes losing is winning in a long season.

Sure, so I take useless TG for myself, and pass Giant Ice Asteroid, that makes sense. This whole discussion is pointless at this level, whoever believes 3p or 4p or 5p is better for whatever reason by all means play it, I will play the best format and we won't cross paths and all good.

[SuperPikasso]

This is a recurrent bug that seems to have popped back into play, it had been fixed previously.

I don't know if it's a bug, but it seems like that's just how the BGA system works. I've played a lot of 3p games in the last 2 seasons. That's half a year. And it's been like this all this time. If it was a bug, it should have been fixed in that amount of time.