Why Is it not possible to play Splendor in Arena mode without expansions and for 2 players

[zajasu]

Hi, I've been enjoying Splendor for a very long time, but was surprised (in a bad way) that it's impossible now to play the normal version of a game in Arena mode. Also you can't play 1v1 anymore. What is the reason for this, is it possible to somehow revert the settings to a normal setup?

[Jellby]

Because the Arena setting is fixed each "season" and decided by some of the players.

The good news is you don't have to play Arena, you can play in normal mode or in tournaments instead.

[Angie79]

I’m not glad with the changes as well. Really liked how it was

[The Recogniser]

I managed to reach to 500 elo at the end of last season, and lost 100 elo in 3 days to 400 just by playing arena new mode, pretty hurt.
After many lost, I think the expansion in comparison to the base game is:

- More card-oriented rather than point-oriented.
- Impossible to block other players, meaningless to play defensively.
- Hold and gold coin become less valuable, sometimes doesn't worth a turn.

I also watched replay top arena winner to see how they play to learn some tips but it seems very chaotic, and still cannot conclude anything, and it's not fun to play and keep losing so I'll skip this arena season, and still prefer the good old base game.

[Ceaseless]

I managed to reach to 500 elo at the end of last season, and lost 100 elo in 3 days to 400 just by playing arena new mode, pretty hurt.
After many lost, I think the expansion in comparison to the base game is:

- More card-oriented rather than point-oriented.
- Impossible to block other players, meaningless to play defensively.
- Hold and gold coin become less valuable, sometimes doesn't worth a turn.

I also watched replay top arena winner to see how they play to learn some tips but it seems very chaotic, and still cannot conclude anything, and it's not fun to play and keep losing so I'll skip this arena season, and still prefer the good old base game.

It's still possible to block other players, sometimes it's essential for stopping key races to the finish, but more players mean you leave other players open, so basically you slow yourself and the player you affected down, and the rest of the table catches up/surges ahead, etc. It's a common headache for interactive games with more than players to work out who has to bite the bullet and apply the necessary defense, and things like player politics/timing comes into play.

There's obviously far less skill in the game when you add more players, or more specifically skills matters less because the impact each player has on the game is lessened.

[The Recogniser]

I managed to reach to 500 elo at the end of last season, and lost 100 elo in 3 days to 400 just by playing arena new mode, pretty hurt.
After many lost, I think the expansion in comparison to the base game is:

- More card-oriented rather than point-oriented.
- Impossible to block other players, meaningless to play defensively.
- Hold and gold coin become less valuable, sometimes doesn't worth a turn.

I also watched replay top arena winner to see how they play to learn some tips but it seems very chaotic, and still cannot conclude anything, and it's not fun to play and keep losing so I'll skip this arena season, and still prefer the good old base game.

It's still possible to block other players, sometimes it's essential for stopping key races to the finish, but more players mean you leave other players open, so basically you slow yourself and the player you affected down, and the rest of the table catches up/surges ahead, etc. It's a common headache for interactive games with more than players to work out who has to bite the bullet and apply the necessary defense, and things like player politics/timing comes into play.

There's obviously far less skill in the game when you add more players, or more specifically skills matters less because the impact each player has on the game is lessened.

Yeah I agree, same understanding with different way to express, why should we block a guy to let another guy win, so I only block when it assure my win. When either ways are bad, I just try to optimize my own game to maybe get 2nd place. The 3 players game require less of table awareness but more on optimization, while loosely focus on other guys strength is enough to choose our tactics. Blocking at end game is much more valuable than blocking opening or mid game.

Anyway now I learned a few new strategy and found this expansion still worth playing, with the hope of getting back to 500 elo

[doctorchris]

I love 2 player Splendor, probably my favourite game. The perfect balance of skill and luck, mainly skill.

I stumbled into an Arena game of this version by accident, assuming it would be the same game as we have always played. I had to beg the other players to abandon the game, and luckily they did. Very sporting.

I will not be playing this version. Hope they put it back to the original next season. But it does mean I will have to go in on Bronze rather than Silver next season I think.

[xSiegmeyerx]

takes forever to finish a match. Don't like this change.

[elie95]

By the way, who really chose this version? Beause looks like no one agrees with this version, and the best player, and remaining champion CN_azul, is skipping this season. And new expansion is coming in may so i guess next season will be probably with this expansion.

(Ps: for my part, i love this expansion and managed to be top 100 this season so far :p )

[doctorchris]

The main problem is that it's really a completely different game to classic Splendor. I wouldn't mind trying it, but I'm not willing to throw away my ELO of over 500 to try it out. Why not recognise it as a separate game and have a separate ELO for it?