Especially good player takes over arena for a particular game

[Exotic Dreams]

Maybe this is a mini rant or maybe it's an observation or maybe it's both?.. You decide what to make of it. Or maybe some of you can relate to this experience.

I was introduced to a less popular game on BGA and played enough to be able to play arena. Progress was slow for me and partly due to the small pool of players, I was never able to advance to elite league. I kept playing, although I played less because I was discouraged.
Then a particular player came along that seems to be extremely good at this game ( if this player is cheating in some way I am unaware of it so without further evidence I will assume that this is an extremely good player unless any evidence dictates otherwise).

Most of the other players stopped or reduced playing making the pool of players even smaller. So for a while now, almost every arena game for this particular game means getting matches with and losing to this particular player.
I am not going to publicly mention which game this is because that would immediately revel which player that I'm talking about and that is not my intention here. Also if I was going to revel which game this was, I would put my post in specific forum for that game. If this is a player that is especially good at a particular game, then I have nothing against this player.

I've thought of reaching out to this extremely good player since it seems like asking for advice and tips for playing this game better would be beneficial for us both. This player has a very small pool of players to play with and I get ( possibly a few other players too) discouraged playing with this player and always losing. I don't mind taking a lot of losses for most of the games that I play in arena mode, however being knocked down repeatedly so I never make any progress is too discouraging for me to keep on going.
I know at least one other player who previously beat me also expressed the same frustration at mostly getting matches with the same extremely good player and losing repeatedly to this particular player. However, the players profile has a non English language listed. So I'm not sure if it would work out only using language translators.

I decided upon the start of the new arena season that I would join at least one turn based game of every game that I have enough ELO in including this game that I am. Guess who I am matched with for that particular game that this post is about?.

[dschingis27]

There is an easy "fix" even though it sounds a bit "shady". But for your situation, it could help everyone. You can give the player a private red-thumb, that will not hurt their reputation, it only prevents that you two get matched. Every once in a while, you could remove the red thumb and allow to get matched again.

Some shady players use the red thumbing to deliberately avoid great opponents to bump/maintain their own Arena scores. However, in your situation, I personally wouldn't consider it "shady", we are here to have fun on BGA after all, and you don't sound like you have aspiration for the highest ranks anyway.

[Emerson_Matt]

I am in the position of "that player", or a slightly weaker version that's a bit like it is probably more accurate, for a couple of games (but not the one you're talking about, I think). I'm always open to chatting about tactics either during the game (in generalities, or at least after the relevant moment has passed) or afterwards (about the specific game). I encourage you to send a message or use the chatbox in the game and see what happens.

For the games I play, I want the pool to grow! Happy to do whatever I can to facilitate that, and certainly don't want to push people away. I play lots of the games because I like playing them. In most of the games I enjoy, each move is a little puzzle to see what the best move is. This is fun regardless of the relative strength of the opponent, in either direction, so I just queue up games as I am avaiable.

[Ceaseless]

So in other words, one player is single-handedly giving you Arena games in the first place? It seems your issue is that other players aren't playing enough to get paired with you to diversify the system.

Your random cheating inserts that you then have to disavow are annoying. How would you like to be introduced as "Exotic Dreams, who might be cheating, but there's no evidence for it, so I'm assuming they are a normal player for now unless evidence comes up that they are a cheater." Aside from the no evidence you are cheating part, which I didn't check, the rest is true. But it would still be a terrible introduction for me to give you, because while none of it was actually false, there was no cause to even talk about it in the first place. I'm just randomly associating you with cheating.
If you want to talk about cheating, then do it. If you don't, then don't. But we don't need a speech about what you don't plan to say.

I was introduced to a less popular game on BGA and games are now getting even harder to come by. As a result I keep running into the same player who regularly crushes me, which I find discouraging. I've thought about asking them for advice about this game but the language barrier could make that difficult.

This is what I get when I rewrite your post. Did I miss anything important?

[FrankJones]

To the OP:

You can watch game replays from the opponent's vantage points. That is a fairly easy way to learn the strategies a god opponent is using.

[tbhp]

Your random cheating inserts that you then have to disavow are annoying. How would you like to be introduced as "Exotic Dreams, who might be cheating, but there's no evidence for it, so I'm assuming they are a normal player for now unless evidence comes up that they are a cheater." Aside from the no evidence you are cheating part, which I didn't check, the rest is true. But it would still be a terrible introduction for me to give you, because while none of it was actually false, there was no cause to even talk about it in the first place. I'm just randomly associating you with cheating.
If you want to talk about cheating, then do it. If you don't, then don't. But we don't need a speech about what you don't plan to say.

I agree, and the way they said "this suspected extremely good player" is totally backwards.

[lefalaf]

Pardon if this is too tangential, but it's also related IMO.

This brings up the reason I decided to stop playing arena after a couple seasons.

The leagues are unbalanced due to how arena is structured. Instead of generally always being in a league of players at similar skillsets, players are demoted to lower leagues to start each season and have to play enough in that lower league in order to get back to the league that best suits their current skill.

Instead, I think it would be better if it were run the way I understand most sports leagues are run. Play a season amongst your current level, and in between the seasons, promote/demote the best/worst into the next league up/down to keep matchmaking balanced.

The way it is, I find to not be much fun and it feels more like grinding to level up, rather than just being about skill. In many games, the results will be biased somewhat towards players who play a lot of that game in arena. Those will good skill will advance quickly, but also those who are just lucky and have a short winning streak will advance too - which of course is exciting, but doesn't really represent reality.

Just my opinion and based on arena rules from a year or two ago. Don't know if they've changed.

P.S. Games with low player counts might be more challenging regardless. If there are only enough players for a single league, not much you can do unless the player base grows.

[Ceaseless]

Pardon if this is too tangential, but it's also related IMO.

This brings up the reason I decided to stop playing arena after a couple seasons.

The leagues are unbalanced due to how arena is structured. Instead of generally always being in a league of players at similar skillsets, players are demoted to lower leagues to start each season and have to play enough in that lower league in order to get back to the league that best suits their current skill.

Instead, I think it would be better if it were run the way I understand most sports leagues are run. Play a season amongst your current level, and in between the seasons, promote/demote the best/worst into the next league up/down to keep matchmaking balanced.

The way it is, I find to not be much fun and it feels more like grinding to level up, rather than just being about skill. In many games, the results will be biased somewhat towards players who play a lot of that game in arena. Those will good skill will advance quickly, but also those who are just lucky and have a short winning streak will advance too - which of course is exciting, but doesn't really represent reality.

Just my opinion and based on arena rules from a year or two ago. Don't know if they've changed.

P.S. Games with low player counts might be more challenging regardless. If there are only enough players for a single league, not much you can do unless the player base grows.

From what I understand, there aren't even real leagues. Apparently, you can't get demoted from a league ratings-wise, so basically Elite League is closer to a participation trophy than an accomplishment. You do have to do the small run through the league itself, but one lucky streak through and you're locked in for the season. So I'll see there are 100 rated Elite League players.

[FrankJones]

For games with 3 or fewer tiers, everyone starts a new season at Bronze. With 4 or more tiers, I think players start 2 tiers below the tier they ended the previous season in.

It's not all that difficult to advance 2 tiers to get back to the tier previously attained, is it?

[Edit: Whoops. Players are sent backward 3 tiers, not 2.]

[lefalaf]

Difficult, no, but feels like busywork just to get back to where you were. Even games I love, I didn't want to play them THAT often, and started to grow to dislike them as a result.