Why is arena 2 player in TTR?

[Ani_28]

Do people really like 2 player than 4 or 5? Also, are Arena options choosen by mods or is it random?

[Ceaseless]

Do people really like 2 player than 4 or 5? Also, are Arena options choosen by mods or is it random?

Yes, 2 player is the most popular. The standard reasons 2 player is commonly the best player count in games with any real interaction apply.

Arena season is set by the gurus. https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=faq_arena

[menettm]

At 2 players, there is no kingmaking....

[Jontia]

It's partly because it's faster.

The arena format is selected by gurus.
Gurus are the 100 people who have played the most games each month.
You can play more games, if the games finish faster.
Two player games finish faster.

So people who like and play two-player games, finish more games, get to be guru's and choose the format they like.

Almost all BGG games arenas go down to two players. You need a game with a much smaller pool of players to get people who like bigger games into the guru group.

[Archisian]

It’s faster, evens the playing field competitively speaking, and eliminates kingmaking.

[preacc]

From my experiences joining ticket to ride tournament in local tournaments and wsbg asia, all of them are 4/5 players competition. It’s really different to play from 2 players to 4/5 players cause you can’t just use longest route or play all 6 routes in 4/5 players since either one of them looking for that routes.

I agree that it has some luck factor in 4/5 players, but adapting the gameplay is most important in 4/5 players and it can be played competitively.

Hopefully arena settings can be implemented as tournament settings in real life as we can practice to play the tournaments.

[Cournot]

From my experiences joining ticket to ride tournament in local tournaments and wsbg asia, all of them are 4/5 players competition. It’s really different to play from 2 players to 4/5 players cause you can’t just use longest route or play all 6 routes in 4/5 players since either one of them looking for that routes.

I agree that it has some luck factor in 4/5 players, but adapting the gameplay is most important in 4/5 players and it can be played competitively.

Hopefully arena settings can be implemented as tournament settings in real life as we can practice to play the tournaments.

All tournaments should be 2p; 2 vs 4/5 is NOT the same game.

[preacc]

From my experiences joining ticket to ride tournament in local tournaments and wsbg asia, all of them are 4/5 players competition. It’s really different to play from 2 players to 4/5 players cause you can’t just use longest route or play all 6 routes in 4/5 players since either one of them looking for that routes.

I agree that it has some luck factor in 4/5 players, but adapting the gameplay is most important in 4/5 players and it can be played competitively.

Hopefully arena settings can be implemented as tournament settings in real life as we can practice to play the tournaments.

All tournaments should be 2p; 2 vs 4/5 is NOT the same game.

Well for competitive case I agree, but in reality offline tournaments for ticket to ride always offer 4/5 players per match even for biggest competition such as WSBG. I don’t know in your local area but I think if you find some, you can try to join the tournament there.

[ExaltedAngel]

Well for competitive case I agree, but in reality offline tournaments for ticket to ride always offer 4/5 players per match even for biggest competition such as WSBG.

WSBG is more of a mixed-games tournament where having broad general knowledge of games matters more than being a specialist. I also understand that they need to fund themselves somehow, not judging that, but the level of competition is significantly lower than it could be, simply because of the format they’ve adopted, which allows people to buy their way into the finals without earning it on merit. I wouldn't consider it an important TTR tournament at all.

The biggest tournament in recent years was the 20th anniversary one, organized by Asmodee itself last year. Yes, 4p was their marketing choice for the offline final, but the qualifiers were strictly 2p.

Btw to practice for 4p tournaments yu don't need arena at all, just open 4p tables or look for them (manually or automatically) if you are not premium. There's even a group of high rated players playing pretty regularly 4/5p and they always look for people to play with