Overall XP declines?

[RazorOz]

Voters seems to be very biased against multiplayer in Arena. In my opinion it's a great competitive mode for many games, because of the added complexity of having more opponents to analyze, while at the same time making the results less luck based in my experience. Those games usually reward the players who put the most thought into everything, and an additional benefit is that even if you don't win the game, you can still gain points or at least not lose too much if you have a good ranking, as opposed to two players games where the result is a binary, regardless of how well you did in the game. So multiplayer seems to lead to a more precise ranking of skill.

Unfortunately other voters don't seem to agree, either because they don't think it's less luck based, or like you say they worry about games being harder to find, or taking longer to finish. They'd rather have a two players system that is maybe less precise, but allows them to put out a lot more games.

I agree that it could be higher, but 30k for a tournament win seems crazy. Even if it's 512 players, that's not anywhere near in the same ballpark as winning Arena. For one, Arena is the competition that the site has declared is the most important (actually, it's the only one that is organized by the site per see), so it's normal that its XP gains would be way beyond winning any tournament. Secondly, tournaments are a lot more uncertain than Arena. Anyone who is relatively good at the game can win a 100+ players tournament, if they happen to get a good streak of wins. In order to win Arena however, there is no question that you have to be one of the top players of the game.

Another problem is that if tournaments earned so much, people could amass crazy amounts of XP just by winning lots of 100+ players tournaments, which would overshadow the earnings of those who won Arena. When you think about it, this may be why they decided to make the cap so low: putting it at 300, you ensure that the people who do great in tournaments have almost no chance of getting close to the amount of XP won by winning Arena. They wanted to maintain this hierarchy where winning Arena is always worth more than any other combination of things.

The reasons for that bias are fairly obvious I think. Firstly, at the vast majority of games a 2 player game plays quicker than a 4 player game, thus it's easier to play more 2 player games to qualify to vote. Secondly, those players playing the current settings on Arena probably like those settings, thus keep voting for them, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

I don't think it's crazy for the biggest tournaments (and a tournament can go beyond 512 players with group settings), like how are we comparing that's not in the same ballpark as Arena. I know for me I'd far rather win a major tournament than Arena (and I'm not saying make tournaments bigger than Arena anyway), and it's harder for me to do. What you describe about Arena some will see as a good thing, but in other ways it's a negative. If you are the best player at game (ignoring high luck games that probably don't even really have a best player), you are very likely to win an Arena season, providing you play enough games, that ends up coming quite repetitive after a while. That ends up discouraging the competition I think.

I talk biased by my own perspectives, I have won 10 Heat Arena seasons in a row, but I can't imagine it's the only game like that, where the end result is the competitive scene is not in Arena. The reason being that very few of the top players are actually playing Arena, especially if you excludes those who play a few token games over the course of a season, maybe like 10-20% of the top 20 players are playing, whereas 100% of them are playing tournaments, private leagues etc.

I think the end result of what I'm saying is Arena doesn't need to be pushed as the only competitive mode. I don't have a problem with it being pushed as the competitive mode, but it's value isn't 200x tournaments, that's a joke, and makes a mockery of the XP system.

[Ceaseless]

For example Arena seasons, particularly for games where the optimal player count isn't 2, have to bear in mind the ability to actually find games when voting, whereas tournaments don't operate under the same constraints.

Voters seems to be very biased against multiplayer in Arena. In my opinion it's a great competitive mode for many games, because of the added complexity of having more opponents to analyze, while at the same time making the results less luck based in my experience. Those games usually reward the players who put the most thought into everything, and an additional benefit is that even if you don't win the game, you can still gain points or at least not lose too much if you have a good ranking, as opposed to two players games where the result is a binary, regardless of how well you did in the game. So multiplayer seems to lead to a more precise ranking of skill.

Unfortunately other voters don't seem to agree, either because they don't think it's less luck based, or like you say they worry about games being harder to find, or taking longer to finish. They'd rather have a two players system that is maybe less precise, but allows them to put out a lot more games.

I find voters tend to be biased against 2 player, many of them like their bells and whistles, in their heads anyways. You don't have to think as much with more players because your impact has less of a result in the game, at times not doing anything is the best action even if it's bad for your position because other players notice you less. It's like how complete beginners can be favored to win because everyone else is battling each other and not paying attention to them, so even when they don't know what they're doing they might end up winning when the dust settles. This is the sort of thing that can happen in games such as Risk, etc. But as you learn more about the game other players notice you can do things now, so you can't win as easily as before. The degree this happens varies game by game, both in the type of game and in the politics of players. Generally, the more interaction the game has, the more player politics decides things rather than technical skill. And the less interaction it has, the more it becomes multiplayer solitaire where your opponents serve as comparative decoration, but nothing you need to pay attention to as far as your plays are concerned. It is not easy to make a game that overcomes those hurdles, and even then, it often takes a good playerbase to make it work.

That said, many of them tend to realize that they do want to see games where what you do matters more. Much as they thought they wanted those extra players and ridiculous moments, it wasn't actually as fun as they had hoped. So despite all the biases against 2 player, it tends to win overwhelmingly because it really is just that much better than every other player count the majority of the time. In a party setting where no one wants to think and they just want to whip out a board game; players may very well pick 3+ players. But in a setting where players are looking at ratings and care about the skill factor, 2 player generally ends up king. There will be games that managed to be designed to make 2 player not the best format, but they are a minority.

[tbhp]

Prestige should be linked to the difficulty of the achievement otherwise you devalue the whole thing, that's the entire point. They are devaluing the system with the choices they have made.

That's not really how the real world works. It's not more difficult to win the Olympic Games than the World Championship of that sport. It's pretty much the same players competing for both. Yet we attach a lot more value to who wins the Olympics.

Consecutive wins are also something that can be hard to do but are not given the same value as other things. Sometimes a football team manages a streak of 30+ games without a loss. That's impressive, but it's not the same as winning something. It's not even the same as qualifying for something.

So I would say difficulty is not the primary metric we use to measure achievements in most sports. It's more like we declare something has a lot of value, and then that becomes the holy grail everyone aims to win. In a vacuum, it's not particularly impressive to win 5 games in a row. But if those 5 games are the knockout games of the World Cup, then the achievement becomes historical.

The more players, and the more higher ranked players in the tournament the more prestigious it is, and the more XP it would award, that's already how it works, just it's capped ludicrously low at 300XP, so in effect every tournament awards the same.

The prestige of a tournament is not just a matter of how many players are competing. It also depends on who is competing in it, and on whether the tournament carries a certain identity and aura (which can be achieved by its name, its logo, the system it uses) and a certain culture around it (like if it's a recurring tournament and people care about the history of it).

Famously, the most prestigious tournament ever held in Castle Combo awarded the winner only 1 point. Because it was the final bracket of the end of year tournament that reunited all the previous winners of that series of tournaments. That series is also by itself the most prestigious tournament you can win in that game, despite having less than 50 players. So under your suggestion, the XP awarded wouldn't be reflective of how prestigious those tournaments are, which goes to show it's a vain aim because it's impossible for a system to know what is prestigious, only players can weigh in on that.

BGA should want to encourage a thriving tournament scene, and for people who do care about XP system it does matter to some people, so while I get the point some making of who cares/why does it matter, my feeling is more players would play tournaments if the XP was higher, which would be a good thing.

I don't know, I really don't think XP is the reason why not more people play tournaments. Those who don't subscribe probably aren't even looking at the XP, they have other reasons they prefer to do other things.

[RazorOz]

That's not really how the real world works. It's not more difficult to win the Olympic Games than the World Championship of that sport. It's pretty much the same players competing for both. Yet we attach a lot more value to who wins the Olympics.

Consecutive wins are also something that can be hard to do but are not given the same value as other things. Sometimes a football team manages a streak of 30+ games without a loss. That's impressive, but it's not the same as winning something.

So I would say difficulty is not the primary metric we use to measure achievements in most sports. It's more like we declare something has a lot of value, and then that becomes the holy grail everyone aims to win. In a vacuum, it's not particularly impressive to win 4 games in a row. But if those 4 games are the knockout games of the World Cup, then the achievement becomes historical.

At nearly everything though, tournaments, at least elite tournaments are seen as prestigious.

Regardless, if "It's more like we declare something has a lot of value, and then that becomes the holy grail everyone aims to win." is the metric we're judging by, then Arena isn't succeeding, at least at Heat. In reality I don't think that's how things work, in real life things are rarely just declared as this has lots of value, so now everyone wants to win it, the prestige is built over time.

Besides if we go back to my original point, it's about quantifying achievements. I'm not saying getting 50 consecutive wins should = winning an Arena season in XP, I compared it to making the Elite league of Arena, which 100s of players, if not 1000s at some games do every season.

[RazorOz]

The prestige of a tournament is not just a matter of how many players are competing. It also depends on who is competing in it, and on whether the tournament carries a certain identity and aura (which can be achieved by its name, its logo, the system it uses) and a certain culture around it (like if it's a recurring tournament and people care about the history of it).

Famously, the most prestigious tournament ever held in Castle Combo awarded the winner only 1 point. Because it was the final bracket of the end of year tournament that reunited all the previous winners of that series of tournaments. That series is also by itself the most prestigious tournament you can win in that game, despite having less than 50 players. So under your suggestion, the XP awarded wouldn't be reflective of how prestigious those tournaments are, which goes to show it's a vain aim because it's impossible for a system to know what is prestigious, only players can weigh in on that.

I don't know, I really don't think XP is the reason why not more people player tournaments. Those who don't subscribe probably aren't even looking at the XP, they have other reasons they prefer to do other things.

Hence why I said the XP would be dependent on the rank of the players in the tournament.

Your Castle Combo example is more an error of the tournament system. The tournament system should already accommodate that so that it would award the appropriate XP.

Players would effectively be voting with their feet by entering the tournament in the first place.

There's a number of factors, but given we've see questions about XP and tournaments come up constantly, it's clear that some players are looking at it through those terms. And the funny thing is when those posts do happen, I've often said what many here have, that don't worry about it, the XP at tournaments is so ludicrously low for tournaments that no-one cares, but that doesn't mean it should be that way, nor that there aren't players who do care about this sort of stuff.

I should be clear, the tone here is a perspective like tournaments are failing, that's not my perspective, my perspective is their potential is higher, and I want to unlock that potential. On the other hand, look at how many people say no-one cares are about XP, it's irrelevant etc., that in itself tells you the XP system is not working.

[tbhp]

I find voters tend to be biased against 2 player, many of them like their bells and whistles, in their heads anyways. You don't have to think as much with more players because your impact has less of a result in the game, at times not doing anything is the best action even if it's bad for your position because other players notice you less. It's like how complete beginners can be favored to win because everyone else is battling each other and not paying attention to them, so even when they don't know what they're doing they might end up winning when the dust settles. This is the sort of thing that can happen in games such as Risk, etc. But as you learn more about the game other players notice you can do things now, so you can't win as easily as before. The degree this happens varies game by game, both in the type of game and in the politics of players. Generally, the more interaction the game has, the more player politics decides things rather than technical skill. And the less interaction it has, the more it becomes multiplayer solitaire where your opponents serve as comparative decoration, but nothing you need to pay attention to as far as your plays are concerned. It is not easy to make a game that overcomes those hurdles, and even then, it often takes a good playerbase to make it work.

I'm aware some games suffer from this issue, like you talked about before. Those are probably Risk types of games where there are things like resources and players can arbitrarily decide to ruin someone's game. In my opinion that's a flaw because if this is possible to do, then the multiplayer mode just won't be very interesting to play competitively.

I guess I gravitate towards other types of games, and those in my experience work very well in multiplayer, giving additional complexity and rewarding skill while also having a satisfying amount of interaction and ways you can counter other players. The way top players manage to handle those games, taking every player's game into account in their choices and strategies, constitutes the highest level at which those games can be played. If a game is properly designed, it will allow players to do that without creating an issue where luck and politics may overshadow skill, quite the opposite.

[tbhp]

There's a number of factors, but given we've see questions about XP and tournaments come up constantly, it's clear that some players are looking at it through those terms.

I don't think the people complaining about tournament XP are the same as the people who are not subscribing to tournaments.

It's just hard to conceive for me. If the low XP is the only reason someone won't subscribe to a tournament, it seems like they aren't interested in the tournament in the first place.

I guess there may be a small population of players who are just looking to amass XP, who may start subscribing to tournaments if their earnings became worthwhile. But those people don't represent the majority of players. Most people just pick tournaments they want to play, or don't if they prefer other game modes. I can't imagine XP being a common consideration.

On the other hand, look at how many people say no-one cares are about XP, it's irrelevant etc., that in itself tells you the XP system is not working.

A lot of the people saying that though are people who just don't see value in XP in general. I'm one of those people. Even if XP was better calibrated, I still wouldn't care much about it. I care about the meaning I attach to the things I achieve. And if XP was done differently, there's no saying it would correspond to how I personally value each achievement.

In a way, that's why the current choice of giving every tournament the same XP may be the best compromise: the site doesn't try to tell you how important a tournament is. It's up to you and other players to determine its prestige for yourself.

Look at the example I gave about the Castle Combo tournament. No one cared that the winner only got 1 point. They just thought it was funny. A number is just a number, people care about the actual meaning of the thing.

[ChiefPointThief]

BGA should want to encourage a thriving tournament scene, and for people who do care about XP system it does matter to some people, so while I get the point some making of who cares/why does it matter, my feeling is more players would play tournaments if the XP was higher, which would be a good thing.

What they want is to get people playing as much as possible and thats what arena does not tournaments. You want fairness, a legit competitive scene (tournaments) to be given more recognition, etc but these things aren't bga's priority. And that's why as you've mentioned they award more xp for simply reaching elite in an arena season than things like expert and master level.

[tbhp]

Another thing that has not been discussed yet is that when you look at your trophies (either on the game's page or on your trophies page), trophies are listed by number of XP. What this means for tournaments is that if the value was different for different tournaments, then your first place trophies would be all over the place, instead of being grouped together neatly for you to admire them. This is a strong reason why tournament wins should always earn the same value (and that value should be unique, not shared by any other type of achievement).

[Jellby]

I'd say that's a strong reason for not sorting the trophies by XP