BETA: Arena mode (Season 0 - BETA)

[Frakke1]

I really like arena mode so far, but here are my personal thoughts

-It would be nice to see the opponents league during a game and how many points he currently has in this league.

-I would like to see my ranking and the opponents ranking without scrolling all the way down.

-I don't think it is fair if your opponent leaves or just doesn't play you get awarded the full ranking points.

-For some games where there is a lot of luck involved the system is really difficult. For example, I am in yathzee gold now and if I win I only go one point up, but if I lose, I will drop 4 points. So now I have to win 10 games in a row without losing one before reaching the elite league. Wich is almost impossible, I will certainly come across an opponent with more luck as me.

These are just my thoughts I will continue to play it anyway but so far well done.

[sourisdudesert]

At first, thank you everyone for your feedback.

The first thing, and maybe the most important thing to notice, is that 24 hours after the launch of this beta, the number of games played on BGA is equals or higher (to be accurate: a little bit higher) than the usual. So it means that Arena mode did not "split" the lobby or the players.

There are many feedback, so we cannot answer everyone. But here's some comments:

For some games where there is a lot of luck involved the system is really difficult.

We are 100% aware of that. For games with a lot of luck, we need less leagues for example. We are going to analyse Season 0 (and maybe remove some current leagues) to make sure the number of leagues is appropriate for all games.

ELO worked perfectly fine, no need to fix it.

We totally agree that ELO works fine for some players. However, if you read this forum frequently you will see a lot (really, a lot) of threads full of criticism about ELO used as a ranking system on BGA.

To conclude: if ELO is fine for you, you should probably not use the Arena mode.

I was under the impression that arena was limited to 100+elo. I just played a game of Hive with arena turned on vs someone who was playing their first game on the site, they still had the text under their name with this is my first game..

We fixed most of these problems (0.5% of Arena tables concerned). We are still working on some other cases, but it should be fixed very quickly.

[Waterd103]

I think the arena system reset after 3 months is ok for a single game page. But I think the span of time of 3 months is probably too short for BGA games. doing some math, assuming constant 60% rate at takenoko, it would take a player around 100 hours of play to reach elite status, and probably another 50-100 to reach first place.
I think is too demanding for people to spend that much time in single game in just 3 months. At least in a site that promotes playing many games.
which means that probably the highest positions will not be held by the better player, but just by those wtih the free time to do these long grinds.

[DoubleSpliff]

When I join an arena game or when I start one, as soon as the table is full of players the game starts straight away without being given the chance to see what level of competence my opponents are. this includes ELO, number of games played or their arena league position. I think this needs to be changed.

[sourisdudesert]

I think is too demanding for people to spend that much time in single game in just 3 months

The idea is that reaching each league is an achievement in itself. So if you don't want to spend much time, reaching Silver league can be your objective. Elite league is designed for the most demanding/available/competitive players.

When I join an arena game or when I start one, as soon as the table is full of players the game starts straight away without being given the chance to see what level of competence my opponents

In fact, by design you cannot refuse an Arena game, so these informations are not very useful anyway. Note that they can be accessed anytime during the game, by placing your mouse over your opponent's name.

[Justine Henin]

Great to have Arena mode, the hidden info is ok for me, but could you implement sort of a general filter for reputation to avoid starting games against zero rep. guys?

That is quiet a nightmare.

[sourisdudesert]

could you implement sort of a general filter for reputation to avoid starting games against zero rep. guys?

This is here, although a little bit hidden: click on the "Setting" icon next to a game, then click on "Advanced options", then on "Reputation", then choose what option suits you the best.

[iliz sera]

so if you're in Simple mode then you can see which games have Arena players waiting, but if you're in Arena mode then you can't....

The link supplied by iliz sera:

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=62764324

For me this results show an exchange of ELO, how does iliz sera see the exchange of Arena Ranking points?
I guess if I am participating in the Arena league for this game then I would see an exchange of Arena rank. But why? why are different people seeing different things?

Please stop hijacking tables and labels that are already there. It's very confusing. You should be showing both.

[/quote]


Thanks Ricardo, that's my bad when I only posted the link directly to the table. At the moment I posted it, bleu329 just played 2 games and his rank was promoted to Elite. There was no obvious way to see how the rank changed. sprockitz already answered my question that there are only 2 ranks for less popular games, though for me it is quite strange too.

[CB Droege]

Regarding having to play against beginner players:

This happens in any game where there is a reseting ladder. The first few games played can be frustrating/boring because you are being matched up randomly, but as the ladder begins to solidify, and everyone starts to find their place in the ladder, it will balance out. It's the same in Overwatch, etc. It should only happen for the first few games of each season.

The low-ranked guys feel it too. I started an Othello game as my first game in the arena. I'm a rather new player, and got matched up with the #2 Othello player on BGA, that's not going to be a fun game for either of us, but once we both get sorted into our leagues, that won't happen as much.

HOWEVER, that leads me to a suggestion that less popular games either shouldn't have their ladders compressed, or if they must, then make fewer rungs per league, rather than fewer leagues. With only two levels in Othello, for example, it's not going to eventually balance out as well as some other games will. Even games with only 50 players total on the site, still need to be matched up properly, and just two leagues is not enough to keep the 800 Elo guys from having to play with the 200 Elo guys.

[RonaldMelodie]

How can I see which turn-based games on my list are in Arena-mode? Currently there seems to be no tag or other indicator.