Arena season 0: the Final Sprint !

[DrKarotte]

First: Great thank you for BGA!

Second: I have just done a couple of Arena matches, so I cannot judge anything, except one: In some lesser popular games I never managed to get a single game. For me it feels mostly like playing with automatic mode on, without setup possibilities (competing with "fixed setup", as a race driver might say).

When I had the task to create something like the Arena mode for BGA, I would have taken another approach. I would have created several "leagues" named like "2 player abstract", "3 player card game", "5 player fun" and more. These contain a small amount of games/setups per season, e.g. in one season "2 player abstract" could contain Reversi, Chess and Nine Men's Morris, the next another 3 games, perhaps just 2 new. To be the "2 player abstract" champion you have to play all three games. The few games which won't work well for competitive could be excluded or be part of special events. Not all possible leagues have to be part of every season, and games could be part of several leagues.

I see the following benefits:
There are more players available for the given game during that season (and maybe later).
The ranking says more, as there have been enough different opponents to play against.
Matchmaking will probably work better.
Less popular games come into focus for a while (wasn' this one of the thoughts behind Arena mode?)

[yhonny]

Gracias por el esfuerzo de estas últimas semanas.
Quería preguntar sobre donde hay que ir para reclamar esos trofeos de fin de temporada.
Un saludo y gracias.

[tim2pet3]

How do I even start a normal turn-based game anymore?

[Gabriel Z]

In terms of the trophies that are awarded at the end of the season, are these just for the top players in each game, or is there something for the top 3/ 10/ 20 players to recognise their achievements too?

+1

[sprockitz]

How do I even start a normal turn-based game anymore?

click on the ARENA - competitive mode (drop down), on top left just below the site menu, and pick 'simple game'

[Bartom007]

Thanks for greatest job you have done so far, wish to all to be ok in this curios time of COVID

[shioritan]

Two questions.

1. Can you consider the dividing of real-time and turn-base ladder? It is bad to combine these modes.
2. What about players that got a good rating and did not play after this?

[sprockitz]

Two questions.

1. Can you consider the dividing of real-time and turn-base ladder? It is bad to combine these modes.
2. What about players that got a good rating and did not play after this?

About number 2. Why would they do anything about someone who got a good rating then didn't play anymore? They had to earn their rating so it is that person's right not to play anymore. If they aren't playing anymore that gives you the chance to surpass their rating and it prevents that player from getting a higher rating. They've already played enough during the season to get a good rating so suggesting they should be somehow punished for not playing enough at the end of the season is ridiculous.

For number 1, I agree there are differences, largely with the fact that it is 2 mostly separate groups so if one of the groups (real-time or turn based) is more skilled on average, this will greatly advantage the people playing in the less skilled group. I hope there is enough overlap in the 2 groups to mitigate it, but I don't really think this is the case. Many games, however, already have a very small audience so any additional splits would be even more detrimental to those competitions (in reality expanded turn based site sponsored high prestige tournaments are the only good way to go for the bottom half (in popularity) of games on here). Arena might be best served as a real time only option for the 30-40 games (maybe slightly more) with a big enough following to justify it.

[Iguana]

Note: the turn-based games that are not finished at this precise moment may continue, but will no longer count for Arena mode.

I think there is an issue regarding turn-based games for the final sprint of the season.
Some players might stop playing their on-going turn-based games when they know that they have already lost, and that their clock won't turn negative before the end of the season. It can be quite frustrating for the player who is about to win.

I don't have any good solution to solve this problem, since it would be too long to wait for all turn-based games to be finished before officially ending the season. Maybe for next seasons we could at least disable starting new turn-based games in arena mode for the last few days of the season ?

[Daavids]

Note: the turn-based games that are not finished at this precise moment may continue, but will no longer count for Arena mode.

I think there is an issue regarding turn-based games for the final sprint of the season.
Some players might stop playing their on-going turn-based games when they know that they have already lost, and that their clock won't turn negative before the end of the season. It can be quite frustrating for the player who is about to win.

I don't have any good solution to solve this problem, since it would be too long to wait for all turn-based games to be finished before officially ending the season. Maybe for next seasons we could at least disable starting new turn-based games in arena mode for the last few days of the season ?

One of solution steps could be:
season 0 unfinished games count in season 1, when finished. It would be more problematic, if there would be different preferencies of the games between both seasons.

And for turn table games - not to allow start new tables for time period, which based on average time per specific game.

Or end of the season - give few days to end the games. If game still has not finished after that, then wins that, who has more points on that moment. For some games (I think of chess as example) it could not be decided, who is winner.