Arena Season 3: let's go!

[sylviel]

I second Slyythe point : stopping completely the turn base is a pretty bad fix. The solution is easy :
- have a fixed timer, like in tournament (instead of adding time at each turn)
- do not allow to start game at the end of season (or better, allow them with half the remaining time)
- do not allow the "holiday" fir arena.

I also second the idea of a decay when not playing.

[MrXuma]

This is really a sad news for me.
I liked playing several games at once on Arena.
sometimes finding a player took few days for games that are not popular and that I like.
They will not be played any longer on Arena as finding a player will be impossible.
But that's something minor.
The biggest problem I see are games that takes in real life longer then 90 minutes.
I just won't be playing them.
You took some joy today from me.

Couldn't agree more with this opinion.. Multiple arena games were the thing for me. I don't really like playing in real time, since I have small 10/15 minutes break during the day... who cares about cheating anyway? It's not like Arena proves anything, anyway

[Mastro Federico]

I thought it was a bug. I knew it wasn't but I hoped until the very last. I can play basically only turned games and I love Arena way more than regular games. It's a very sad day. Nevertheless I respect your effort but I think that if that was the problem, this is not a fix, but just an easy way out. Why don't you just put some decay system as suggested in the topic that mention the problem?

[aesche]

For all ppl disappointed about this change, I suggest you go to this thread and read through it, especially all the detailed reasoning of sourisdudesert: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =3&t=17652
And please dont forget two key points:
- you still can play all games in regular turn based mode
- they will develop other competitive modes that do work turn based without all the issues coming from arena turn based

who cares about cheating anyway? It's not like Arena proves anything, anyway

Everyone with ambitions, what you are supposed to have for a competitive mode like arena?
The issues of past arena seasons, as well as the absent actions of the mods against any form of cheating, pretty much killed any of my motivation for arena, if not BGA altogether.
Now, this fix, together with the connected detailed reasoning, is the first sign of positive change to such issues, and actually brings back some hopes, that something can improve here, and not only more and more games are being added.

[Bhaouloute]

Ending turn-based arena mode is just a shame. I can't play in real time so what, Arena is closed for me and that's it ?

To be honest I don't see the point in any argument for that option, and I don't really care about cheaters, let them cheat and let us have fun.

[Ranior]

I continue to be quite happy with this change. I do feel sorry for all those fans of turn based arena mode, but quite simply the way arena works very much operates well within a real time gaming environment but many of the way things work don't make much sense and abusable in a turn based one.

I hope they can quickly come up with a good system for turn based games so fans of the competition that arena offers will have an outlet, and one suited to the nature of turn based games.

To those who think the solution was simple, please go read through the other thread and the reasoning there--the conclusion is correct, no such simple solution exists. Any solution comes with its own host of problems, and I fully back BGA's decision to scrap turn based arena and develop something else instead that better suits the nature of turn based games. In the end I'm sure this is a better solution than trying to patch things up with other measures for this current season.

Finally to those who say you don't care about cheaters but enjoyed arena...I'm honestly kind of baffled. What benefit is there to arena other than to provide a competitive ladder to see how you compare to others over standard games? And if that is the main benefit, how can you be unconcerned about the fact those standings can be made at least partially meaningless by some players ranking up by manipulating the system? You can't have a proper competition where cheating/manipulation is so easy to perform and quite costly to detect. (It was fairly easy to identify some users last season, but even if BGA started identifying the obvious cases, there would be far too many grey areas and cheaters would simply get better at evading detection). If you enjoy turn based games on BGA you absolutely still can do that.

[Priskus]

It's almost impossible to find a real time arena game of Lewis & Clark.
I won Season 0, Season 1 and Season 2 of Lewis & Clark, mostly by playing Turn Based Arena Games.
You should limit time per player, like 5 days per player, and game lost on negative time clock.
Max 10 days per game (like i said 5 days each player), and Turn Based Arena games should be blocked 10 days before end of Season.

[carrben12]

My go-to Arena game has been twin tin bots. There seems to be 0 chance of getting an RT Arena game going, so now we won't have any arena at all.

This is so very disappointing!

Also, like many other posters here, I struggle to have uninterrupted time to play long RT games.

I don't actually understand what the issues were with turn based games in arena.

Maybe there should be separate turn based and RT arenas?
Maybe games started in the last month should also have a max total time limit per player. eg if a 4 player game starts 12 days before end of season, each player has 72 hours wait time total to ensure that the game finishes in time, and if not, the delaying player will get a loss.

[Phylantrios]

Many of us play turn based games for obvious reasons, so this is just discouraging.

My proposed solution for turn based cheaters (in general, not only Arena mode):

FIFO (First In First Out)

- It should be compulsory to play your tables in the order you received the token. Therefore, you have to play first the table that has been waiting for you longer.

- You can not play real time tables until your stack of turn based tables waiting for you is empty.

So you stop in one table? Ok, then BGA is blocked for you until you go on with that table. This would be a good solution not only for Arena, but for any turn based games. It is not fair to have people waiting for you for hours / days while you keep on playing other tables.

[aesche]

Concerning „no RT arena players in some games“: maybe give it some time, and try to initiate arena games when you have some time available? I could imagine, if ppl actually care about these games, without arena turn based, they might initiate some more real time arena games here and there? And again, further turn based modes are close ahead, as sourisdudesert promised.