The state of 3p Arena

[Wonderful Plays]

I made a video about the current state of Arena:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRQ_rRukeeM

There are links to suggestions that I think would greatly improve arena.

1st problem is parking:
People often do this in multiplayer competitive games with high interaction on this side.

2nd problem is "kingmaking":
We all had games where the 3rd guy took us out in 3p arena and finished 3rd but we had no option for even thinking of challenging for 1st.

The solutions:
A. Anonimizing player names - less kingmaking and targeting.
B. Counting the best score for arena throught the whole season instead of the current score.

Suggestion links:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=30119
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=30059

Links to topics on these forums in the suggestion section:
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=18661
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 327#p74524

I know these topics have been discussed before, but as everyone at the 7W community (that I talked to) was at least positive about this, I thought it would be nice to mention it here as well.

[dschingis27]

Thanks for the video. To me, the most important aspect of implementing peak score for rankings is stabilization of the rankings for everyone. At the moment, you jump back and forth between places that are far away. At one point you can be Top100 and suddenly you are 350th place. In this way it is hard to care for the rankings at all. And your final rank at season finish is heavily influenced by the fact whether your very last game(s) played were defeat(s) or win(s). "Historic" merits over the course of the season are totally forgotten.

"How high can I get?" is probably the driving question for Arena players anyway. I agree with the video that we could make it the official deal for Arena.

If we take peak score for rankings, of course, final rank is still much influenced by individual luck and time investment. However, my final ranks over the course of 4-5 seasons will give me a rough proper feedback on my true skill. Am I Top20? Am I Top100? Those questions cannnot be answered sufficiently in the current system.

[Realism]

These changes would greatly improve the experience and the best part is they seem easy to implement. Plus they address 4p problems as well. Upvoted just in case.

PS.

Future step, this time my big wish, might be separating high and low skill player pools. 2 HS players + 1 LS player make completely different games than 3 HS players and should be two entirely separate disciplines. Current Arena is the former (anonymisation would mitigate the problem though). To become the latter it needs player filters. Choice and calibration of filters are easy technicalities, but a decision to change ‘policy’ is required.

Currently, players press play, get rewarded for bad moves and repeat them to become elite. This is in line with the global trend set by app-makers, where everyone gets a prize for near nothing to keep them hooked. It would be great for the game if BGA separated a part of Arena from this trend. A milestone would be considering these:

- There are already loads of easy medals. People who get excited by these will likely keep playing even if Arena becomes selective;
- Setting high thresholds is not necessarily bad for player or game count, i.a. it can give a sense of achievement and additional purpose to play for most groups;
- Players most annoyed by Arena problems are indeed only a small fraction, but they generate a large number of games;
- For the best competition, some Arena rules should be game-specific, as the scope of games is too vast for 1 size fits all;
- According to BGA own description, Arena is competitive and non-competitive players can opt out (not the other way round).

[6element]

My 2 cents.
- Allow classic edition of 7 Wonders. If they're "both 7 Wonders", players should be able to choose which they prefer. If they're "similar enough" - same, players should have a choice. If they're different enough - give us 2 rankings.
- Win is a win, loss is a loss. 2nd place is certainly not a win. The first place is win (even if 2 opponents share the1st place), loss should be divided between 2nd and 3rd (percentages can be tweaked and should depend on ranking). This will greatly reduce "I play to be 2nd as long as opponent X is the 3rd" strategy.
- Allow ELO or win-rate filtering at least in highest league to remove completely incompetent opponents. They perform kingmaking without even realizing they do so.
- Remove "camping on top" strategy by removing from ranking till the end of the season anyone who played 0 game for 7 days and anyone who played less than 10 games per month.

[Romain672]

- Win is a win, loss is a loss. 2nd place is certainly not a win. The first place is win (even if 2 opponents share the1st place), loss should be divided between 2nd and 3rd (percentages can be tweaked and should depend on ranking). This will greatly reduce "I play to be 2nd as long as opponent X is the 3rd" strategy.

This has been debated before.
The problem is when the third player has no way to get to the first place. What should he do then?

I believe most or some people would just at least not being focus anymore, or even worst, try to make the second player win.

There is no good solutions
I suppose on a game like 7 Wonders, most of the points won are hidden, so it's less a problem...

[6element]

- Win is a win, loss is a loss. 2nd place is certainly not a win. The first place is win (even if 2 opponents share the1st place), loss should be divided between 2nd and 3rd (percentages can be tweaked and should depend on ranking). This will greatly reduce "I play to be 2nd as long as opponent X is the 3rd" strategy.

This has been debated before.
The problem is when the third player has no way to get to the first place. What should he do then?

They should fight for the 2nd place to minimize the loss.

I can see an argument for a positive score ('quarter-victory") for the 2nd place in a 4-player game, but a positive score for the 2nd place in a 3-player game is just ridiculous - there was no victory, thus there should be no reward.

PS: To be clear - the key issue is that the current system rewards player who targets a single opponent to make sure they don't win, while usually ensuring the 3rd opponent gets the victory. Sometimes kingmaker gets to the 2nd place (and may end up with a positive score). Instead, such a strategy should lead to a guaranteed loss - the loss should be divided between the 2nd and 3rd places.

[MoiMagnus]

- Allow classic edition of 7 Wonders. If they're "both 7 Wonders", players should be able to choose which they prefer. If they're "similar enough" - same, players should have a choice. If they're different enough - give us 2 rankings.

Though that's not how Arena is meant to work. Arena is "everyone play with the exact same options".
If "they're both 7 Wonders", then the logical way to proceed is to have some seasons on the old version and some seasons on the new version, like we have seasons with different player count, and like games with expansions are forced to have seasons with different set of expansions to please both those that preferred the balance of the base game and those who preferred the new one.

Splitting a game into two ranking depending on the version is something possible (Through the Ages did it, there are two games named TtA in the game list), but it has to come from the editor that say that both of them are different games, not from BGA. In fact, that's also the editor's choice to keep the old edition as an option, as for example Hanabi completely removed the old edition when adding the new one, which I assume was the editor's request.

[6element]

- Allow classic edition of 7 Wonders. If they're "both 7 Wonders", players should be able to choose which they prefer. If they're "similar enough" - same, players should have a choice. If they're different enough - give us 2 rankings.

Though that's not how Arena is meant to work. Arena is "everyone play with the exact same options".
If "they're both 7 Wonders", then the logical way to proceed is to have some seasons on the old version and some seasons on the new version, like we have seasons with different player count, and like games with expansions are forced to have seasons with different set of expansions to please both those that preferred the balance of the base game and those who preferred the new one.

Splitting a game into two ranking depending on the version is something possible (Through the Ages did it, there are two games named TtA in the game list), but it has to come from the editor that say that both of them are different games, not from BGA. In fact, that's also the editor's choice to keep the old edition as an option, as for example Hanabi completely removed the old edition when adding the new one, which I assume was the editor's request.

I played over 20K games online and from my opinion they are different enough to be treated as different games.

[Wonderful Plays]

Previous edition is worse in terms of balance and graphics and would just split the playerbase. I'm against having two ladders.

[6element]

Well, I strongly disagree on both points (balance and graphics).