Yes, please do - I lost a significant amount of ELO in games that I was winning. I can only log in a few times a day for short periods, which is why I play turn-based games in the first place. It's unfair to penalize me, and others like me just because I can't be on BGA 24/7.
I'm quite upset that the game results were not neutralized. TTA is my favourite game on BGA, it's a long game so I definitely can't play it live, and losing a bunch of games and ELO because of my participation restrictions is very frustrating.
Additionally, I was having fun playing those games, and would have liked to finish them!
What was wrong with the last season implementation of simply removing those games from the Arena tally, and allowing players to finish them as a normal turn-based game? The current implementation also inflates/deflates the ranking of players right at the end. I would expect that I am probably a slow player, but even for two equally fast players, the player who is able to log in right before the end of the season would win the game, which penalizes players in different time zones. The "must play the game where you have had your turn the longest" rule is a good one, which will prevent game stacking for ELO/ranking boosts at the end, and would solve the issue by itself without the ranking change at the end.
For example, if someone was playing 10 turn-based games, and winning half of them, that rule would prevent them from finishing only the games that they were winning. However, under the current system, they could lose all 10 games by 1 second of log-in time difference at the end of the season, dropping in Arena ranking hugely and boosting others. If the games are instead just removed from Arena, then the rankings are not just based on a time-based coin-flip. The play the last turn rule stops exploitation of all but one game, which is a much smaller impact than losing/winning so many games randomly.
I love BGA, and I really like the competitiveness of the Arena, but think that this implementation of the ranking system and ELO needs to be changed for the next season.
Thank you for reading this long post!
Edit:
Sorry, one more thing. The current implementation also opens up a new form of cheating - if a fast player knows that they have less time used, they can just not finish a game at the end of the season knowing that they will win it, preventing a loss of ELO and arena rank.
The "play the longest turn" solution solves A and B from the previous thread, while C could still be a problem. If I could propose a possible solution here:
Players cannot start a live arena game when they have a turn-based arena game of the same type (either it's their turn, OR just as long as they are playing that game). Non-ideal, as it limits turn-based and live-based arena games, but does allow players to play both, not just at the same time. Additionally, I suspect that games are either mostly played turn-based or live, depending on their type and length (e.g., race for the galaxy vs. Through the Ages.)
