Arena Season 4 - let's start!

[Woooland]

We did. We actually did a lot of work on turn-based Arena to avoid cheating, to avoid a worst solution (removing the whole turn based arena).

It seems to me that this is the case when the solution is worse than the problem itself.

Are you planning to fix the bug with the loss of the rating/Arena pts in case of such a "victory"?

P.S. If anybody can demonstrate how easily this rule could be abused , will you remove it next season?

[sourisdudesert]

Are you planning to fix the bug with the loss of the rating/Arena pts in case of such a "victory"?

Yes, it has been reported elsewhere in the forum and it will be fixed.

[zeinab001]

whats the prize of the champions what happens if we becom first place its just hey youre the best player?

[Dirty Patronus]

The Arena rankings did not reset correctly. For example, at the end of the season in Veletas, I was in Elite league and the 2nd place was at Gold 0. Right now, it dropped me to Silver I and kept him at Gold 0....

[ATea-Rex]

Thanks for trying to solve the abuse problem but honestly you should've just transferred the games to the following season so that eventually people would need to suffer the penalty of their loss. Especially given that time spent thinking is not a fair method during the holiday season when people go offline for a day or two.

[sourisdudesert]

Thanks for trying to solve the abuse problem but honestly you should've just transferred the games to the following season so that eventually people would need to suffer the penalty of their loss. Especially given that time spent thinking is not a fair method during the holiday season when people go offline for a day or two.

Sorry, it does not solve cheating technique A (see my link).

[geoffmacknish]

What are you doing about kingmaking?

What are you doing about kingmaking?
Players of card games Hearts, and to a lesser extent Oh Hell, will often target a player who is not in the lead. This cripples that player’s chances in that game. They assist another player to win. So far, BGA has been silent on this form of cheating, but it is time to clamp down on these cheats. Please advise what you intend to do about this. The current reporting system is inadequate to address kingmaking cheats. While you can red thumb players and say no one should play with them because they are kingmaking cheats, this information goes nowhere and is not visible by other players. BGA moderators ignore kingmaking when it is reported too. So there are no adequate controls in place to prevent or police this practice.

I suggest reintroducing the visibility of red thumbs and expanding this system to show how many times other players have noted a kingmaking behaviour. Balance this by showing how many games the player has played. Allow players to filter out kingmakers from their games, especially in Arena where it matters more, in the same way as you choose to avoid players too far from your current level. You could filter based on overall or just the current Arena season. We need something other than in-game chat comments getting out of hand and where players who cheat get away with it. Also let us block in-game chat comments from one or all players. Some players are nasty and some just talk and talk and talk. It should be easy to click “Mute Player x” or “Mute All”. Extend this to onlookers. Players should be able to mute them too or remove them. But kingmaking is the issue here. It is cheating. And it happens A LOT in Hearts. And there is nothing preventing it from continuing. The honour system we have now is inadequate, because cheats have no honour.

What are YOU going to do about kingmaking?

[emorrp1]

I see that for some of the games I play, my level was reset from elite to bronze 1 (example: Love Letter), but for others, I kept my elite level (example: Cribbage). Is this accidental or intentional? If intentional, what's the criteria for maintaining one's level in a game across a new season?

Cribbage has been published less than a month, so the first official season of Cribbage is Season 4. Thus, there have been no relegation.

That doesn't explain why elite was reset to bronze. EDIT: actually I just checked and Love Letter didn't have many players last season, so bronze is correct there, but see other quote below.

For some reason all my levels were reset to bronze this time, rather than relegating a single level (e.g. Platinum -> Gold)

The Arena rankings did not reset correctly. For example, at the end of the season in Veletas, I was in Elite league and the 2nd place was at Gold 0. Right now, it dropped me to Silver I and kept him at Gold 0....

[poptasticboy]

This link explains everything: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17703

If you're not sure to finish you turn based games before the end of the Arena season, I agree that it's way better to play in simple/training mode.

Sure, but my point was not that we, as players, should have to make a judgement in advance about whether or not a game might finish in time; an in-depth turn-based game like Terra Mystica or Clans of Caledonia can vary wildly and might last for many weeks.

My point was that once a game is started, there's no excuse for you just to end it and prevent us from playing it out in full. There's little more frustrating than investing significant time and thought into a game only to have it ended prematurely! If at the end of the season you need to remove the game from Arena and make ELO and Arena standing changes, by all means; having read the post about opportunities for cheating, I understand the need for that. But having done that, leave the game open and available to be completed outside of Arena (and without ELO, if required).

[towehaal]

What are you doing about kingmaking?

What are you doing about kingmaking?
Players of card games Hearts, and to a lesser extent Oh Hell, will often target a player who is not in the lead. This cripples that player’s chances in that game. They assist another player to win. So far, BGA has been silent on this form of cheating, but it is time to clamp down on these cheats. Please advise what you intend to do about this. The current reporting system is inadequate to address kingmaking cheats. While you can red thumb players and say no one should play with them because they are kingmaking cheats, this information goes nowhere and is not visible by other players. BGA moderators ignore kingmaking when it is reported too. So there are no adequate controls in place to prevent or police this practice.

I suggest reintroducing the visibility of red thumbs and expanding this system to show how many times other players have noted a kingmaking behaviour. Balance this by showing how many games the player has played. Allow players to filter out kingmakers from their games, especially in Arena where it matters more, in the same way as you choose to avoid players too far from your current level. You could filter based on overall or just the current Arena season. We need something other than in-game chat comments getting out of hand and where players who cheat get away with it. Also let us block in-game chat comments from one or all players. Some players are nasty and some just talk and talk and talk. It should be easy to click “Mute Player x” or “Mute All”. Extend this to onlookers. Players should be able to mute them too or remove them. But kingmaking is the issue here. It is cheating. And it happens A LOT in Hearts. And there is nothing preventing it from continuing. The honour system we have now is inadequate, because cheats have no honour.

What are YOU going to do about kingmaking?

So do you feel like two players team up against someone with a higher arena rank?
My wife has noticed poor play and odd behavior in Oh Hell. There are some pretty toxic players that play arena frequently. The worst of them will purposely let their time run to almost zero and then take their turn. Build their time back up and the repeat just to be annoying.