I was wondering what people would think of the following idea:
Rather than crowning the Arena Champion by the arena ELO, have the top 8/top 10/top 12/top X compete in a tournament (knockout, swiss, etc) to crown the Arena Champion for that season.
The following forum already does a good job of explaining why taking the score at the end of the season doesn't necessarily lead to a good result: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=18661, so I will not repeat any of the arguments there.
Another argument against the current system is the following: in many arena games, it might happen that the top players/higher ranked players never get a chance to play each other. In some of the very popular games, there will be dozens of players and arena games fill up quickly, so the chance of meeting another player that is highly ranked is very small.
On the opposite spectrum, in some of the less popular games, it is actually quite easy for players to intentionally avoid some opponents. One way is to give a red thumb, which immediately prevents you from being matched in arena, but otherwise one can also try to find players that are online at the same time and set up some games. One such occurence is currently happening in the Builders Antiquity, where the arena leader has played most of his games against a select group of 4 or 5 or so (lower ranked) players: in the last 120 games he has played only 5 times against someone with Elite status.
Some arguments for having a designated tournament for the top X:
- This will guarantee that the top players will have a chance to play each other and determine the season winner by facing each other, rather than (un)intentionally battling all season with players of a different level.
- This makes the exact #1 position slightly less relevant, and so avoids late season pingpong between some players just to try to edge ahead at the right moment (or fall back massively due to one or two bad/unlucky games).
- It also allows people to be crowned arena champion that don't have as much time to put in as some others do. Currently becoming arena champion often includes a lot of time and effort, just to try to climb slightly higher towards the end (where wins gain little and losses hit hard)
Some arguments against this system could be the following:
- The final tournament will be a big time committment and not everyone will have time for that: I think this will be slightly less of an issue since in most games those that are climbing high up the ranks already have put in a lot of time and effort, and maybe allowing a decently long time frame (a month?) will allow those games to be finished.
- Either the arena champion will not be crowned before the new season starts, or the entire arena system will have to be put on hold until the tournament finishes: I'm definitely not in favor of the latter, and I personally don't mind that for the first month of the new arena season the previous winner is not known, but I can definitely see others that might feel differently.
- A tournament might be a little bit too much luck based and so this might not crown the correct champion: I definitely agree with this, but the current system might not crown the correct champion either. And in many sports this is already the case: think of almost any sports with a knockout format where one bad game might lose the championship for a team that is an overwhelming favorite. I also think that by setting up the tournament in a swiss format will slightly mitigate this luck.
If anyone has more input, more arguments for or against, please let me know!
Rather than crowning the Arena Champion by the arena ELO, have the top 8/top 10/top 12/top X compete in a tournament (knockout, swiss, etc) to crown the Arena Champion for that season.
The following forum already does a good job of explaining why taking the score at the end of the season doesn't necessarily lead to a good result: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =9&t=18661, so I will not repeat any of the arguments there.
Another argument against the current system is the following: in many arena games, it might happen that the top players/higher ranked players never get a chance to play each other. In some of the very popular games, there will be dozens of players and arena games fill up quickly, so the chance of meeting another player that is highly ranked is very small.
On the opposite spectrum, in some of the less popular games, it is actually quite easy for players to intentionally avoid some opponents. One way is to give a red thumb, which immediately prevents you from being matched in arena, but otherwise one can also try to find players that are online at the same time and set up some games. One such occurence is currently happening in the Builders Antiquity, where the arena leader has played most of his games against a select group of 4 or 5 or so (lower ranked) players: in the last 120 games he has played only 5 times against someone with Elite status.
Some arguments for having a designated tournament for the top X:
- This will guarantee that the top players will have a chance to play each other and determine the season winner by facing each other, rather than (un)intentionally battling all season with players of a different level.
- This makes the exact #1 position slightly less relevant, and so avoids late season pingpong between some players just to try to edge ahead at the right moment (or fall back massively due to one or two bad/unlucky games).
- It also allows people to be crowned arena champion that don't have as much time to put in as some others do. Currently becoming arena champion often includes a lot of time and effort, just to try to climb slightly higher towards the end (where wins gain little and losses hit hard)
Some arguments against this system could be the following:
- The final tournament will be a big time committment and not everyone will have time for that: I think this will be slightly less of an issue since in most games those that are climbing high up the ranks already have put in a lot of time and effort, and maybe allowing a decently long time frame (a month?) will allow those games to be finished.
- Either the arena champion will not be crowned before the new season starts, or the entire arena system will have to be put on hold until the tournament finishes: I'm definitely not in favor of the latter, and I personally don't mind that for the first month of the new arena season the previous winner is not known, but I can definitely see others that might feel differently.
- A tournament might be a little bit too much luck based and so this might not crown the correct champion: I definitely agree with this, but the current system might not crown the correct champion either. And in many sports this is already the case: think of almost any sports with a knockout format where one bad game might lose the championship for a team that is an overwhelming favorite. I also think that by setting up the tournament in a swiss format will slightly mitigate this luck.
If anyone has more input, more arguments for or against, please let me know!
