Season 7: New Season & New Features!

[dschingis27]

I love BGA and on the whole am really glad for all that you do, but sometimes it is maddening what decisions you make or take. (I still have no clue how you had a great reputation system site wide that only just now in season seven(!) is being taken more seriously for your "serious" competitive mode, but glad we got there).

I couldn't agree more on everything you wrote there.

[giggas2]

Changes to Ice Cold Ice Hockey was unfortunately one of those invalid winning suggestions. When writing that suggestion, I was unaware of how strict the need for game options to be explicit, and it seemed like that continued on to the rest of the Gurus. Since it is that way, why is a free-form field? It would make more sense that it would be the same panel of existing options that you see when creating a game. That way there can be no invalid entries, and remove that level of frustration.

Free form allow you to propose complex options strategies, like the gurus of Saint Petersburg or 7 Wonders did (ex: different options for even or odd seasons).

That makes sense. What still doesn't make sense (to me, at least) is why there is a possibility for an "invalid" result. Why not have the same panel plus a free form field to discuss/explain the thoughts? That way you can remove the possibility of an "invalid" result which is frustrating to Gurus, who are the same people that play the game the most. I take that Guru responsibility thoughtfully: I proposed something that I thought made sense for the Arena, and because it wasn't clear it was rejected, leaving the Arena unchanged even though it gained a majority of agreement from the Gurus.

Alternatively, some kind of indication before the end of the Guru voting period that the suggestion was "invalid" and being able to edit it so that it is valid and still gain positive change in Arena.

[aginis]

Here is my suggestion on how to balance arena leagues vs wait times.
Part 1 - Show how many players are currently playing + queueing for a game for each league level so something like bronze icon 37 silver icon 12 gold icon 18 elite icon 11.

Part 2 - Instead of trying to find an ideal smart balance algorithm simply let players decide for themselves similar to table restrictions in simple games.
By default all match ups are possible, however players can choose to restrict their games to +/- league difference. 0 would indicate only in the same league, +/-1 would indicate up to one league below or above etc. As long as its symmetrical I think its fair (i.e. you choose your level of flexibility but it is the same for above and below). Similarly players can choose to restrict karma rather than simply banning all low karma players.

Implementing both of these ideas will allow players to create their own balance between wait time and opponent level with a pretty good expectation of how long they need to wait for a game.

Thanks

[ufm]

Yes, was not suggesting to take backgammon off, just pointing out that online cheating in backgammon is also a problem and it was not taken down. Good point about cheating not resulting in sure victory or even "very likley" victory.

Try real-time single game backgammon. It is least prone to cheating.
Actually I'm curious how the turn-based player ranking would change after match play addition...

[Ze Monstah]

[msclark]

[...] in the Arena you cannot choose your opponents.

This is not true as long as you can give red thumbs to people and exclude them from your Arena matches. This should be fixed as I suggested here.

Unless a player Red Thumbs every Arena Player in a game, except 2 or 3 friends, in order to be set up only with those 2 or 3 (a thing I personally find hard to realise), red thumbs should be respected.

As you put it: if player A hates player B (B having A red thumbed) and are set together in a 5 players arena game... if A's goal is to make B's life hell in every single Arena game (game-wise), how is your "Arena RT ignorance" helping B?
You can make someone's life hell in Arena games, without chatbox, also.

If you go RT ignorance, you must also go INCOGNITO (no names shown until the end) !!!!!!!
And I am not sure BGA has the possibility or wish, to realise this.

I think Red Thumbs should be respected anywhere on BGA, sorry.

It's not fair to disrespect them, just 'cause it happens that you are given some RTs for various reasons, and can't play Arena with those people, in order to feed your Arena Ego.

Someone doesn't like you, accept BGA rules and being Red Thumbed (again, for various reasons), and move on with this selfish nonsense.

Depends on how you view Arena. Is it a bit of friendly fun, or is it a serious competition? Federer isn't allowed to "red-thumb" Djokovic so that he can avoid playing him, but maybe at your local tennis club that's completely acceptable. There's no right answer to this, and I don't think you should be calling people selfish or nonsensical for having a different opinion.

Your arguments about abusive people and death threats don't really help your cause - those sorts of things are bannable anyway. And I also don't buy your worry about people targeting you because they hate you; it depends on the game perhaps, but that's unlikely to be a winning strategy in Arena. And you are rather minimising the potential for gaming the system. You say "Unless a player Red Thumbs every Arena Player in a game..." but that's not remotely necessary. There are some games where there are really just one or two active strong players, and if you can selectively avoid them you'll have a much easier ride.

[Ze Monstah]

[dschingis27]

Free form allow you to propose complex options strategies, like the gurus of Saint Petersburg or 7 Wonders did (ex: different options for even or odd seasons).

It would be nice if the finally chosen different options for even/odd seasons could be made available to all users. At the moment, only the gurus know what they decided on.

For example, at the moment, I have no way to know whether 4p is still the dominant mode in 7Wonders or if gurus decided to sprinkle in 6p or whether Puerto Rico will likely change back from 2p, etc.

[Ze Monstah]

[paulnewmanseyes]

The Guru system has a real flaw in promoting the interests of those who play head-to-head games. If you exclusively play duels on BGA, you'll have a vastly higher number of finished games compared to other players, and be far more likely to become a Guru, where you can then vote for all your favourite games to be set to 2-player mode for the arena.

That's resulted in the Arena being two player for (at least): Russian Railroads, Race for the Galaxy, Through the Ages, Puerto Rico, and Stone Age. None of these games are particularly designed for 2p play, and some of them actively suffer for it. There has to be a better way!