Board Game Arena

Why could experience only be gained in arena?
I am sure plenty of guru's have MW games under their belt, so there is experience.

And for those that want to play it, you can do so ranked and unranked. It's not withheld from the wider player base.
I'm not sure if the numbers are available but I'd be surprised if Arena games make up 20% or more of the total Ark Nova games being played.

Casual and competitive is not the same. I'm talking about competitive experience here under which the game evolves the most. But what you're arguing here is the way the expansion should evolve before even being put through the competitive crucible. I keep repeating myself, let's see how it affects the playing field competitively and we'll all be wiser for future seasons. Even if the action cards are imbalanced and bad they're part of something that deserves to be tried out competitively as the creator conceived it.

yazavats wrote: ↑06 January 2025, 16:16 Casual and competitive is not the same.

In my experience arena games are not particularly competitively sharp or significant compared to non-arena games. Often there is a significant skill disparity in arena matching that leads to incoherent game states. I find the most interesting games to review are those between experienced and thoughtful players, for instance two players who both are rated 700+ Elo.

Patrick of the Isles wrote: ↑06 January 2025, 16:19 In my experience arena games are on average not particularly competitive. Often there is a significant skill disparity that leads to disordered game states. The most competitive games are those between players who both are rated 700+ Elo, which usually are not in arena mode, and those are often the most interesting to review.

So your sample of handpicked games has a higher skill concentration than whole of arena, what's your point? Those games can both be part of arena or random pick ups. I would say in the former case the stakes are higher. There are also community cups and tournaments where the skill concentration is way higher than that of BGA arena. But BGA arena is what serves as a competitive benchmark. And you're conflating skill and competitiveness. But this is a just a digression to the topic. We're talking about MW being introduced to arena, so that we can have a MW arena season and all that comes with it. You can't use a sample of a few high ELO games to gauge how the game fares competitively, nor will random pick up games influence the evolution of meta in the community.

Just out of curiosity, would 2 concurrent arena seasons, one for MW and one regual be possible? The player base for this game would be big enough for two i think?

SirL wrote: ↑06 January 2025, 23:54 Just out of curiosity, would 2 concurrent arena seasons, one for MW and one regual be possible? The player base for this game would be big enough for two i think?

They'd have to be listed as separate games, I guess.

SirL wrote: ↑06 January 2025, 23:54 Just out of curiosity, would 2 concurrent arena seasons, one for MW and one regual be possible? The player base for this game would be big enough for two i think?

Anyway this is a really good suggestion I also thought about. To be honest: I'd fear to ruin my Elo when playing MW in a competitive modus so probably I would not do that.

I'm not a fan of locking arena to what a handful of people want soley because they played the game a lot. There needs to be a system where the communities voice can be heard.

KoalaFox wrote: ↑07 January 2025, 19:32 I'm not a fan of locking arena to what a handful of people want soley because they played the game a lot. There needs to be a system where the communities voice can be heard.

When you say "a handful of people" what you mean is "the majority of the most active Ark Nova players on the website".
The guru system is designed to let the community's voice be heard.
I think it would be very unreasonable for someone that plays 1 arena game every season to have the same voting weight as someone that plays 200 games every season.

sorryimlikethis wrote: ↑08 January 2025, 06:28 When you say "a handful of people" what you mean is "the majority of the most active Ark Nova players on the website".

What does "the majority of the most active Ark Nova players on the website" actually mean? Where do you draw the line between "the most active" and "not the most active", so that you can choose "the majority" of the former?

In fact, the gurus seem to be limited to 100 at any given time, but I believe they can change, perhaps every day or week or month, so the number of people *allowed* to vote should be 100 or more. The number of people who actually vote is probably less.

I think it would be very unreasonable for someone that plays 1 arena game every season to have the same voting weight as someone that plays 200 games every season.

Yet that's exactly what happens. Gurus are chosen based on total number of games, not just Arena. And that's fine, otherwise Arena will be even more forever-locked into whatever setting the current season has: those who like it will play more and therefore vote to keep it. I've been a guru of games where I haven't played a single Arena game, where I wasn't even allowed to play Arena (less than 100 elo, that's unreasonable).