Board Game Arena

This has been a long hard fight for years over whether it should be 2 or 3 (or some think 4) players in the arena count. It is very clear that 2p is a much more competitive and less luck based scenery and that is proven by the top elos of previous seasons. They typically do not exceed 1700 while 2p players have reached over 2000 (not at the end of season but I know it is true because I did it myself in season 12). The problem with the thinking that 3p is funner is that arena is not made to be a fun version, but a more competitive one. Yes, the elo system of all games on BGA already makes it a competitive site in general, and all player counts can be played there, but to say a more luck based version of the game should be the arena format just never has and never will make sense to me.

Just another point to add to the luck based argument: The previous winners usually don't even follow up in the top 10 the next season. As someone who has competed in season 23 (the current) as well as seasons 21, 19, 17, 16, and 12, and also seeing the results from seasons in between and before, the winners of 7, 8, 9, 13, and 14 never appeared in the top ten the following season (there are a couple more seasons but the follow up settings were 2p so I did not count those). Where as I have proven it is possible to consistently win in this game (winning all but season 19 (in seasons I competed) where I came 2nd). This is just to say that the consistency makes it a more skill based game, and it should be here to stay.

Agreed. Three play just incentives whoever is in first to not play the game anymore because it’s too high risk of losing massive amounts of elo due to RNG.

If "I can't consistently win anymore, so I'm salty about my ELO and want the other mode" is the best current argument and there's no real evidence other than "the ladder rankers don't stay the same across seasons" this is going to stay a long arduous fight and my votes aren't changing.

When you compare how high elo gets between players who play 2p and players who play 3p, it's not a fair comparison. There is a significant elo penalty for playing 3p.

If you are on a winning streak in 2p games, you receive 100% of the elo allocated each game by the bga formula.
If you are on a winning streak in 3p games, you receive 75% of the elo allocated each game by the bga formula.

This is multiplied as you play multiple games.

It's like a basketball game, where one team (2p gamers) gets 5 points per basket, and the other team (3p gamers) gets 2 points per basket, and then bragging, "we always outscore them". And that's about the correct ratio, if you are considering the leading players of both groups.

Yep, and thanks to the salty grinders ruining the game we've had 90 days of this ridiculous format again where games are decided on coin tosses. Hopefully we go back to 3 players next season and it staying that way.

These games are not decided on coin flips. With two player it is going to be won by the more skilled player 9/10 times. 3p is truly flipping a coin. It’s completely random and hardly anyone plays when it is the chosen arena format. We’ve already seen way more activity this season now that the player count was adjusted to two. It would be best to leave the arena format unchanged.

These "salty grinders" seem to have legit reasons for the preference of two player go nuts for donuts games.
If you see a past post of mine, I also previously did not like the two player go nuts for donuts arena games.