Page 2 of 7
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 09 April 2026, 22:50
by Ceaseless
RazorOz wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 21:47
It's defo not right then, there are players in Heat gurus who have played less than 20 non-friendly games, but are in gurus on the back of the several 100 solo games they've played.
Seems like a question for BGA staff as to what exactly even happened.
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 09 April 2026, 23:02
by tbhp
Top players can be biased too. They may vote for the format where they think they have the best chances of winning. Players who aren't competing for the top spots may vote more from a "fun" perspective, which is a valuable insight too.
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 09 April 2026, 23:08
by RazorOz
Ceaseless wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 22:50
RazorOz wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 21:47
It's defo not right then, there are players in Heat gurus who have played less than 20 non-friendly games, but are in gurus on the back of the several 100 solo games they've played.
Seems like a question for BGA staff as to what exactly even happened.
Do we have any evidence it ever worked this way? I suspect it's an oversight, and the FAQ has never aligned with how it worked. It's quite a big flaw, because for example at Heat I would estimate like 30% of gurus is people who nearly entirely play solo.
To be honest I've always found who gurus works very strange. I know people who seem to go in and out of gurus who play a lot, while there's others again for Heat who have played less than 100 games ever. It makes no sense to me how they can have ever qualified under the "top 100 in games played in the last 30 days" for a game as popular as Heat. The end result though is I'm not sure gurus is really achieving what it's designed for when you've got players who've played less than 100 games in, while regular players with 2000 games not in.
Anyway, I put up my first suggestion for gurus to remove friendly games from counting:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=214627
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 10 April 2026, 00:37
by Ceaseless
RazorOz wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 23:08
Ceaseless wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 22:50
RazorOz wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 21:47
It's defo not right then, there are players in Heat gurus who have played less than 20 non-friendly games, but are in gurus on the back of the several 100 solo games they've played.
Seems like a question for BGA staff as to what exactly even happened.
Do we have any evidence it ever worked this way? I suspect it's an oversight, and the FAQ has never aligned with how it worked. It's quite a big flaw, because for example at Heat I would estimate like 30% of gurus is people who nearly entirely play solo.
To be honest I've always found who gurus works very strange. I know people who seem to go in and out of gurus who play a lot, while there's others again for Heat who have played less than 100 games ever. It makes no sense to me how they can have ever qualified under the "top 100 in games played in the last 30 days" for a game as popular as Heat. The end result though is I'm not sure gurus is really achieving what it's designed for when you've got players who've played less than 100 games in, while regular players with 2000 games not in.
Anyway, I put up my first suggestion for gurus to remove friendly games from counting:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=214627
A pinned FAQ saying "this is how it works" is evidence it worked that way. Actually, it's even evidence that it still does, though if you can pull up evidence of who the gurus are and show they have fewer games than people that aren't for a given timeframe, then that would be stronger evidence to the contrary. Trying to pull up who the gurus were for every past season and make that comparison in the hopes of showing that the FAQ was always wrong seems too much though. The fact is right now no one has provided evidence that the FAQ has always been wrong. (No one has even provided evidence it's currently wrong, I'm just assuming the people claiming it's been like this are correct and haven't missed something). While we're probably in a decent enough position to get the current position confirmed one way or the other, we're not in a good spot to try and look into the far past. This is a question for BGA staff, or whoever has those sorts of details.
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 10 April 2026, 00:48
by ChiefPointThief
Ceaseless wrote: ↑10 April 2026, 00:37
RazorOz wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 23:08
Ceaseless wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 22:50
Seems like a question for BGA staff as to what exactly even happened.
Do we have any evidence it ever worked this way? I suspect it's an oversight, and the FAQ has never aligned with how it worked. It's quite a big flaw, because for example at Heat I would estimate like 30% of gurus is people who nearly entirely play solo.
To be honest I've always found who gurus works very strange. I know people who seem to go in and out of gurus who play a lot, while there's others again for Heat who have played less than 100 games ever. It makes no sense to me how they can have ever qualified under the "top 100 in games played in the last 30 days" for a game as popular as Heat. The end result though is I'm not sure gurus is really achieving what it's designed for when you've got players who've played less than 100 games in, while regular players with 2000 games not in.
Anyway, I put up my first suggestion for gurus to remove friendly games from counting:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=214627
A pinned FAQ saying "this is how it works" is evidence it worked that way. Actually, it's even evidence that it still does, though if you can pull up evidence of who the gurus are and show they have fewer games than people that aren't for a given timeframe, then that would be stronger evidence to the contrary. Trying to pull up who the gurus were for every past season and make that comparison in the hopes of showing that the FAQ was always wrong seems too much though. The fact is right now no one has provided evidence that the FAQ has always been wrong. (No one has even provided evidence it's currently wrong, I'm just assuming the people claiming it's been like this are correct and haven't missed something). While we're probably in a decent enough position to get the current position confirmed one way or the other, we're not in a good spot to try and look into the far past. This is a question for BGA staff, or whoever has those sorts of details.
The faq is certainly wrong because it says be in the top 100 of players and there are tons of games with less than 100 gurus but more active players than gurus
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 10 April 2026, 01:05
by Exotic Dreams
My suggestions for the guru system would be to change the numbers of gurus depending on how popular a game is and possibly only draw from the pool of players that play arena games. At the very least from the pool of players who have enough ELO to qualify.
Why let players vote on arena games that they are not even playing?. For less popular games right now, someone who does not even have enough ELO to play arena games in the first place might be chosen as a guru.
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 10 April 2026, 02:18
by Suoivax
Exotic Dreams wrote: ↑10 April 2026, 01:05
My suggestions for the guru system would be to change the numbers of gurus depending on how popular a game is and possibly only draw from the pool of players that play arena games. At the very least from the pool of players who have enough ELO to qualify.
Why let players vote on arena games that they are not even playing?. For less popular games right now, someone who does not even have enough ELO to play arena games in the first place might be chosen as a guru.
the problem with only pulling from arena players is, and I'll use Ticket to Ride as an example, lets say TTR is currently 2 player in arena, so everyone who enjoys 2 player TTR plays a LOT of arena. Those end up being your guru's and they will vote for 2 player because that's what they like, which is the reason they played a lot, ect. ect.
It never changes.
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 10 April 2026, 03:03
by FrankJones
Last arena season, I played 42 games of "Earth".
That cannot possibly be among the top 100 in terms of games played. Not for a game that averages 32 thousand games in a 3-month span, I wouldn't think?
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 10 April 2026, 03:30
by Ceaseless
ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑10 April 2026, 00:48
Ceaseless wrote: ↑10 April 2026, 00:37
RazorOz wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 23:08
Do we have any evidence it ever worked this way? I suspect it's an oversight, and the FAQ has never aligned with how it worked. It's quite a big flaw, because for example at Heat I would estimate like 30% of gurus is people who nearly entirely play solo.
To be honest I've always found who gurus works very strange. I know people who seem to go in and out of gurus who play a lot, while there's others again for Heat who have played less than 100 games ever. It makes no sense to me how they can have ever qualified under the "top 100 in games played in the last 30 days" for a game as popular as Heat. The end result though is I'm not sure gurus is really achieving what it's designed for when you've got players who've played less than 100 games in, while regular players with 2000 games not in.
Anyway, I put up my first suggestion for gurus to remove friendly games from counting:
https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=214627
A pinned FAQ saying "this is how it works" is evidence it worked that way. Actually, it's even evidence that it still does, though if you can pull up evidence of who the gurus are and show they have fewer games than people that aren't for a given timeframe, then that would be stronger evidence to the contrary. Trying to pull up who the gurus were for every past season and make that comparison in the hopes of showing that the FAQ was always wrong seems too much though. The fact is right now no one has provided evidence that the FAQ has always been wrong. (No one has even provided evidence it's currently wrong, I'm just assuming the people claiming it's been like this are correct and haven't missed something). While we're probably in a decent enough position to get the current position confirmed one way or the other, we're not in a good spot to try and look into the far past. This is a question for BGA staff, or whoever has those sorts of details.
The faq is certainly wrong because it says be in the top 100 of players and there are tons of games with less than 100 gurus but more active players than gurus
Not necessarily. I quoted the part about being active in ranked tables when responding to the post about solo/friendly games because that was the important part with respect to that issue. But that wasn't the full list.
How are the Game Guru chosen?
Gurus are promoted and demoted continuously. They must satisfy these conditions:
Be an experienced Board Game Arena user with at least 1 year of seniority on the platform.
Have a stellar reputation, corresponding to a Karma level of at least 90.
Play a lot! Be among the 100 most active players of ranked tables for the game in the last thirty days.
The Guru Groups are displayed on the Community page of the platform if relevant.
As an aside that has me curious. Do they take the 100 most active players to fit the other requirements, or do they take the top 100 active player list then remove the players that didn't qualify, and only the remainder are gurus?
Re: Ideas to improve the Guru system
Posted: 10 April 2026, 03:42
by Ceaseless
Exotic Dreams wrote: ↑10 April 2026, 01:05
My suggestions for the guru system would be to change the numbers of gurus depending on how popular a game is and possibly only draw from the pool of players that play arena games.
That invalidates the votes of players who just don't like the current Arena format, which is counterproductive for a vote on what it should be.