Board Game Arena

Cappa wrote: ↑18 August 2026, 12:14 Not a big deal, just move on. If the player isnt cheating, harrasing or using insulting languages just move on.

Well in one of my games there is 1 player with 4 accounts (it's very obvious, he didn't even did much effort to hide it). Currently all 4 accounts are in top 4 Arena because he joins with 2 of this players in 3 player arena and 2vs1 the one joining. The accouns are reported now by at least 2 players but nothing happens, they are still on top since days. Lets see how long it takes until obvious mult accounting player treats some punishment. It's not really fun situation for the game. There should be an immidiate reaction otherwise poeple think there is nothing happening anyway and more join this evil club.

This raises the issue of what constitutes trolling or cheating exactly? If you see an opponent make a move that is obviously sub-optimal, is it necessarily a bad thing?

Players may decide to do sub-optimal moves for varieties of reasons, like maybe they have a personal goal of high scoring that they see they can reach in this particular game, so they go for that even though it may decrease their odds of winning the game. Maybe they are new to the game and they want to try out a card they are unfamiliar with even if they know there are better cards to pick. Maybe they are more experienced and there are more specific goals they want to achieve with those cards. Or maybe there is a certain way they want to build their game for aesthetic reasons, and sometimes they'll make moves they know are not the best in terms of winning odds because they care about the aesthetic value of their game too.

Of course, when we play a game we want the other person to give it their all and try to win, but there is also a certain level of freedom that players should have in playing the game in a way they personally enjoy. The problem becomes when players intentionally do bad things either to favor another player, or deliberately annoy another player. But if they have their own personal reasons for playing the way they do, I'm not gonna attack them and tell them "no, you shouldn't have done that, you should always make the exact move that gives you the best odds of winning".

We even see that in real sports. Maybe a football team starts scoring a lot of goals and they decide to take risks and try scoring even more goals, even though it may have been safer to start playing defense. Maybe a player will make a pass to another player because they would like to see them score a goal, even though they were in a better position to score themselves. Or maybe a player will attempt something risky because it looks cool and they want to show off their technical skills, even though that may put their team in a dangerous position. Of course, the manager and the fans will complain if bad results ensue from those choices, but we don't say it's unethical that players may decide to play in ways that are sub-optimal sometimes, it's part of the freedom that comes with playing a game.