Board Game Arena

Liallan wrote:I'm not sure if I'm understanding what this means.

If I understood him right, sourisdudesert sugest to create Sit'N'Go tables like in poker client. The table created automatically and when the necessary number of players joined the table it starts automatically too. So there is no table administrator. Every time there is a table which you can join. When a table starts new table is created automatically. It's good idea for games with a large amount of players wanted to play. But I don't know how the system will work with different player levels and different skills.

not a fan of a sit n go setup for board games.

i'm willing to play 6 nimmt .. but only the variant tactics pro with 5 or 6 players. capturing that kind of selectivity in a SNG format would result in a huge number of tables, most of which would remain unfilled.

a filter format with checkboxes would be much more workable.

that still leaves the issue of how to get more players to initiate tables in real.time (don't think this is a huge issue for turn.based) .. but not sure how to incentivize that, that wouldn't be open to abuse (people starting tables just for the incentive without ever planning on playing out the game).

senatorhung wrote:

Shaq Jenkins wrote:

senatorhung wrote: uh .. that is incorrect. BGA members can see everyone's ELO. when you let your membership lapse, you don't see anyone's ELO, but other BGA members can always see yours.

as for the original topic, this would be another reason to have separate lists of games you 'want to play' between real-time and turn-based. that way, you only receive suggestions for real-time games that you are willing to play real-time.

When you're a BGA member, you're on top of the suggestions list because your ELO is visible to everyone, and you get suggestion notifications more often because you're at the top of list.

no, you get suggestion notifications more often, not because you are a BGA member, but because you have a high ELO (and thus appear at the top of the suggestions list which is sorted by ELO, highest to lowest) olly's comment about not renewing a BGA membership does NOT cut down on suggestions .. the ELO values are just hidden from view for non.members. those with a high ELO in a game will still tend to get more suggestions, especially from non.BGA members who can not distinguish the actual ELO values and who might assume that the list is in random order when it is not. those who can see the ELO values tend to be more judicious as to selecting who to suggest into their games.

BGA members' ELO is listed BEFORE non-members, even if their ELO is low. If a non-member sets their table to average level and below, they're GOING TO INVITE BGA MEMBERS WHOSE ELO FITS THAT REQUIREMENT because they can see what their ELO is; hence, members get more invites than non-members because of the visible ELO.

I would post a screenshot but I don't feel like going through that much effort to prove that I'm right. The list looks like this for non-members:

Player 1: 1987
Player 2: 1900
Player 3: 1871
Player 4: 1602
Player 5: 1534
Player 6: 1345
Player 7: (ELO hidden)
Player 8: (ELO hidden)
Player 9: (ELO hidden)
Player 10: (ELO hidden)
and so on...

If you're a non-BGA member, who are you going to invite first? People at the top of the list; hence, members, whose ELO is at the top of the list, get more invites.

A large portion of people on this site are not BGA members; therefore, they cannot see everyone's ELO. When starting a table, they can see the ELO of BGA members because, like I said in my original post, BGA members are at the top of the suggestions list. A non-BGA member, regardless of how high his or her ELO is, is not going to get as many suggestions as a BGA member due to their name appearing much lower on the list.

senatorhung wrote:not a fan of a sit n go setup for board games.

As any idea, the result depends on how it will be realized. I think that there is a statistic what games with which options and when are actually played. So this statistic can be used to understand what tables and when should be created.
I think for beginners it's psychologically hard to start new tables and easier to join another table. Maybe Sit'N'Go tables help them to start playing and learn BGA. (Or maybe not. If there are only beginners at the table, who will explain rules and game mechanics to them?)

I do not understand the resistance the admins seem to have to filters and sorting on this site. The lobby seems so simple to mostly fix and this has been suggested 100 times. '"Automatic" or "Sit n' Go" tables seem pretty silly to me when you are dealing with so many games that have so many setup options.

In the "games that you play" section, get rid of the ugly pictures of game boxes at the top and replace them with a 'show/hide' checkbox for tables of that game. Below this section add a check box to show/hide tables that you cannot join due to settings or fullness, one to show/hide tables of games that you do not play, and a drop down menu to sort open tables by either game being played, or by time created (as it is sorted now). Ideally, make the site remember a player's settings between visits. Done.

Yes, maybe if this place gets 10 times more popular you would have to re-evaluate, but this would solve 95% of the problem right now and is stupidly easy to do.

While you're at it, whenever you are populating a list of games on a page or in a selection box, put them in alphabetical order. When you choose the next turn-based game for someone to make a move in, pick the one in which they have the least time. I am boggled as to how these obvious things were overlooked in development - in general, introduce more sense/order and less randomness/confusion.

veme wrote:Yes, maybe if this place gets 10 times more popular you would have to re-evaluate, but this would solve 95% of the problem right now and is stupidly easy to do.

The "stupidly easy to do" just took me approximately 12 hours of work, so please remains polite ...

Now, I suppose 95% of the problem is solved

I meant compared to that other stuff you were suggesting, like an automatic table system. I know the tediousness of coding well - thank you for your hard work!