Board Game Arena

Slartibartfst wrote: ↑18 January 2023, 02:23 Guess we will never see change on this. People who take Arena seriously like to stay in their comfort zone I guess, and the community is going to go with leaders opinions like nerdcubes and raniors, so doubt it will ever change. Just seems a waste to me.

Just throwing the following out here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 194#p69194

nerdcube wrote: ↑24 January 2023, 21:07 The reasons for not including F&I factions (they are very unappealing to many) or Fan Factions (they are literally an unreleased/Beta expansion) are not because the competitive scene is unwilling to change/compromise.

You've already stated your reasons for why fan factions shouldn't be allowed in arena and it had nothing to do with them being an "unreleased/Beta expansion".

Ranior wrote: ↑12 January 2023, 16:20 The top 1% of Terra Mystica players by games count for the past like 30 days or something are gurus and get to vote for arena settings. This is the same for all games on the site.

In this case I actually agree with them that Fan Factions shouldn't be in arena settings yet--as long as they are still getting tweaked and not in their final format, I don't think they should enter arena. Primarily because turn based arena games are a thing, and when updates get pushed out to fan factions, they tend to immediately apply to all games, including ones in progress. That change can be really jarring and not particularly fair. (Honestly I'm surprised fan factions are even allowed in rated games at all at the moment)

I disagree with the gurus heavily on random map and constant landscape seasons though, so alas.

A valid concern but this is a temporary problem. The fan factions are pretty much in their final form at this point. Even when they reach 100% completion there are still players who don't want more factions to be added and will be against their inclusion into arena. Unfortunately those players have the majority vote as of now. It appears fan factions will go down the same road as F&I factions. I could see players still advocating for them by arena season 25. I don't know if it is possible but because this game has so many settings it would be nice if there could just be a separate arena with fan factions.

So Dragonlords were designed when everybody just picked really good factions and you had to have the guts to take them even though they aren't the strongest. And the other 3 factions were more robust and wouldn't usually get completly roflstomped.
But now you get VPs from the auction for taking Dragonlords, and 1-3 flimsier factions will get roflstomped at the discretion of the Dragonlords player. It s very very very unfair to the highest rated player at the table.
So they really should never be put in arena.
(Don't worry about the FF though. I bet they're in every single arena season once they get in once)

SuchAFlirt wrote: ↑03 February 2023, 07:11 So Dragonlords were designed when everybody just picked really good factions and you had to have the guts to take them even though they aren't the strongest. And the other 3 factions were more robust and wouldn't usually get completly roflstomped.
But now you get VPs from the auction for taking Dragonlords, and 1-3 flimsier factions will get roflstomped at the discretion of the Dragonlords player. It s very very very unfair to the highest rated player at the table.
So they really should never be put in arena.

Not sure what you're talking about? Auctions for factions was part of the Fire & Ice expansion, just like the Dragonlords were.

deragned wrote: ↑22 January 2023, 14:07 But since Arena is the default, I would find it better if it were less complex and more consistent. It's a place of greatly mixed skill levels - masters of the game as well as people with less than 200 Elo all play Arena. I play a ton of Terra Mystica and find that I enjoy experiences with different factions on occasion, but my "default" game is more consistent. The Extra Scoring and Random Maps combination is already overwhelming; I want to know what map I'm getting in Arena even if it's one I'm not a big fan of; the knowledge I gain about the meta from one Revised Base game might not be relevant again until 10 Arena games later, and even then my knowledge in Cluster scoring might not be relevant since the new game has Edge or whatever. The amount of volume required for experience to translate just increases exponentially.

I feel the same way.
Constant changes in Arena is why I stopped playing TM on BGA in the first place. I agree that Arena should be the default setting of a game, otherwise it becomes so overwhelming for "casual" arena players.
For me, the never ending change between maps and settings every season was already too much.
So now adding fan factions? So quite literally something that is (by definition) not even part of the real game? I mean come on...

Alloran I forgot about F&I auction!

Anadh wrote: ↑03 February 2023, 20:33

deragned wrote: ↑22 January 2023, 14:07 But since Arena is the default, I would find it better if it were less complex and more consistent. It's a place of greatly mixed skill levels - masters of the game as well as people with less than 200 Elo all play Arena. I play a ton of Terra Mystica and find that I enjoy experiences with different factions on occasion, but my "default" game is more consistent. The Extra Scoring and Random Maps combination is already overwhelming; I want to know what map I'm getting in Arena even if it's one I'm not a big fan of; the knowledge I gain about the meta from one Revised Base game might not be relevant again until 10 Arena games later, and even then my knowledge in Cluster scoring might not be relevant since the new game has Edge or whatever. The amount of volume required for experience to translate just increases exponentially.

I feel the same way.
Constant changes in Arena is why I stopped playing TM on BGA in the first place. I agree that Arena should be the default setting of a game, otherwise it becomes so overwhelming for "casual" arena players.
For me, the never ending change between maps and settings every season was already too much.
So now adding fan factions? So quite literally something that is (by definition) not even part of the real game? I mean come on...

I don't understand this hatred that some have towards changes, the more varied the game, the less monotonous it is, right? And even less do I understand the hatred towards the Fan Factions: they are having a test with thousands of games that the historical factions at the time of their publication, inevitably, could not have, so once they finish filing them (but perhaps already now with the updates they have had) they will be much more balanced than the 'old' factions which in fact had to resort to Special Weighings to rebalance. Playing with the Fakirs or with the Darklings is certainly not the same thing...

filgalaxy999 wrote: ↑05 February 2023, 15:11

Anadh wrote: ↑03 February 2023, 20:33

deragned wrote: ↑22 January 2023, 14:07 But since Arena is the default, I would find it better if it were less complex and more consistent. It's a place of greatly mixed skill levels - masters of the game as well as people with less than 200 Elo all play Arena. I play a ton of Terra Mystica and find that I enjoy experiences with different factions on occasion, but my "default" game is more consistent. The Extra Scoring and Random Maps combination is already overwhelming; I want to know what map I'm getting in Arena even if it's one I'm not a big fan of; the knowledge I gain about the meta from one Revised Base game might not be relevant again until 10 Arena games later, and even then my knowledge in Cluster scoring might not be relevant since the new game has Edge or whatever. The amount of volume required for experience to translate just increases exponentially.

I feel the same way.
Constant changes in Arena is why I stopped playing TM on BGA in the first place. I agree that Arena should be the default setting of a game, otherwise it becomes so overwhelming for "casual" arena players.
For me, the never ending change between maps and settings every season was already too much.
So now adding fan factions? So quite literally something that is (by definition) not even part of the real game? I mean come on...

I don't understand this hatred that some have towards changes, the more varied the game, the less monotonous it is, right? And even less do I understand the hatred towards the Fan Factions: they are having a test with thousands of games that the historical factions at the time of their publication, inevitably, could not have, so once they finish filing them (but perhaps already now with the updates they have had) they will be much more balanced than the 'old' factions which in fact had to resort to Special Weighings to rebalance. Playing with the Fakirs or with the Darklings is certainly not the same thing...

But arena is a competitive setting, and at some part there is something as too much change and variety that will hurt the quality and ability to learn and master the game. Extreme example: do you think a chess world championship would be so hotly contested and well-regarded if every time they make some changes. They start off with just classical chess, then after a while they introduce a queen that can move as a knight in addition to all moves, next year we play a no-castling world championship, the year after we actually play chess960 to add variety. Oh let's play on a 7x7 board and remove the queens, ......

While I wouldn't want the game settings for Terra Mystica arena to be the same every season, I also do want there to be some consistency that (1) allows newer players to the competitive scene to join without feeling too overwhelmed and (2) allow for the experienced player to master the game settings during the 3 months of the given arena season and compete. Currently you are already being offered 5 different maps as well as 3 (?) different fire & ice scoring tiles.

I do agree that Fan Factions (once in final form) could be a great addition, and I believe they are considered (maybe are truly or will be) an official designer approved expansion, just like some of the other settings included. I would prefer though to introduce them during a season where maybe some of the other modular settings (F&I scoring, random maps) would be turned off for that season.

Note that the balance argument you bring up is resolved by playing auction, which makes most factions viable (I think you'll be hard pressed to find any game where the best factions are >40 points apart. My main reason to not include Fan Factions (yet) is that I don't think we have official confirmation they're in their final form and won't undergo any further changes. Because if any changes are made to the factions / faction abilities this does affect any in-progress turn-based games, and that would be unacceptable in a competitive setting. I don't think we have that confirmation yet, and so I do think that this current season would've been a bit too early to add them.

I know this has been dead for a week or so now and I'm a little late on the scene. However, having a healthy dose of narcism I naturally can't help putting in my two cents.

In the same way that you may choose to play a huge variation of chess games whenever you like, when you go to a tournament, the competition is to see who's the best at the very core of the game. I daresay any grandmaster in chess would quite easily lose to a novice who's only learned to play with the rules in which pawns can jump, or whatever.

New players join the game all the time- they're not allowed to play in the Arena. They learn to play the game based on what is available to them at the time. That is where they spend their time. Because they haven't learnt to master the game with the arena settings, when they eventually are allowed in and go try playing in the arena, they lose hopelessly (unless I'm an exception lol). If the arena was to suddenly include a bunch of different factions, then you're going to have a whole generation of players entering the arena and winning games when they wouldn't otherwise. This would give an unbalanced view of the players actual skill levels of the core game of Terra Mystica, in the same way that a novice chess player beating a grandmaster in a variant of chess would give.

The current system in which the Arena is very gradually adding new features, allowing the guru's to gradually adapt and master a new element, is in my opinion, a great compromise. Will there ever be a time when F&I factions have a place in the Arena? Possibly...but it would probably work best if there was an option between which Arena you play in - one where you can play with and one where you can play without. The person who can win in both Arena's...

That person needs to spend more time outside

You misunderstand the nature of specialization in both games, chess and TM! 96%+ of your core skill instantly tranalates 1:1 to new variants. Wesley So has a classical rating of like 2700, so he can jump over the 2775's at 960. But if you gave me (1500) 7 years to prepare a novel "pawns can jump" chess variant against So, he would sit down and beat me just as easily as any other chess variant (very easily)
Most TM decisions come down to weighing one pile of stuff vs another, and the types of considerations are the same whether you're playing dwarves or conspirators. You can't really even get good at a single faction like you can get good at a single chess opening. Like play one game with each fan faction and your arena ability should be about the same whether FF are on/off