TfM Arena: The issue is not the player count. It is the arena system.

[HappyMeaI]

Mars-U isn’t game breaking. In fact, it only thrives under certain conditions. A good player will deny you science if you play that card too early. You also need to pickup useless cards to exchange but an efficient player will generally want / need all of their cards unless ofc., ding ding ding they have AI!

[cranesflyhigh]

@HappyMeaI: I think you are hitting some parts on the head (mandatory draft and preludes), the others... less so. It is clear you have good understanding on some parts of the game, I am not sure you have it on all of it. There are indeed overpowered cards, but they are not nearly as binaric as you have depicted. Protected Habs e.g. is a good card, but far from gamebreaking, there needs to be more nuance when habs is actually effective. I would suggest ThreadPacifist's card tier list video as a guidance - I do not agree fully with all placements, and the placements do somewhat differ based on player count, but it is a very good introduction to understand the power level of the cards.

The rating discussion... I am fairly confidently beating most 300ish players. It is not just games played. 300ish players make mistakes in the game that I have learned not to make, and I can take advantage of. That said, elo is for sure not a perfect breakdown of the game. 2p elo for example is somewhat different than 3p elo, yet they share the same system. This discrepancy is shared across BGA tho: Agricola, a game I also play (and am way worse at), has similar discrepancies, where 2p players have the highest elos despite the game being mostly played at 4p.

@FrankJones I have no idea where the 4p is the balanced format comes from, but I would really appreciate an analytical breakdown of it. A link would be appreciated. From my experience and the experience I draw from others close to me: 3p seems to be the best format where both engine and terraforming strategies can thrive. I think a game where the most prominent strategies can thrive is the player count the game is best balanced around. From what I have seen, 2p can be an insane slippery slope, where actually punishing someone that got ahead is less feasible, while 4p seems like a terraforming fiesta, where most engines will lose. 3p seems a good middle ground. I might be missing something though, so I would honestly, really appreciate a good breakdown of it.

@primrose1234 While your affection towards another player is commendable in this environment I did call toxic for a reason, you really should evaluate this adoration for what it is. Some maturation might be necessary.

@bwalsh I feel like you are doing a Motte and Bailey. If it was just preference between player counts, we would have no quarrel. I would not have even opened a thread like this, as that was my whole point: I like 3p, some ppl like 2p, we can all be happy. Let's just not make a gaming platform master race quarrel out of it. The apparent hostilities show it is more than just disagreements between preferences. If you shed light where these discussion you allude to have taken place, I would appreciate a source. It is perfectly feasible I have missed these discussions. I would appreciate this being a place of learning, but that is part of the reason I call this the cult of 2p supremacy: people just assert things without anything backing them up. This dismissive condescension is part of the reason I started this thread.

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I have not even addressed a small elephant in the room and I'm gonna try to bring the conversation back to my starting point that arena is not the competitive place. Arena has turn-based and real-time as a shared system. Arena winners are emerging mostly as turn-based players who repeatedly beat down bronze league players, simply by game knowledge. This has happened before and it is happening currently. Arena is fun, still - it is not competitive.

[HappyMeaI]

This is correct. I wish there were separate systems for turn-based and real-time for obvious reasons.

I’ve never truly competed in the Arena race myself. Sometimes I’ll do daily arena matches, but I find that to be harder than just queing up dozens of turn-based games, which I don’t really have time for. So, to satiate my desire for a framed competition, I just play tournaments. Nothing is stopping you from employing the same strategy as the top Arena players and trying to out step them when its crunch time. I imagine the final week or 2 a lot of the top arena players are facing each other and not bronzies.

Maybe a good fix would be to implement a minimum elo to play Arena, or you have different leagues. So 1-200 / 2-400 / 400+ only. You can have a winner for each league. When you join a league your elo must meet the requirements. So if you were say 250 when you joined, you would be entered into the mid-tier league. You wouldn’t be able to join more than 1 league per season or maybe at a time.


Maybe just forcing the Arena format to be real-time only would fix this issue. Let turn-based be for elo only. Thoughts?

[RoyalRook]

I play turn based bc I don't have time for real timed. What are you guys talking about? The 3 champions so far each played differently, Corbz mixed, me turn based and Leo play real timed. Have you considered the fact that you can't stabilized your score after 1900 and that's your skill ceiling? If you can't hit 1960 you are not winning 3p arena, 2p is probably 2150. The whole point being an arena champion is to overcome every single player in the world.

I would looove to be able play real timed I will rocket 50 to 100 arena points everyday, competing mainly through turn based is a handicap if nothing else.

Regarding to the tier based, we already having that. You can restrict your table limits. There are no top ranked arena competitors want to play with none elite level players if they can help it. The main game page match making restricts Elo level, Play Now match making restricts Arena Levels.

[FrankJones]

Prelude IS mandatory. Without it I find myself snoozing off quite frequently. It does add a lot more variance, especially in HU. There are game breaking cards in this game, whether you like it or not (for the HU format). Those cards are Earth Cata, Protected Habitats, and AI. If either of those cards are played by the 5th gen in a HU game, it’s over, and there’s a very high likelihood these cards will be drawn between two players. Now maybe you’ve taken a game or two against players who are good and have pulled these cards early. Congratulations, you got lucky.

Not mentioning Mars-U, but calling AI game breaking tells me that RoyalRook will indeed win 9 out of 10 games against you.
Maybe 10 out of 10, I am not sure about that.

Also, did I see "protected habitats" listed as one of the 3 "game-breaking" cards in the game? Whaaaat !? Mars U and Olypus conference scare me a whole lot more than Protected habitats.

[FrankJones]

@FrankJones I have no idea where the 4p is the balanced format comes from, but I would really appreciate an analytical breakdown of it. A link would be appreciated. From my experience and the experience I draw from others close to me: 3p seems to be the best format where both engine and terraforming strategies can thrive. I think a game where the most prominent strategies can thrive is the player count the game is best balanced around. From what I have seen, 2p can be an insane slippery slope, where actually punishing someone that got ahead is less feasible, while 4p seems like a terraforming fiesta, where most engines will lose. 3p seems a good middle ground. I might be missing something though, so I would honestly, really appreciate a good breakdown of it.

I cannot provide any analysis or link to support 4p being the most balanced since I unequivocally disagree with this premise. I'm guessing someone else said this and you mistakenly attributed the quote to me? I prefer 2-player, and I find 4-player miserable. I agree that 3-player is probably the most balanced. But I don't mind some overpowered cards in 2-player, because I generally prefer games to be 1v1.

[ArchDevious]

Anyone 1/10 as good as royalrook imagines himself to be will go at least 45% winrate HU vs him

[RoyalRook]

* moderators have removed post for insults

[ArchDevious]

* moderators have removed post for insults

[RoyalRook]

Wow mind blowing