Board Game Arena

You are right. But then let's not pretend Arena is aimed to determine the most skilled player. Arena is then aimed to favor the mass of people, the people who favor fun rather than strategy. And it's still totally fine. Im having fun trying to win in 4P in the Arena although I don't like this configuration. But when the champion will be determined, he's gonna be the 4P champion, not the "7 Wonders champion". And this person cannot claim any other title than "Best player on 4P category" (which is already something, let's not spit on it).

I agree that the next 7Wonders Arena champion wil "only" be the "Best player on 4P category".

What could work out very well if the most popular games rotate in their most strategic versions over the year. Like:
Spring: 7Wonders 3P , Stone Age 2P
Summer: Tzolkin 2P , Clans of Caledonia 2P
Autumn: Puerto Rico 2P
Winter: Terra Mystica 2P , Carcasonne 2P strategic variant + many expansions

That way there is always some competetive strategic game to go for to players who like that and these players are encouraged to learn and master a new game. At the same time every game can be played in its most popular version (e.g. 4P in 7Wonders) during most of the year.

Yeah rotating like that is the second best solution, after the "all configurations arena all the time"

I still don't get why taking away players' choice is even theoretically a good thing. People have fun the way they want.

How can I play 3-player competitive 7 Wonders now?

CB Droege wrote: ↑14 January 2020, 08:39 I can see how if you only come to BGA to play 7 Wonders, it might make sense to you to have many ladders, but this site has a lot of games on it, and if each one had enough ladders to make everyone happy that THEIR preferences are taken into account, then there would be thousands of ladders, and they would become pretty meaningless. I think that the solution of changing up the configuration each season is pretty fair.

Also, if we always set the settings with what is "most strategic" by the standards many of you seem to be using, then every game would always be played with the least number of players the rules allow, which is silly.

I came here (and paid money) to play competitive 7 Wonders in correct (based on my experience) configuration. I appreciate the fact that there are many other games here, but I have no expert opinion, if they need multiple ladders, or if they even have the issue of less strategic configuration being selected for Arena.

Gunslinger99 wrote: ↑14 January 2020, 10:22 You are right. But then let's not pretend Arena is aimed to determine the most skilled player. Arena is then aimed to favor the mass of people, the people who favor fun rather than strategy. And it's still totally fine. Im having fun trying to win in 4P in the Arena although I don't like this configuration. But when the champion will be determined, he's gonna be the 4P champion, not the "7 Wonders champion". And this person cannot claim any other title than "Best player on 4P category" (which is already something, let's not spit on it).

Will playing in 3P determine the most skilled player?

6element wrote: ↑14 January 2020, 12:43 How can I play 3-player competitive 7 Wonders now?

The same way you did before Arena was instated ?

And this person cannot claim any other title than "Best player on 4P category" (which is already something, let's not spit on it).

That's not an issue, since the first in ELO cannot claim any other title than "Best player on 3P category" and that never seemed to bother any of you.

Will playing in 3P determine the most skilled player?

In my opinion, yes. But I admit you need also some skills to be champ at 4p. It's just that with the random and chaos, you would need way more games to determine the champion because of all the luck and bad luck that appear in 4p. When I hear that there is a real 4p 7Wonders competition in Germany, it just makes me laugh because the winner was just probably lucky enough to win, because they can't possibly execute enough games to balance the randomness. 3p is not like this. You still have some luck of course, but it's so much more controlled. The real problem with 4p is it is broken in a way that you can play the perfect game (like God would play it) and you can still lose, mainly because of the gray cards in age 2.
This broken thing is fixed in 5p!! Because the gray cards are doubled. So the 5p is much better suited for competition than 4p, which proves its not always by reducing players that you get the more competitive mode

That's not an issue, since the first in ELO cannot claim any other title than "Best player on 3P category" and that never seemed to bother any of you.

I'm not satisfied with the first place as I couldn't achieve it by playing enough against the top 10 players. Only the exact concept of this Arena in Elite League in 3P means something to me.

Gunslinger99 wrote: ↑14 January 2020, 13:44 The real problem with 4p is it is broken in a way that you can play the perfect game (like God would play it) and you can still lose, mainly because of the Grey cards in age 2.

Please don't call a game broken just because a god-like player is not guranteed to win. This is a feature of many demanding and very good games. The difference is that in 4P a god-like player will often lose just because of random card distribution (which is fine for me), in 3P you can also lose while playing optimally but then it's most often because your opponent played optimally, too. That way a win or defeat feels way more deserved in 3P than in 4P.

I would also argue that the 3P champ probably is the best 7Wonders player because he/she has shown the deepest understanding of the game. A 3P master will probably also easily master 4P with some effort but it's just not as demanding or difficult as 3P.

To give another example: The champion of "Carcasonne with all expansions" is technically not the "starndard Carcasonne" champion but you'd expect the champion "with expansions" to be nearly as good in "standard Carcasonne" as a technical "standard Carcasonne" champion because if you haven't mastered the base game you certainly not become champion in a more complex version. There are some elements in 3P 7W to master that are not present in 4P 7W but it's not so much the other way around.