Players sitting out in Arena to preserve ranking

[Earl Spool]

I don't understand why a combination of total time, plus no new starts for say a fortnight before the end, would not have solved this problem in a way which did not simply take the game away from us altogether!

Please find the answer earlier in the thread.

OK, fair enough, there is no good solution. But who does your solution benefit? I suggest - the small number of expert players who have a realistic chance of winning the season in a popular game, and who are fed up when a rival gets ahead by deploying these underhand tactics. (I assume no-one would cheat in order to move up from 23rd to 19th for example!) But I guess there are many many more players who don't expect to be the champion anyway, and who have now lost out completely.

I feel sorry for those whose lives are so empty that they feel the need to cheat to win here - but who needs protecting from them? Isn't second place good enough if the only person ahead of you is a cheat? In order to protect the interests of that honest person in second place, this change takes the game way from lots of us who aren't either cheats or victims.

And thanks for replying so quickly to all these posts!

[Ranior]

You can still play turn based games for any of these. Everyone who wants to compete in the real time arena mode can do so.

Turn based games ideally will have some new system implemented, but the arena system never really made much sense for them. If you're trying to create a proper competitive real time mode, the things arena does are fairly sensible.

If you're trying to make a good competitive turn based mode, much of the arena stuff makes no sense--the ordering of your results and stalling of games being the most obvious, but getting put into games just based on a queue is very questionable. You can instead have players say they want to compete and assign them to games and as they move up have them play others players in their skill bracket, etc. By the end of the tournament you could force the top players to actually face each other and have a real good competition. The arena system never made much sense for turn based games as is.

Beyond all that, I still think it was questionable to ever have turn based and real time players facing off in the same ladder anyhow, given the player pools are almost entirely separate for many games, which makes comparing the ratings between those groups of players somewhat questionable.

I do feel for those players that enjoyed the competitive option arena offered and like to play turn based games. I really do hope BGA can work on developing a tournament like system to help satisfy those players. But I am strongly supportive of BGA's decision to remove turn based as an option for arena competitions due to the issues that have started to become clear, and in light of there being no good alternative solution to work around those issues.

[paramesis]

Sourisdudesert, can you please comment on why you think my solution above of forcing moves in older games first won't work (or can't be implemented)? I know at least one other gaming website that has implemented a similar measure to combat the issues raised here.

I can say as someone who regularly tests Alpha and Beta games that this would be a terrible policy for general turn-based games. If a game has a blocking bug that makes it impossible to make any move (Troyes for example), I could end up going overtime on other tables where it’s my turn (or lose rep by quitting a game rather than waiting for everyone to agree to abandon).

I don't believe there is an Arena mode for Alpha and Beta games. There shouldn't be a blocking bug in released games, and if there is, then it is a bigger problem than just in Arena mode.

There isn’t, but Troyes is an example of a stable game with a blocking bug (It’s one of the highest upvoted on BGA... I’m not the Dev, but I can try to take it on when I get time).

In any case, the longest waiting table is not always the one with the shortest clock, and not every game is as mobile-friendly as we’d like. If I’m taking a break at work to check turn based tables, I might want to skip Madeira or Keyflower, for example as it is quite easy to misclick and ruin a long game, and I would hate to time out of a quick mobile-friendly game of Can’t Stop because of that.

[N_Faker]

If only the final arena rank is of issue. I suggest a 'displayed' and an 'actual' arena score.

All arena games, both real-time and turn-based, can be ordered in a chronological order by the time it started. The 'actual' arena rank can therefore be calculated with every single match-up from season start to season end. The matchmaking can still use the current 'displayed' arena scores.

Any turn-based games that haven't ended by the end of the season would have to be forcibly concluded.

[Incentive]

I can say as someone who regularly tests Alpha and Beta games that this would be a terrible policy for general turn-based games. If a game has a blocking bug that makes it impossible to make any move (Troyes for example), I could end up going overtime on other tables where it’s my turn (or lose rep by quitting a game rather than waiting for everyone to agree to abandon).

I don't believe there is an Arena mode for Alpha and Beta games. There shouldn't be a blocking bug in released games, and if there is, then it is a bigger problem than just in Arena mode.

There isn’t, but Troyes is an example of a stable game with a blocking bug (It’s one of the highest upvoted on BGA... I’m not the Dev, but I can try to take it on when I get time).

In any case, the longest waiting table is not always the one with the shortest clock, and not every game is as mobile-friendly as we’d like. If I’m taking a break at work to check turn based tables, I might want to skip Madeira or Keyflower, for example as it is quite easy to misclick and ruin a long game, and I would hate to time out of a quick mobile-friendly game of Can’t Stop because of that.

I agree that my proposal may make things slightly more cumbersome in some cases but it certainly beats not having a turn-based Arena at all.

[RicardoRix]

You still have this problem with standard ELO rank boost too. So some measure needs to be looked into...

For a turn-based tournament Arena, how about 2 phases;

1. Qulaifier Round: Giant Swiss tournament, to qualify for the final brackets.

Each final bracket maybe made of 5 players or something similar.

2. Finals, which is Round Robin.

I think something like this was proposed (in more detail) in the original giant let's get Arena suggestions thread,

The BGA Olympiad was organised like this and went down very well.
https://boardgamearena.com/group?id=2442708

[Loranger]

I regret that turn based mode has stopped on arena... Painful both for long-term games (such as Russian Railroads, only fair players I would say...), and rarely played ones (GoRami fir example).

I haven't seen the explanation of the issue with turned based games in arena : maybe hidden somewhere in the forum...

In any case, thanks for all what you do!
And please, bring back the turn based arena mode

[Laurent B]

I have a suggestion for solving one of the issues, why not applying the EAS / ELO points won or lost by chronological order?
If you take into account the starting date of a game, you can implement a system that waits until your previous games are finished before updating your EAS / ELO points. This way, you can launch several games but you cannot "cheat" by delaying games, the points will be updated according to the chronological order of the games and not according to the order of your choosing. This method will give the same results as in real-time mode except that you have more freedom to play during the day at a time that suits you, instead of trying to find 15 min, 30 min or more just to play a game.

Another suggestion, a topic already raised by sprockitz and others, a change in the EAS / ELO points calculation system would be nice as well. When the difference in ELO / EAS points between the players is too high (for example when you reach expert level / 500 elo points, or top 5 in the arena), each loss takes you around -17 ELO points and -32 EAS points (on 1vs1 games, it even worst on games vs3, 4 or more players). Most of the times it takes you between 4 to 10 wins to recover from 1 loss (depending on the level of your opponents). In that context, it doesn't really encourage top players to launch a lot of games. Reducing this gap would be appreciated. Why not using a fixed value for each win and for each loss in the Arena ? For example a system such as 3 points when you win, 4 points when you loose a game, and a extra 2 bonus points when you win 5 games in a row, this kind of things can encourage everyone, including top players to continue playing all the time.

[Incentive]

I have a suggestion for solving one of the issues, why not applying the EAS / ELO points won or lost by chronological order?
If you take into account the starting date of a game, you can implement a system that waits until your previous games are finished before updating your EAS / ELO points. This way, you can launch several games but you cannot "cheat" by delaying games, the points will be updated according to the chronological order of the games and not according to the order of your choosing. This method will give the same results as in real-time mode except that you have more freedom to play during the day at a time that suits you, instead of trying to find 15 min, 30 min or more just to play a game.

I like this idea, but I suspect it may be difficult to implement.

There are some bad apples who will always try to game the system/cheat - this is true for both turn-based and real-time Arena (yes, there is cheating in real-time Arena, too). It is unfortunate that turn-based Arena has shut down because of these players; I agree with Loranger that this decision will make playing longer games and rarely played games in Arena painful.

[whatshisbucket]

Another suggestion, a topic already raised by sprockitz and others, a change in the EAS / ELO points calculation system would be nice as well. When the difference in ELO / EAS points between the players is too high (for example when you reach expert level / 500 elo points, or top 5 in the arena), each loss takes you around -17 ELO points and -32 EAS points (on 1vs1 games, it even worst on games vs3, 4 or more players). Most of the times it takes you between 4 to 10 wins to recover from 1 loss (depending on the level of your opponents). In that context, it doesn't really encourage top players to launch a lot of games. Reducing this gap would be appreciated. Why not using a fixed value for each win and for each loss in the Arena ? For example a system such as 3 points when you win, 4 points when you loose a game, and a extra 2 bonus points when you win 5 games in a row, this kind of things can encourage everyone, including top players to continue playing all the time.

Changing the system to something less exploitable would be nice, but this is an awful way to do so, as the winner becomes whichever reasonably competent player plays the most games during the season (strangely, this is already the case in some high-skill games with smaller playerbases, although this is not a fault of the system). The reason you lose more rating for a loss if you are higher rated is that Elo rating is intended to be a reflection of skill. More skilled players should certainly win more than half of their games. Players who stop playing only out of fear of losing their rating are foolish; it is important to think about whether your current rating over or underestimates your true ability, not just how it compares to the rating of your opponents.