Board Game Arena

There are obviously a lot of frustrated users venting here but I'd like to say that overall, I think this is a positive change.

Things I like:

- Separating out Tournament and Arena games. (I am a little confused by those who are bothered by the Arena and Tournament sections, given they are below the Casual ones and so easily ignored, I'd have thought?)

- Jump links to the different games sections

- The tiled layout. I can see far more of them in a smaller space on desktop, when they are four across

- The grey background of the tiles is gentle on the eyes. I think the colour contrast is reasonable (but could be tweaked to be more accessible).

- It generally has a less utilitarian look and feel. People who are accustomed to the existing style obviously don't think about it but it's very dated, and I know gamers who are put off by it.

- The ability to toggle sort and sizing

Things I think could use some work:

- I do agree that the individual tiles are very busy, especially on small screens.

- The way the usernames are cut off is not very helpful and there is a lot of visual real estate given over to the iconography on the right hand side, without much benefit.

- I find the varying width of the tiles when the number of games is not divisible by 4 to be confusing

I do realise that n desktop, the one column display mitigates much of this (although I do find the centre alignment to be a little odd).

Thank you for your work in trying to improve the experience of using BGA. I hope that this is iterative improvement that will continue and you get useful, productive feedback that will help inform those improvements.

katmk wrote: ↑06 February 2024, 22:19
- Separating out Tournament and Arena games. (I am a little confused by those who are bothered by the Arena and Tournament sections, given they are below the Casual ones and so easily ignored, I'd have thought?)

Just to explain, the issue is that you can't get to the tournament section without a big bar full of games that looks like an ad banner, for arena. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't want to see it, and I don't play arena, so I really wonder the reasoning behind not allowing us to hide it or move it to the bottom.

GTSchemer wrote: ↑06 February 2024, 22:47

katmk wrote: ↑06 February 2024, 22:19
- Separating out Tournament and Arena games. (I am a little confused by those who are bothered by the Arena and Tournament sections, given they are below the Casual ones and so easily ignored, I'd have thought?)

Just to explain, the issue is that you can't get to the tournament section without a big bar full of games that looks like an ad banner, for arena. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't want to see it, and I don't play arena, so I really wonder the reasoning behind not allowing us to hide it or move it to the bottom.

I agree, I very much dislike the new display. I don't want to see PLAY section and ARENA sections when I only have games in the TOURNAMENT section.
Please revert back to the original clean and uncluttered page or at least allow users to configure what they want to see on the web page.

GTSchemer wrote: ↑06 February 2024, 22:47

katmk wrote: ↑06 February 2024, 22:19
- Separating out Tournament and Arena games. (I am a little confused by those who are bothered by the Arena and Tournament sections, given they are below the Casual ones and so easily ignored, I'd have thought?)

Just to explain, the issue is that you can't get to the tournament section without a big bar full of games that looks like an ad banner, for arena. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't want to see it, and I don't play arena, so I really wonder the reasoning behind not allowing us to hide it or move it to the bottom.

That does make more sense to me. I do have Arena games, so I'm of course not seeing the Arena push. I get that would be annoying though. One of the things I was pleased with was that the games have been separated out, and that there are jump links to each type, so it's possible to go straight to my Tournament games, which are usually the most time pressured.

I'm normally quite resistant to change, but I'm beginning to quite like it. Well done.

There is an option to hide the up-to-date at the top. See the hide link top-right.
The 1 column display seems to give a very similar layout to the 'old' page.

A few things:

I think I preferred the player names to be left aligned a bit rather than spread across the width. Looks a bit odd in 1-column mode and 2 players at the table.

What are all the coffee cups? quite often they are half showing / cut-off in the background.

In full width display there seems to be a lot overlapping icons when 4 tables are displayed in 1 row. On the left, the game box icon overlaps the turn based icon. The players' turn text bleeds into the coffee cup icon. The player names and icons at the bottom are very cramped and all over the shop.
It's much better when there are just 2 tables in 1 row.

I don't really care much for all the stuff at the bottom after the "More on #BGA" but I can live with it out of the way down there.

The time jokers text (top right) doesn't sit well under my avatar profile.

This whole thing needs another pass or 10. Just from a UX perspective this is pretty rough. Cluttered, visually jarring, and conveys lots of irrelevant information.

Also just realized that neither view shows if a user is beginner, apprentice, etc. This was helpful information to see what everyone at the table was without needing to open the table

Like already said, I would like to have à way to sort the tables.
I want to see in first the table were I have games in progress and not the PLAY or ARENA tables if I have no game in progress in them!

I have set the view to ”Large display” but this configuration is not kept!

Even ”Large display” is used, missing informations are presents :
- Tournament name for each game,
- This Tournament name should be a link for it.
- We have the started time, but I would like to see the amont of time I have for me to finish and not be excluded by another player.
- I would like to see the limit end time of each game.

But the big problem with this new page is that there is a lot of unusefull informations now in this page and then the page is longer to load....
When I go in the Game in Progress page, it is to have a quicker response with all my games in progress and not the others informations that I don’t need when I go on this page.

I;m sorry to say to developers and others involded putting effort into this. But for me 61 years old this new layout is way to crowdy to an extent it's almost giving me a headache. I sure don't want to sound as complaning and whatever, but can you please give me (and others which have similiar feelings) the option to choose for the old lay-out?

Can I also have an estimation when this old lay-out wil be available as an option?

Best regards,
Roland

Ah I see there is an official thread for this. I just started a new one in discussions but I shall paste it here too to improve the chances of someone at BGA actually reading it:

The new tables in progress page and side menu are too cluttered.

https://boardgamearena.com/gameinprogress?notable suddenly goes to a really cluttered page, stretched across the entire screen with games side by side instead of the old simple vertical list centred on the page. It's horrible to parse quickly compared to the old version. Stupid top banner advertising games I don't want to play and won't ever play fills a chunk of the screen before I even get to my games in progress, which then disappear into more areas of irrelevant information and clutter for tournaments (I'm not playing any, and due to ELO changes, won't take part in).

The side bar menu (from the player avatar icon) is also revised, each game takes up more space, with less useful information visible per game. Icons cover player names, fewer player names (just two) now visible even where the icons are set correctly. It's taken what needs to be a quickly viewed side bar and makes it harder to view. Not the best change tbh.

Why do BGA keep making these "improvements" that actually make using the site worse to use? The new lobby format was not an improvement, and yet you keep pushing on with it across new areas of the site. Who do BGA use for testing groups? Are they regular players with long term site usage? Does their feedback actually get listened to?

The middle click on the games blob (the green/yellow icon next to the friends icon at the top right) no longer links directly to the tables in progress page. At best it opens the side bar, which you then have to go to the bottom of to click "view all tables". Why make the site harder to navigate? I want to see all the games quickly. Not be forced to use a difficult to scroll side bar, which is fine for one or two games in progress but once you get a handful going the main page is far more useful.

Edit: In response to someone telling me to use the options to make it like the old one. It doesn't.

The hide button only removes the top banner, it does not get rid of the other clutter, it only creates a centred vertical list for games in progress, the arena and tournaments bars if empty (as mine currently are) are still filled full page width with game advertising I'm not interested in and which dominate the screen. Why can't these be hidden too? The only bit that can be hidden is the top banner and with that hidden more irrelevant visually intrusive "play other games" clutter arrives at the bottom of the screen, so no, it does not get back to the old version, not even close.

Edit 2: Another player has pointed out that the size of the information for each game now takes up more space so you get less on screen at a time too. Who wants to do more scrolling? What's the point in that.