Board Game Arena

“ Tourneys have unbelievable potential at bga if they would try to make it that way.”

Exactly! This current direction is the direction bga WANTS to go. Several of you made valid points. I also am confused by how ppl don’t know tourneys exist. Which is even more noticeable than the forum section and tons of ppl are unaware of that as well. If you want to play now tournaments are one of the options right below arena.

As Frank pointed out, how poorly tourneys were designed here turned a lot of ppl off from them including myself. The kicking ppl from games thing etc. ruined the whole experience. I limited myself to very specific tourneys. Round robins with decent timers or friend/invite only so it was understood as a collective that kicking wasn’t acceptable.

Bga added an option for no kick which I accidentally found like a year after bc I hosted one invite only tourney.

Bga also intentionally limited interaction on the site amongst friends w/ the removal of notifications of friend’s post on newsfeeds. And then even more with the new front page and making the newsfeed even less important. Previously there was more interaction on bga before these changes. And you may see a friend join a tourney and also join or talk about it etc.

For me, the biggest deterrent from playing tournaments is the bizarre manner the site determines who advances if a game is not completed in the pre-defined time frame. Something about the "oldest account" being the one that advances. That's utter nonsense.

I don't know if most people are aware of how this system works. Seems like something that only those who are a bit more invested would know, unless the person had it happen to them or witnessed it happening to someone else.

I didn't even know that anyone could kick out until I had played tournaments for over half a year. I thought that in a multiplayer game, expulsion would only happen if everyone votes yes.

I agree that there is less of a sense of community these days. This is particularly glaring in a game like Castle Combo. Last year there used to be a lot of friendly banter between the regular players of the famous tournaments. I think a big part of it is the interface changes they made. Now the page of a tournament is a very clinical looking bunch of boxes and options, and the comments are strangely hidden away. They used to appear on the page itself and the look was a lot more welcoming, making it feel more like a warm and lively place to be in and discuss, rather than just a cold tournament page.

tbhp wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 12:55 I don't know if most people are aware of how this system works. Seems like something that only those who are a bit more invested would know, unless the person had it happen to them or witnessed it happening to someone else.

I didn't even know that anyone could kick out until I had played tournaments for over half a year. I thought that in a multiplayer game, expulsion would only happen if everyone votes yes.

I agree that there is less of a sense of community these days. This is particularly glaring in a game like Castle Combo. Last year there used to be a lot of friendly banter between the regular players of the famous tournaments. I think a big part of it is the interface changes they made. Now the page of a tournament is a very clinical looking bunch of boxes and options, and the comments are strangely hidden away. They used to appear on the page itself and the look was a lot more welcoming, making it feel more like a warm and lively place to be in and discuss, rather than just a cold tournament page.

Yup. At least from my personal experience several changes they made contributed to making it feel more “cold” here. I think that was also intentional though. If you notice when bga is having site problems they shut down the newsfeed altogether and sometimes forums. So I think they wanted less communication to help with the load.

Because the groups page here is lacking in averla areas ppl use outside sources for communication. Enhancements to the group functions clearly wasn’t a priority for bga. Just like tournaments aren’t. So you just have to use bga as the host for games and figure out how to enhance these other aspects outside on your own.

Also what tourney speeds do you play? Very slow? Because i would actually be surprised to NOT see kicks in tourneys. If is also up to the tourney created to make proper settings too. I’ve seen some setups that just resulted in a whole tourney of timeouts

ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 13:49 Also what tourney speeds do you play? Very slow? Because i would actually be surprised to NOT see kicks in tourneys. If is also up to the tourney created to make proper settings too. I’ve seen some setups that just resulted in a whole tourney of timeouts

I suppose it helps that all the games I play are guaranteed to finish within a fixed number of turns, so I've never encountered tournament settings that were glaringly bad. I had a few instances when people ran out of time, but expulsions never happened until one day, during the final of a major 4p tournament, I fell asleep when my time was low and got kicked out. I didn't think much of it at first, because I thought it was a unanimous vote, so if the player who was for sure gonna win was happy with a shared victory by timeout, that was his problem I guess.

A bit later I learned on this forum that actually all it takes is one player to push the kick out button for the out of time player to be expelled. That was a shock and I realized that the player who would have won the final got robbed of a proper victory, because of another player's decision to unilaterally end the game. So as you can guess, that experience only reinforced my views on game terminations and the need to do something about it.

ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 11:36 Bga also intentionally limited interaction on the site amongst friends w/ the removal of notifications of friend’s post on newsfeeds. And then even more with the new front page and making the newsfeed even less important. Previously there was more interaction on bga before these changes. And you may see a friend join a tourney and also join or talk about it etc.

What's the newsfeed? Is that just the news tab?

Ceaseless wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 16:04

ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 11:36 Bga also intentionally limited interaction on the site amongst friends w/ the removal of notifications of friend’s post on newsfeeds. And then even more with the new front page and making the newsfeed even less important. Previously there was more interaction on bga before these changes. And you may see a friend join a tourney and also join or talk about it etc.

What's the newsfeed? Is that just the news tab?

Had to dabble around on my profile to find the name, but it turns out to be one of the things under Recent Activity that just shoots out a bunch of random stuff. It doesn't really have any sort of filter for things you'd want to keep an eye on vs things that you wouldn't, so it often gets flooded with a bunch of stuff that you're not really looking for. While I've seen it before I had never bothered to remember what it was called, so it wasn't until now that I really paid attention to its title.

Ceaseless wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 16:04

ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 11:36 Bga also intentionally limited interaction on the site amongst friends w/ the removal of notifications of friend’s post on newsfeeds. And then even more with the new front page and making the newsfeed even less important. Previously there was more interaction on bga before these changes. And you may see a friend join a tourney and also join or talk about it etc.

What's the newsfeed? Is that just the news tab?

Your personal newsfeed that list news pertaining to you and all your friend activities. Previously it was WAY more interactive. It used to show your friends achievements in arena and things like getting expert and master. You could congratulate your friends on their achievements (although more personal theory is that bga got rid of these two things to disincentivize cheating). As well as things like chatter on tourneys or in groups. I was made aware of certain groups and tournaments because of this. And with every change ppl became less and less interactive w/ each other (in my experience). Now I barely even check the newsfeed bc it was killed. If my friends were to interact there would be no way of me knowing unless they say something on one of my messages.

I just checked several ppl who used to interact all the time. And they have nothing on their walls for the past 6 months. It felt less “friendly” after certain changes. I feel like there was even a change in the sportsmanlike “gg” after awhile.

ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 11:07 “ Tourneys have unbelievable potential at bga if they would try to make it that way.”

Exactly! This current direction is the direction bga WANTS to go. Several of you made valid points. I also am confused by how ppl don’t know tourneys exist. Which is even more noticeable than the forum section and tons of ppl are unaware of that as well. If you want to play now tournaments are one of the options right below arena.

As Frank pointed out, how poorly tourneys were designed here turned a lot of ppl off from them including myself. The kicking ppl from games thing etc. ruined the whole experience. I limited myself to very specific tourneys. Round robins with decent timers or friend/invite only so it was understood as a collective that kicking wasn’t acceptable.

Bga added an option for no kick which I accidentally found like a year after bc I hosted one invite only tourney.

When first building the Heat tournament scene I received at least a dozen comments not knowing tournaments even existed. I think it is quite easy to not notice them, depending on what page you are on they are hidden away at the bottom of the page, or hidden behind extra clicks. Albeit the #1 complaint is around bad experiences in a prior tournament, but those complaints can be very different, many are the creators fault, ie. they set up a clock so the tournament was never going to work. Other is just bad rules like you and Frank highlight.

Heat obviously doesn't have any of the kicking issues that exist at most games, maybe that contributes to tournaments relative success, but there's still a number of things holding tournaments back, of which a lack of visibility is one. You do have to kind of go digging to find good tournaments, and any system where you have to go digging is obviously not great. It's also not necessarily easy for a newer player to know something won't work, so for example a new player might enter a 1 week clock tournament, see every game go to time and not complete, and there conclusion be that tournaments suck, that sort of experience might actually be the #1 complaint around tournaments.