Board Game Arena

Arena format will be:
_ 4 players during even seasons (0, 2, 4, 6...) => this is the most strategic variant.
_ 2 players during odd seasons (1, 3, 5, ...) => this is the most popular variant on BGA.

_ "Landscapes" expansion alternating between OFF and ON every 2 seasons

Hi, I was very enthousiast about arena mode, and up to now I've found it great.

However, I find this format change very disapointing.

Terra Mystica is thought as a 4 player game, and the only way to have a credible championship is to play it that way. The World Boardgame Championship in TM is 4p, championship of the Board Game Player's association is 4p, the snell's TMtour (featuring more than 400 players and running for more than 30 seasons) is 4p, the snell's fireandice ladder is 4p. All credible championship are 4p, because the game is made to be played 4 players.

In 2p, the map is ridiculously huge, and factions absurdly unbalanced. The only reason to play TM 2p are:
- not having enough time
- not having enough player around
- wanting to play in a less competitive way / against less competitve players (sometimes as a way to artificially boost rating - I thought arena was introduced to discourage those players, not to encourage them).

Now of course if some players like to play a 2p tournament there is nothing wrong with it. But it should be a marginal tournament, like those homemade on this site. But making the 2p game as important a championship as the 4p to me harm the credibility of the arena format and would make me loose all interest 1 season out of 2.

Z

I agree with all of Zoras' points.
All the tournaments are 2P, so no need to make 2P arena, leave arena as 4P only.

Hi,

I created a poll here about this specific question:
viewtopic.php?f=175&t=14396

Totally agree with Zoras.

Terra Mystica is a much poorer game at 2p and just because a lot of people play it a 2p, that doesn't mean that we should switch to that in a competitive setting like arena mode. It is also a fairly popular game so it won't be difficult to get games with 4 players either.

Instead of reducing the player count, a change in the map to Lakes every 2 seasons would be more reasonable.