Board Game Arena

It is time for a structural complaint and a suggestion for improvement. When you play in the leagues at the start of the season, it happens that you win a game but you donot gain level points. It happend to me twice, playing in the backgammon diamond league. If you are unlucky enough to be drawn against someone from the bronze league, you cannot gain level points. So you have nothing to play for, you can only lose level points. Which is very unfair, especially when you are one level point away from entering the elite league. I suggest this be changed. Any win in a league should gain at least one level point, else there is nothing to play for. Motivation counts.

HjyTscxrq wrote: ↑06 January 2021, 21:32 It is time for a structural complaint and a suggestion for improvement. When you play in the leagues at the start of the season, it happens that you win a game but you donot gain level points. It happend to me twice, playing in the backgammon diamond league. If you are unlucky enough to be drawn against someone from the bronze league, you cannot gain level points. So you have nothing to play for, you can only lose level points. Which is very unfair, especially when you are one level point away from entering the elite league. I suggest this be changed. Any win in a league should gain at least one level point, else there is nothing to play for. Motivation counts.

You can restrict the opponent level if you don't like playing with opponent from lower leagues.

It is not about not liking to play someone from a lower league. I like to play anyone. But if you win, you should gain something. Otherwise the odds are not balanced. It is a matter of motivation and level playing field.

This topic is as old as Arena itself.

Why the +/-2 setting for league restriction of opponents is not the default setting anyway is beyond my understanding. Probably because it could lead to bronze players not finding opponents in the later stages of the season when most active players are already in the upper leagues.

(*For anyone who doesn't know: You can use the cogwheel next to the game icon in Arena lobby to restrict opponent league. The rules of Arena state that you get (in 2p games) +3 for a win against a player from your league, +2 against a player from one league below, +1 against a player from 2 leagues below, and +0 for all leagues even more below.)

dschingis27 wrote: ↑06 January 2021, 22:18 Why the +/-2 setting for league restriction of opponents is not the default setting anyway is beyond my understanding.

After having thought about this more, I think it is not the default to allow for easy setup of +4p games. For games like Tokaido or Sushi Go!, it does make sense to allow e.g. bronze, gold, platin, and elite getting matched together in one game if they had to wait in the queue for too long otherwise.

For 2p games though, I think having +/-2 league restriction setting as default would be good.

The win does increase your EAS, which assuming you can get to elite league later in the season, is what ends up being important.

And if you're not competing for overall honours, really there shouldn't be a rush.