Arena changes and F2 open qualification system

[Nidal]

Hi everyone! im not sure if im supposed to post this as an individual thread but with respect to everything posted before me for the aforementioned matters ill state my personal point of view.
Regarding the arena changes, a topic discussed with some of my Terra Mystica friends, seems like this season is played on an inferior map for no actual reason other than the extra fun factor. i think at least there should be the option to choose between maps since the base game map is way better in any aspect.
As for the f2 tournament, of which im a big fan, i would like to see a more solid qualification round system with 2 first places of every match being a go for the next round. a few more games yes, but the luck factor decreased. its sad to watch many good players getting disqualified as i guess F2 open is trying to establish an elite tournament status with all of us watching the best in the final rounds.

Thanks for reading and good luck at BGA!

[Swistakk]

1) I think that having map standardized is important for results consistency reasons. If half of players play on Fire & Ice map and half of them play on standard map then you can't really compare players from two halves in a reliable way. Analogy for that could be having ranking from a joint sport called "Chess and boxing" where you are allowed to either play chess or boxing and you should agree which one. Comparing ELOs/scores of chess players and boxers doesn't make any sense. Of course playing Terra Mystica on standard map and playing it on Fire & Ice map are much closer than chess are to boxing, but I think that illustrates the point well.
2) "this season is played on an inferior map" - is that really so? I am new to Terra Mystica, so I don't really have strong opinion on that, but I would like to hear about what other players think about it

[Ranior]

Fire and Ice map is different yes, but absolutely not inferior. That's purely personal opinion. There are many of us that like it just as much, if not more, and the broad statistics and everything suggest the map is as balanced, if not more so, than the base game map. I do understand if you'd prefer the arena games were on a different map, but personally I think many in the community are happy with the change--I'm the one that started the thread asking them to consider some seasons with map changes, and many chimed in voicing their support for that idea with almost no one speaking up wanting base map only always. The good news is that the map should continue to rotate for future seasons, and I'd still expect many seasons to be on the base map.

As for the Fire Two Open, that is being run by Bizzell who has put a lot of time in to trying to make the tournament succeed in his vision, and I think he's doing a great job at that. I too commiserate a bit with the idea that a format which better finds the best players may be preferable from a pure competitive stand point, but he has other competing goals going on here too and I think he's made some very reasonable compromises. Qualifiers can already run long enough as is, given two games back to back can go nearly five hours. Changing the system to have more rounds, even 3 is really asking for a lot of dedication from the players, and any system going to 4 games is just too much. The tournament itself honestly is great fun to watch, and strong players do advance, but it isn't really the best format to finding the best player either. It's much more March Madness than NBA playoffs to use basketball references--meaning the actual best player isn't that likely to win, and the tournament is a bit chaotic. It just takes far too many games to truly determine the best players, let arena or other tournaments do that. Fire Two Open has picked a nice format that balances allowing many players a shot to compete, while doing so in digestible time frames, and still sees lots of very strong players qualifying and winning.

[Nidal]

Thanks for your answers!

[ljazz7]

Yeah I am one of the fans of them switching the map. The meta of the base map is very solved and it leads to games that are much easier for players familiar with it to predict the way things will play out. I get where this could be appealing, but I think a good test of a great player is being able to navigate the uncharted territory of the various maps. Now that the fjords map has been added, I would hope to see that and lakes join these other two maps in the arena cycle. Even better, maybe we can include landscapes on these maps.