Congratulations to all of the winners of Season 5!
New feature: Games Gurus
As you know, there is always plenty of discussion about the Arena settings: why is this option enabled? Why 3 players and not 4? And so on...
We used to tell you to use forum polls to propose and vote for the best Arena settings. However, only a few of you were actually taking part in the votes, and some of you were not even aware of their existence.
As a community-based website, we would like to find a community-based solution for this: the Game Gurus.
If you are one of the most active players for game X, you will now be a member of a a group called "X's Gurus." If you are Guru for a game, you can see it on the "Community" page.
As a key member of the community, being a member of this group is going to give you you special powers. For now, the only special power you have is "propose & vote for the next Arena settings." More powers will come in the future- but this news is about Arena so let's stick to this for now.
At the end of the new Season, the suggestions & votes will be taken into account when upgrading the Arena settings: the best proposition for each game will be applied to the corresponding game.
This feature is new and certainly has some defects, but we are going to see what happens and let it evolve until it reaches this objective: to make sure the Arena settings fits your needs.
Yet another improvement for turn-based Arena
Following your feedback on the last season, we improved the end of the Arena Turn-based again.
Some reminders: At the end of a season, for turn based games that did not "finish in time," the player who consumed the most time will lose the game (all the opponents will be winners).
At the end of Season 3, we stopped all turn-based games in progress, and a lot of you were frustrated by this. For the end of Season 4, we did things differently, allowing you to finish the game (despite the fact that Arena points were recorded).
However, some of you were frustrated because it allowed some players to make a "final bump" in the Arena ranking, at the very end of the season by gaining points following wins using the timeout of turn-based.
This is the reason we made the following adjustment for the end of this season:
- The rule remains the same: player who consumed the most time during the whole game (= player who is the most responsible for the delay) loses the game, and his/her Arena rank will be modified accordingly.
- The other players will not gain/losee any Arena points.
- The game itself can continue in training mode. It means that you can finish the game if you want to, or leave it without penalty if you do not want to.
Important reminder: recent games are not concerned by the end of this season.
All games published (= out of Beta) less than 1 month before the end of a season are not concerned by the end of the season (no trophies, no relegation).
Season 6 is NOW launched.
The new Arena is going to be opened in a few hours.
Some Arena configurations have been updated:
Terra Mystica: Base game map / Landscape off
Stone Age: 4 players
7 Wonders new format is: 4p (winter) - 3p (spring) - 4p (summer) - 5p (autumn) => 4 players this seasons
Kalah: 6 stones (following a poll)
Tokaido: Crossroads active
Tarot: players=5, Bonus=Poignées + Misères, Minimum bid=Guard
Unconditional Surrender: USSR 1941
Welcome To: advanced
Go: Big Komi
Medina: Players=3, Fountain=enabled, Tea tiles=enabled, Merchants on lower tiles=enabled, Neutral Rooftops=disabled
Nautilus: Domain card visible
Hailclue: Turbo mode
Letter Tycoon: 2 players
We try to follow everything and to catch all of your suggestions / polls: sorry if we miss something. The new "Game Gurus" feature will certainly make the Arena settings evolution way better for Season 7.
Some explanation about: relegations
At the end of each season, after winners have been awarded, you are relegated.
Some custom relegation rules may have been applied to a game for some reason (ex: we decided to reduce the number of leagues), but in general here is what happens:
- For games with 6 or 5 different leagues, all players are decreased by 3 leagues.
- For games with 4 different leagues, all players are decreased by 2 leagues.
- For games with 2 or 3 different leagues, all players are decreased by 1 league.
- For all games and all leagues, your number of Arena point is reset to 1, and your AES ("Arena Elo") is reset to 1500.
May the odds be ever in your favor!
