Arena Settings

[Pistol Star]

Thanks so much for releasing the game now. It's wonderful

Why is the Classical Setup (choose one board from two) being used for arena?
The boards are heavily unbalanced. This option takes out a lot of skill and brings in a lot of luck mainly on which boards you are able to draw ("Yay! I drew the best one! I won!" "Oh, I drew the 2 worst ones! GG, wp! I resign!")

There is an option to use identical random boards. Using this option would also mean each board would be played the same amount of times and not some boards nearly every time in comparison to other weak boards. So people would get to play more different boards with an identical board setup.

If you get to choose between 2 bad boards and your opponent between 2 good boards or vice versa it's just so unfair.
Also if two highly and equally skilled players would play each other the winner would be often immediately crowned before the game would even start with this Classical Setup setting. It would take out most if not all the fun for highly competitive and skilled players.

Another question I have is why is the 2019 Edition being used? I guess it is because Ravensburger wants to promote the new edition?
We all know though how unbalanced the 2019 Edition is in comparison with the original edition. All thanks to knowledge tile number 6.
You can fill the whole board with this tile. This has never been possible before and it is not in the spirit of the game. It is so ridiculous. I have never seen anything that broken in a board game and I have probably played 400+ board games in my life

Any chance to switch arena settings to the old edition and to Identical Random Boards in the next season?

[Lumin_S]

Agree with both of those current options being significantly less competitive.

I'm also a little surprised that the player count is 2 and not 4, but maybe my play groups and tournaments I've seen at conventions don't line up with the online world?

[Al Menez]

Agreed. I guess I'll stick to the regular matchmaking.

I'm also a little surprised that the player count is 2 and not 4, but maybe my play groups and tournaments I've seen at conventions don't line up with the online world?

Interesting, 2p always seemed more competitive to me, but I have zero experience playing it outside BGA and Yucata. Anyway, I prefer fast games and CoB works really well in all player counts, so I'm glad it's 2p.

[Pistol Star]

Agreed. I guess I'll stick to the regular matchmaking.

I'm also a little surprised that the player count is 2 and not 4, but maybe my play groups and tournaments I've seen at conventions don't line up with the online world?

Interesting, 2p always seemed more competitive to me, but I have zero experience playing it outside BGA and Yucata. Anyway, I prefer fast games and CoB works really well in all player counts, so I'm glad it's 2p.

I also think 2 player is the most competitive format and I also think the game is at it's deepest when it comes to the 2 player count.
I think a 4 player arena setting would also mean quite long games.

[Pistol Star]

Ok. I gave it a chance... First arena game I have played... I could choose between board 9 and 5. I obviously took the stronger board 5...
Opponent could choose between whatever and board 8....

I think only twice in my entire lifetime I didn't have any fun playing a game of The Castles of Burgundy. I have played approximately 700 COB games in my life..

Once when I played the 2019 Edition Solo Mode at my home and could grab Knowledge Tile Number 6 in Phase C...

And the 2nd one was this first arena game...

I won 220-178, but any strong opponent would have easily beaten me and I doubt a strong opponent would have had much fun winning just because they drew the magical board number 8 over a board 5! Just imagine I had to choose between board 10 and board 1

Luck aka variance is fine and fun but no unnecessarily and "artificially" built-in luck...

This setup decides way too many games right from the get go and places people into huge (dis-)advantages for no particular reason.

Imagine you play against a much stronger opponent and they also happen to draw the way better board...
The weaker players winning probabilities might have shrinked from let's say 10% down to 0.1%. This is just wasted time for both players.
There is not even a slight challenge for the better player and there is nearly no chance at all for the weaker player to even have a chance of even coming close of winning.

The other way around is even much harsher when it comes to how much the winning probabilities shift though. The better a player is the more disadvantage they have with this arena setup.
Instead of having a 90% win rate against a particular opponent it could go all the way down to let's say 40% when the draws are unlucky for the better player. If the better player would normally have a 70% winning probability it could go all the way down to under 20%.

So it just turns this highly tactical and strategic game into a lottery game. (let's don't forget the 2019 edition knowledge tile 6 which adds another huge factor of lottery)

I think I am done with this arena season even though this is by far my all time favorite board game. I very much looked forward to play arena and compete so the disappointment is quite hefty.

[Niall]

Fully agree with the push for original edition and random identical boards, to reduce the impact of luck and increase the outcome dependence on skill. Is there a chance these could be implemented for the next season?

As for different player counts, I’m happy with any and particularly enjoy 3. Perhaps different player counts could also be tried on future seasons?

[fafa-fr]

Thanks so much for releasing the game now. It's wonderful

Thanks

Why is the Classical Setup (choose one board from two) being used for arena?

I don't know why BGA chose this option (maybe for no other reason than because there is "Classical" in its name), and they released the game without asking me, so I wasn't able to give my opinion. But I just sent an email (and a BGA message) to Een to ask for a settings change (identical random board, 1st edition).

Another question I have is why is the 2019 Edition being used? I guess it is because Ravensburger wants to promote the new edition?

I'm not sure alea / ravensburger said anything about this, it may only be because 2019 edition is still the default in normal mode (which will be changed in the next release, since I didn't have any answer from Stefan Feld regarding tile 6 rule in 2019 edition).

Regarding the number of players, we could make a poll to know if we change each season, or if we always set it to two players. But I think it's better to wait a bit before lauching this poll.

[fafa-fr]

But I just sent an email (and a BGA message) to Een to ask for a settings change (identical random board, 1st edition).

Een did it, enjoy

[Pistol Star]

But I just sent an email (and a BGA message) to Een to ask for a settings change (identical random board, 1st edition).

Een did it, enjoy

Awesome! Thank you two very much!

I like the idea about a player count poll for the following arena seasons and I also agree that right now would be way too early to start this poll as the game has only been released a day ago.

I think maybe in around 2 months later a poll starts to make sense.

[Pascalbro]

Why is Arena set to the first edition?

As a new player, it's extremely daunting to hit 100, queue up for a game and find the entire landscape is a dull wash with extremely low variance and how it heavily favors the first person to play.

Also, sort of explains why I'm getting games immediately in simple games vs arena.

Set the game options to the latest version please, giving seasoned players the option to opt for the first edition. It makes no sense to play things that are out of print unless you want stagnation and a lack of players.