Arena season 10: go!

[Draasill]

Congratulations to all participants and winners from the previous season. For the past 3 seasons, you have been able to enjoy the games in the format decided by players themselves, and this makes the Arena even more exciting! This season, more than 2.5 million Arena games have been played on BGA, which is again a new record!

But wait, what exactly is "the Arena?"

The Arena is the competitive mode on BGA. If you master a game and want to play it competitively, this is THE mode to use, so you can challenge the best players and get the most experience points.

The Arena is organized in seasons of 3 months each. Achievements are awarded to the best players at the end of each season.

To play in the Arena: select "Play" and then choose "Arena" instead of "Simple game."

Read more about Arena mode


Arena format and Gurus

In the latest 3 seasons, it was you (more exactly the gurus) who chose the game formats for the Arena: player number, options used, ...

We are very happy to see that this way of doing things contributed to making the Arena more popular: thank you to all gurus for their smart suggestions and their votes!


Rules updates

No Arena rules are changing this season. It does not mean we are 100% satisfied about how the Arena is running, but you seem to appreciate the current rules so we want to keep them as they are for now.


Cheating

Some (rare) cases of cheating have been spotted in the previous season. You have to keep in mind that a player cheating the Arena is quite easy to spot, by admins, moderators, and even by simple players. Thus, it is impossible to heavily abuse the system without triggering warnings.

Our advise: please do not lose time trying to cheat the system: it will consume an incredible amount of your time, and at the end all your efforts will be ruined and your account will be removed.


Season 10 is NOW Launched.

The new Arena is now open for its new season.


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 points is reset to 1, and your AES ("Arena Elo") is reset to 1500.

It's up to you to find the way to the elite!


May the odds be ever in your favor!

[Draasill]

Complete list of all Arena format changes:

Race for the Galaxy:

• Expansion: "Alien Artifacts (no Orb)" (prev: "Brink of War + Rebel vs. Imperium + The Gathering Storm")

Puerto Rico:

• First expansion - New buildings: "On" (prev: "Off")
• Second expansion - The nobles: "On" (prev: "Off")

Hawaii:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

United Square:

• Board size: "7x7" (prev: "5x5")

K2:

• Number of players: "4" (prev: "2")

P.I.:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Sobek:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Tokaido:

• Crossroads: "On" (prev: "Off")

6 nimmt!:

• Place cards: "On the right or on the left (Professional)" (prev: "On the right (normal game)")

Assyria:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "4")

The Palaces of Carrara:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "2")

Nile:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "2")

Madeira:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "4")

Crazy Farmers:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Oh Hell!:

• Minimum hand size: "3" (prev: "1")

Nippon:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "4")
• Keiretsu Expansion: "On" (prev: "Off")

Russian Railroads:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Ice Cold Ice Hockey:

• Match type: "2005-06 to present (5-minute overtime and shootout)" (prev: "1983-84 to 2004-05 (5-minute overtime)")

Terra Mystica:

• Game board: "Base Game" (prev: "Random")

Dragon Keeper: The Dungeon:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Krosmaster Arena:

• Format: " BGA Season 10" (prev: " BGA Season 9")

Hypnosia:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "4")

French Tarot:

• Number of players: "5" (prev: "4")
• Bonuses: "Poignées + Misères" (prev: "Poignées only")
• Minimal bid: "Guard" (prev: "Small")

7 Wonders:

• Number of players: "4" (prev: "3")

Penny Press:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "4")

The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow:

• Number of players: "12" (prev: "8")
• Expansion: The Village: "On" (prev: "Off")
• The Pyromaniac: "On" (prev: "Off")
• The Raven: "On" (prev: "Off")

Siam:

• Board variant: "Alternative board" (prev: "Standard")

Dragon Castle:

• Dragon Castle layout: "--- 2 player layouts ---" (prev: "Random")

Sapiens:

• Promo: Double Tiles: "On" (prev: "Off")

Marram:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Big Time Soccer:

• Match type: "Cup" (prev: "League")

Connect Four:

• Board size: "10x10" (prev: "9x9")

Hungarian Tarokk:

• Game length: "Long - three rounds" (prev: "Medium - two rounds")

Whist 22:

• Number of players: "4" (prev: "3")

Barbu:

• Game mode: "Geronimo" (prev: "Regular - 2 iterations")

Unconditional Surrender! World War 2 in Europe:

• Scenarios: "Germany 1945" (prev: "France 1944")

Turn the tide:

• Number of players: "4" (prev: "5")

Tichu:

• Game length: "Half Game (500 points)" (prev: "Classic (1000 points)")

Thurn and Taxis:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Fleet:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "4")

Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan:

• Include all Characters: "Yes" (prev: "No")

Oh-Seven:

• Card-passing variant: "Enabled" (prev: "Disabled")

Hand and Foot:

• Hand size: "Hand and foot are both 13 cards" (prev: "Hand and foot are both 11 cards")
• Number of jokers per deck: "2" (prev: "3")
• Completed melds required to go out: "2 clean/2 dirty (wild melds count as dirty)" (prev: "2 clean/2 dirty/1 wild")

Mijnlieff:

• Board layout: "Arranged by players" (prev: "Standard")

Dungeon Petz:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "4")

Carnegie:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "4")

El Grande:

• Number of players: "5" (prev: "4")

Rage:

• Bidding: "Bids are hidden and revealed at the end of each round" (prev: "Public bids")

BANG!:

• Number of players: "6" (prev: "5")

Dice Hospital:

• Game setup: "Dice Hospital + Experimental Medicine Mini-expansion" (prev: "Dice Hospital")
• Hard mode: "Opening crisis + Nationwide Epidemic + Resistant Superbug" (prev: "Disabled")

Abyss:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Vulture Culture:

• Number of players: "4" (prev: "3")

LLAMA:

• Number of players: "4" (prev: "3")

New Frontiers:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "4")
• Goals: "On" (prev: "Off")

Boomerang: Europe:

• Number of players: "4" (prev: "3")

Great Western Trail:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "2")
• Pair starting objectives with turn order: "On" (prev: "Off")
• Balance material quantity, unofficial variant (2/3p): "On" (prev: "Off")

Railways of the World:

• Number of players: "4" (prev: "5")
• Game Map: "Railways of Portugal (Max 4 players)" (prev: "Railways of North America (Max 5 players)")
• Bidding Style: "No bidding - Worst is First" (prev: "First to pass")

Century:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

A Feast for Odin:

• Occupations: "B and C" (prev: "A, B and C")
• Mini expansion 1: "Yes" (prev: "No")

Can't Stop Express:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "2")

Ultimate Railroads:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "2")

The Isle of Cats:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Gaia Project:

• Number of players: "4" (prev: "3")

Glow:

• Random adventurers: "Enabled" (prev: "Disabled")

Pente:

• Overtime capture: "Break the line" (prev: "Disabled")

Las Vegan:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

7 Wonders Architects:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "2")

Blood Rage:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "4")

Fruit Picking:

• Board setup: "Random setup" (prev: "Mirror setup")

CATAN:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "4")

(Note: changing to 3-players was one of the most heavily voted arena suggestion with 38 votes in favor of changing and 13 votes against keeping the old option)

VektoRace:

• Circuit layout: "Indianottolis - Tri" (prev: "Indianottolis - Oval")

Copenhagen:

• Number of players: "2" (prev: "3")

Sushi Go Party!:

• Pass both ways: "On" (prev: "Off")
• Menu Selection: "Random" (prev: "Suggested Menu")

Splito:

• Number of players: "3" (prev: "4")

[frogstar_A]

Good to see the idea of EAS rating decay was not implemented. Now I can start playing right away without fear of my efforts decaying away!

Looking forward to season 10.

[Benevolence]

Thank you! I have a lot of fun with Arena mode.

It amazes me that some people would cheat the system. To what end?
So they can brag about their unearned Elite rating to their friends? So odd.

[Lumin_S]

Regarding Rules Updates: There are 2 important details which I'm sad to see were not addressed.

1) An ongoing problem in each of the last 3 seasons is for games released less than 30 days before the season end date. With these games there are many instances of the Arena Settings being changed while not resetting the rankings. I think it is clearly wrong to have a single rating value under 2 different rule sets in 1 season.

This happened at the start of Season 8 with Agricola, and BGA Admins literally agreed that midseason rule changes were a bad thing https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 09&p=97093. In Season 9, this happened again with Space Base and I complained (despite having a top-10 ranking during the short season) https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 35&t=25209. And here in Season 10, once again there's a "midseason" rule change with Catan where there's a change in rules but not a rankings reset. I understand there were plenty of Guru votes for this one, but please just reset the rankings when this happens or don't change the rules at all until after a full season.

2) I recently submitted a suggestion to increase Karma restriction in Arena to 85%. (https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=66049) I think this will help reduce the number of quits, and really should be trivial to maintain for all reasonable players on BGA.

I got 40 votes within the first week and it's at 51 after a month (without me advertising after that first week.) Is that not "popular" enough of a suggestion for BGA to consider it? Honest question, how many votes do I need to get for this to gain traction with the BGA admin team?

[JamesWolfpacker]

Three of these changes in games that I know very well are extremely awful decisions.

Catan

Every competitive version of CATAN, in real life and online, around the world is fixed at 4p. I don't really care if they voted 38 to 13. Those 38 people should be voted off of the island! At 3p, there is too much freedom and room on the board. At 4p you can't risk dog piling on just 1 player. You can certainly risk dog piling on 1 player at 3p. Dog piling is basically only robbing the presumed best player or leader and refusing to trade with them.

Isle of Cats

At 2p you have an excellent idea of what the other player has drafted and purchased in their hand and private lessons. There are very few surprises that you can pull using Anytime Cards. At 3p you don't entirely know which player pulled which cards you passed unless you know their play style. You also know which card out the first 7 you'll probably get back. You can still surprise with Anytime. A 4p game of this would probably be best, but 3p works well enough when balancing skill, luck, risk, and opportunity costs (see below definitions).

Copenhagen

At 2p you can easily depend on the cards and tiles you want to be there on your next turn. At 3p, there is some risk involved. At 4p, you can't really depend on any of the cards or tiles to be there. I think 3p is probably the best balance between skill, luck, risk, and opportunity cost.

....
Also I looked up Castles of Burgundy...

2p competitive play is absurdly filled with too much luck in terms of the tiles that come out. The knowledge vp tiles for buildings vs those buildings coming out or vice versa is ridiculously unbalanced. The animal tiles are also too luck based. The fact that more people think 2p is best is irrelevant.

.....

In case you're wondering about my skill, luck, risk, and opportunity cost definitions...
skill- your ability
luck- random chance
risk- chance that an opponent will take or deny you what you need in the game
opportunity cost- balancing what I will get in one move or what an opponent will get vs another move

Risk doesn't always equal opportunity cost because of hidden information.

[sprockitz]

It is way easier to rack up a bunch of 2p fames than 3-4 player games…so players who prefer lowest player count will always be disproportionately represented as gurus so giving them the power to decide is very flawed and leads to the same bias.

[AdventurePeanut]

Hey, how do I see my final ranking from the previous season?

[Patrick of the Isles]

It is way easier to rack up a bunch of 2p fames than 3-4 player games…so players who prefer lowest player count will always be disproportionately represented as gurus so giving them the power to decide is very flawed and leads to the same bias.

I wish that were true, given that 2 player is the correct competitive setting for most games. However, looking through the above list many games went to a higher player count, so the evidence doesn't seem to support the existence of a widespread shift to lower player count.

[Meeplelowda]

Hey, how do I see my final ranking from the previous season?

Go to the main page for that game, then scroll down to "My Arena history."
Or if you happen to already be on the current Season x arena page for that game, in the upper right there will be a link that says "SEASON (x-1)."