Board Game Arena

One thing I noticed when the recent arena season ended is that ongoing games that hadn't finished were being treated as if they ended as losses as far as the Arena was concerned.

It was a relatively close race for first place in a particular game and it seems plausible to finish the games before the arena ended, but then when it did end the arena elo plummeted as though these games were being counted as losses (though they're still ongoing).

Is this expected behaviour?

It didn't seem to affect the standings that I can tell.

Person who used the most time gets a loss, person who used the least time it does not help or hurt them. It used to be that the all got a "tie", which meant higher rated player went down and lower went up. This cost me an arena championship 2 or so years ago, but they changed it. This is to make sure someone who is losing does not just stop playing to run the clock out, but likewise they are not rewarded with a win if they don't finish.

It doesn't really make any sense to me the way it is now or the way it was before.

If it's going to arbitrarily end the game, without actually ending the game, you'd think it should just discount the game.

With turn based games, you can't fully control how much time you have spent, you have to work or sleep and so on, and if you're unlucky with timezone matchups you might always be the person using more time.

It seems like a very poor and arbitrary decider for who should win the game - a coin toss would actually be better, otherwise you should probably not sleep the week before the end of arena to make sure you've used less time in those last games where you're trying to jump ahead to first place.

shinuito wrote: ↑10 October 2023, 16:28 you'd think it should just discount the game.

Isn't it obvious to you how this can be easily exploited (as pointed out by Vandaley, just prolong the games you don't win)? When you accept a TB Arena game at the end of the season, you have to make sure you are able to finish it. That's why this rule is in place. I was told there is also a big banner and a warning when you join TB Arena games at season end.

To give you some more context about the history of this rule. BGA actually closed down TB Arena for a while because "time-smoothing" was getting to heavily abused. Only after discussion with the community, this rule got implemented in order enable TB Arena again.

dschingis27 wrote: ↑10 October 2023, 16:39

shinuito wrote: ↑10 October 2023, 16:28 you'd think it should just discount the game.

Isn't it obvious to you how this can be easily exploited (as pointed out by Vandaley, just prolong the games you don't win)?

Isn't it obvious to you the way outcomes of games get completely skewed - you can win these games one hour or one day later, but because you had to sleep and your opponent played the last move some evening you now get a string of losses instead.

This makes much less sense than just discounting games that can't be finished. What's the actual exploit here? If I prolong some games where I'm losing, they don't get counted so I don't lose rating right at the end of arena. Instead you've replaced it with an exploit where if I'm losing I should just set an alarm in the middle of my opponents timezone for where they're asleep and offline and I can just win on time instead?

Come on now...

dschingis27 wrote: ↑10 October 2023, 16:39

shinuito wrote: ↑10 October 2023, 16:28 you'd think it should just discount the game.

I was told there is also a big banner and a warning when you join TB Arena games at season end.

There's a big banner telling you it will end yes, but the big banner doesn't say "Guess what if you've used more time up to this point you lose, tough luck".

There's also a notice saying you can't create correspondence/turn based games within something like 5 days of the arena ending, but again, it's doesn't say they'll be counted as losses.

At least it is written in the FAQ: https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=f ... uturnbased

The solution can only be: Don't play TB games at season end or know what you are getting into. Apparently it should be made much more prominent what you are getting into.

shinuito wrote: ↑10 October 2023, 16:52 This makes much less sense than just discounting games that can't be finished. What's the actual exploit here? If I prolong some games where I'm losing, they don't get counted so I don't lose rating right at the end of arena.

Are you serious? You just explained how the exploit works. How is it not skewing results when you can basically skip a game that you are about to lose?

shinuito wrote: ↑10 October 2023, 16:52 If I prolong some games where I'm losing, they don't get counted so I don't lose rating right at the end of arena.

that IS the exploit, your opponent is getting cheated out of a win.

dschingis27 wrote: ↑10 October 2023, 17:33 At least it is written in the FAQ: https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=f ... uturnbased

Fair point

Suoivax wrote: ↑11 October 2023, 00:14

shinuito wrote: ↑10 October 2023, 16:52 If I prolong some games where I'm losing, they don't get counted so I don't lose rating right at the end of arena.

that IS the exploit, your opponent is getting cheated out of a win.

You get cheated out of win no matter what, it’s just a different packaging. Neither game is finished in within season, one way an opponent stalls, another way they just make sure to play when you have to log off or sleep. You can be winning in both cases and lose (in the arena sense - you can still win the game outside of the arena) because of it.

I’m not sure one is better than the other, only that one was explicitly done or complained about in the past.