Board Game Arena

Friendly robber is a MUST for the ranked. Is not fair to have 2 points and someone keep robbing you so you take forever to get to 3 points

Hilarious.

The current ranked set up is almost diametrically opposed to the conditions you'd find in any real world tournament. The only thing missing to make it completely the opposite is the friendly robber.

The current arena is not a competitive set up.

I get your point, but ranked still needs to be balanced and fun. Right now, someone stuck at 2 points can get robbed repeatedly, which doesn't really reflect skill or strategy — just bad luck. A friendly robber would at least prevent snowballing from targeting the weakest player, especially early on.

When you say "ranked", are you talking about Arena? Or something else?

Arena currently uses the "easy start" option, which partially addresses your concern.

In case you were not aware, the previous season of Arena had friendly robber enabled, which sparked many complaints because players could accumulate dev cards before building settlements and cities, and place the robber on their opponents' hexes without risking being blocked themselves.

mali wrote: ↑18 May 2025, 23:22 I get your point, but ranked still needs to be balanced and fun. Right now, someone stuck at 2 points can get robbed repeatedly, which doesn't really reflect skill or strategy — just bad luck. A friendly robber would at least prevent snowballing from targeting the weakest player, especially early on.

Honestly it doesn't represent bad luck. It represents bad play from the opponents. If one person is stuck on 2 and being robbed, then you're letting the others (oh sorry 3 player only arena...) other player have a free ride.

Both easy start and friendly robber are there to deal with the issue that people don't know how to play the game as written, not to smooth anything out.

Whatever settings are active in Arena, they're the same for all players. Whatever settings, there will be some luck and some strategy (and some poor play, petty revenge and cheating). The point is that the players who can best take advantage of the current season settings will probably rise to the top. Players who play as if the settings were something different will do poorly.