Board Game Arena

In my opinion, this game is only interesting from 4 players and up, and ideal with 5. The 3 player version is no fun at all, as it renders the game much more luck based than it already is.

So here's hoping the game setting for arena play will be 4 or 5 players next season. And yes, I know it's the gurus who vote for it. I have been one in several games myself. I just don't think I'll play this game nearly enough to become a guru, so that's why I'm putting this out here.

To be clear: I absolutely love this game, especially in real life. But not at 3 players. At all.

Agreed. I wish the pirate powers was on as well.
The game is not the same without them

Agreed. It should be changed to 4 players and up for arena. I would be in favor of rotating the arena settings season to season.

Same, at least four player are needed in Skull King. Three is way too random.

Sadly, lots of misinformation on this thread.

I don’t play arena, so this doesn’t affect me much, but this is completely misguided. There is nothing about 3-player mode that makes it more “random” than 4-5 player.

In fact, in my experience as a Top-3 Skull King player in all-time leaderboards, the opposite is the case. I have found it much harder to climb in rating in games with many players since it is near-impossible to win a trick with anything except a pirate, thus my skill edge over weaker player fades due to randomness and the entire game boils down to who can draw more pirates or obvious zero-bid hands.

Bidding with 5 players becomes nearly pointless since you can often get away with a zero-bid unless you have pirates on your hand. There is much less variety and bids above 2 or 3 turn essentially utterly useless and are almost never made.

Again, I don’t play arena and don’t care one way or another, but your technical assessment is quite a bit off here.

Inaofr wrote: ↑28 September 2025, 00:49 Same, at least four player are needed in Skull King. Three is way too random.

There is nothing that makes 4-player mode less “random” than 3-player, in fact the opposite is the case, as more unknown cards have to be accounted for with more players in the game.

I gave a more detailed explanation elsewhere in this discussion.

T72on1 wrote: ↑03 September 2025, 13:23 In my opinion, this game is only interesting from 4 players and up, and ideal with 5. The 3 player version is no fun at all, as it renders the game much more luck based than it already is.

So here's hoping the game setting for arena play will be 4 or 5 players next season. And yes, I know it's the gurus who vote for it. I have been one in several games myself. I just don't think I'll play this game nearly enough to become a guru, so that's why I'm putting this out here.

To be clear: I absolutely love this game, especially in real life. But not at 3 players. At all.

You admit that you don’t play this game much but then give factually inaccurate statements about it. What’s the point?

No, the 3-player version is not more “luck-based”, it is in fact less luck-based. See my explanation elsewhere in this same thread, but the gist of it is that with more players, you need to account for a greater number of unknown cards in your bidding and trick-taking phases, naturally making the game more random.

KillPhil23 wrote: ↑08 September 2025, 21:01 Agreed. It should be changed to 4 players and up for arena. I would be in favor of rotating the arena settings season to season.

Rotating is fine, but the claim about luck and randomness that you are agreeing with is pure misinformation.

Levy Olet wrote: ↑04 September 2025, 20:59 Agreed. I wish the pirate powers was on as well.
The game is not the same without them

Pirate powers would be excellent, but increasing the number of players in an arena doesn’t help since randomness increases.

If people want to play with more players, that’s up to them, but no point pretending that it somehow brings out the skill element. Also I’m not sure that most players are fluent in pirate powers, so people may not like having it in the arena.

Vincent1111 wrote: ↑30 September 2025, 00:32

T72on1 wrote: ↑03 September 2025, 13:23 In my opinion, this game is only interesting from 4 players and up, and ideal with 5. The 3 player version is no fun at all, as it renders the game much more luck based than it already is.

So here's hoping the game setting for arena play will be 4 or 5 players next season. And yes, I know it's the gurus who vote for it. I have been one in several games myself. I just don't think I'll play this game nearly enough to become a guru, so that's why I'm putting this out here.

To be clear: I absolutely love this game, especially in real life. But not at 3 players. At all.

You admit that you don’t play this game much but then give factually inaccurate statements about it. What’s the point?

No, the 3-player version is not more “luck-based”, it is in fact less luck-based. See my explanation elsewhere in this same thread, but the gist of it is that with more players, you need to account for a greater number of unknown cards in your bidding and trick-taking phases, naturally making the game more random.

I never said I don't play this game much. Just not enough to be a guru. My online plays might be limited, but I have played this game a lot in real life. And I have a high win rate there.

You might have a high ranking here, but it goes too far too claim I give factually inaccurate statements in this thread and pretend you have the truth just because of that. So let's not go that route.

Skull King on the whole is quite luck based, on all player counts. If that wasn't the case, top arena and all time players would have much higher points. Rereading my post, I admit I definitely got the focus of my message wrong though. I still think that 3 players makes the game more random and 4 to 5 players is the sweet spot. But I also think that the game is much more fun at higher player counts than 3. Which is another reason why I hope Arena will change to a higher player count. If it doesn't, fine too, I will probably stick to regular games. Arena should be catered to the majority of players who want to add some competition. Not to me as an individual.