Board Game Arena

I will maybe make a suggestion/contribute to an existing suggestion on this later, but first I want to brainstorm ideas from the community, especially as I think it's helpful to get a perspective from a wide range of games.

It seems very clear that guru selection is flawed. The system is biased towards players who play at lower player counts, as those games tend to be faster, thus meaning those players play more games. At the extreme you have solo players, it's not so much having a problem with how someone wants to play the game, but it's completely pointless having gurus full of people who only play or play near exclusively solo, when they get a vote over next Arena season that obviously isn't going to be solo. But even like playing 2 player obviously gives an advantage to get in gurus. The same principle also applies to real-time players having an advantage over turn based. The end result is you get a gurus that I don't feel is necessarily very representative of the gaming communities.

But what are the solutions? The simplest and most obvious one to me is friendly games shouldn't count towards games played for gurus. Like I say it's completely pointless having 1/3 of gurus be players who only play solo, they probably aren't even interested in what the next Arena season format is. As for the rest the solutions seem a bit more complex, but I do feel improvement is needed, because currently you end up with a situation where only like 20% of gurus even interact with Arena suggestions.

EDIT - Suggestion to stop friendly games (eg. solo) qualifying for gurus https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=214627

Do solo games really count for guru-ness?

That's awful, must remember that the next time someone pokes the Obsession Solo thread. Before this I didn't have any reason to oppose it being created, but diluting the pool in interested and engaged gurus is a bad thing.

I’m pretty sure there was a thread on this exact topic not too long ago

Jontia wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 13:58 Do solo games really count for guru-ness?

That's awful, must remember that the next time someone pokes the Obsession Solo thread. Before this I didn't have any reason to oppose it being created, but diluting the pool in interested and engaged gurus is a bad thing.

Yes, a good portion of the Heat gurus are solo only or nearly exclusively play solo. And I suspect it's one of the things the leads to low guru interaction, because the majority of them probably don't even care about Arena.

ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 14:21 I’m pretty sure there was a thread on this exact topic not too long ago

Sure, but without solutions, and push for change, we won't actually get change.

RazorOz wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 11:46 I will maybe make a suggestion/contribute to an existing suggestion on this later, but first I want to brainstorm ideas from the community, especially as I think it's helpful to get a perspective from a wide range of games.

It seems very clear that guru selection is flawed. The system is biased towards players who play at lower player counts, as those games tend to be faster, thus meaning those players play more games. At the extreme you have solo players, it's not so much having a problem with how someone wants to play the game, but it's completely pointless having gurus full of people who only play or play near exclusively solo, when they get a vote over next Arena season that obviously isn't going to be solo. But even like playing 2 player obviously gives an advantage to get in gurus. The same principle also applies to real-time players having an advantage over turn based. The end result is you get a gurus that I don't feel is necessarily very representative of the gaming communities.

But what are the solutions? The simplest and most obvious one to me is friendly games shouldn't count towards games played for gurus. Like I say it's completely pointless having 1/3 of gurus be players who only play solo, they probably aren't even interested in what the next Arena season format is. As for the rest the solutions seem a bit more complex, but I do feel improvement is needed, because currently you end up with a situation where only like 20% of gurus even interact with Arena suggestions.

https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=f ... agamegurus Lists a requirement for Guru as Be among the 100 most active players of ranked tables for the game in the last thirty days. So something is off here. Solo and friendly mode, being unranked tables, shouldn't count.

Jontia wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 13:58 Do solo games really count for guru-ness?

That's awful, must remember that the next time someone pokes the Obsession Solo thread. Before this I didn't have any reason to oppose it being created, but diluting the pool in interested and engaged gurus is a bad thing.

Yes.

I have been a guru in two different games because of my solo games. Fortunately, I do also play those games in arena and I do care about the arena format, but, this is indeed a questionable way of making people gurus for Arena decisions.

Ceaseless wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 17:25
https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=f ... agamegurus Lists a requirement for Guru as Be among the 100 most active players of ranked tables for the game in the last thirty days. So something is off here. Solo and friendly mode, being unranked tables, shouldn't count.

hm.

Maybe I am mistaken. Or maybe the BGA algorithm is making mistakes and counting friendly/solo games.

If I was among the top 100 active players in ranked games in either of the games I am thinking of, that would be very surprising to me.

Ceaseless wrote: ↑09 April 2026, 17:25 https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=f ... agamegurus Lists a requirement for Guru as Be among the 100 most active players of ranked tables for the game in the last thirty days. So something is off here. Solo and friendly mode, being unranked tables, shouldn't count.

It's defo not right then, there are players in Heat gurus who have played less than 20 non-friendly games, but are in gurus on the back of the several 100 solo games they've played.

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 45#p245545

tarongot wrote: ↑07 March 2026, 17:02 I agree. Guru system should be more sophisticated then based on how many games you play. I like idea that gurus could also be players that often plays arena games. But not only those players. Also not only those with highest ELO. Ideally it would be combined of all that. For example TOP 5 arena are is guaranteed Guru, top 10 ELO and rest by current rules of playing frequency. *

*Proposed numbers are just to ilustrate my proposition.

I am a 2-time Guru in two different games, of which I have played 166 and 96 non-friendly games (Ever, total, not just in the 3-month periods in which I became a guru) but a lot of solo games.

One of those has a small player pool, so maybe my small number of games was top 100, but the other one has a large player pool.