Board Game Arena

It's absolutely broken. There is something wrong with the dice. No kidding. For a week now.

My opponents take risks, leaving tokens open over and over and I can't hit them. I take a risk and boom. I'm gone. I've lost so much in the last week I serously want a refund. I don't feel like paying to get tortured. Something has changed in the last week. Before this past week it was back and forth and I kept a fairly constant rank. Now I've lost so much I've fallen so far... all in the past week.

The game is broken. You need to rely on the dice to win. It's heavily biased on luck. That's the game of backgammon.

The game is also based heavily on skill mate, and bias is a massive thing.

Or, the game might be actually be broken for OP alone and it'd advantage all of their opponents

Crafunzio wrote: ↑27 May 2026, 18:49 The game is also based heavily on skill mate, and bias is a massive thing.

Or, the game might be actually be broken for OP alone and it'd advantage all of their opponents

Yes, so when one person all of a sudden, after consistently being at a certain rank, drops like a rock it must be bad dice. So how many people does this happen to? I have won very few matches in the past week or more and for all I know my opponents who win are sometimes are also those who are only winning very rarely due to the same issue. So it could be happening to many people.

But there is a definite difference in the dice lately. This can't be by chance. It's over and over, again and again lately. Too many perfect rolls for opponents, exactly what they need. My play style hasn't changed and my rank has tanked.

nuffbought wrote: ↑27 May 2026, 20:52

Crafunzio wrote: ↑27 May 2026, 18:49 The game is also based heavily on skill mate, and bias is a massive thing.

Or, the game might be actually be broken for OP alone and it'd advantage all of their opponents

Yes, so when one person all of a sudden, after consistently being at a certain rank, drops like a rock it must be bad dice. So how many people does this happen to? I have won very few matches in the past week or more and for all I know my opponents who win are sometimes are also those who are only winning very rarely due to the same issue. So it could be happening to many people.

But there is a definite difference in the dice lately. This can't be by chance. It's over and over, again and again lately. Too many perfect rolls for opponents, exactly what they need. My play style hasn't changed and my rank has tanked.

It is perfectly normal that ELO is fluctuating +-150 points around your "true skill level". That is just what happens with random dice.
Look at the ELO graph of any player that plays a lot and you will see that a longer streak of almost constant ELO is very rare. Yes, you had such a longer streak in the past but that is not to be expected.

Personally, I mostly play 7-point matches recently and this leads to a more stable ELO rating. In earlier times, when only 1-point-matches were possible a sharp rise or fall by 200 ELO points did not surprise me at all.

euklid314 wrote: ↑27 May 2026, 21:27

nuffbought wrote: ↑27 May 2026, 20:52

Crafunzio wrote: ↑27 May 2026, 18:49 The game is also based heavily on skill mate, and bias is a massive thing.

Or, the game might be actually be broken for OP alone and it'd advantage all of their opponents

Yes, so when one person all of a sudden, after consistently being at a certain rank, drops like a rock it must be bad dice. So how many people does this happen to? I have won very few matches in the past week or more and for all I know my opponents who win are sometimes are also those who are only winning very rarely due to the same issue. So it could be happening to many people.

But there is a definite difference in the dice lately. This can't be by chance. It's over and over, again and again lately. Too many perfect rolls for opponents, exactly what they need. My play style hasn't changed and my rank has tanked.

It is perfectly normal that ELO is fluctuating +-150 points around your "true skill level". That is just what happens with random dice.
Look at the ELO graph of any player that plays a lot and you will see that a longer streak of almost constant ELO is very rare. Yes, you had such a longer streak in the past but that is not to be expected.

Personally, I mostly play 7-point matches recently and this leads to a more stable ELO rating. In earlier times, when only 1-point-matches were possible a sharp rise or fall by 200 ELO points did not surprise me at all.

Really? So how long do I have to wait before I get a sharp upturn??? It's so aggravating after having hovered around 300 ELO since I got there, albeit for only about four months since I joined in Jan., and now I'm around 165 and can barely ever win. It doesn't help that the game is often pitting me against lower Arena levels so I take a big hit on a loss and a low return on a win.

Statistically I would think I would have already started winning again. This is insane!

nuffbought wrote: ↑28 May 2026, 07:00 Really? So how long do I have to wait before I get a sharp upturn??? It's so aggravating after having hovered around 300 ELO since I got there, albeit for only about four months since I joined in Jan., and now I'm around 165 and can barely ever win. It doesn't help that the game is often pitting me against lower Arena levels so I take a big hit on a loss and a low return on a win.

Statistically I would think I would have already started winning again. This is insane!

That's not how random events work, though.

If you are watching a roulette wheel and see red hit 3 times in a row, it doesn't now have a higher chance of hitting black on the next spin, the odds are the same each spin.

Considering that in single games of backgammon, the better player usually has a 50some% chance of winning (not that much better than a coin flip), and looking at your most recent 30 matches (10 wins, 20 losses), the likelihood that someone with as many total games played as you would hit a streak like that is over 40%. So not at all unexpected.

The only way to remove the massive randomness of backgammon is to play much higher point matches with the doubling cube (I prefer 11 point at least, but will occasionally play 9 or 7).

I get that it’s very frustrating to have a long bad run of luck. But are you suggesting that the game, or the developers, are somehow picking on you specifically and favouring your opponents? That doesn’t seem plausible to me. If something had changed, it would surely affect everyone.

If the dice are truly random.

You'll inevitably have long losing streaks if you play enough games.
That's evidence FOR the dice being random, not against.

Never having a streak like that would be the suspicious situation.

But besides that, the new match play option and arena setting has drawn many more experienced BG players to play on bga. The majority of good players have other sites to play bg on. And aren't interested in playing single point matches.

So you now have a huge influx of very good players with very low rankings. It's not strange to take a dive in rating when the average quality and skill of bga BG players has increased significantly in a short time.

Remkar wrote: ↑28 May 2026, 13:06 If you are watching a roulette wheel and see red hit 3 times in a row, it doesn't now have a higher chance of hitting black on the next spin, the odds are the same each spin.

Wait, surely if it was red last time it has to be black on the next one? You make this gambling thing seem much more risky.