Hey all! My apologies if this was brought up earlier but I didn't see it in earlier forum posts.
It seems like friendly robber is here to stay for most arena seasons (and I'm personally happy with it - it just adds another layer of strategy to the game). My only issue with its implementation is how inconsequential it is where you put the robber when you roll a 7 when everybody is still at 2 point. (I know you can always put the robber adjacent to where you think the first settlement is going to appear but in my 1000+ arena games, I doubt it has substantially affected the game more than a few times, if ever.)
On average, an arena game takes about 30 minutes for me and I estimate that on average 1 to 2 minutes of that time is spent on moving the knight pointlessly at every roll of a 7 until somebody has something going on for them. It might not appear like a lot, but for people like me who like to play multiple games back to back, it adds up to some significant waste of time and effort.
So, my suggestion is to implement changes so that the game skips it automatically when someone rolls a 7 while nobody still has a settlement/city/the army card/longest path card; or better yet, if the implementation is not an issue, that the game won't let anyone roll a 7 until someone has a settlement/city/the army card/longest path card. What do you all seasoned players think?
It seems like friendly robber is here to stay for most arena seasons (and I'm personally happy with it - it just adds another layer of strategy to the game). My only issue with its implementation is how inconsequential it is where you put the robber when you roll a 7 when everybody is still at 2 point. (I know you can always put the robber adjacent to where you think the first settlement is going to appear but in my 1000+ arena games, I doubt it has substantially affected the game more than a few times, if ever.)
On average, an arena game takes about 30 minutes for me and I estimate that on average 1 to 2 minutes of that time is spent on moving the knight pointlessly at every roll of a 7 until somebody has something going on for them. It might not appear like a lot, but for people like me who like to play multiple games back to back, it adds up to some significant waste of time and effort.
So, my suggestion is to implement changes so that the game skips it automatically when someone rolls a 7 while nobody still has a settlement/city/the army card/longest path card; or better yet, if the implementation is not an issue, that the game won't let anyone roll a 7 until someone has a settlement/city/the army card/longest path card. What do you all seasoned players think?