hi All,
I am new on this forum (so needed to put my post in here, however I ask admin to put it in "contact developers" or "arena" section if possible). I am playing GWENT for well over a year. I am a fanatic Arena player (although personally I do not have much time - Android release just gave me a huge boost, thanks CDPR!). Arena mode is so versatile, funny, demanding... and rewarding in a sense. However (having some personal experience in various games, not only computer ones, but all the 'serious' like chess, bridge, poker) at the same time I regret that this mode is possitioned "as a background addition" in comparison to the Ranked mode today.
This is why I would like to open a discussion on enhancing Arena.... and possibilities/options to have a competitive Arena mode - I spent hell lot of time thinking to retain all the good things we currently have and benefit even more from Gwent being a truly competitive environment to play in. So here it goes (my proposals thoughts/ideas... I give it away for free so any who can, benefit... of course am aware that CDPR analyst team need to get down deep in those... and content creators/experience players are welcome to make their opinion):
1. Few types of arena-rankings:
[Explanation: Arena mode of it's nature is random... so I feel like having only a singe ranking (in general) could upset many players, who can have different (although all could be competitive) attitude towards this mode]:
a) Average win-rate - simplest division: number of won matches (...and it does not matter if it was 9-0 or 9-2), by the total number (...and again it does not matter if you broke contract after seeing 3 leaders, or managed to go 8-3... which is a very good score, yet still a loss)
[Explanation : win is a win
]
b) Average player-efficiency - a bit difficult/long to explain, but I hope quite fair in terms of evaluating player abilities (in comparison to all the other players... so to some average) which in my opinion should be similar to Bridge International Match Points system
(to make long story short: in bridge card game you are given 13 out of 52 cards in total to your hand... and there is an easy-to-calculate point system with which you can tell which hand is strong and which is not - there is also a statistical table for a reference (open to everybody) to tell with which pair of hand-strength you should achieve to take X bids at the end - because bridge is a pair-game). In Gwent we already also have an easy to calculate card point Provisioning system.
Each player should be ranked based on their average from all Arena runs.
- In my opinion each personal Arena contract should be finally given a result of "=won-lost"... so the scale is -3 (0-3) up till 9 (9-0)... and is not fully linear, as you cannot get "6" (as 9-3 is impossible to get) - which could be a good thing, to increase the positive impact of games won (breaking a contract should be -3... or can be 0 ?!? (to be decided by CDPR)).
- then the strength of the hand should be statistically evaluated (can be done with ranked Provision Points for the beginning (however this is not ideal, would make it really simple for the beginning)
NOTE: there can be historical results used for that (if available), or those can happen in "initial" season of gathering arena statistics.
[Explanation: Provision point system should be relatively easy to implement, and in average quite fair at the same time... however not perfect, as I guess majority of advanced arena players seeing choice of : Vigo's Muzzle / Gedynieth / Tourney Shaelmaar / Draugh... would easily pick Shaelmaar, despite it's lowest Provision Points
Explanation2 (might seem offtopic, but is not): a very good Poker player does not always win the heads-up... yet because they are very good, they are quite wealthy people... seeing Gwent as a competitive environment, should mean even if you make all the best decisions in a particular game you can still loose, however there should be a way to evaluate game-by-game, or contract-by-contract that you are good or bad in your decisions]
- so I propose to have a statistical (quite linear) table (know or unknown to public - still to be decided by CDPR) which tells what is expected final result with which number of PP in a particular deck, so i.e. with:
> 140P (in your arena deck, over 26 cards - say: excluding leader ability provisions, as those are totally missed in Arena) you should on average get final score of "-1,25"... your true final score (let's say you've done great and managed to win 4 games with such miserable deck, so your result in this case would be 4-3 = 1) should be lowered by that average expected result and your "average player-efficiency" should be calculated as 1 - (-1,25) = 2,25 for this single Arena contract (meaning "Great job man!"),
> 200P deck you should on average get final run score of 5,85... however you were unlucky and finally went 8-3 (so your final result is 8-3 = 5)... and the "average player-efficiency" is 5 - 5,85 = -0,85 for this single Arena contract (meaning "You did so-so this time"),
> 130 P broken contract gives you -3... while statistically you should get -2,2... so you end up with -3 - (-2.2) = -0,8 (meaning "this was not the best decision")
Average player-efficiency is an average of all those single results for each player.
c) For both "Average win-rate" and "Average player-efficiency" there could be a:
- seasonal ranking : this would be very dynamical and interesting if somebody would like to get involved in a particular season in Arena only... however true arena players are like dragons, long lasting... so I propose:
- all-times ranking, which should divided into few sub-categories of "Arena experience" (meaning number of Arena contracts finished - not to have somebody who played only a single contract and did exceptionally good to be in the hall-of-fames for all times... as that person was just extremely lucky, not necessairly a genius Arena player), so I propose i.e.:
> 1-49 total Arena contracts finished by a particular player
> 50+ Arena contracts... a truly valuable OPEN all-times category
[Explanation: ability to play Arena is not really impacted by any season, mode or additional cards or rules released... as they are same for both players and the true ability is to efficiently use your random resources of wisely created deck]
NOTE: of course 1-49 games finished would be just a starter to have fun (can be also not visible, but then I propose to have a division in 3 groups 9-99-OPEN... and keep 10-99 visible, so people can see their progress in this Arena ranking quickly)
NOTE 2: all Arena types count in
2. Main rule: each started Arena contract counts!... meaning before new Arena contract is opened, the previous one must be finished and taken into account in all rankings)
[Explanation: it would be a mistake to let people break contracts and get better this way]
NOTE: there could/should be special way (mail to support or anything similar - in case of application error casae... impact of which would be greater than in Ranked mode, as the whole contract can be lost even with a 26-golds hand -> which would cause a big decrease of ArenaRanked score... which could be a problem)
3. Proposal of a substantial change to the draft mode: to be able just to see 3 leader-abilities... have them visible during cards drafting, pick all the 26 cards (as we do now)... and only at the end be able to finalize the decission on the leader - this would decrease to risk involved in picking "empty" leader ability - not a huge must, just a proposal making Arena mode a bit more consistent and compete'able.
I am aware that from Product Management point of view this can be a big change/challenge, however I really believe this might bring real benefits by having people more involved in Gwent Arena and in Gwent in general.
I would like everybody to give their feedback. Am open for critics... just hope they have logical reasons. I am really eager to help Arena!
Borys
I am new on this forum (so needed to put my post in here, however I ask admin to put it in "contact developers" or "arena" section if possible). I am playing GWENT for well over a year. I am a fanatic Arena player (although personally I do not have much time - Android release just gave me a huge boost, thanks CDPR!). Arena mode is so versatile, funny, demanding... and rewarding in a sense. However (having some personal experience in various games, not only computer ones, but all the 'serious' like chess, bridge, poker) at the same time I regret that this mode is possitioned "as a background addition" in comparison to the Ranked mode today.
This is why I would like to open a discussion on enhancing Arena.... and possibilities/options to have a competitive Arena mode - I spent hell lot of time thinking to retain all the good things we currently have and benefit even more from Gwent being a truly competitive environment to play in. So here it goes (my proposals thoughts/ideas... I give it away for free so any who can, benefit... of course am aware that CDPR analyst team need to get down deep in those... and content creators/experience players are welcome to make their opinion):
1. Few types of arena-rankings:
[Explanation: Arena mode of it's nature is random... so I feel like having only a singe ranking (in general) could upset many players, who can have different (although all could be competitive) attitude towards this mode]:
a) Average win-rate - simplest division: number of won matches (...and it does not matter if it was 9-0 or 9-2), by the total number (...and again it does not matter if you broke contract after seeing 3 leaders, or managed to go 8-3... which is a very good score, yet still a loss)
[Explanation : win is a win
]b) Average player-efficiency - a bit difficult/long to explain, but I hope quite fair in terms of evaluating player abilities (in comparison to all the other players... so to some average) which in my opinion should be similar to Bridge International Match Points system
(to make long story short: in bridge card game you are given 13 out of 52 cards in total to your hand... and there is an easy-to-calculate point system with which you can tell which hand is strong and which is not - there is also a statistical table for a reference (open to everybody) to tell with which pair of hand-strength you should achieve to take X bids at the end - because bridge is a pair-game). In Gwent we already also have an easy to calculate card point Provisioning system.
Each player should be ranked based on their average from all Arena runs.
- In my opinion each personal Arena contract should be finally given a result of "=won-lost"... so the scale is -3 (0-3) up till 9 (9-0)... and is not fully linear, as you cannot get "6" (as 9-3 is impossible to get) - which could be a good thing, to increase the positive impact of games won (breaking a contract should be -3... or can be 0 ?!? (to be decided by CDPR)).
- then the strength of the hand should be statistically evaluated (can be done with ranked Provision Points for the beginning (however this is not ideal, would make it really simple for the beginning)
NOTE: there can be historical results used for that (if available), or those can happen in "initial" season of gathering arena statistics.
[Explanation: Provision point system should be relatively easy to implement, and in average quite fair at the same time... however not perfect, as I guess majority of advanced arena players seeing choice of : Vigo's Muzzle / Gedynieth / Tourney Shaelmaar / Draugh... would easily pick Shaelmaar, despite it's lowest Provision Points
Explanation2 (might seem offtopic, but is not): a very good Poker player does not always win the heads-up... yet because they are very good, they are quite wealthy people
... seeing Gwent as a competitive environment, should mean even if you make all the best decisions in a particular game you can still loose, however there should be a way to evaluate game-by-game, or contract-by-contract that you are good or bad in your decisions]- so I propose to have a statistical (quite linear) table (know or unknown to public - still to be decided by CDPR) which tells what is expected final result with which number of PP in a particular deck, so i.e. with:
> 140P (in your arena deck, over 26 cards - say: excluding leader ability provisions, as those are totally missed in Arena) you should on average get final score of "-1,25"... your true final score (let's say you've done great and managed to win 4 games with such miserable deck, so your result in this case would be 4-3 = 1) should be lowered by that average expected result and your "average player-efficiency" should be calculated as 1 - (-1,25) = 2,25 for this single Arena contract (meaning "Great job man!"),
> 200P deck you should on average get final run score of 5,85... however you were unlucky and finally went 8-3 (so your final result is 8-3 = 5)... and the "average player-efficiency" is 5 - 5,85 = -0,85 for this single Arena contract (meaning "You did so-so this time"),
> 130 P broken contract gives you -3... while statistically you should get -2,2... so you end up with -3 - (-2.2) = -0,8 (meaning "this was not the best decision
")Average player-efficiency is an average of all those single results for each player.
c) For both "Average win-rate" and "Average player-efficiency" there could be a:
- seasonal ranking : this would be very dynamical and interesting if somebody would like to get involved in a particular season in Arena only... however true arena players are like dragons, long lasting
... so I propose:- all-times ranking, which should divided into few sub-categories of "Arena experience" (meaning number of Arena contracts finished - not to have somebody who played only a single contract and did exceptionally good to be in the hall-of-fames for all times... as that person was just extremely lucky, not necessairly a genius Arena player), so I propose i.e.:
> 1-49 total Arena contracts finished by a particular player
> 50+ Arena contracts... a truly valuable OPEN all-times category
[Explanation: ability to play Arena is not really impacted by any season, mode or additional cards or rules released... as they are same for both players and the true ability is to efficiently use your random resources of wisely created deck]
NOTE: of course 1-49 games finished would be just a starter to have fun (can be also not visible, but then I propose to have a division in 3 groups 9-99-OPEN... and keep 10-99 visible, so people can see their progress in this Arena ranking quickly)
NOTE 2: all Arena types count in
2. Main rule: each started Arena contract counts!... meaning before new Arena contract is opened, the previous one must be finished and taken into account in all rankings)
[Explanation: it would be a mistake to let people break contracts and get better this way]
NOTE: there could/should be special way (mail to support or anything similar - in case of application error casae... impact of which would be greater than in Ranked mode, as the whole contract can be lost even with a 26-golds hand -> which would cause a big decrease of ArenaRanked score... which could be a problem)
3. Proposal of a substantial change to the draft mode: to be able just to see 3 leader-abilities... have them visible during cards drafting, pick all the 26 cards (as we do now)... and only at the end be able to finalize the decission on the leader - this would decrease to risk involved in picking "empty" leader ability - not a huge must, just a proposal making Arena mode a bit more consistent and compete'able.
I am aware that from Product Management point of view this can be a big change/challenge, however I really believe this might bring real benefits by having people more involved in Gwent Arena and in Gwent in general.
I would like everybody to give their feedback. Am open for critics... just hope they have logical reasons. I am really eager to help Arena!
Borys
