Report • Board Game Arena

All reports

#48711: "RED THUMBS should be disabled in Arena."

awaiting: This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet

What is this report about?

BGA website

What happened ? Please select from below

Suggestion: in my opinion, the following would greatly improve the website

What happened ? Please select from below

Suggestion: in my opinion, the following would greatly improve the website

Please check if there is already a report on the same subject

If yes, please VOTE for this report. Reports with the most votes are taken care of in PRIORITY!

#	Status	Votes	Game	Type	Title	Last update

Detailed description

Report history

18. Sep 2021 10:51 • Countess-Aleksey • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

19. Sep 2021 02:51 • ufm • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

While there are players handing out red thumbs only to preserve ranking (I've seen some), red thumb also prevents kingmakers, multiple accounts, cheaters, verbal offenders, or other miscreants from being matched together. It's a complex problem...

19. Sep 2021 13:10 • Countess-Aleksey • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

How can playing in the Arena be fair, when you can give out RED THUMBS, view who has joined a game and last of all start a New Season on a higher level?

25. Sep 2021 19:24 • ufm • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

I didn't say current system is 100% fair. I said voiding red thumb would not make Arena fairer.

27. Sep 2021 23:06 • RedAlert39 • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

+1. Giving red thumbs doesn't prevent people from kingmaking, etc - it just prevents you personally from being matched with them, which does nothing to affect the overall fairness of arena matchmaking.

11. Oct 2021 20:03 • Tybus913 • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

Agree with ufm. One of the reasons I give out red thumbs is if someone quits mid-game. I don't want to waste my time having to play those people.

9. Dec 2021 13:00 • frankenStain • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

agree except for team based games (like tichu) , so its possible to avoid being teamed up with horendous partners - also to avoid cheaters (which also happens in tichu)

10. Jun 2022 12:03 • FHenker • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

This exploit was extensively used by Sussuarana Onitama last season to try to steal the #1 ranking in Onitama: by giving red thumbs to me (and potentially other strong players), he biased the matchmaking to such an extent that I estimate his arena rating to have been inflated by at least 100-150 points in some moments!

At least in 1v1 games, there is NO reason why Arena matchmaking should take red thumbs into account — it opens up room for manipulation and cheating, and we have this very concrete example in Onitama!!

23. Oct 2023 09:30 • Sjarmtrollet • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

So very strange that red thumbs would impact arena matchmaking....that I would never assume.

27. May 2024 08:23 • Malo77 • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

RT system needs improvement, there are some RT abusers.
Limit nb of RT per day/week, and or timelimit them so a review every 1-2-3 month is needed to keep them or remove them by default.

23. Jul 2024 19:40 • Pechnik • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

Red thumbs are obviously a method of unfair competition that many players on this site use, especially in less popular games. It's a shame that the site allows this.

15. Dec 2024 13:30 • RazorOz • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

Problem is the solution is complex. I could only get on board with something like this if the penalties for quitting an Arena game were significantly higher than they are now, because otherwise for players not abusing the red thumb for competition purposes, and instead using it as I would assume its attended this will be beyond tedious.

Because I don't want to play the army of players who think it's ok to play for an hour and quit on the last turn when they know they have lost that exist for certain games. If the penalties for such behaviour were harsher then this would make sense, but otherwise it's untenable to me.

The other issue is some of the other actions taken encourage using the red thumb for other reasons. Again, it's not something I do, but I can understand why players red thumb players they don't want to play because of the ELO reducer, because games where you can't win ELO, only lose are also tedious. This issue is one that could easily be fixed by going back to how it used to be, but so far BGA have stood by this change, which will lead to more behaviour like this.

9. Mar 2025 09:00 • yuniboshi • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

"red thumb also prevents kingmakers, multiple accounts, cheaters, verbal offenders, or other miscreants from being matched"

It does not. As long as BGA refuse to moderate these players (you cannot even report them - site tells you to "Red thumb" them instead) they will continue to exist because there will always be a next victim and because making new accounts to manipulate rating with is free. Competitive integrity is not gained by letting people choose to not play with cheaters, it is only gained by removing cheaters and bad sport from the pool and so is a bad reason to keep red thumbs in arena.

29. Mar 2025 08:33 • NaCl_duke • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

Tactical red thumbing has gotten so bad at Tapestry that one player can block the formation of real time arena tables.They start an arena table but since they have almost everybody on red thumb nobody else can start a new table. If you do not want to play with certain players, fine, but why can I not start a separate arena table? My progress bar is stuck at "Searching for players..." never goes to "Searching for 1 player...."

9. Jun 2025 00:24 • Le007n • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

Can we get an update on the dev stance to whether a change will be made here?

This issue is getting ridiculous now and is very frustrating. As someone who has actively played arena for many years and been fortunate enough to have season wins for several successive seasons, I now struggle get a game since many other active players have just added red thumbs to prevent matches and losses.

Arena is going down the route where it's not going to be the best player in games with less players but the one that plays the system which is wrong

14. Sep 2025 03:15 • Ella_is_alive • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

There shouldn’t be red thumbs in arena. If you are among the best 20, some very good players give you the red thumb and play only with weaker opponents.

22. Oct 2025 08:02 • Exotic Dreams • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

Nope. Will not support this:

I want the option to block:

1) Players who take advantage of technological problems to kick other players out of games to score freebie points. These players cannot even be reported because this is not against the rules.

2) Passive aggressive players

3) Arena players who play with multiple accounts.

9. Nov 2025 15:10 • HoaryUrchin • This suggestion has not been analyzed by delopers yet:

The problem is not wanting to be matched for cause.

If BGA had a setting so players could choose to not match with any player who has gone over their time limit or other basic infractions, the need for the red thumbs would be reduced. Players should also have the option to turn off chat to remove the need to red thumb verbally abusive players.

Add something to this report

Please add here anything that seems relevant to reproduce this bug or understand your suggestion:

Another table ID / move ID
Did F5 solve the problem?
Did the problem appears several time? Everytime? Randomly?
If you have a screenshot of this bug (good practice), you can use Imgur.com to upload it and copy/paste the link here.

LB_CANCEL Update report

#48711: "RED THUMBS should be disabled in Arena."

What is this report about?

What happened ? Please select from below

What happened ? Please select from below

Please check if there is already a report on the same subject

Detailed description

Report history

Add something to this report

Change report status to:

LB_HELP

Contribute

Navigate

Follow us