Arena Mode and Time Zones

[hon__]

I was playing a Turn based arena game and was kicked due to being out of time (it was a 12 hour timezone difference I saw after I had joined). I understand why, and that's fine. My question is when I search for an arena game (almost always turn based, since everyone is in different time zones) I choose the "flexible" option for speed and time zone, because it's more important to me to get a match than to wait for the handful of players that want my exact time setting. But when I find a match, I'm autojoined without anyway out in the case where the time zone is too different. Is there a way I can choose to be "flexible" but not too flexible? For example, I don't mind playing fast games that are ideal for European time zones, because there's a lot of over lap, but I don't want to join a 24 move per day Chinese timezone game. But if I'm pickier with my settings I will probably get no games at all. Is there any way I can enable confirm to begin an arena game or something?

[nik592]

If you go through the Play Now screen instead of the Game page to setup your game, there's a cog next to each game where you can change settings, including playing hours you will accept (along with game speeds and some other things). You have to do this individually for each game and as far as I'm aware, there's no similar way to set things from the Game page. I've never used playing hours settings, so I can't guarantee this is foolproof (some people report these settings not being respected), but it's a possibility.

There's no way to confirm joining an Arena game - if you say you want an Arena game, it gives you one with your settings. And as I understand it, "flexible" from the new lobby (game page), means "any setting" which is insanity for the reasons you detail here.

[hon__]

I didn't know that about the gears, thanks, but as you said it doesn't help with arena at all. Very annoying! Hopefully they can make confirm start or allow "flexible" to still have some user set limitations.

[ErikLevin]

What nik592 is saying, in their first paragraph, is supposed to work for Arena as well.
Go to https://boardgamearena.com/lobby, choose Arena, click the cog icon on the desired game(s). Click "Show advanced options". Expand "Game speed" and "Playing hours" and make sure all options you don't want are set to "I never want to play with". Click "Play now".
BGA should now not join you to any table that has any of your "I never want..." speeds or playing hours enabled. Unless there's a bug.

[nik592]

I didn't know that about the gears, thanks, but as you said it doesn't help with arena at all. Very annoying! Hopefully they can make confirm start or allow "flexible" to still have some user set limitations.

As ErikLevin says, this does work for both Arena and normal games. The only thing that I said isn't possible is confirming to start an Arena game.

BGA should now not join you to any table that has any of your "I never want..." speeds or playing hours enabled. Unless there's a bug.

That's the thing see - I don't know how those settings interact with the new lobby (game page). And people have reported getting things they didn't want (more around players close to/far from their level, which is a trickier setting to understand).

[hon__]

Ya, I guess my problem would then be I want more embedded preferences - ex., I don't mind playing 1 move per day in complete opposite timezone, but I don't want 24 moves per day in that time zone. Instead I have to either completely exclude timezones (which is bad because a large part of the playerbase is Chinese and thus almost exactly opposite mine) OR just exclude fast games, which I actually prefer when it's my timezone. But thanks for letting me know what options I do have. Hopefully they can simply allow confirm joining arena game, but I understand this creates its own problems of players purposefully dodging specific other players. I guess maybe it could retain the anonymity of who you're playing with and just show you the proposed table settings.

[Meeplelowda]

Hopefully they can simply allow confirm joining arena game, but I understand this creates its own problems of players purposefully dodging specific other players. I guess maybe it could retain the anonymity of who you're playing with and just show you the proposed table settings.

This is an open suggestion (and recurring complaint). If I get sufficiently motivated I'll search for the bug report where you can vote for it (and have it continue to be ignored).

[ErikLevin]

Ya, I guess my problem would then be I want more embedded preferences - ex., I don't mind playing 1 move per day in complete opposite timezone, but I don't want 24 moves per day in that time zone. Instead I have to either completely exclude timezones (which is bad because a large part of the playerbase is Chinese and thus almost exactly opposite mine) OR just exclude fast games, which I actually prefer when it's my timezone. But thanks for letting me know what options I do have. Hopefully they can simply allow confirm joining arena game, but I understand this creates its own problems of players purposefully dodging specific other players. I guess maybe it could retain the anonymity of who you're playing with and just show you the proposed table settings.

The playing hours setting only apply for Fast Turn-Based. So you do not exclude any 1 mv / day tables by setting it.

[nik592]

Yep, you can have both. There's a separate setting for each 12-hr time period - so you can exclude any that don't suit you. And those settings only apply to "fast" games, as "non-fast" don't have playing hours. The only downside is having to do those settings for each Arena game individually.