How is speed of BGA Arena games determined?

[Lumin_S]

Annoyingly, the "I never want..." settings get disrespected when the arena queue changes from bright green to drab green or brown.

They're not supposed to, and I can't say I've had that experience (I set my speed settings to exclude fast speed turn-based games, because I don't want to have to deal with playing hours) and I've never been put into a fast speed game. It's supposed to be that it searches for games based on your settings for a time period, then adds settings for your "prefer not to" (drab green) preferences for a time period, then adds settings for your "reluctant" (brown) preferences. So basically if it wasn't adding those additional preferences, you just wouldn't be getting a game at all.

I know it's supposed to work that way; for the karma restriction I'm quite confident it doesn't. Maybe it actually does work for speed, though I have a faint memory of that not working either.

[nik592]

I know it's supposed to work that way; for the karma restriction I'm quite confident it doesn't. Maybe it actually does work for speed, though I have a faint memory of that not working either.

Well, karma is the one setting that doesn't have the four-option selection - just a single radio button for the karma range you want. It wouldn't surprise me if it only kept that in for the initial (all desired prefs) search. Though it might be nice if that was explained somewhere - I've never considered how the karma restriction might work with the tiered searching.

[jesslc]

This part of jesslc's post is correct, with one necessary addition: if you ONLY want to play fast, set the speed setting appropriately to "never" for normal and slow, and always restart your queue when the color changes from bright green.

Annoyingly, the "I never want..." settings get disrespected when the arena queue changes from bright green to drab green or brown.

I prefer to use the old lobby still because I find it easier to manually check exactly what arena settings I'll have for a game before searching for one.

Old lobby is Play Now (here - https://boardgamearena.com/lobby) (can be a little slow to load)

- Change the top drop down menu from Simple game to Arena

- Find the game you want to check settings for and click the gear icon

- That will bring up a pop up that show the exact settings for that game in Arena mode. Some can't be changed because they're set for this season for everyone but the settings for game speed and a few others are adjustable. You can choose "I never want to play with" for speeds you don't want. I've never been added to a game with any of the speeds where I have chosen "I never want to play with" but I have occasionally been added to games if I chose "I'm reluctant to play with".

Interesting. It could be different for real time, I guess. Perhaps they designed that way it under the assumption that presumably people would prefer to be matched to game at a speed they dislike rather than not be matched to a game at all. I've never once been added to a game which was a speed I don't want (if my settings are right), but I'm only playing turn based arena games.

[Phoxtrot]

I wonder how the details work, I clicked on this thread hoping someone would know.

We can also specify (in the old lobby, the only one worth using...) that we "prefer not to" or are "reluctant to" play with a given speed.
It would make sense for those to take into account the amount of time spent in the lobby.

Suppose it's a 3 player game and 2 players are already waiting when I hit "play now" and we could play together but I'm set at "reluctant" for the one and only speed that they have selected. Will the game start immediately or will it wait for a better match ? How does it decide that ?

Then there is this issue: suppose it's a 4 players arena game and as I click "Play Now!" I immediately join a game as 3 players were already waiting.
Now there has to be a common point between our stated wanted speed but how does it determine which one if there is more than one choice ? Is it like 1 point for a "reticent player", 2 for a "prefer not" and 3 for "okay" and the system pick whatever compatible option gives the more points in total ?

[nik592]

There's this answer in the FAQ: https://boardgamearena.com/faq?anchor=f ... implelobby

I could have sworn I saw that it moves to "prefer not" after 20 minutes and "reluctant" after 72 hours (for turn-based). But I don't know where I saw that.

[liliboum]

i like playing turn by turn i create game but vhen somebody is short of time there is alwyas one player to expell him... even vhen 3 players want to continue .. can we stop this

[nik592]

Vote for a suggestion on the topic: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=35239