Is arena broken?

[Andrewsmile]

The restrictions do work, but you have to know where to look (it is NOT obvious). I made a short video on how to queue properly using the "old lobby" instead of the "new lobby/game page" that BGA is trying to get everyone to use.
https://youtu.be/_QHKEMP7xOE?si=TzGxyYj8QswrYiCB

The restrictions made with the gear icon seem to work ~mostly~. I am elite and 95% of my games are against other elite players but every so often bronze, silver, and gold players sneak in. This is with my settings set to "I never want to play against" any level but my own. Not sure why this happens, it doesn't seem queue time related since ark nova queue is never more than 30 seconds for me. The elo-related setting never works for me in arena mode, I am frequently matched against 100-300 elo players despite having forbidden this in that setting.

[sorryimlikethis]

The restrictions do work, but you have to know where to look (it is NOT obvious). I made a short video on how to queue properly using the "old lobby" instead of the "new lobby/game page" that BGA is trying to get everyone to use.
https://youtu.be/_QHKEMP7xOE?si=TzGxyYj8QswrYiCB

The restrictions made with the gear icon seem to work ~mostly~. I am elite and 95% of my games are against other elite players but every so often bronze, silver, and gold players sneak in. This is with my settings set to "I never want to play against" any level but my own. Not sure why this happens, it doesn't seem queue time related since ark nova queue is never more than 30 seconds for me. The elo-related setting never works for me in arena mode, I am frequently matched against 100-300 elo players despite having forbidden this in that setting.

This is where a lot of confusion lies. In the "new lobby/game page" you can only restrict by Elo. This works for normal games but does not work for arena games (as intended). The "old lobby" is the only way you can restrict your arena opponents. This means even if you have the correct settings in "old lobby" but queue for a game in "new lobby" it won't work properly. Over the last 3 seasons I've only queued using the "old lobby" with my restrictions on and have never found an opponent outside of elite league (except at the start of a season when I am not elite).

[ArtEntre]

I literally just played vs an elite while queueing with only "Avarage(my level)" and lower marked and I'm 0 ranks bronze

As mentioned above, there are two separate settings that impact arena vs non-arena, which makes it confusing. Even more so because the non-arena settings are much easier to find.

"Average (my level)" is a matchmaking restriction for non-arena games. That setting will have no impact on arena games. Anything referencing beginner, average, good, strong, expert is a non-arena setting.

[greenjacket124]

you'd think they work

They do, when you use them.

they don't, at least not in arena, I literally just played vs an elite while queueing with only "Avarage(my level)" and lower marked and I'm 0 ranks bronze

Like I said, you have to actually use them, and that is not how you set the restrictions in Arena.
This is: https://imgur.com/a/cPKnEcz

[Gagneto]

They do, when you use them.

they don't, at least not in arena, I literally just played vs an elite while queueing with only "Avarage(my level)" and lower marked and I'm 0 ranks bronze

look, humor me for a minute, even if they did, if we think about it we'd all reach the same conclusion, the idea itself is asinine, any reasonable competitive player from any game with a ranked mode would laugh at the idea of stomping newbies for the purpose of rank, first because the miniscule change in rank from the elo system would mean they'd have to play dozens of matches to make it worth 1 match vs a real opponent, not to mention the off chance they lose and tank unreasonable amounts of points, also the idea of stomping every game is just not fun, the novelty wears off really quickly

I bet a lot of league or valorant players would be against a button that says "waste 1h but gain 3 MMR", then again, those psychos exist, and that is another reason we don't have those kind of buttons, the elo system really wasn't made for this, it's like trying to hammer a nail with your hands, it's not the right tool, you need a hammer, though I don't know what the hammer for bga would be, but it's definitely not elo

The restrictions do work, but you have to know where to look (it is NOT obvious). I made a short video on how to queue properly using the "old lobby" instead of the "new lobby/game page" that BGA is trying to get everyone to use.
https://youtu.be/_QHKEMP7xOE?si=TzGxyYj8QswrYiCB

bga needs some new UI design people ASAP, this is beyond esoteric, gonna try to use this option and see what becomes of it

[Andrewsmile]

This means even if you have the correct settings in "old lobby" but queue for a game in "new lobby" it won't work properly. Over the last 3 seasons I've only queued using the "old lobby" with my restrictions on and have never found an opponent outside of elite league (except at the start of a season when I am not elite).

That's crazy, never realized that queuing with new lobby invalidates old lobby settings. Thanks for clearing that up!!

[DoctorFianchetto]

they don't, at least not in arena, I literally just played vs an elite while queueing with only "Avarage(my level)" and lower marked and I'm 0 ranks bronze

look, humor me for a minute, even if they did, if we think about it we'd all reach the same conclusion, the idea itself is asinine, any reasonable competitive player from any game with a ranked mode would laugh at the idea of stomping newbies for the purpose of rank, first because the miniscule change in rank from the elo system would mean they'd have to play dozens of matches to make it worth 1 match vs a real opponent, not to mention the off chance they lose and tank unreasonable amounts of points, also the idea of stomping every game is just not fun, the novelty wears off really quickly

I bet a lot of league or valorant players would be against a button that says "waste 1h but gain 3 MMR", then again, those psychos exist, and that is another reason we don't have those kind of buttons, the elo system really wasn't made for this, it's like trying to hammer a nail with your hands, it's not the right tool, you need a hammer, though I don't know what the hammer for bga would be, but it's definitely not elo

The restrictions do work, but you have to know where to look (it is NOT obvious). I made a short video on how to queue properly using the "old lobby" instead of the "new lobby/game page" that BGA is trying to get everyone to use.
https://youtu.be/_QHKEMP7xOE?si=TzGxyYj8QswrYiCB

bga needs some new UI design people ASAP, this is beyond esoteric, gonna try to use this option and see what becomes of it

Indeed, a UI shouldn't require people to walk through a maze of webpages and forums to figure out how to do something that should be a basic setting.

Also the fact that there are (at least) two different ways to create a game, that use their own independent settings, is just dreadful. How did we get to this point?

[k4r]

I'm kinda bewildered as to how meaningless the ranked system is, to the point of begging the question "why even have one", the whole point of rank and elo is to do better matchmaking and yet all I'm paired up with is elites with triple and quadruple digits of games.

I'm still learning and trying to get better and it's kinda useless, especially in a "race to the top" game such as ark nova, to play people way better than you. You can't compete, yeah sure, you can watch their plays and try to understand why each play is made, but there's a limit to how much you can learn from that, not seeing improvements is one of the biggest drop offs in ranked play in general, alongside with toxicity, the problem with ark nova, and honestly bga in general, is that there seems to be 0 effort on the matchmaking system to pair you with players of equal skill, I understand queue times are a thing, but when I'm queueing in less than a minute in to an elite player, it's pretty clear the matchmaking didn't try to pair me at all

lol, you have played 27 games and already complaining its too hard? gimme noobs to beat in arena
try to get some experience, ive got 600+ games online and 200+games offline and im still learning something new from those monsters in arena.
patience and experience - thats what you need