Games never start

[wrldtrvllr]

I seek a game, I wait a while. The message says "Searching for x players...", and eventually x goes down to zero. But no game ever starts. So I cannot play this game. Does anyone else experience the same issue?

[Meeplelowda]

I seek a game, I wait a while. The message says "Searching for x players...", and eventually x goes down to zero. But no game ever starts. So I cannot play this game. Does anyone else experience the same issue?

Occasionally. Do you have any filters set (such as ELO restrictions or old edition)?

[RicardoRix]

Yeah, here's what's happening.

You don't have the standard, default 1 move/day preference. My guess is most users don't change this.

So you que, and everyone else has 1move/day, but if one of them doesn't match your time frame, then it's likely to start without you.

It happens more often with larger player tables. And yes, it can happen equally with other settings where you've deselected the default.

[wrldtrvllr]

Occasionally. Do you have any filters set (such as ELO restrictions or old edition)?

I set some preferences to avoid matching with players far from my level. I can see why this would result in a longer wait for a game, but not why it would result in the message "searching for 0 players..." and no game ever starting.

[wrldtrvllr]

Yeah, here's what's happening.

You don't have the standard, default 1 move/day preference. My guess is most users don't change this.

So you que, and everyone else has 1move/day, but if one of them doesn't match your time frame, then it's likely to start without you.

It happens more often with larger player tables. And yes, it can happen equally with other settings where you've deselected the default.

I've set no preferences on game speed. Clearly changing from the default settings can result in a longer wait for a game, but I do not see why it should ever result in the message "searching for 0 players..." and no game starting.

[Meeplelowda]

Occasionally. Do you have any filters set (such as ELO restrictions or old edition)?

I set some preferences to avoid matching with players far from my level. I can see why this would result in a longer wait for a game, but not why it would result in the message "searching for 0 players..." and no game ever starting.

I don't know what the criteria are for it to stop searching, because I once let it search for almost half an hour for a game. But maybe I just didn't notice it had gone to searching for 0.

[RicardoRix]

Yeah, here's what's happening.

You don't have the standard, default 1 move/day preference. My guess is most users don't change this.

So you que, and everyone else has 1move/day, but if one of them doesn't match your time frame, then it's likely to start without you.

It happens more often with larger player tables. And yes, it can happen equally with other settings where you've deselected the default.

I've set no preferences on game speed. Clearly changing from the default settings can result in a longer wait for a game, but I do not see why it should ever result in the message "searching for 0 players..." and no game starting.

OK, Interesting.
I was just postulating. I have seem this exact same thing happen to me.
Are these Arena games or standard game tables?
There was a time when you could see the players names in the Arena tables creation que, I could see that new tables did in fact open, I was missed several times resulting in going back to searching 0 players found. Eventually you get a game.

There might be something in the opponent settings that specifically excludes you.
It may be a BGA table match making glitch, it's very difficult to tell.

Let's say there are a pool of 5 free players for a 4 player game, you are one of them. Firstly, someone has to miss out. The preferences are likely to be the defaults, and the search goes through a 'relaxing' of the preferences only after some time.
For whatever reason you are continually missed out because you don't quite meet all of the requirements that the others ordinarily do.
It's like the wrong timing of players entering and search preferences been relaxed. Again postulation, but behind the scenes it's the Arena auto match making tables that very possible isn't perfect. It doesn't have individuals in mind.

[wrldtrvllr]

Strangely, without me changing any settings, the problem disappeared. If I seek games of 7 wonders they now start very quickly. This happened shortly after a service outage the other morning, so there must have been some glitch in the system that got resolved.