Sudden new arena matching screen?!?!

[Jellby]

and the change to League Points came 2 days after the new season announcement explicitly said that there would not be any rule changes for this season.

"Rule changes" refers to game rules (number of players, expansions, variants, etc.) not to general BGA framework functionality.

[KenFin1]

I'm glad to see this change trialled at least. Let's give it time before we shoot it down. I can see both sides. Downside, longer starts, upside no expels for afk/silent game launch in the background with no notification. I'm pro the change for now.

[tet3]

"Rule changes" refers to game rules (number of players, expansions, variants, etc.) not to general BGA framework functionality.

That's just incorrect. The announcement (https://boardgamearena.com/news?id=982) has a section about Arena format and gurus, that details how game formats are chosen, and that they absolutely do change from season to season. There's a post that tracks all the individual games' changes: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45252

The next section, Rules Updates, says

No Arena rules are changing this season. It does not mean we are 100% satisfied with how the Arena is running, but you seem to appreciate the current rules so we want to keep them as they are for now.

This is clearly about the Arena in general and rules that apply across games. They acknowledge that there are possible changes in the future, but explicitly says "No Arena rules are changing this season."

[ResonanceSM]

I want to be matched against high rated players.

I want to be able to avoid the games against lower rated players. Little to gain, much to lose.

Now imagine a bunch of high rated players who are like you. (Unless that's the point you're making.)

?

I don't follow.

Or maybe I do. I'm saying that as a high-rated player, I want to be matched against other high-rated player. The result of that is that lower rated players will have fewer opportunities to play high-rated players.

As it should be. Players should work their way up the ranks.

My point was, if high level players won't play with low level players, it's much harder to move up into a tier they may deserve to be in. So if you're saying "I only want to play with high level players, but not low level, because it high risk, low reward." And all the players above you think the same way, then you'll never get to play them. Or at least it will take forever to get there if they never give you a chance to beat them and reap the rewards.

But if your point is that everyone should have to claw their way through each stage only playing each other, I guess that's a different point, but also makes matchmaking really slow in games with a smaller community base.

But even within elite, if you don't want to play lower score elite players, (and other higher rates players feel the same way) it makes it really hard to move up. So your statement, in some ways, requires other players to not choose their opponents like you, so you get to play them. Unless you're simply a fan of the grind.

[FrankJones]

I don't mind the grind.

If I work hard to make my way near the top, I don't think it's "fair" to then be matched with a player with low arena points but who has a higher Elo than I do. That might mean I am playing a higher-skilled player in a situation in which I would gain 5 Arena points with a win but lose 35 with a loss.

[lemonacid]

I understand why some people don't like this. And yes it can be annoying. But still I think it's a good and necessary change. I often had the problem that I had the page open, was looking for games, and paying attention but there was a bug in the site and the game started without opening or me getting notified. I lost so many karma points because of this. and not because I wasn't paying attention or forgot but simply because the game didn't open and I had no way of knowing the game had started.

I also had it in the past that there were bugs and either me or the other player could in fact decline an arena game, I had that quite a few times in the past. Now at least it is consistent, I think that's better personally than the constant glitches.

[FrankJones]

Requiring all players to click "confirm game start" seems like a very obvious and necessary change to me. Just my opinion. I am glad they added this.

[Shivaware]

Just in case any one else was wondering, the new confirmation screen does not apply to turn-based games. I suspected that was the case, but the announcement and all the forum threads didn't make it clear.

[RazorOz]

I like it, you can say waiting for people to accept is tedious, but it's arguably even more tedious if the game starts and then those players don't turn up and then you have to wait for their entire clock to go before you can do anything. With the accept screen if someone doesn't turn up in a minute you can just cancel and search again, making the process significantly faster to get into an actual game than it would be before if someone didn't turn up.

[Meeplelowda]

but it's arguably even more tedious if the game starts and then those players don't turn up and then you have to wait for their entire clock to go before you can do anything.

It seems odd, but from reading posts about what people liked about the old system, it seems they'd rather wait longer but see someone get punished for their waiting, than wait a shorter time and have the person who caused them to wait suffer no consequences. In economic terms, the utility of getting to see someone "get what's coming to them" is worth more to them than the extra time they have to wait to see it happen.

Now one could argue that having the penalty will dissuade people from spacing out and in the long run it will reduce this behavior, but no one seems to focus on the deterrence, only on the retribution.