Turn Based Arena Matchmaking

[hamsi61]

Hello, I hope I can explain the situation clearly.

I actively compete in arena seasons across various turn-based games. My usual approach is to open new matches whenever I get paired with a new opponent, with the goal of playing on as many active tables as possible at the same time.

However, I’m experiencing a serious imbalance in matchmaking. While some of my opponents have 35–36 active matches simultaneously, I am limited to a maximum of 1–2 active matches per day. In some cases, I even go 2–3 days without getting matched at all.

Unless a large portion of the player base has flagged me as a “red flag” (which I highly doubt, as my karma and communication with opponents are quite positive), this situation feels abnormal.

What makes it more concerning is that one of my frequent opponents appears to block players they lose against and selectively plays only those they can defeat easily. Meanwhile, I can only get matched with the same 2–3 players repeatedly and almost no one else.

Because of this, I suspect there may be an issue with the server-side matchmaking system. This is happening in Captain Tsubasa, but I have experienced very similar problems in other games before as well.

[nik592]

Have you adjusted the settings at all? I feel like the default settings probably do restrict in some way.

Some games do just take a lot longer to get games. I don't know Captain Tsubasa, but I'd think it would be a much smaller pool, as evidenced by the number of simultaneous tables - 172, compared with a popular game like Ark Nova which has over 13k running at once. Depending what your other games are, the same could be true there. Are your opponents playing the same pool of games as you? I would guess not. So there's likely to be differences in how many games you can have going at once.

[Meeplelowda]

What makes it more concerning is that one of my frequent opponents appears to block players they lose against and selectively plays only those they can defeat easily.

Unfortunately there's nothing that can be done about this. I agree that a top player avoiding the toughest competition is contrary to the spirit of Arena, unsporting, and despicable. I don't mean just camping on their spot. I don't like that either, but opinions differ about that. I mean actively using red thumbs to avoid tough competition. A BGA admin even referred to the red thumbing of high-rated players as "abuse" of red thumbs, when it's done in the context of Arena at least. But they never (despite announcing they would) changed the effect of red thumbs on Arena. So it is still within the rules to use them in this manner.

[Encripta]

Pretty disappointing, we all know in that game who the player is. Previous winner of the season, blocked me as well. It is nearly impossible to climb because you just cannot get matched against people at your elo and bring them down. Instead you must win 10-15 games in a row against low elo players and if by any chance they defeat you, another 15 games to go. I understand games with huge amounts of players may be not an issue, but here that we play lower numbers it makes an impact.

Red flags should avoid players only in party mode, arena must be against anyone.

Is like Real Madrid refusing to play Barcelona in the league. Nonsense.

[Meeplelowda]

Is like Real Madrid refusing to play Barcelona in the league. Nonsense.

Exactly.