Matchmaking issues in Arena Mode

[Lumin_S]

Can we also talk about how stupid a pure elo system is for a high variance game? Like, how can I lose 2 games of progress for tieing a strong player?

There are definitely many downsides to BGA's Elo system, including that using 1 set of k-factors regardless of game will lead to many poor choices of k-factor across all BGA's games.

This Elo system is also quite poor (I'd argue in a worse way) when adapted to multiplayer games because multiplayer games are usually not a combination of all the pairwise 1v1 matches.

The only solutions for now are to care less about your rating and/or use the long-run range of ratings that you find yourself in instead of your Elo at any exact moment.

[ylathor]

Can we also talk about how stupid a pure elo system is for a high variance game? Like, how can I lose 2 games of progress for tieing a strong player?

You did not tie the game, but lost. You can complain about the tie breaker, but this is just a loss. It sucks because most of the time tie breakers in board games are quite arbitrary, at least that is what I think.

[MasterMystery]

Can we also talk about how stupid a pure elo system is for a high variance game? Like, how can I lose 2 games of progress for tieing a strong player?

You did not tie the game, but lost. You can complain about the tie breaker, but this is just a loss. It sucks because most of the time tie breakers in board games are quite arbitrary, at least that is what I think.

Actually that game he didn't loose

[ylathor]

Can we also talk about how stupid a pure elo system is for a high variance game? Like, how can I lose 2 games of progress for tieing a strong player?

You did not tie the game, but lost. You can complain about the tie breaker, but this is just a loss. It sucks because most of the time tie breakers in board games are quite arbitrary, at least that is what I think.

Actually that game he didn't loose

Yeah my bad.
He just lost the normal amount of points for tieing an opponent 400 ELO below him. Personally I think the ELO system is fine for Ark Nova. You will have bad beats and be lucky on other days. In the end it will even out.
But it can take quite some games to reach your "true" ELO, so it can be a bad reflection of a players skill.

[Zulu]

Lol, I started my first Arena game yesterday, am still learning the game and my first opponent that I'm matched with is Elite and high level with hundreds of games played. No problem, I'll consider it a learning experience.

[ezeeckiel]

@Danhallworth - every time I want to change anything in "play now" I got a response from the site stating that no change can be made in arena.

where are the filters you were talking about ?

[Zulu]

I have a similar thread on here (not sure how to link but it's only a couple of threads below this one)and someone replied with a potential solution - there are different filters available if you go through Play Now rather than Games/My favourites.

It took a while to find the right filter and I've only tried it once so I can't say for sure if it always works, but it looks good so far - it took maybe 30 mins or more to find a match and we've only had a few turns but they appear to be a similar level.

That filter you mention seems to work. For those who would prefer to use it, when you go to play now and choose the Arena option, click on the small cog on the left and choose advance filters. You can choose to play people at the same level, + or -1, + or minus 2 and with no cap. If yoou don't change this then the default is no cap.

[DanHallsworth]

@Danhallworth - every time I want to change anything in "play now" I got a response from the site stating that no change can be made in arena.

where are the filters you were talking about ?

I had that too, but keep trying them all and it seems to open up - "Opponent's level" is the one you want (not difficulty level, which can't be changed), I think I may have had to change one of the others before it let me change this one but I can't remember sorry.