Board Game Arena

jaymc1130 wrote: ↑01 August 2025, 19:07 Paying for premium dramatically improves how quickly you can get matched. You can try that also.

dessp7 is already a premium member.

Fast turn-based games have to match on playing hours as well as speed. I think there's just not that large a player base for fast turn-based games with dessp7's preferred playing hours. (Or for fast turn-based games at all.)

This is where some statistics about the games being played would be helpful, but I don't think that's available. Even the games in progress list -- https://boardgamearena.com/gametables?game=1924&all -- only shows 1k of the 10k+ games theoretically in progress, so thumbing through those and seeing that relatively few are arena games and relatively few of those are fast-turn based is ... not nothing, but not much to go on, either.

You should check also your playing hours setup and allow it if you are able to play most of that time period

OK. So question about playing hours: it is option not on page of " play now". It is option on "game page". Is it still affecting on matchmaking, when I am searching through "play now" page? Cause In the settings of play now I can't see playing hours option.

Playing hours settings are available for arena games in the play now lobby. Open the gear menu for the game, then click "show advanced options". One of the additional options available lets you set playing hours choices with levels of preference.

(Last I checked, the playing hours settings on game pages let you pick option only, or use "flexible", which allowed any playing hours, which IMO is a terrible choice.)

Can I somehow somewhere set elo restriction for players who I am paired against? For instance, set not to play against players with lower than 300 elo or any other range options?

G00dy wrote: ↑12 August 2025, 10:25 Can I somehow somewhere set elo restriction for players who I am paired against? For instance, set not to play against players with lower than 300 elo or any other range options?

For regular games, yes. For arena games? No, you can only filter by "level" (league) there, you can set it to only your own league or ranges. Both use https://boardgamearena.com/lobby for filtering, click the wheel when you have Arena selected.

In my opinion, playing against people that may be better than you is an excellent way to learn. So if you just want to get better, I'd spam the hell out of Arena (like you are). Just make sure to set it so you only get Elite or +-1 range opponents (so you can get Platinum too).

Thank you, it solved issue with Arena matches. Where can I set something similar for regular matches?

G00dy wrote: ↑12 August 2025, 18:25 Thank you, it solved issue with Arena matches. Where can I set something similar for regular matches?

Same page, pick "Simple Game" instead of Arena. Play now -> Create. You need Premium to be able to create your own tables. If you don't want to buy Premium, then you will have to look at the Elo of the table host before you join.

Then you just filter by skill level, I think it's called? From the FAQ, https://boardgamearena.com/faq:

ELO classifies players into 7 distinct classes:

Beginner (0 ELO)
Apprentice (1-99 ELO)
Average (100-199 ELO)
Good (200-299 ELO)
Strong (300-499 ELO)
Expert (500-699 ELO)
Master (700+ ELO)