Arena matchmaking needs improvement

[Cactus Tom]

First off, I am aware that this is a matter of opinion.

The Arena is billed as a way to get competitive play. But my experience in Ticket To Ride arena mode has been ridiculous.
My record is currently 30 wins in 33 matches, all but 2 in the Arena. I've worked my way up to the Elite league. At this point,
you might think that the system would recognize that I'm pretty good, and give me competitive pairings. But my five matches in
Elite league have all been against players with ELO's roughly 2-300 points lower than mine. I don't mind playing completetly
random opponents, but every single game??

What gives? What is the point of the Arena and all these different leagues? Plain vanilla ELO matchmaking used to do a better job.
I like the convenience of the Arena, but I'm about ready to go back to swiss tournament play, since at least then I get one or two
suitable matches per tourney.

[Gulchen]

Are you doing real-time or turn-based?

[Cactus Tom]

Exclusively turn-based. Why?

[ChuckG68]

I would agree with your take 100%, but for me it's in Catan. If we've achieved Elite then we should have an option when loading into the Arena que of only matching with other Elite level players, or whatever Arena rank level you're currently at - Diamond/Gold etc. Like you said, I don't mind playing random players but when the penalty for a loss vs rankings far below you require 2 wins just to get back where you were.......rather nonsensical.

[dschingis27]

If we've achieved Elite then we should have an option when loading into the Arena que of only matching with other Elite level players,

This is already there. Click on the cogwheel next to the game icon in the Arena lobby. -> Extended options.

[ExaltedAngel]

At this point, you might think that the system would recognize that I'm pretty good, and give me competitive pairings. But my five matches in
Elite league have all been against players with ELO's roughly 2-300 points lower than mine.

This has already been discussed and most players agree that it is a problem.
I personally believe some/many agree for the wrong reason (they don't understand how Elo rating works and think that what prevents them from climbing the ladder is the need to win a significant number of games to make up for every loss), but still they agree and we all hope for a solution to be found.
The current system actually works fine to rank players based on their skill level and the real reason because it is bad is, as pointed by one of the strongest player in the world (I believe it was Sysyphus, but I might be wrong), that a very unbalanced match is just not interesting for both parts. Lets say a match between a 1200 and a 2000 Elo (arena rating): this might not be true for all games, but in TTR it's just a one-sided waste of time in which one player stomps the other. Just like a chess game between two players of the same Elo ratings of the example. If u never played chess, believe me, it wouldn't be fun.

A solution might be to let people wait more for a better pairing when queued (or simply being able to filter by Elo instead than by just leagues), but then I fear we would have very long queue times, since the playerbase is not as big as needed to make such system work properly. It would still be a nice improvement anyway.

Exclusively turn-based. Why?

Not sure why he asked, but as I play only RT and have the same issues I don't think it makes much of a difference

when the penalty for a loss vs rankings far below you require 2 wins just to get back where you were.......rather nonsensical.

It actually makes a lot of sense, if it wasn't so the whole concept of Elo rating would be destroyed and any rating replacing it would be plain *.
Btw at top ratings you need around 30 wins to comeback from a single loss against a low rated player.


*Moderator edit: please refrain from using curse words on BGA, this is a family-friendly platform.

[Jellby]

but when the penalty for a loss vs rankings far below you require 2 wins just to get back where you were.......rather nonsensical.

Why? What is your win rate against "far below" players? Do you win 2 out of every 3 games? Then it makes sense that you need 2 wins to compensate for 1 loss. Do you win 9 out of 10? Then you need 9 wins to compensate 1 loss. The score is supposed to be kind of stabilized at your actual ability, it's not an ever-increasing number.

[eugaet]

...but when the penalty for a loss vs rankings far below you require 2 wins just to get back where you were...

Only 2 wins to get back? Must be nice. Currently playing Fruit Picking arena and a single loss can take me 8 matches to recover.
With the randomness of the board and card draws, though, I have to be prepared to lose to anyone, regardless of ability. Keeps me on my toes, I guess.

[Gulchen]

Exclusively turn-based. Why?

I had thought that for real-time, BGA matched as soon as there were enough people, so games start faster,
rather than having people wait longer to try getting matches between people with less elo difference.
(maybe I'm wrong about that)

[Cactus Tom]

At this point, you might think that the system would recognize that I'm pretty good, and give me competitive pairings. But my five matches in
Elite league have all been against players with ELO's roughly 2-300 points lower than mine.

This has already been discussed and most players agree that it is a problem.
I personally believe some/many agree for the wrong reason (they don't understand how Elo rating works and think that what prevents them from climbing the ladder is the need to win a significant number of games to make up for every loss), but still they agree and we all hope for a solution to be found.
The current system actually works fine to rank players based on their skill level and the real reason because it is bad is, as pointed by one of the strongest player in the world (I believe it was Sysyphus, but I might be wrong), that a very unbalanced match is just not interesting for both parts. Lets say a match between a 1200 and a 2000 Elo (arena rating): this might not be true for all games, but in TTR it's just a one-sided waste of time in which one player stomps the other. Just like a chess game between two players of the same Elo ratings of the example. If u never played chess, believe me, it wouldn't be fun.

A solution might be to let people wait more for a better pairing when queued (or simply being able to filter by Elo instead than by just leagues), but then I fear we would have very long queue times, since the playerbase is not as big as needed to make such system work properly. It would still be a nice improvement anyway.

Exclusively turn-based. Why?

Not sure why he asked, but as I play only RT and have the same issues I don't think it makes much of a difference

when the penalty for a loss vs rankings far below you require 2 wins just to get back where you were.......rather nonsensical.

It actually makes a lot of sense, if it wasn't so the whole concept of Elo rating would be destroyed and any rating replacing it would be plain *.
Btw at top ratings you need around 30 wins to comeback from a single loss against a low rated player.

Thanks, ExaltedAngel, for clearly stating a lot of what I wanted to say. Nobody would run a chess tournament with random pairings; it would not be fun for the skilled players nor for the beginners. Most BGA games have a lot more luck than chess, which helps there be at least some drama, even in a random matchup. But something is wrong when the top players all have 90%+ win rates; it implies they play almost all their games against vastly inferior opponents, rather than other top players. By the way, I can't claim to be a top player; I don't think I've even played once against a top-100 player at TTR. All I can say is that I have a similar win rate to the top-10 players, which is the whole problem. This shouldn't be the case after 30+ games in the arena.