How can BGA improve Real-Time matchmaking?

[Fuchur]

Also, the fact that no tables are currently being played for a game does not mean there are no tables open. There could be hundreds of tables open, all waiting for that last player to join

In this case BGA should review their method of match-making.

[Jellby]

Why? They could have conflicting requirements (English-only, masters-only, high-karma only, expansion A only, expansion B only...)

[dschingis27]

Review their algorithms. There, I'm awfully ignorant how that works. I can't suggest how, but at least they should test if that's the issue.

I already told you. The matchmaking system for RT (and for TB) is pretty simple. As soon as enough players for a game are requesting said game at the same time, the players get matched and the game starts. And yes, that means for unpopular games that just no one is there when no game starts. There is not more to it. The site owners have data about waiting times and probably also about frequency of successful game requests. If there were an issue with the matchmaking algorithm, I am almost sure they would notice. You can't run a site like this successfully without monitoring these things continuously.

Prioritization / Decision-making by leadership: This is an avenue to discuss what forum-followers know about leadership's priorities and decisions in respect to RT plays difficulty. I'm not following forums myself, so I don't know. Any information is welcome! It will indicate the level of interest from leadership into this issue.

At the moment, the prioritization of the BGA team is very clear (at least that's what they talk about in the forum). They want to make the site more accessible and enjoyable for new players, they found out that the old lobby is pretty clunky and hard to understand for newbies, that's why they developed the new lobby. And they were testing the new lobby and they are monitioring it, it was relatively successful so far. Of course the challenge now is to make the new lobby in a way that it satisfies all user types. Because they know they have not achieved that yet, they let you still use the old lobby without much hassle.
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28095 There seems to be already some plans in place to improve visibility of less popular games.

This is going to kill the least played games

If you have played on BGA for a long time, you know that we take special care to give every game a chance to be played.

As games will be started from the game page, there is an obvious risk of less popular games losing visibility.

We are totally aware of that, and we already have plans to fix it. A future update will make sure that when you would like to play a less-popular game on BGA, all of the players interested in this game are alerted, so that you can find an opponent as quickly as possible, even for the less popular games.

[Perduicitte]

i don't agree with your conclusion : The data only shows that at any given moment about two-thirds of all available games aren't played. That doesn't mean that they are never played. [...]

Personnally i only play TB games and it happens regularly that tables need hours or even days to be started or never get filled at all, being cancelled after two (?) days.

What could you do to play more often ?
-> Invite real-world friends to this (or any other) site, agree on a date and play your favorite game like you would at home, only on distance.
-> Try to find persons on this site, via the forum, to play regularly your favorite game.
-> Propose some teaching to increase the player base.

Not exactly how that works, in real terms. I can't wait around 3 hours to have a RT table filled. Nor have I seen people do. After 15 minutes that a game is opened, there are great chances it will never be played. I've queued many times on 10+ tables of different lesser-played games, usually with a >75% karma requisite I'll admit, to have none of them filled after 30-40 minutes. People join, and leave within 3-4 minutes for those who stick longer. Usually, people also queue for multiple games and take the one that fills quicker (and I often have done that too) because, well, we want to play! Queuing is not why I come to BGA. No play = no value. Playing is why I come to BGA.
- Yes, I already imagine people saying how I shoot myself in the foot and if I wanted to play, I should not blahblah... I already have tried queuing forever, while doing something else. Eventually, something else becomes more important and I abandon BGA. That is a huge part of the issue I try to describe here.

- I'm not on BGA to meet my real-world friends. I meet them in the real world!!! No need to put screens between us, that's silly in my perspective, I prefer reality to screen-based life. We can buy physical games faster than BGA can code them to the site, so hotness & variety (premium offer) have no impact.
- I don't like closed group. Feels like marriage, always compromise & waiting I prefer random people. I meet the same people multiple times with pleasure, at random encounters, and are happy to meet again, regular civilities. Also tried Discord BGA groups & stuff, but I didn't like it; as I don't like social media in general.
- I teach to my kids, train through my job, teach karate, and teach the physical games we buy to my family and games groups. I will take the time to tech to BGA players, but it's rarely necessary; there are great tutorials and most people are respectful enough to know a game before playing it.

I would slot this exchange under: "desire to play real-time and pain threshold". Both, in my case, are very high I think, and I do maintain that it's rough to play anything else that the mainstream games in Real-Time, because I tried.

I use "I", because I can only speak of my experience. If others want to add their own experiences (successes and failures alike) with RT play, please do, so this is less about me, more about RT play.

Cheers,

me

[Perduicitte]

I already told you. The matchmaking system for RT (and for TB) is pretty simple. As soon as enough players for a game are requesting said game at the same time, the players get matched and the game starts. And yes, that means for unpopular games that just no one is there when no game starts.

That settles the algorithm, then. Sorry I didn't this in your earlier comment. I disagree with your conclusion though. Please see my explanation of the vicious circle above, summed up: more difficult = less willingness = more difficult = less willing = more = less ... See also my answer to Fuchur above, about the "waiting rituals of the wild RT player" eg: you can't wait forever for RT.

At the moment, the prioritization of the BGA team is very clear (at least that's what they talk about in the forum). They want to make the site more accessible and enjoyable for new players, they found out that the old lobby is pretty clunky and hard to understand for newbies, [...]

We are totally aware of that, and we already have plans to fix it. A future update will make sure that when you would like to play a less-popular game on BGA, all of the players interested in this game are alerted, so that you can find an opponent as quickly as possible, even for the less popular games.

First and foremost: Thank you, sincerely, for bringing up exactly what I hoped you would; eg forum knowledge. That's something you have and I don't, and I appreciate the information!

*Trigger warning, this will be opinionated* Not targeting you or anyone, not even leadership. Targeting the suggestions:

Dumbing-down for newcomers?
I don't think BGA is complicated, even if they have data that shows otherwise. Come on, anything needs a minimal effort at first! If they're adults, they're supposed to be thoughtful enough to vote and I hope that voting decisions are more complicated than using the "Play Now" lobby! If they're kids, "Play Now" is seriously easier than their maths exam!

Notifications supposedly replacing efficient multiple-queuing?
Come on. This sweeps the issue under the rug and adds annoyance in the mix! I'm definitely not happy knowing that. When the new lobby comes to fruition, if I'm not already gone, I suppose it will be another factor to push me out. This will not help RT play; even less if they allow me to do away with those notifications, which I would promptly do!

I don't know I like where this is going. And I'm starting to understand that most probably, I'm not BGA's target audience.
That's fine. Leadership does what leadership does, and customers do too! I guess somehow, I'm starting to care less, the more I understand.

Cheers,

me

PS: dschingis27, please understand I most sincerely appreciate your input based on real information!

[Kayvon]

From this, I am now convinced that my impressions are correct: Only a handful of games are played in RT, on any given day.

Data spoke. I'm not delusional.

You are not delusional. Your analysis is well intentioned, but flawed. Your participation in the thread suggests you are open to considering new ideas and constructive feedback, so let me present an example in that same spirit.

I'll look at Its A Wonderful World. It's fairly popular on the site. At this very moment, there are over 1,400 turn based games of it active, but only 68 real time games running. Pretty obviously, turn based games are far more common, right? Only a handful of real time games on any given day? Let's dig deeper.

It turns out 71% of new Wonderful World games started each day are real time games. Totally opposite of what the earlier stats suggested. How can that be? For starters, real time tables for this game last am average of 19 minutes, so they end almost as soon as they start. In contrast, the vast majority of turn based tables for this particular game are started at friends-only tables with no time limit set, so they tend to stick around for a long time. Some quick math shows that you'd need to start literally thousands of 19-minute tables every day to have 68 be active at any given point in the day, much less at midnight in Europe and the middle of a Monday workday in the US.

Regardless of how you want to run the math, the conclusion here is clear: the currently-running tables statistic is misleading. 71% of new tables every day are real time games for this game.

[Saxmaam]

Would it help to be able to open the general chat into its own window? Might make it easier to talk up games and make appointments to play.

[Gooorn]

If they made an option to wait for both arena and non arena games simultaneously, then players like me that don't play arena, would have even longer waits.

I have a dream. A dream where Arena and non-Arena tables are no different, where you can see both types of tables in the lobby and choose what you want (or "any" if you don't care). The only difference should be that in Arena tables you can't see who's already at the table (but you should still see how many players are there), and you can't change the settings (but you can still see which settings they are).

I have a same dream.

[KingSpooky93]

It's really awful. I've been trying to play a handful of games lately and I wait 10+ minutes without even a single person joining the table. And you already brought up the premium thing. Why am I paying for premium if it doesn't make a difference? I don't get it. BGA, please improve matchmaking.

[Jellby]

Why am I paying for premium if it doesn't make a difference?

I don't know why you are paying, but here are the valid reasons: https://boardgamearena.com/premium?src=globalmenu
It doesn't say "improved matchmaking" anywhere. (Sure, it says "do not wait", but it refers to something else.)