Board Game Arena

I'm encountering some strange and irritating behaviour from the automatic search for tables on the "Play Now" page that I don't know how to prevent.

Especially for longer games - e.g. Great Western Trail - I set my preferences to "Very restrictive - I only want to play with players with a high reputation (75☯ and higher)" because it's frustrating when players leave the game.
However, when I use the auto-search, after some time BGA automatically creates a second table with the exact same settings I have set - except for the reputation requirements.
If I try to manually cancel this table, the table with the reputation requirements in place is also canceled, rendering the option of restricting access based on reputation basically useless, as the table without the restriction is more likely to fire off first.

Has anyone else noticed this behaviour and/or know of a way to work around this issue?

Creating a table manually also has its drawbacks, as it is quite common for a first player to join the table but then leave very quickly, which then also cancels the table.

Thanks in advance for any tips and apologies if this issue has been discussed elsewhere, I couldn't find any existing threads.

If you create a manual table, it will not close if a player joins and then leaves, because you will remain in it. This is how I almost always create tables.

It definitely does for me. This is what it says:

Game abandoned
All players have left the game before it started.

And in those instances I did not leave the game myself. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or it has to do with waiting times that are too long?

Tschyros wrote: ↑07 January 2024, 19:23 It definitely does for me. This is what it says:

Game abandoned
All players have left the game before it started.

And in those instances I did not leave the game myself. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or it has to do with waiting times that are too long?

Just to clear this, you used the Play now page and set it to manual on the top right?
Then it probably was a time out. Real-time games get a time out if they don't start within several hours (four, if I remember correctly).

Tschyros wrote: ↑07 January 2024, 19:23 It definitely does for me. This is what it says:

Game abandoned
All players have left the game before it started.

And in those instances I did not leave the game myself. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or it has to do with waiting times that are too long?

I get this with Arena games, so it may also happen with any automatically searched games? I assume it's either a timeout (these are turn-based games, but I believe there is still a timeout) or that all other players were allocated to another game. Or something. I generally just ignore it, as I still get my games eventually.

cigma wrote: ↑08 January 2024, 11:38

Tschyros wrote: ↑07 January 2024, 19:23 It definitely does for me. This is what it says:

Game abandoned
All players have left the game before it started.

And in those instances I did not leave the game myself. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or it has to do with waiting times that are too long?

Just to clear this, you used the Play now page and set it to manual on the top right?
Then it probably was a time out. Real-time games get a time out if they don't start within several hours (four, if I remember correctly).

Yes, exactly. Play now page and set to manual.

It was definitely less than four hours, half an hour at most, but that could still explain what's happening.

nik592 wrote: ↑08 January 2024, 12:04

Tschyros wrote: ↑07 January 2024, 19:23 It definitely does for me. This is what it says:

Game abandoned
All players have left the game before it started.

And in those instances I did not leave the game myself. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or it has to do with waiting times that are too long?

I get this with Arena games, so it may also happen with any automatically searched games? I assume it's either a timeout (these are turn-based games, but I believe there is still a timeout) or that all other players were allocated to another game. Or something. I generally just ignore it, as I still get my games eventually.

I think I will also continue to do that in the future. It's just a bit unfortunate that the automatic search doesn't seem to take reputation requirements into account (at least for long).

In any case, many thanks for the answers!

It's one hour exactly.

Unless it changes in the previous months.