Board Game Arena

I want to play a game with 2 players and only 2 players. There are 4 and 5 player tables that are waiting for players. If I hit start (with 2 players selected), I'm automatically put in tables with the wrong player count and my table (usually) seems to either never be created or very quickly evaporate. It's apparently not respecting player count as a preference, so one big table sitting there waiting for players completely locks out my ability to play the game. Is there a setting somewhere to disable this nonsense so I can start a table of the size I want to actually play?

Hareeb al-Saq wrote: ↑26 February 2024, 23:54 I want to play a game with 2 players and only 2 players. There are 4 and 5 player tables that are waiting for players. If I hit start (with 2 players selected), I'm automatically put in tables with the wrong player count and my table (usually) seems to either never be created or very quickly evaporate. It's apparently not respecting player count as a preference, so one big table sitting there waiting for players completely locks out my ability to play the game. Is there a setting somewhere to disable this nonsense so I can start a table of the size I want to actually play?

Are you starting from the single-game lobby? Is the slider under Game Speed in the left position or the right position? In the right position it means flexible, meaning your settings are a preference if it can match you, but they won't strictly be followed. In the left position they must be followed. My only guess is that even though that slider looks like it only affects game speed, it made also affect player count. If so, that is very unclear and an extremely bad design choice.

Alternatively, you can set up a game yourself from the Play Now screen and directly control how many players can be seated and when the game starts.

Ed.: To clarify, because the post below alludes to what I'm talking about, on the Play Now lobby you have to set the right setting to "Manual." This will allow you to control everything in a table you set up.

Do you have your settings on auto select players? If you change it to manual select you shouldn’t have this issue.

I'd never even seen the Play Now lobby. I just used the search bar in the top left, clicked on whatever game I wanted, and clicked start (with the settings I wanted showing, which happen to be exactly the default displayed). My play now settings had nothing set (obviously), but clicking start on the game screen respected every setting (e.g. didn't put me in fast games or any of the other unwanted options) EXCEPT for player count. That seems insane. But thanks for letting me know where to find the settings that actually work.