Board Game Arena

I find the pairing system frustrating.

I like Ark Nova but I am clearly not a good player despite playing plenty of games of Ark Nova on BGA.

Most of the time when I play a game in Arena mode I get an Elite player despite being a Bronze player myself.
That seems a bit harsh considering that good pairing system are available.
I would udnerstand if there are no players other than that elite player is available but sure with the numbers of players here that is highly unlikely.

I am not sure if it's just me but I find this annoying.

Not quite sure how the pairings are determined in Arena mode but sure some modertaions could be made?

In "Play now" you can set player level in advanced options and can restrict playing against someone that is not your level or too far apart.

Otherwise there is absolutely no matchmaking in Arena. You are paired with the next possible person whose options are compatible (in Arena this is just real-time vs. turn-based and their corresponding speed settings).

Yes, on the "play now" page it's the gear icon under your rank where you adjust the filter. You do need to queue from that page instead of the game page for the filter to apply.

oh, I did not notice this.

I better go and check this out.

Thanks for the tip.

The only beef I've had with this system is that one time I got paired with a player on turn-based.
A day or two later I started another turn-based arena game, and got paired with the SAME PLAYER.

So I'm playing to competitive 1v1 games with the same person? seems to be an oversight in programing that this can happen.

When you set too narrow criteria, you will be paired with the same set of players.
Notice that having the same opponent twice might just be a coïncidence.
Or, like i had once because we both launched the game as soon as the previous ended, we matched again .

Do you still get rank / elo penalized in Arena if you play the same player repeatedly? If so that is unfortunate since you are unable to control the matchup (unless red thumbs work, which isn't ideal either).

i don't know. But as far as i know red thumb don't work in arena