Board Game Arena

Why some people join games but cancel after join. If they don't want to play... Why?

sometimes people queue up for multiple real time games at once, just hoping to play one of them.

when one of them launches, they are automatically removed from others (this is only for real time games)

the way internet and lag works, sometimes it results in people looking like they joined, but left before launching.

I sometimes cancel a game start when I have mistakenly queued with the wrong settings. Most often when I meant to play Arena but queued up for a non-Arena game.

I think it’s rotten, kick them out of BGA

Sometimes I want to play with people at a certain ELO level depending on my mood or the situation, so if I don't get matched with someone like that, I cancel the game.

When I want to relax and just enjoy the game, I prefer lower-ELOopponents. But when I feel like having a serious match, I try to get matched with higher ELO players.

So use the settings that make this happen automatically!

pickles_000 wrote: ↑17 April 2025, 17:08 Sometimes I want to play with people at a certain ELO level depending on my mood or the situation, so if I don't get matched with someone like that, I cancel the game.

When I want to relax and just enjoy the game, I prefer lower-ELOopponents. But when I feel like having a serious match, I try to get matched with higher ELO players.

It would provide a better experience for both you and the person matched with you that you then cancel on if you use the filters the site provides to automatically screen out people who don't meet your ELO preferences.

Here's how to do it:

If you manually create a game (i.e., starting a game from the Play Now page with the rightmost option set to "Manual"), you can adjust settings so that only certain ELO level are able to join by clicking the link labeled "Restrict table access." But it may seriously increase the time it takes for the game to fill.

Alternatively, under Automatic matching you use the Opponent's Level filter under Show Advanced Options. The filter options are found by clicking on the gear icon next to the game thumbnail image.

Those first two options are found on the Play Now page. From the single-game lobby, under the Start button to the right of the number of players you will see a green icon with people coming out of (or going into?) a door. Click on that to filter by opponent's level.

There are also filters for karma when setting up a game. You can filter karma by >50%, 65%, 75%, or 85%.

Filters don't help (much) if you want to play against people in levels strictly above/below yours, since the filters have to include your own level.