Board Game Arena

I like the idea of Arena mode and I want to enjoy it, but I'm finding it more frustrating than fun. I've only been playing Arena matches for about a week. In the 30 or so games I've played, the only people I'm ever matched up against are Elite. If you click on more info for the game you can see that the majority of players are Elite, but there are still several hundred that are Bronze, Gold etc. I have a feeling no one below Elite plays so it makes it difficult to join in. What's the point of having tiers if you're always forced to play above your tier. There's no way to advance.Tiers are usually used to group like players together until you get too good and advance. It's extremely frustrating in 2 player only games. At least you might not come in last in a multi player game so you make some progress. Am I missing something??

You can restrict the relative level of the opponent you want to play against. See: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=213386, among other threads.

Just view the different tiers on BGA (Bronze, Silver, Gold,...) as a fun way to hide your EAS score (=Arena Elo) for a certain amount of time. If you play enough everybody will eventually end up in Arena and see their EAS score which gives information about the playing strength.

Yes, it would be nice to have tiers to separate the player base according to playing strength but this is not how it is implemented here on BGA. The different tiers do not tell about playing strength but only how much you have played a game in the actual season.

Note that there might exist some games that are purely strategic without any luck component where it is not possible to reach Elite level by just playing enough - but those games are an exception from my statement above...

nik592 wrote: ↑12 May 2025, 09:36 You can restrict the relative level of the opponent you want to play against. See: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=213386, among other threads.

This is a quote from your linked forum post

----"When you create a game, (using the classic way of doing it), there is a link above the game window saying "Restrict table access". If you are creating a game from the game page, then there is a green people going through a door icon to open the "Restrict table access" window.
In Arena mode there are settings to restrict the level but they never work."---

I have restricted access already set up for some games, but there aren't any instructions as to how to change Arena mode settings. I have Expert and Master unchecked.

For example, I just was matched up in Arena mode an Azul player with a 701 ELO. That is clearly a Master.

In Arena mode the little door symbol is red denoting restricted settings, but as the previous poster commented, that either doesn't work or isn't the way to change settings within Arena.

jdtyler7 wrote: ↑13 May 2025, 03:53 I have restricted access already set up for some games, but there aren't any instructions as to how to change Arena mode settings. I have Expert and Master unchecked.

That's because ELO filters do not work in Arena. Arena tiers are intended to be a ladder to climb to get to Elite where you can see a ranking. They are not a separation between major leagues and minor league.

I wrote a how-to on using Arena filters in the first reply in this thread: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40720

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑13 May 2025, 05:41 I wrote a how-to on using Arena filters in the first reply in this thread: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40720

Thank you for the info. That is exactly what I was looking for.