How can I avoid being matched with the same player 4 or 5 times in a row?

[Cos-]

[Note: I _only_ play turn-based games with strangers, never real time. Keep that in mind for how the matching works over longer time period.]

On a few games that aren't super-popular on BGA, and in which I have good ELO, I've found that if I start up a few tables and set the requirement to avoid beginners ( because the game will be boring with someone who doesn't know it yet ), I sometimes end up matched with the same other player for every game. This sometimes spans multiple days: I may start two 2-player tables one afternoon, two more the following morning, and another one on the third day, and all 5 will end up with the same other player sometimes. Is there any way to say "match me with anyone except the person I'm currently already in 3 or more games with"? I know this could take longer to find a match, but there _are_ plenty of other non-beginner players and if each table stayed open for 6 more hours or however long it took, I would get other people.

If there is no such feature built into BGA, does anyone have suggestions for how to work with the system as it is to avoid this happening? When I want to play multiple tables of the same game, turn based, over the course of a couple of weeks, I never want them to all be with the same person.

[Meeplelowda]

You could temporarily red thumb that player until the game finishes. Of course, this may mean not sitting with 5 tables open at once, or else they might join several before you red thumb them.

[nik592]

Are they normal games or Arena? I don't find this so much with normal games, but I do with 2p Arena tables (though I probably don't play 2p much unless it's Arena). In any case, I find this particularly annoying given the whole decreasing ELO for playing the same person (and not being able to choose my opponent in Arena play). But I don't have any solution either.

[Cos-]

Are they normal games or Arena?

Not Arena, just regular games. It doesn't happen on popular games where the odds are very low that there isn't already someone else waiting to join a table, it happens on the less popular games where it can take many hours for a table to fill.

[Cos-]

You could temporarily red thumb that player until the game finishes. Of course, this may mean not sitting with 5 tables open at once, or else they might join several before you red thumb them.

I'm afraid if I start adding red thumbs I'll lose track of them and forget to undo it, and on less popular games that might take out too high a percentage of the more regular players.

BGA only allows you to have a maximum of 3 tables open at a time for the same game, you can't have 5. For the games where this happens, it can take 6+ hours for a player to be found, so if I do want to have several games going it's pretty necessary to at least start 2 at a time. But that doesn't seem to matter anyway - when I get streaks of repeats with the same player, it's often at tables I started on several different days.

[Meeplelowda]

I'm afraid if I start adding red thumbs I'll lose track of them and forget to undo it

I'm sorry, I don't understand how a word processor, spreadsheet, notes file on a mobile device, or even pencil and paper are not sufficient to resolve this issue.

on less popular games that might take out too high a percentage of the more regular players.

You're not permanently removing them from the player pool if you carefully track them (see above).

Yes, it will actually take some effort to manage. So you just have to decide which bothers you more: being matched with the same people, or having to manage a list of red thumbs.

[Cos-]

Since there was no great solution for this, I posted a BGA general suggestion: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=192458

Please vote for it. If you don't play turn based games, this won't affect you, and if you only play popular games turn based, this probably won't affect you either since there are enough players for your game that you rarely get the same one in 4 games at the same time. But it would really help those of us who play turn based games here that have fewer players (such as one of my favorites, Photosynthesis).

[cigma]

I'm afraid if I start adding red thumbs I'll lose track of them

You don't even hat to track them. As h_illes described here https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41816 you can find all red thumbs you have given.

[Cos-]

I'm afraid if I start adding red thumbs I'll lose track of them

You don't even hat to track them. As h_illes described here https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41816 you can find all red thumbs you have given.

Yes, that's a workaround that substitutes manual toil for what could be an automatic feature. It's apparently the best we have available currently. It would be much nicer not to have to do that. It also feels bad to red thumb someone who you don't dislike playing with, and I think that's a deterrent that makes this workaround feel unpleasant and makes people less likely to use it.