Current matchmaking system is frustrating

[thesurok]

Can we have an option to wait longer for game start, but look for an opponent closer to our current mmr? Current system feels really swingy when you slowly grind 5 points at a time vs players with much lower elo and then randomly lose one game and get -30 points due to a random nature of boardgames.
I would happily wait 10+ minutes to find a game if it's guaranteed that my opponent will have more or less the same elo as I. I'm not saying: make this a default, but at least give us an option to do so.

[BarnardsStar]

Can we have an option to wait longer for game start, but look for an opponent closer to our current mmr? Current system feels really swingy when you slowly grind 5 points at a time vs players with much lower elo and then randomly lose one game and get -30 points due to a random nature of boardgames.
I would happily wait 10+ minutes to find a game if it's guaranteed that my opponent will have more or less the same elo as I. I'm not saying: make this a default, but at least give us an option to do so.

First, this is a site issue; the TfM devs have no control over matchmaking.

Second, have you tried using table restrictions? If you start from the TfM “Games” page, look for the little green “door” icon to the right of the player count drop-down; if you use “Play Now” (my recommendation), use “Automatic” and click on the gear icon by each game to set your preferences.

[dizinovi]

You will find that going +20 and -20 is going to be the same frustrating feeling. If anything, you gain more expected elo against a very bad opponent, since you can assume very bad players are not playing a lot, so they don't have the time to grind to their abyssmal rating. You are picking up that +3 before it becomes +1.

[thesurok]

Can we have an option to wait longer for game start, but look for an opponent closer to our current mmr? Current system feels really swingy when you slowly grind 5 points at a time vs players with much lower elo and then randomly lose one game and get -30 points due to a random nature of boardgames.
I would happily wait 10+ minutes to find a game if it's guaranteed that my opponent will have more or less the same elo as I. I'm not saying: make this a default, but at least give us an option to do so.

First, this is a site issue; the TfM devs have no control over matchmaking.

Second, have you tried using table restrictions? If you start from the TfM “Games” page, look for the little green “door” icon to the right of the player count drop-down; if you use “Play Now” (my recommendation), use “Automatic” and click on the gear icon by each game to set your preferences.

Table restrictions kinda work for non-arena games, but arena doesn't seem to respect those settings

[FrankJones]

Arena matchmaking has nothing to do with Elo. The matchmaking is based on Arena tiers. Either way, this post does not belong in the Terraforming Mars forum.

[ArchDevious]

For the record I do NOT want to wait 10 minutes for a game

[ft029]

For arena games: From “play now” you can click the gear next to a game, go to advanced settings, and pick to only play people in your level. For example if you’re in platinum you will only match with platinum.

The problem is that at some point there’s both 150 elo players and 750 elo players in elite, and having them matched together is hardly fun. I think it would be nice if the site had, say, a way to filter for people within +/-300 arena elo. For example a 1900 could match with 1600-2200.

[Jontia]

Can we have an option to wait longer for game start, but look for an opponent closer to our current mmr?

First, this is a site issue; the TfM devs have no control over matchmaking.

I'm not sure this is true.

Darwin's Journey has an option in the Table Settings for Player's Level, which I can't see on the TM settings. So the site clearly has a function to allow this. Not sure how/if it affects arena games, but on Darwin's Journey it got me past my "I don't really know how to play/win and I'm getting stomped by 500+ ELO people all the time" phase. Which is very much the inverse of what the OP needs, but provides the same function.

[FrankJones]

Can we have an option to wait longer for game start, but look for an opponent closer to our current mmr?

First, this is a site issue; the TfM devs have no control over matchmaking.

I'm not sure this is true.

Darwin's Journey has an option in the Table Settings for Player's Level, which I can't see on the TM settings. So the site clearly has a function to allow this. Not sure how/if it affects arena games, but on Darwin's Journey it got me past my "I don't really know how to play/win and I'm getting stomped by 500+ ELO people all the time" phase. Which is very much the inverse of what the OP needs, but provides the same function.

I don't know what you're referring to. I just created a table for Darwin's journey. It has the same matchmaking settings as TFM. Any game on BGA gives the table creator the option to use Elo filters when playing a non-arena game.

[Jontia]

I don't know what you're referring to. I just created a table for Darwin's journey. It has the same matchmaking settings as TFM. Any game on BGA gives the table creator the option to use Elo filters when playing a non-arena game.

Possibly I'm limiting myself in outlook. I rely almost entirely on the Automatic settings when looking for games. So the simple view under the Cog on the games list you see on the "Play Now" page.

So while I probably often create tables, I don't actually use the table creator pages.

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No, wait! I can see them now. Clicking Advanced Options at the bottom of the Cog screen brings that ELO/Karam options into being at the top of the options list. I'd assumed the Advanced were all brought in below the drop down arrow I was clicking and have been closing them before scrolling back to the top.

Darwin's Journey has the player strength options open by default, probably because there aren't many gameplay choices where are TM gameplay options are extensive.