Would be nice from developers to explain substantial changes...

@Curious1 Yes, you theoretically can.

And which offers will you see in the lobby? These, whose authors included you in their rating range when specifying the offer!

And what is the possible rating range of an offer? After this update, between -500 and +500 of the offer's author!

So will you ever see the offer of someone rated more than 500 points away from you? No, you will not!

Therefore, was your freedom of choosing your opponents limited? Yes, it was!

For what reason? For no reason!

Do you want it to return? Yes, you do!

So bring the topic back into the forums until this freedom is given back to you!

Oh now I get it. They let you set an unlimited rating range in the Lobby but it's overridden by the setting in the quick pairing which limits it be no more than 500 points off your rating. This explains why the Lobby is only showing pairings near your ratings rather than seeing challenges in the higher category.

@Curious1 I used to play blitz solely against 2200 and 2250+ players. Here's what happens if you limit the lobby to these challenges. Here are the settings (note I'm including all standard game modes, not just blitz):

i.ibb.co/nbMxVrv/2250-One.png

This is what you see in the lobby:

i.ibb.co/0y2r4xd/2250-Two.png

Nothing!

It won't be possible for me to challenge 2250+ players again, unless I obtain a 2250 rating, and even if I got to that level, i still wouldn't be able to play anyone 2350+ because I will almost inevitably be matched against people within 100 points of my rating.

It seems to me they're penalizing higher rated players with this change. Because now you get virtually no challenges unless you're lucky enough to get someone in your rating range to play. So in effect Lichess is trying to increase the visibility of low rated players at the expense of higher rated players. This could encourage high rated players to close out their high rated accounts to play at the lower range in order to get a higher selection of challenges. So by making the change they're unintentionally encouraging sandbagging. Because unless the players who have high ratings are allowed to play people at much lower ratings range they'd hardly have enough choices to choose from to get challenges.

Communication is good for communities. If a video game gets updated then changes are listed so everyone knows what is happening and why. Lichess should consider doing this too. If the pairing change had to happen (even though it worked fine before and didn't need change in my opinion) then some information about it would be welcome so I can at least understand the change even if I disagree with it.

Still like the site btw, but I want it to be the best it can be and communication would certainly help in that regard!

I see a lot of complaints here, but to be honest: I consider this an improvement over the fixed rating range. This scales with my own rating, perfect.

@Molurus , @lovlas (because you upvoted Molorus's post)

Well, it comes with a hefty price. Do you realise that now you cannot play anyone with the rating different to yours by more than 500? It removed one of the greatest appeals of Lichess, namely that your challenge theoretically could be picked up by a strong GM. Now you cannot set the range entirely below or above your rating, either. It destroyed the experience of players who want to learn from the stronger opponents or want to practise winning with the weaker ones consistently. I cannot believe that you consider "this scales with my own rating" to outweigh all these grave drawbacks.

In addition to the comments of @Otienimous, imagine if you are rated 2700. You now cannot challenge anyone under 2200. But players rated 2200 are already in the top 2%, so you cannot challenge 98% of players on lichess.

Or imagine if you're Penguin:

@penguingim1

He's rated over 3100 at bullet, so he can only challenge 2600+ players, which is the top 0.1% of players. Of course, he can play in tournaments. But, for example, Penguin just played a few games with this guy:

@nikitalebedev2005

...who is a very strong bullet player. But because he's rated 2400, they cannot challenge one another. The only way they can play is if they arrange a match, or are paired together in a tournament. They literally cannot be paired with each other in the main pool.

@Otienimous

"Well, it comes with a hefty price. Do you realise that now you cannot play anyone with the rating different to yours by more than 500? It removed one of the greatest appeals of Lichess, namely that your challenge theoretically could be picked up by a strong GM."

Has this ever happened to you?

I've played on Lichess for quite a while, but my game searches have *never* been picked up by a player rated 500 or more higher than my own rating. Not once.

That makes your appeal 100% hypothetical if you ask me.

@Molurus

The hypothetical possibility affects the playing experience, doesn't it? No, the other way around: sometimes, rarely, when I was in an appropriate mood, I accepted challenges of some complete beginners in order to give them a chance of playing someone 2000+. Now it will be impossible. By the way, even if your counterargument was valid, it still referred only to half of my previous post.