Another word for the opposite of "prefer" in the sense of "decreasing the preference for (but not dismissing it)"

Question

I'm looking for another word to use as the opposite of prefer. The searches I looked up show this has been asked before, but not quite in the context I was looking for.

Here is the context, and I apologize for going technical:

                    +------+
                    |      |
       +------------+  R2  +---------------------+
       |            |      |                     |
       |            +------+                     |
       |                                         |
+------+            +------+                  +--v---+
|      |            |      |                  |      |
|  R1  +------------+  R3  +------------------>  R5  |
|      |            |      |                  |      |
+------+            +------+                  +---^--+
       |                                          |
       |            +------+                      |
       |            |      |                      |
       +------------+  R4  +----------------------+
                    |      |
                    +------+

R1 has three paths to get to R5. One through R2, one through R3, and another through R4. All three paths are viable, but some paths might be more preferred than the others.

There are configurations changes we can make to have R1 prefer paths through R2. And there are configuration changes we can make to have R1 de-prefer paths through R4.

Specifically, I am looking for a substitute for de-prefer in the text above. Similar to de-prioritize, or dis-prefer, but I don't think either of those words do it quite justice or work for simple conversational English.

In either case, the path through R4 is never "negated", it is always a viable path, but only when the paths through R2/R3 are not available.

The very specific context is I am trying to provide instructions to students who will be applying the configuration changes discussed above. The best I could get so far is:

In case xyz, de-prefer the path through R4

But again, I don't think that sounds right.

Answer 1

I have seen and used deprioritize in contexts similar to yours.

(transitive) To reduce the level of priority of.

Do you want me to deprioritize my current report to get this done?‎

_Wiktionary

So:

There are configurations changes we can make to have R1 prefer paths through R2. And there are configuration changes we can make to have R1 deprioritize paths through R4.

Answer 2

It seems like the most natural way to do it would be to "prefer" the negative.

"I perfer not to discuss such matters"

In your example

There is are configurations changes we can make to have R1 prefer paths through R2. And there are configuration changes we can make to have R1 prefer paths not through R4