🌿ELO System Updates

Board Game Arena Official announcements
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GeoPaladin
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by GeoPaladin »

hammastahna wrote: 14 April 2024, 16:15
Less playing means less server costs.
I'm going to be honest, I highly doubt this has had much of an impact on the site. It's unfortunate, but the people hurt by this are a small subset of all players. Not all of us will stop playing or paying. I chose not to subscribe due to this, but it's not like there's proof of that - and losing a few consumers doesn't mean much regardless.

This comes down to the admins pushing a system that's extremely unfair to people near the top levels but will otherwise have limited impact. They could take measures to make this less unfair, but haven't bothered to do so.
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h_illes
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by h_illes »

GeoPaladin wrote: 14 April 2024, 22:05 I'm going to be honest, I highly doubt this has had much of an impact on the site. It's unfortunate, but the people hurt by this are a small subset of all players. Not all of us will stop playing or paying. I chose not to subscribe due to this, but it's not like there's proof of that - and losing a few consumers doesn't mean much regardless.

This comes down to the admins pushing a system that's extremely unfair to people near the top levels but will otherwise have limited impact. They could take measures to make this less unfair, but haven't bothered to do so.
So to summarize: the changes...
- do not affect the server costs;
- cost time and effort to implement;
- do not make anyone happy (or make them subscribe etc.);
- cause a small amount of subscribers to cancel.

They were clearly harmful as a business decision as well, and reverting them would be a good decision, even at this point. Yet it seems the same ignorant and incompetent people are stlll calling the shots, hurting the player base, the site's reputation and business.
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ChiefPointThief
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by ChiefPointThief »

These updates caused problems for some games (king of tokyo and living forest to name a few). They are being counted as team games although they are not. Which means any players outside of first place who are supposed to gain elo aren't because all losing players are being counted as teammates. There were bug reports for these games but it was ruled notabug because it is a site issue and not game specific.
Osnofaac wrote: 13 March 2024, 18:55
ChiefPointThief wrote: 12 March 2024, 00:26
Osnofaac wrote: 11 March 2024, 21:53

yes, true. the achievement is no longer published. a friend form the carcassonne national team reached master for the 1st time and got... nothing.
My friend loves living forest and finally got to expert status. He was proud of that achievement. I went to congratulate him and couldn’t find it but I thought it was just a temporary bug. Shame

They still give messages for the other awards like 1st win, bonzai, etc so I wonder why they deliberately took out the messages for elo status.
If you go to the achievement list it is there but does not show on the user page.
This friend got to master at carcassonne and the achievement didn't show on his page. when he got top 20 world elo that one showed up.
Additionally, they stopped posting arena finishes on the newsfeed. I think it is silly to get daily messages about my friends finishing in 100th place in a tournament but friends getting a trophy in arena is supposed to be irrelevant.
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RazorOz
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by RazorOz »

GeoPaladin wrote: 14 April 2024, 22:05 I'm going to be honest, I highly doubt this has had much of an impact on the site. It's unfortunate, but the people hurt by this are a small subset of all players. Not all of us will stop playing or paying. I chose not to subscribe due to this, but it's not like there's proof of that - and losing a few consumers doesn't mean much regardless.

This comes down to the admins pushing a system that's extremely unfair to people near the top levels but will otherwise have limited impact. They could take measures to make this less unfair, but haven't bothered to do so.
It will affect traffic in the long run, it's ok saying it's small subset of players, as a pure number yes, but it's the most active players, if the most active players stop playing, that means less games, and harder for others to find games, which is the road to decline for the website. Eg. If 90% of the traffic is driven by 5% of players, but it's that 5% you piss off the most into stop playing, look how much damage that small subset of players can do to traffic.

The point made about ELO being a tool to gauge relative skill levels, and not a badge of honour etc. These changes actually don't do that that at all though. #1 The ELO standings for games will less and less reflect skill levels over time under this system, as there is a huge bias against activity. By definition the best players at games will often be some of the most active, as one of the ways you become the best is through repetition, but this system stacks against those players massively, while someone can play 1 game a month off a high starting ELO base before this system was implemented and maintain very high ranking, which leads to #2 It's way easier for someone to see ELO under this system as a badge of honour, get a high rank, then just stop playing, keep your high rank as ELO is either very stagnant or declines as a whole under this system.

H_Illes is a great example of this, clearly the best Century player by a country mile (with a win rate I can't even fathom having played the game to a reasonable standard myself) yet their ELO no longer reflects this, under this system ELO no longer reflects reality of skill level, and this problem will only get worse in the long run.
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h_illes
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by h_illes »

lordalx wrote: 15 March 2024, 09:14 Dear Players,

We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback regarding the ELO system. We value your input and are committed to ensuring a fair and balanced ranking system for all players.

...

Finally, remember to focus on having fun, challenging yourself, and enjoying the competition!

ELO isn't a prize or a badge of honor. ELO ratings serve as a tool to gauge relative skill levels and find well-matched opponents, not a measure of personal worth. Focus on enjoying the games, learning from your opponents, and refining your strategies to become a true board game master!

We're always listening to your feedback and working to make Board Game Arena the best place to play. Keep those messages coming!
RazorOz wrote: 16 April 2024, 02:58 The point made about ELO being a tool to gauge relative skill levels, and not a badge of honour etc. These changes actually don't do that that at all though. #1 The ELO standings for games will less and less reflect skill levels over time under this system, as there is a huge bias against activity. By definition the best players at games will often be some of the most active, as one of the ways you become the best is through repetition, but this system stacks against those players massively, while someone can play 1 game a month off a high starting ELO base before this system was implemented and maintain very high ranking, which leads to #2 It's way easier for someone to see ELO under this system as a badge of honour, get a high rank, then just stop playing, keep your high rank as ELO is either very stagnant or declines as a whole under this system.
Well worded, RazorOz. The win streak penalty actually promotes ELO as a prize while diminishing its value in indicating skill. lordalx, are you listening? The changes do the exact opposite of what you stated in your last comment! Please listen to logical arguments presented here, and act upon them! The players in this topic give you competent advice for free. There is no shame in acting upon that, especially since you specifically asked for it, and promised to listen to it.
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ErikLevin
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by ErikLevin »

ChiefPointThief wrote: 16 April 2024, 01:30 These updates caused problems for some games (king of tokyo and living forest to name a few). They are being counted as team games although they are not. Which means any players outside of first place who are supposed to gain elo aren't because all losing players are being counted as teammates. There were bug reports for these games but it was ruled notabug because it is a site issue and not game specific.
The setting that causes this issue is called "losers_not_ranked". Here is a report for the wonky Elo resulting from that setting, which affects games like Living Forest and Coup: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=115682

This issue has been fixed for King of Tokyo. It no longer uses "losers_not_ranked".

They are not truly counted as team games exactly, the text is just wrong (probably the same text is reused improperly) : https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=115685

As far as I understand these issues have existed for longer and are not related to the Elo changes of this thread. Not 100% sure on that though.
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ChiefPointThief
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by ChiefPointThief »

ErikLevin wrote: 16 April 2024, 13:18
ChiefPointThief wrote: 16 April 2024, 01:30 These updates caused problems for some games (king of tokyo and living forest to name a few). They are being counted as team games although they are not. Which means any players outside of first place who are supposed to gain elo aren't because all losing players are being counted as teammates. There were bug reports for these games but it was ruled notabug because it is a site issue and not game specific.
The setting that causes this issue is called "losers_not_ranked". Here is a report for the wonky Elo resulting from that setting, which affects games like Living Forest and Coup: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=115682

This issue has been fixed for King of Tokyo. It no longer uses "losers_not_ranked".

They are not truly counted as team games exactly, the text is just wrong (probably the same text is reused improperly) : https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=115685

As far as I understand these issues have existed for longer and are not related to the Elo changes of this thread. Not 100% sure on that though.
I checked my game history to confirm. Prior to December of last year this issue didn't exist in living forest or tokyo. There are also reports that have been open for years in games like trio with winner takes all. All the losers exchange elo meaning the higher elo players give pts to the lower players for tying. These reports have been open for at least 4yrs and aren't fixed but changes to elo are being made that no one has asked for :lol:
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h_illes
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by h_illes »

lordalx wrote: 15 March 2024, 09:14 We're always listening to your feedback and working to make Board Game Arena the best place to play. Keep those messages coming!
In my last 10 Arena games, I received 11 points of ELO. Without the win streak penalty, it would have been 36 points. That's 25 points I did not get, despite beating strong opponents (who have beaten me in the past). That is a huge difference when at 750 and trying to get to 800. I am an honest player who has never cheated in any way. So why am I being penalized?

Also, if I had waited a month, I would have received the full 36 points for the same results. So why am I being incentivized to play fewer games? As a premium subscriber, I did not pay to then take long breaks in playing.

You seriously need to change your approach towards players (paying customers if you like), including the whole no-feedback thing, because the handling of this whole win streak penalty has been atrocious.

Edit: I will add one more thought. You introduced the win streak penalty for the all-time rankings, but not for Arena. If you treat it as an anti-cheating measure, why not introduce it in Arena too? Do you allow cheaters in Arena? This whole thing just makes no sense.
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h_illes
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by h_illes »

There appears to be a consecutive loss 'penalty' as well. That's somewhat good news, but we need precise details please! My main question: what happens when player A has a 6+ win streak against player B, but player B wins their next game? Is there an ELO change or not? This is an important detail due to this:
h_illes wrote: 15 March 2024, 12:40
gmrsmrt wrote: 15 March 2024, 10:51 This way you badly beat strong players and inflate weak ones.
Assume I am much stronger than player B (say I win 19/20) and I am paired with him several times in good faith (it happened to me in arena where I have no control on the opponent ...).
With this mechanism I will gain almost no ELO and get a strong drop when occasionally I loose. Player B can almost only gain ELO. If this keep going eventually we will get the same ELO despite the strong unbalance. To achieve your goal lower the k factor for both player according to the number of games played (Better if this is done proportionally to the probability of having multiple games by chance so that small players pool are not penalized ). You still achieve the goal to lower the impact of multiple games with the same opponent but don't introduce a manifest bias in
ELO calculation
Very good point. A lowered K factor means that the K factor is lowered in advance, regardless of the outcome of the last game. If the K factor depends on the outcome of the actual game, that's very different, and will indeed bring players of different skills closer in rating. So even though the ELO leak will stop, it will still make ELO a much worse indicator of skill. I hope this is not what they intend to do.
lordalx wrote: 15 March 2024, 09:14 However, we recognize that losing consecutive games to the same opponent can be frustrating and can lead to an unfair ELO drop. To address this, we will be implementing a mechanism to prevent ELO loss for consecutive losses against the same opponent, like how consecutive wins are currently handled. This will help maintain a more balanced ELO distribution.
In light of the above, I suggest that this time whoever makes the decisions at BGA actually listens to people who can carry out the analysis properly. There's no shame in taking good advice.
Now that I got in here before the official announcement, I would like to see the above question specifically addressed, lordalx.
lordalx wrote: 15 March 2024, 09:14 We're always listening to your feedback and working to make Board Game Arena the best place to play. Keep those messages coming!
Edit: also, due to the poorly implemented win streak penalty, I am now behind significantly on the ELO rankings, while players who played few games are not. Do you plan any sort of action to address this imbalance? As it stands, as long as you keep the win streak penalty, I cannot even climb back up properly (although at least I won't fall further behind).

Edit: also, the 'ELO calculation details' after a game now says: consecutive wins (6): -100% penalty, and the ELO change is 0 for both players. That's not details. :) At least make it display what the base value was.
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h_illes
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Re: 🌿ELO System Updates

Post by h_illes »

Details. So the consecutive loss 'penalty' seems to work the following way. If player A has a win streak against player B, and player A wins, the ELO changes are reduced for both of them by the same percentage. But if player A has a win streak against player B, and player B wins their next game, they both get the full ELO change.

On one hand, the ELO leak has stopped, because the rating that was denied from player A goes to player B instead. So at least not everyone's rating will go down in the long run. However, there are still big issues with this approach. If player A has a 6+ game win streak against player B, then player A has nothing to win and everything to lose against player B, so player A is disincentivized from playing player B. Also, if there is still a 30-day cutoff on the win streak count (I can't tell for sure yet, but I assume this is the case), then stronger players (who typically have win streaks against others) are still incentivized to play less until the win streaks clear.

Hoever, the long term consequence of the current version is that strong players who keep playing through win streaks will be punished (their ELO lowered), while weaker players will have their ELO increased, so overall, ELO will be a worse indicator of skill. (As a side note, the winning chances displayed in the 'ELO calculation detail' box will also remain incorrect). Also, strong players who play fewer games will be less affected by the win streak penalty, so their rating will be higher than the rating of players of the same skill that play more games. So you still managed to create an unfair playing field where ELO reflects not only skill, but also how frequently a player plays.

A possible remedy is to apply the % penalty regardless of the result of the current game. This way, if one of the players has a win streak, the stakes will be lower for everyone. This would be effectively equivalent to lowering the K factor. If we keep pretending that this change is to hinder cheating, you would need to change the % penalties to be bounded away from 100%, otherwise a cheater can just transfer ELO to one account until 100% penalty is reached, then lose one game with no ELO exchange, then keep repeating. If the penalty is bounded away from 100%, this is less of a problem as the one loss would erase a lot of the ELO gain.

An even better option is to set a K factor decrease for frequent opponents regardless of any win streaks (or who wins in general). The K factor should not decrease to 0 as that would make games friendly; instead, gradually decreasing to, let's say, 20% of the original K factor would work well. With this approach, you can also keep the 30-day cutoff for the frequent opponent game count. The long term effect of this solution would be that players converge slower to their true ELO, but everyone would have the correct ELO eventually, while it would still be hard to gain a lot of ELO against a single opponent.

So, to summarize, even though the intentions were good this time, you still managed to mess up again, despite the fact that the specific pitfall above was pointed out in this very thread within 3 hours (!) of the last official update. I am at a loss for words.

Either way, another update is in order. The lowered K factor would be a reasonable compromise: it still makes it hard to gain a lot of ELO against a single opponent with minimal side effects (that I think most players here could live with). Honestly, at this point I would also consider just scrapping the whole win streak penalty system and look for other ways to fight cheating. Just return to the regular ELO, because whoever makes the decisions is clearly incompetent to carry out a proper analysis of the long-term effects. Don't tinker with what you don't understand.
Last edited by h_illes on 18 April 2024, 04:30, edited 1 time in total.
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