Put 'Perfect or quit' in table notes

[Stroom]

I do wish that when the deck runs out you could play two cards each rather than just one. It's amazing how often the second copy of the 4 you discarded in the first few turns of the game turns out to be the bottom card of the deck. At which point you finish with 34 points having worked extremely hard and what does BGA reward you with! -12 pts So very, very, very frustrating when by any stretch of the imagination even 34 is an achievement. Anything within 3 points of full marks needs to be seen as a win or you will continue to get high abandonment rates.

No. This is not how elo should work. Just take the loss and move on. Sometimes bad decks happen. Deal with it, consider these situations as a part of your elo.

[MoiMagnus]

No. This is not how elo should work. Just take the loss and move on. Sometimes bad decks happen. Deal with it, consider these situations as a part of your elo.

Reading through the different forums, the things is that a significant number of peoples actually don't want ELO at all. What they want is a progression system, and that's not what ELO is designed for (it is designed to match peoples against other players of even strength by giving an estimation of how strong a player is), so a lot of peoples would gladly take a pseudo-ELO system where you never ever lose any points.

If an ELO system works perfectly, peoples quickly gain point after joining the platform, then stagnate around their "true ELO" up until they actually get significantly better at the game, which might never happen if they play only casually. You gain points when you play better than your previous self. Which is kind of the opposite of the goal of a progression system, where the goal is to constantly reward you as long as you play objectively well (and the better you play, the quicker your progress).

A good example of pseudo-EOL is the system Magic The Gathering is now using in its tournaments instead of ELO, since WotC realised ELO was doing more harm than good to their organised plays a little while ago.

[HATFIELDER]

The point is that it is not a loss as defined by the game. You shouldn't lose points for a score that is considered a win.

It's not important to me, I only play Hanabi with people I know IRL but I'm just trying to help see you see why the current system is frustrating. A win is a win.

[Stroom]

Getting 27-29/30 is super easy. Only horribly bad decks can make you "lose" in that situation. If you consider that as a win, everyone would just keep gaining elo. Who said that elo should increase your score based on "win or lose"? It's based on how high you score vs your current elo.

[segfaltnh]

I do wish that when the deck runs out you could play two cards each rather than just one. It's amazing how often the second copy of the 4 you discarded in the first few turns of the game turns out to be the bottom card of the deck. At which point you finish with 34 points having worked extremely hard and what does BGA reward you with! -12 pts So very, very, very frustrating when by any stretch of the imagination even 34 is an achievement. Anything within 3 points of full marks needs to be seen as a win or you will continue to get high abandonment rates.

There's actually a variant called "All or Nothing" (not supported here, but printed in some rulebooks, I think) which states that you can keep playing indefinitely, but you only get one misfire and anything less than perfect is considered a loss. It makes the game quite a bit easier, I think.

[Travis Hall]

I do wish that when the deck runs out you could play two cards each rather than just one. It's amazing how often the second copy of the 4 you discarded in the first few turns of the game turns out to be the bottom card of the deck. At which point you finish with 34 points having worked extremely hard and what does BGA reward you with! -12 pts So very, very, very frustrating when by any stretch of the imagination even 34 is an achievement. Anything within 3 points of full marks needs to be seen as a win or you will continue to get high abandonment rates.

There's actually a variant called "All or Nothing" (not supported here, but printed in some rulebooks, I think) which states that you can keep playing indefinitely, but you only get one misfire and anything less than perfect is considered a loss. It makes the game quite a bit easier, I think.

Indeed, yes, much easier without the limited numbers of turns after the final draw, or even a higher limit. There are whole bodies of Hanabi convention theory around minimising the probability that the last card is a blocker.

While you’d rather lose a 4 than any other card (except maybe a 1, sometimes) the best players will try to avoid losing even 4s until they are duplicates.

[CassCassie]

What is with people and Hanabi on here? Like.....it's a game. Play the game. Calm down Francis. What game is fun if you crush it every time? I've basically decided to stop chatting in Hanabi cause some "expert" always has to point out the flaws in my game. ITS A GAME. FOR NOTHING.

[Travis Hall]

What is with people and Hanabi on here? Like.....it's a game. Play the game. Calm down Francis. What game is fun if you crush it every time?

What game is fun if I’m required to avoid thinking to play it? People enjoy things in different ways, and I get bored quickly if an activity does not occupy my mind. (I play a lot of Hanabi because while there are more challenging games, it’s hard to find one that packs so much strategy into 20 minutes online.)

Nobody requires you to become a master level Hanabi player. Feel free to stick to apprentice-level play. Open games for no higher than that level, and you’d be unlikely to get much actually-expert advice (though players at any level are likely to tell you if you mess up the game for them - and that’s true of any co-op). But at the same time, be aware that ELO ratings are a tool for allowing you to do that (and for me to play with other people who play skilfully). That aim is why ELO attempts to measure skill, rather than forever increasing with more time played (except as such feeds into improving skill, of course).

[Lara8818]

What is with people and Hanabi on here? Like.....it's a game. Play the game. Calm down Francis. What game is fun if you crush it every time? I've basically decided to stop chatting in Hanabi cause some "expert" always has to point out the flaws in my game. ITS A GAME. FOR NOTHING.

What game is fun if I’m required to avoid thinking to play it? People enjoy things in different ways, and I get bored quickly if an activity does not occupy my mind. (I play a lot of Hanabi because while there are more challenging games, it’s hard to find one that packs so much strategy into 20 minutes online.)

My issue with mid-game critique is that A) the complaints themselves tend to give away info (if I fail to save a unique card in Alice's chop and Bob posts a frowny face in chat, Alice might err on the side of cluing rather than discarding) and B) it's almost impossible to explain your reasoning without ALSO giving away info (no, that was a safe clue to give because Sam can see the other blue 4 in...*cough* someone's hand...)

It violates the spirit and the challenge of only being allowed limited and specific communication with your teammates. It has its place in teaching techniques/conventions that someone might simply not know, but when it comes to mistakes or judgement calls, I really wish most games would hold the commentary until the end.

[Travis Hall]

My issue with mid-game critique is that A) the complaints themselves tend to give away info (if I fail to save a unique card in Alice's chop and Bob posts a frowny face in chat, Alice might err on the side of cluing rather than discarding) and B) it's almost impossible to explain your reasoning without ALSO giving away info (no, that was a safe clue to give because Sam can see the other blue 4 in...*cough* someone's hand...)

Indeed, I’m not an advocate of extensive chat analysis during the game, for these reasons and others. In some circumstances a comment can be good, especially to flag something for more extended discussion later (but even that should be held until it gives nothing away). And many a time I’ve misfired after someone gave a bad clue, even though they have immediately said in chat that it was a mistake, because I do not take my clues through chat.

(I even had a game recently where someone thought they made a mistake when they gave me a clue, and said so in chat, so the next player did not play on it... but it was a perfectly valid bluff. So I misfired the clued card. I have to play in accordance with the moves of the game even if others don’t.)

But the solution to this is to hold long discussions until later, not to ask people not to play well, or to consider how to play better.