Abandoning Hanabi Games

[Isdariel]

Disclaimer: It is easy to cheat intentionally at Hanabi if you so desire. That can't be changed and is not the goal of this suggestion.

I've seen some players (collectively) abandon games at hanabi rather frequently (up to every third game). Usually those players play until two cards of the same kind (or a single 5) are discarded and then propose to abandon.
And it makes sense because the incentive is rather high: In competitive games the winning player has no desire to abandon a game he would win/his opponents would lose. However, in a cooperative game like hanabi everybody benefits from abandoning a "bad" game - nobody is going to lose ELO.

For me, abandoning a bad game is a form of ELO-cheating. I'm not implying that those players are trying to cheat, they just don't want to finish a bad, frustrating game, knowing they will lose ELO even if they play perfect from now on. Others abandon perfectly fine games because a player has to leave or another one wants to join in. Thus the mechanism should be altered slightly:

If a table abandons a game everyone MIGHT lose ELO, but ONLY if they would lose ELO upon reaching the theoretical maximum left.

Examples:
Very Difficult game (30 points max), no mistakes made but a player has to leave, maximum points remaining: 30. No ELO lost.
Very Difficult game (30 points max), both 2W are discarded, maximum points remaining: 26. Everyone loses ELO as if the table reached 26 points (or +0, if they would gain ELO with 26).

[Isdariel]

Maybe that suggestion was too complicated. I still think that ELO ratings essentially become worthless with that widespread habit of abandoning bad games (why bother limiting a game to a certain ELO level if you can't tell apart people who boost their ELO this way?). How about this: Abandoning hanabi games imposes a small ELO penalty (think of it as a "fee") no matter the state of the game - let's be not too harsh and go with -5 (25% of a game loss).

[beri]

Agree with Isdariel. there are a a number of abuses.

[beroberokun]

Although I agree I've seen people abandoning games to avoid losing ELO, I must say it doesn't surprise me a bit.

ELO points are the only way to rate people until expert, and I believe we all want to reach that level, because it says a great much on how good a player (and sometimes a diplomat) you can be at this game.
Thus ELO points represent credibility and it's human to see many "cheat" their rating by abandoning. They want to be loved like any of us, as well as invited to more demanding games, where expert congregate. In a sense, I can see it as practice, where all bets are off when too many mistakes have been done...

Yet, IMHO, imposing an ELO backslash fee for a collective abandon is a recipe for disaster.
We all have been in contact with trolls that never want to quit a game, even if it wasn't ELO-worthy (mostly under 27 points). Imposing this penalty, could see a rise in number of such players...You know, the guys that is starting to become overly agressive in the chat because it's his/her game, wants to see it through and will end up pissing people until one leave, enabling a fresh-card-discarding-frenzy-bot (Yuk!).

As I reckon your suggestion for less abandon, I have yet to see a system that preserves the community feeling of this game (maybe lower ELO expectations to 25-26 for a draw). So far collective abandon is a rather civilized thing to do. A penalty could create more trolls (fusing their anger away), and a rise in red thumbs, which is illsuited for a game where it's a personnal discipline to start trusting teammates.

Just saying...

[beroberokun]

I might add that the old ELO-off system was shielding from such "cowardice".
To me it was a trade off: You'd spend time playing the game through, but agreeing on an ELO-off game would be your loss for your overall rating. Then, more confident, you would have tried a ELO-on game to boost your stats.

Yet, as I mentioned in this post (Why the new ELO-off status is badly suited to Hanabi), a 3 fuses game in ELO-off would show a loss in overall stats due to the recent changes in this status.
ELO is not the only way to recognize a good player. The gap between wins/losses is also a hint, and as it is hard to lose purposely a game in Hanabi, it is a way to spot fuse-frenzy angry trolls.

So once again, collective abandon seems to be the best way to avoid credibility hurtings. It's human, and that's why people do it. But...

As a frequent teacher, I would find it sad if collective adandons would become the norm, especially with beginners, who won't see a game through because other players don't want to lose ELO. This hurts their learning process because there is no actual carrying-on of the mistakes. The brains forgets more easily because it won't be submitted to the full result of such actions, hence preventing memory consolidation around those errors.
Restoring the ELO-off status to a non-win/loss disclaimer could help in reducing the numbers of abandons, by simply stating this: "You're in an ELO-off game? Fine! You know this can't hurt you and you have chosen it in hindsight, so play the best you can. And if it wasn't enough, better luck next time. At least you've learned by seeing your mistakes".

[Isdariel]

Maybe I've been lucky, maybe I'm a troll myself, but I've never had a problem with them in Hanabi. From what I see, they can do two things:
-Bomb the game. => Great, -20 ELO for everyone, lets remake without the troll.
-Disagree to abandon a bad game. => I wouldn't even call it trolling as it prevents ELO-cheating. If you don't want to finish regulary, just bomb the game for -20 ELO, you probably wouldn't gain much more for a completed game anyway. Noone can force you to play it to the end. Personally, I always tell my group "I don't abandon, but feel free to bomb the game if you don't want to finish" *shrugs*.
-Disagree to abandon a good game (someone has to leave) => Real trolling, never happened to me though.

All of the above can happen with the current system or my proposed changes. Probably more so with the current system because abandoning is just so much more powerful that denying others the possbility is leverage for the troll.

[cosmosis]

I think the way it's set up now is fine for Hanabi. Most trophies/rewards have already been turned off for the game since it's easy to cheat the system if you want to.

The only thing ELO is really good for is verifying good players when you set up the game. I think people who do this kind of 'ELO cheating' will still not make it very far up the Hanabi ranks (I could see them getting to expert level, maybe? But that would still be hard unless they're actually decent players). If they do, and you play a high player who has obviously been getting up the ranks via this method, just give them a red thumb and don't play with them again.

I'd be against a penalty since there are legitimate reasons to collectively concede a game.

[beroberokun]

something to consider if you want to cheat your ELO rating:

-Friends that want to up their elo too
-A predetermined deck that players know they can do 30pts on.

The conjunction of those variables with a lot of free time, can make several people at once, up their elo, for the sheer fun of redoing the same "crackable" deck over and over.

Food for thought

[Isdariel]

As I stated in my first post, I don't want to adress the issue of cheating in general. Obviously, you can cheat in hanabi if you want to. Period. What I want to fix is the more-or-less unintentional cheating by abandoning games gone bad. Those people might not intend to cheat, they just don't want to finish a bad game. Nontheless, by doing this often, they achieve a higher ELO rating than they would without abandoning. A small ELO penalty would fix that.

[Silene]

If a table abandons a game everyone MIGHT lose ELO, but ONLY if they would lose ELO upon reaching the theoretical maximum left.

I strongly support this suggestion. I noticed how I am annoyed by finishing a game that is quite boring - in example 2p game where both players discarded same 2 in the same round. A game like that is not much fun to continue but I usually do not abandon it because I don't want to ELO-cheat. But I'd gladly take the ELO-loss caused by a result of 24 - I just don't want to spend the time. So when abandoning this game we should get the ELO-loss caused by a result of 24 (if there's a loss! No ELO-gain like that of course!) with no need to feel guilty for "ELO-cheating".

How about this: Abandoning hanabi games imposes a small ELO penalty (think of it as a "fee") no matter the state of the game - let's be not too harsh and go with -5 (25% of a game loss).

I do NOT support this suggestion because I don't want to get a penalty for a restart of the game because a player showed up late and we want to play with 1 more player instead of continue this game. Neither do i want a penalty (or pay a fee) because a player has an emergency and has to leave the game out of a sudden. I'd always accept abandon in such a case no matter how good or bad the game is.