getting elo to account for handicap

[Gulchen]

Does this site currently have a way for games to tell the elo system that
equally-skilled players would have substantially different chances from the outset?


For example,

player 1 effective elo ​ ​ ​ = ​ ​ ​ player 1 elo ​ + ​ 125
and
player 2 effective elo ​ ​ ​ = ​ ​ ​ player 2 elo ​ - ​ 125

.


(As suggested by the thread title,) The point of this is to allow rated handicap games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handicapping_in_Go is the classic example,
although I believe there are plenty of other games which could use this.

[paramesis]

No, developers of individual games do not have a way to control how ELO is adjusted at the end of a competitive game, and I really wouldn't ever want there to be.

The existing factors that go into the ELO calculation are already somewhat complex, and I've gotten a couple reports on my implementations asserting that I've somehow messed up the attribution of ELO after the game, or that I should "refund" players ELO for a game result affected by a bug. Right now these reports are very easy to answer, since ELO is handled entirely by the framework.

Once developers have the ability to affect the ELO adjustment, we would face demands for handicapping adjustments for games that shouldn't have them. For example, "I shouldn't lose so much ELO because my opponent started the game with an overpowered card", or "that last dice roll made it almost impossible for me to win". Worse than that would be some games implementing frivolous handicaps and establishing a precedent that lends credibility to complaints that ratings are adulterated.

I don't see any good coming from developers being able to assume control and responsibility for ELO ratings in competitive games.

[ufm]

+ Secondary accounts of expert players or users new to the platform but not to the game.
If you want to implement a handicap, just do it as a selectable table option and don't mess with ELO.
I'd never implement such a feature unless rules state they have one, and even they do I'll limit it to training mode only since it's not for competitive games.
Actually, 'rated handicap games' is an oxymoron. Rated games should assure fair chance among all players, or at least should try doing so.