Certain games should not award middle placements

[ufm]

In both those those games, single-winner is explicitly stated in the rules

Of course there can be only a single game winner (in general) as second place and below are not 'winners' for obvious reasons...
But that doesn't mean the game prevents ranking other players. For example, official Catan tournaments rank non-winners by VP.

However, I don't think it makes sense to change the rules for everybody simply to cater to rule-breakers. It is blatantly obvious when a player engages in kingmaking in these games, so all honest players can simply RT the offender.

It's not that simple as you think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingmaker_scenario
Can your idea deal with the example addressed there? Your 'solution' creates more problems even in games where all players play honestly.

(there's no official rulebook for Hearts but all sources I found agree)

FYI I'm the current developer of BGA Hearts. As above, most sources do not explicitly prevent ranking other players.
This suggestion has been rejected already and will never be accepted: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=13918

[Ba3henov]

In both those those games, single-winner is explicitly stated in the rules

Of course there can be only a single game winner (in general) as second place and below are not 'winners' for obvious reasons...
But that doesn't mean the game prevents ranking other players. For example, official Catan tournaments rank non-winners by VP.

However, I don't think it makes sense to change the rules for everybody simply to cater to rule-breakers. It is blatantly obvious when a player engages in kingmaking in these games, so all honest players can simply RT the offender.

It's not that simple as you think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingmaker_scenario
Can your idea deal with the example addressed there? Your 'solution' creates more problems even in games where all players play honestly.

(there's no official rulebook for Hearts but all sources I found agree)

FYI I'm the current developer of BGA Hearts. As above, most sources do not explicitly prevent ranking other players.
This suggestion has been rejected already and will never be accepted: https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=13918

Firstly, thank you for the wonderful new Hearts UI. Also, thank you for clarifying the official rules. I read the rulebooks of other games which are played with ranked placements and see that many of them don't state that there should be a ranking based on final score. So, I apologize, Catan's and Hearts' rulebooks saying "the player with the best score is the winner" isn't actually explicitly saying there should be a single winner system. Unfortunately, this means that it is open to interpretation and the player base will have an endless debate over this.

I try to play rationally, so if a game has ranked placements, I would play for second if first is far ahead. However, when playing Hearts, my opponents would often get angry and tell me I'm not playing properly. I didn't understand why at the time. Later on, after playing Catan on BGA for a while, I tried it out on *. After my first ranked game, I was surprised to see only first gain a lot of ELO while second, third and last lost a small and almost equal amount of ELO. After playing some more games, I realized that this change in ranking results in games that are less frustrating, more exciting and fairer. It's relieving to know that if you're far behind, no one will target you. The giant disparity between the reward for first and second guarantees that only those two will fight. When you're first, it's justifiable that everyone is after you. On the other hand, if you do very poorly, it doesn't feel as demoralizing since you lose few ELO points. Getting second is frustrating because it's no different from getting last, but again it feels justified since you weren't able to stop first. And being the winner is extra rewarding because you're the only one, and you get a lot of ELO. As a result, I play Catan exclusively on that site now, even though it would be more convenient for me to play here. I now understand what my Hearts opponents were so salty about. We just want that exact sense of fairness when playing Hearts.

Regarding kingmaking: it is a problem that exists in all 3+ player games, but I must admit it is exacerbated in a single winner system. Let me translate the gladiator problem you linked for me into Hearts: let's say you're in third place and first is 20 points ahead of you, while second is 10 points ahead. Let's also say fourth took twelve hearts this round, you took one, and as a result the game is about to end. You have the witch and you can give it to second this hand, or you can instead give it to first on the next hand. In the current system, the only rational choice is to give it to second. With a single winner system, you're guaranteed to lose anyway, so you're essentially choosing who will win. An attempt at a solution could be to for you to throw down the witch at the first opportunity, and do so consistently for all games. However, I agree that no fully fair solution to cover all scenarios exists, and in such scenarios whoever wins will know they only won thanks to your choice to hurt the other player. But consider the following: what if in the exact same scenario described above, first and second were 30 and 20 points ahead of you instead? In this case, regardless of the placement system, the gladiator problem will exist with no fair solution. In other words, it's possible to be forced into a situation where you're a perceived kingmaker regardless of whether it's a ranked placement or single winner system, though it does occur more often in a single winner system.

I understand that everyone has their own preferences, but the knowledge that your opponents aren't incentivized to kick you while you're down seems like the fairer system to me personally, even given the problem described above. Why? Because the unfairness that occurs under a ranked placement system happens every other game, while the gladiator problem occurs only when the scores and situation line up in a particular way. And it has to be an even more particular situation for there to be the gladiator problem in a single winner system, yet not in a ranked placement system. The unfairness of the ranked placement system, while arguably less devastating than the unfairness that can be caused by a single player system, happens significantly more frequently in certain games, like Hearts and Catan. So much so that many communities of those games prefer the single winner system as a result.

It saddens me that the mod team has already made a firm decision to never implement this. I would like to offer a compromise: instead of affecting the game entirely, please add this proposed ranking system as a possible table configuration. This way, anyone who doesn't care for our system can continue playing normally as they always have, while the rest of us have the option to play the game the way we want.\

*moderator edit: please do not name other gaming platforms specifically on BGA

[ChiefPointThief]

This topic has been discussed ad nauseam.
Such a change does not fix the situation as others will complain for the exact opposite reason - disregarding every score difference except the winner's.
And this opens other cans of worms like kingmaking.

^^ I strongly disagree with op. I don’t see how creating a everyone is a loser system makes for a better game experience. In my opinion it would be drastically worse.
He did mention certain games but really if you are going to use that logic it could be applied to all games.

Please do not misinterpret my suggestion. Nobody is advocating for single-winner for all games.

The two games I mentioned, Hearts and Catan, are the only two games out of all the ones I know that would benefit from it. In both those those games, single-winner is explicitly stated in the rules (there's no official rulebook for Hearts but all sources I found agree) and the communities in both those games are mostly in favor of adhering to the rules as it genuinely makes a better experience for those games specifically. Not for all games.

There is a site for Catan only, *, that uses such a system. The winner gets a bunch of ELO and 2nd through last place all get a similar small ELO loss (slight variation depending on your starting ELO), and the community loves it.

Kingmaking is a valid concern. Indeed, players might be tempted to kingmake when they believe they're in a hopeless position. However, I don't think it makes sense to change the rules for everybody simply to cater to rule-breakers. It is blatantly obvious when a player engages in kingmaking in these games, so all honest players can simply RT the offender.

*??? Haven’t visited since Covid but that place was horrible. 90% of games outside of strictly ppl I knew were abandoned. A lot of times right after someone didn’t get the settlement placements they wanted. There appeared to be some king making even in the legitimate tournaments. It was bad here at the start but even then it was better than that place.

Also the rt system doesn’t work. By the time a cheater has done their damage they’ve already affected several players and when their account is banned they just open a new account and repeat the process. I was cheated several times (several accounts in this game were set to zero) in one game and never got back to where I was.

What is to stop people from playing recklessly in hearts because there’s no penalty for last-2. Basically attempting to shoot the moon even though it’s a low chance. Or in Catan someone relying their whole game on beating another to a spot first and when that doesn’t happen just give up and offer 3 to one trades? There are other scenarios. But I think doing your proposal won’t make for a better gaming experience.

*moderator edit: please do not name other gaming platforms specifically on BGA

[Ba3henov]

*??? Haven’t visited since Covid but that place was horrible. 90% of games outside of strictly ppl I knew were abandoned. A lot of times right after someone didn’t get the settlement placements they wanted. There appeared to be some king making even in the legitimate tournaments. It was bad here at the start but even then it was better than that place.

Looks like the mods aren't allowing mentions of other board game platforms, which is an indication that the BGA team believes it's own website isn't up to par. You don't see the major chess websites censoring discussion about other major chess websites on their forums (I'm thinking of the two most popular ones).

I'll just mention that your 90% statistic is completely absurd. I have over 100 ranked games there with only less than 10 occasions of abandons. And in all cases, the leaver was far behind and a bot takes over, so the game continues as normal for those fighting for first.

[Ba3henov]

What is to stop people from playing recklessly in hearts because there’s no penalty for last-2. Basically attempting to shoot the moon even though it’s a low chance. Or in Catan someone relying their whole game on beating another to a spot first and when that doesn’t happen just give up and offer 3 to one trades? There are other scenarios. But I think doing your proposal won’t make for a better gaming experience.

There's nothing wrong with people playing recklessly, my opponents are allowed to employ any strategy to win they like.

Regarding kingmaking, I responded to that in the comment right before your most recent one. TL;DR we recognize it's a problem, but it exists in our current system but we'd rather deal with that occasional problem than with almost every game played in a way that, in our opinion, is against the spirit of the game. I suggest having our ranking system as a table configuration, so if you don't like it you can play the game like you always have without having to make any extra clicks, but the rest of us can play the game the way we want.

[ChiefPointThief]

What is to stop people from playing recklessly in hearts because there’s no penalty for last-2. Basically attempting to shoot the moon even though it’s a low chance. Or in Catan someone relying their whole game on beating another to a spot first and when that doesn’t happen just give up and offer 3 to one trades? There are other scenarios. But I think doing your proposal won’t make for a better gaming experience.

There's nothing wrong with people playing recklessly, my opponents are allowed to employ any strategy to win they like.

You are right. Your opponents have the right to play how they like. They can play poorly all they want and should be ranked as such when they come in last and not have a safety net of receiving the same rank as someone who played well enough to earn second.

Irl w/o elo once 1st place is no longer an option I play for second. This is common amongst several games including hearts when I play with friends and family. You can't beat Jack who is in 1st place. Ok. I will try to at least beat Jill this game.

This topic has already been discussed on the catan page. Like I said there the issue isn't the elo system but catan itself.

Regarding kingmaking, I responded to that in the comment right before your most recent one. TL;DR we recognize it's a problem, but it exists in our current system but we'd rather deal with that occasional problem than with almost every game played in a way that, in our opinion, is against the spirit of the game. I suggest having our ranking system as a table configuration, so if you don't like it you can play the game like you always have without having to make any extra clicks, but the rest of us can play the game the way we want.

I would say kingmaking is a far greater problem than your suggested elo change. If almost every game here goes against the spirit of the game then why not play at that other place with no elo? You can create games to watch players drop and become bots. Then you can watch the bots accept and make ridiculous trades. Also when you are deciding that someone is going against the spirit of the game do you consider every move that was made throughout the entirety of the game or just one questionable late game robber placement? More times than not there were several moves that could've been made to stop whoever is in the lead before the game gets out of hand.

[Ba3henov]

I would say kingmaking is a far greater problem than your suggested elo change.

That's fine, some people can have this opinion. Give the rest of us a table configuration for single winner, so if you don't like it you can play the game like you always have without having to make any extra clicks, but the rest of us can play the game the way we want.