🌿ELO System Updates

[TricksyFox]

RE: Hanabi

Players use ELO to understand which clues are appropriate for the current table.

Seconding this! I'm nowhere near a masterful player, but having the rankings helps me decide what conventions are likely to be understood at any given table, and guides how I might go about interpreting clues from other players ("are they discarding this to send a message, or is it because they don't know how many 4s we have in the deck?").

It also helps with facilitating mutual support and camaraderie - seeing ELO helps me to figure out whether it's appropriate to offer advice (for example, if somebody has an ELO of under 20 or so I'll let them know they're welcome to ask any questions), or whether I might actually ask for guidance from them if I feel like they're doing something fancy that I'm not picking up on (which is how I've learned many of the conventions that I now know!). Right now I'm hesitant to say anything, lest I insult somebody by incorrectly insinuating I know more than them.

This applies to other co-op games as well, like Burgle Bros and Now Boarding! ELO is a tool that helps guide understanding about who you're playing with, and it's a pity to lose it.

And let's be honest - the kinds of people who engage unhealthily with ELO scores aren't going to stop just because there's only a tier displayed instead of a number.

[__X__]

→ Cooperative play and non competitive game
For cooperative games such as Hanabi, The Crew, or Just One, competition is already disabled. However, some players were too focused on the ELO, which led to unnecessary competitiveness in an environment which should instead incentivize cooperation.
For such games, we decided to hide the ELO value of each player and only display their current rank, from Beginner to Master.

I'm sorry, but what? "unnecessary competitiveness"? You either win or lose, you don't get extra elo for being 'competitive'. This reasoning makes no sense. There must be something more going on that you're not telling us.

I don't really care about elo as such, but as so many others have said in this thread, it IS a rough grade of judging skill level and as such, what settings and play styles you will use in a game.

So, give us dan levels for Master rank and we should be good.

[Stroom]

I don't lose my ability to play a game though just because I haven't played it in 3 months. You basically only play one game here so it would be no problem for you to keep your status. The purpose of the elo system is to rate how strong of a player you are. You believe the real master level for hanabi is 900+. With this current change if a 900 elo hanabi player didnt't play for 1yr their elo would drop to 590. This player has the exact same skill they had prior but now you wouldn't even allow this player to sit at a table with you. I just played a few games I haven't played in months this week. Just as good as ever. I don't want to feel like I have to play this game by this date or lose this amount of elo.

The purpose of elo decay is to remove those at the top who stopped playing. To show the rankings in a way that the top is showing active players an their relative elos. Also, some past systems allowed players to artificially inflate their elos, now they sit at the top, not playing. Got any other ideas how to do it?

I'd say that your skill would likely not be the same if you have not played for a year. The game meta might have changed, newer strategies beating what you have learned, so your old skills would not translate to the same elo level as before. Is it 40% less? Probably not. But you should still prove in a few games that your skill is what is was before. As I mentioned in another post before, Glicko type of system would have a decay in a sense that it displays your elo with a degree of uncertainty. But the moment you play and win, it can jump back up to your old elo.

Maybe the system needs tweaking or better explanation, but the system needs changes. Just taking away points does not sound right but decaying elo in a way that displayed value is smaller the less you play, sounds fair.

[nik592]

Power Leveling
If winner is just reduced this is terrible, if it is K-factor then it is okay...but would still be better to take the player pool into account. Games with huge player pools could see a significant reduction in K-factor, games with tiny player pools this makes little sense. Also how consecutive is defined makes a huge difference. If it is as stated you just jump between 2 different players if that resets things and avoid the reduction. There are games with very small player bases where only 3-4 people are actively playing arena games.

Strongly agree with this. I've hit this many times, where I play against the same opponent in Arena again, and again, and again. I personally don't like it - the games often play out very similarly. I've tried waiting (hours/days) between starting new games, but it still happens - and maybe it is a case of a tiny player pool, though often I've checked for other arena tables for that game and found them, so there are others playing, but perhaps just not free at the right time?

I've often thought there should be something in Arena selection that deprioritises your last opponent (particularly for 2p) - I mean sure, if you've both been waiting 2 days (or whatever a RT equivalent long time is) for a table, sure. But otherwise, hold off, wait for another opponent to become available before pairing immediately with that same person - who is probably making requests for new tables at the same time as me, so is often why I would consistently get paired with them.

[Scops]

→ Power levelling
We encountered many situations of power levelling, linked to multi accounts, even if we are still fighting against such practices, it became obvious that the current system might encourage it.
To prevent this, any consecutive wins against the same opponent will reduce the amount of ELO points awarded from this victory. This reduction will be gradually higher as more consecutive wins are accumulated. This way, we encourage you to challenge other players to keep the original spirit of the ELO: show your skill at a game compared to the whole community, not just the same ones.

I do agree that there is a problem here that needs to be addressed, but I don't believe this is a good solution to the problem. I've just realized that you get a percentage reduction in elo gain even when you have played lots of other games with some other opponents in between.

So for example: if you play and win against player X, then you play a number of other games with a number of different opponents and then you encounter player X again and win, you already lose 3% of the elo you would normally gain because it's a "consecutive" win with the same opponent.

I don't think this makes any sense!

→ ELO Decay
In the past, some of the strongest players refrained from playing as they could lose ELO, attempting to prevent losing their hard obtained current rank. This lead to situations where players kept their rank without playing anymore. We clearly want to encourage you to play to keep your rank. This will also help other players to be able to compete against the best.
Doing so, a regular ELO decay is introduced to slowly drop the ELO from top ranked players that do not play anymore. The decay will be -10% at the end of the Arena Season for all Strong players and above that did not play any ranked game, but this could be adjusted later (both scope and frequency). The decay will not move player from a rank lower than Strong.

This is just terrible for the many reasons that others have already explained!

I'm sure these changes come with good intentions and I appreciate the efforts to make BGA a better place for everyone. But I don't think that these two specific points work well for the community

[Heraldson]

I have two questions:

Arena games - could we get ELO shown in Arena games? It is a good indicator of which level of play can be expected from the opponents and I always have to check it manually through their profiles. Is there any specific reason, why ELO is not shown in Arena games?

Coop - I managed to win some coop games (Sky Team) and no victory was awarded in the stats, can this be connected with the ELO changes that were made?

[h_illes]

The power levelling change is ridiculously unfair towards the strongest players in a given game. I have a 92% win rate in Century: Spice Road. Against most players (including other strong players as well), I typically have a win streak, often longer than 5 games. I would hardly gain any ELO from beating them. But I would get the full reduction when eventually losing a game.

Regular ELO rating calculation creates a balance. Stronger players win more games against weaker players, gaining relatively small amounts of ELO points with each win. But when occasionally the stronger player loses, they lose more ELO points, and the difference in their ELO score remains more or less constant long-term (reflecting the difference in skill). With the power levelling change, this balance is be broken heavily, and at the top of the rankings.

I understand there is a problem to be addressed, but for this fix, the 'collateral damage' seems way too high. Others have recommended decreasing the K factor for 2 players when one has a long win streak amongst the two; that seems a better solution, as it keeps the above mentioned balance intact.

[RicardoRix]

For the powering level, is it not just a bad explanation?
By reducing the amount given for a win, they also mean (but do NOT clarify) that the overall ELO exchanged will be lowered either win or lose between the same players....
so in fact he does mean just a lowering of the k-factor (or a similar method).

It would be good to remember that ELO should relate to the skill of the player NOT how much they play. As previously stated you have Arena for that.
If you do introduce rating decay, then I would need to see an ELO rating peak statatics, as I have over 200 different played games. Maybe 50 - 100 of them are 200+. I'm not gonna play them once every 3 months just because of the fear of rating decay. I don't see what you're solving.

[h_illes]

For the powering level, is it not just a bad explanation?
By reducing the amount given for a win, they also mean (but do NOT clarify) that the overall ELO exchanged will be lowered either win or lose between the same players....
so in fact he does mean just a lowering of the k-factor (or a similar method).

No, this is not the case. In the example game below, the winner gets 0 ELO change, while the loser gets an actual decrease.

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=449974844

[RicardoRix]

For the powering level, is it not just a bad explanation?

No, this is not the case. In the example game below, the winner gets 0 ELO change, while the loser gets an actual decrease.

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=449974844

OK, my mistake. Yeah, OK then this change breaks more than it fixes then.

One other thing, I can no longer hover the ELO icon to see the calculation...