🌿ELO System Updates

[Patrick of the Isles]

Many of us think BGA would do well to consult frequent users when considering changes. I understand that this would be different than the update process of many other service websites. However, the unique nature of BGA as a community of enthusiasts means such an inclusive and collaborative approach would serve it well. I know how much BGA employees love board games and want the site to be the best it can be, but they may not fully realize that changes without advance discussion can feel capricious to people who are very appreciative of the current arrangements. This is usually not out of some generalized "resistance to change" but rather because frequent users are uniquely aware of how changes may negatively impact their experience. Announcing these changes without discussing them in advance with people who have spent thousands of happy hours using this site is not in my view the path to building the best possible community.

As an example, rating decay will lead to a decreased enjoyment for frequent users. A primary purpose of a rating system is to allow similarly-skilled players to match with each other. Causing a 700-rated player to decay to a 300-rated player if they are away for several months does not serve this goal. It makes the core function of a rating system - identifying strength for matchmaking - much less accurate. That reduces the site enjoyment by making matches with significant skill disparity more common. If the community of frequent users had been involved and consulted in advance of this announcement, that negative impact might have been taken more seriously.

[sprockitz]

As with too many things on this site related to competitive play, you've really botched it once again. The early arena seasons were plagued with silly issues (abusing turn based table finishes, losing elo due to ties in games with quitters, etc). This roll out of adjustments is also plagued with issues that are easily spotted by your player base. Perhaps you should ask for some more feedback from trusted and experienced users before doing some of these things.

Well said there are so many active passionate players on this site that actually understand how these things work and should work. And many good solutions are happily offered up for free, but continually ignored!! The majority of power users want to make this site better. It is great for playing games, but terrible when it comes to handling the competitive aspects. Several of these changes are completely illogical. You've made Elo a negative sum game now, this is going to drastically reduce everyone's Elo over time.

The power leveling change based on the results already is just absurd, everyone's Elo will be down 100s of points because of it. It basically means you never want to play a player twice. From the sounds of it there is no reset to a win streak by time or number of other players played...you just gain less than you should beating a player twice. This means even two evenly matched players with 50/50 win rates will lose Elo by playing a bunch of games against each other. Two players play each other 50 times and each go down a 100 Elo for doing so...makes no sense, Elo needs to be 0 sum. Use K factor not a non-zero punishment. And not after 1 game and it needs to reset (or rescale back to normal) either with time or with number of games played with other people. It is just disappointing the lack of thought that was put into these changes given the blatant flaws are so obvious to so many.

[shermanator822]

My gripe that the iconography is missing. If you remove the elo number display then it must be replaced by some graphic indicator of the level beginner, apprentice, master, etc. It's not clear at all which blue vs purple background color means what. Something like the cell phone signal icon to show beginner players vs master players whenever you refer to these elo levels, especially inside the game in the player panels where you don't use the words!

As a player of several different co-op games, with different ELO mechanics, I agree with Mint that the color gradient is not clear without the numbers. I also agree with X that categories on co-op games for people with ratings between 700-8700 would definitely be helpful.

[6element]

I'd strongly prefer reduction of "delisting" time from 60 days to 20-30 over Elo decay. The rest of the changes is all right IMHO.

PS: After reading the discussion about power leveling "fix" and seeing it in action the change does seem broken. Please revert it.

[franko]

The power leveling change based on the results already is just absurd, everyone's Elo will be down 100s of points because of it. It basically means you never want to play a player twice. From the sounds of it there is no reset to a win streak by time or number of other players played...you just gain less than you should beating a player twice. This means even two evenly matched players with 50/50 win rates will lose Elo by playing a bunch of games against each other. Two players play each other 50 times and each go down a 100 Elo for doing so...makes no sense, Elo needs to be 0 sum. Use K factor not a non-zero punishment. And not after 1 game and it needs to reset (or rescale back to normal) either with time or with number of games played with other people. It is just disappointing the lack of thought that was put into these changes given the blatant flaws are so obvious to so many.

I would agree with this. I just got a 25% reduction in ELO from a win (https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=450231855) and the last time I played this opponent was 11/29/2023. I have played 185 games of Kingdom Builder in the interim (at least approximately going off of https://boardgamearena.com/gamestats?pl ... finished=0), so if the intent really is to "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 don't really understand why this implementation is so far off from that goal.

I host games against Strong+ players (as it already makes little sense as someone who generally has 550-650 ELO) to play with someone with less than 300 ELO, and now it also makes little sense to play with people of similar rank because the net expectation there is a loss of ELO for everyone over time. I suppose I'm glad I hit Master prior to this change, as I don't think it's possible to achieve that rank any longer given the rework.

[Penarth 1201]

Why has Decrypto received the non competitive game treatment?
That's a team versus team game.

Good question ! Give us ELO back, please.

[Ethical Chloroplast]

Another issue with the power levelling fix is the following situation. Take two strong players who play against each other regularly (for whatever reason, small player field etc.). They both win close to 50% of the games between them, but sometimes one of them gets a bit of a win streak going, sometimes the other. With the current fix, during a streak, the loser gets full points reduced, while the winner gets less than full points added. So in the long run, both of their ratings go down - just from playing each other. This is a serious WTF, and a strong motivation against playing. Please don't do this. The current power levelling fix is a bad mistake which should be fixed as soon as possible. Go with the K factor reduced over a win streak instead, that achieves a similar effect without the harm.

Strongly agree. I play Arena in a small pool so we have no choice. We are not selecting each other as opponents but both of our ratings decrease over time playing each other due to streaks. This hardly seems fair to me.

[Merrie]

Please return Elo visibility to hanabi. There is a big difference even in all “master” level players depending on exact elo. Without knowing this I do not know how advanced to clue in the game or to know whether I should ask if someone needs help or may need tips.

[ViCtuM]

As a player that has played over 17,000 games of hanabi if you take away the ELO feature it will simply dissolve any desire to keep playing. I've been trying the past few days and without some goal or purpose I.e and numerical value it feels like I'm just wasting time instead of enjoying a game I previously enjoyed.

I can appreciate you wanting the game to be more inclusive but all you are going to end up doing is to get lower players into higher level games which will result in the more advanced players getting upset frustrated and borderline abusive towards the up and comers. You're going to be ruining the game for the advanced and ruining the game for the newbies at the same time, nobody wins. The ranks are insufficient a 700 elo player and an 1100 ELO player are not the same.

[orgle]

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.

That's a really good point! I'll often take a few moments between clues to try to help a lower ranked Master understand why they bombed. But if they're higher ranked, I assume they weren't paying attention and they missed something. If it happens too many times, I'll note a high level Master as unreliable, whereas I'd note a low level Master as inexperienced & give a bit of coaching on future games.