🌿ELO System Updates

[Rubberduckbacon]

So, although I don't think the new ELO makes sense, I really don't care. I don't play enough for it to affect me, but for the most dedicated players it will be demoralizing...

Red-thumbing is the only way I can avoid playing against players who:

• quits 90 min in, in a 100 min game

• whine/complain and kamikaze-playing because they already lost (again in a 1+ hour game)

• plays slow not respecting the clock with time-penalties

I'm playing to have fun and if I can't avoid these players - I'm not playing.

[ChiefPointThief]

The goals:
1. To continue to have a system like most of us have enjoyed.
2. To not have players who are basically inactive parked at the top.
3. To discourage cheating using multiple accounts.

The answers:
2. I suggest a single 1 point ELO decay every 3 days for ONLY the top 20 ELO leaders of each game (not arena leaders). The vast majority of players would not be effected. The top rated players would be effected equally. Perhaps the number of top players effected could be adjusted by devs, based on a game’s limited pool of players.

This is even worse than what we have now (at least for me) I am currently top 20 in 10 games and have been and could get into top 20 again in another 10 or so. You are saying I would have to play all of these games every 3 days. Even my favorite game (Sobek 2players you guys should try it ) I've gone a month or so w/o playing it several times.

First you don’t have to rush to protect that 1 elo point…let it go. By what you said, my suggestion would help you gain on the top players in 10 games and hurt you in 10 games. It doesn’t really hurt you much though, if you consider.

If you are top 20, but closer to 20th, you’ll drop to 21st and no longer be affected. If you are closer to 1st, your closest competitors aren’t gaining on you, since they are affected too. If you don’t play at all, it’s true, in a month you would lose the same 10 points as your closet rivals, and you might have to win a game or something.

Taking any points out of the system is bad. If a carcasonne player is saying that these changes are negatively affecting them(a game w/ 600+ experts and thousands strong players) what do you think it will do over the long run for a game like sobek 2p (a game with 3 experts and 50 strong players )? The sobek 2p type games make up the majority of games on this site. I am only getting 1-2pts vs 90%+ of the players in the pool for a victory. What you are saying is lose the equivalent of 1 victory for every 3 days I don't play. There are no new points coming in but you will slowly drain the existing pts out.

Also I don't want the system helping me gain on the top 20. If I am to surpass them I want to do it by outplaying them and vice versa.

omg I'd missed the arena red thumb change. FFS yes, red thumbing quitters is essential. Also rude players, i can think of one in particular I never want to play because they;re just so awfully rude. The whole point of red thumb is to help you avoid these obnoxious folk. Don't change that!

I think an example might be useful: In some games eg ticket to ride you can get some very aggressive players who are just unpleasant to have to play with. Eg in TTR they don't try to build routes, only to block yours.

I don't want to turn this into a ttr discussion. There are already enough of those. But this isn't a legitimate reason to not face someone in arena and originally why I didn't see a problem w/ bga making this change.. This strategy is within the rules. This is like ppl who complain about the starvation strategy in stone age. You should take it up with the person who created the rules of the game. Now if they were blocking you from the start in a 4p game and making both of you lose that would be different. Considering the testimonies of agricola players here though I can understand them wanting the red thumb option and honestly I would've stopped playing a game w/ such a widespread problem. I have not encountered an influx of quitters in the only long game I play (terra mystica). In fact most of the arena players are really solid.

So to sum up where we stand: BGA admins changed the site without any advance consultation. We now have a 20+ page thread of many frequent site users who play all different types of games saying these changes made the site less usable and less enjoyable. Other than one account who has posted about 50 times on this thread to share that they like the changes, the reception has been universally negative. Are we just shouting into the void? Are the site admins taking this feedback under advisement?

The irony is that he strongly dislikes the changes as well He is a good hanabi player and probably wants people who were able to increase their elo in hanabi by abandoning games to lose it. The rest of us are just collateral damage.

My proposed alternatives:
2) Revert these changes, and code better detection of abusers intentionally playing with alts. Perhaps thresholds can be employed - certain obvious levels of abuse could result in auto-suspensions or even bans. Another threshold of suspected abuse could result in being flagged for manual account review by a human. If that is too much work for site admins, perhaps a community tribunal system could allow communities to self-detect and self-police abusers.

I have seen the community successful out a cheater but considering the undeserving witch hunt that I had to endure on this site I'm unsure this is a good idea.

[Grumbleguts]

On a personal note: This power levelling change is such terrible timing. I mostly play Agricola where real time games can take roughly 90 minutes, so realistically I need to set aside 2 hours. I don't usually have time for this so I mostly play turn based games.

I was planning to dip my toe back in the water and play some real time games during my 3 week break over Christmas, there are currently 19 days left in the arena season, I am currently ranked around the top 30 in Arena and 25th in overall Elo. Even though these changes do not affect the Arena ratings, I do enjoy the fact that I can play Arena and also try to increase my Elo - it's a competitive format so I often encounter very strong opponents, my previous best rank was 3rd in Elo after a good streak. With these changes in place I am not sure I am going to bother.

[anykidrated]

The irony is that he strongly dislikes the changes as well He is a good hanabi player and probably wants people who were able to increase their elo in hanabi by abandoning games to lose it. The rest of us are just collateral damage.

How did that work?

[miklomike]

Aside from everything already well written about these changes, I would like to add my thoughts on some styles of games that have not been touched on much.

Games with a large amount of luck, getting to the top takes a good streak to get there and your elo is a reflection of how lucky you got. Once you drop from the leader board for inactivity your elo remains as a reminder of how lucky you got at one point. Sometimes I will play a game many times over hoping to one day get lucky enough to make it near the top. Some games I enjoy and keep playing after getting to the top and some games I take a break from because I've played more than I wanted to just trying to get up so high. I enjoy being able to see my elo where it was, and like that it drops off the leaderboard so others can now try. Farkle currently has a top spot of ~340. If someone looks at my profile they can see, wow he sure got a nice lucky streak going to have that elo. Making it decay seems to solve nothing, and will just erase what we can see, which would be disappointing.

If i return after being absent in a luck based game with 100 elo more than the current first place, and I lose, my elo is earned by the community as it should be. If my elo decays, it does nothing for anyone.

For co-op games, elo decay may be insurmountable. In those games elo is more an experience indicator, and removing some of that provides no purpose. Someone who is a master and has no elo visible dropping 70 points would take 70 games to get back to that point in games where a victory awards 1 elo. If that happened to me, I probably would just give up playing that game.

In co-op games where adding difficult variants gives higher elo for success, hiding the elo shown/gained just makes it no longer worth trying for harder scenarios. Playing regicide with harder rules was fun because you felt good about earning more when you were successful. If everything just shows as a "win" there feels, personally, less motivation to play harder rules, and therefore less motivation to play that game/be on this website. Also for regicide as an example, someone with 700 elo and 4000 elo, are obviously different in amount of games won and familiarity with the game. But now with hidden elo, it's impossible to tell the difference.

Power leveling should not be enabled in arena or tournaments where you cannot select an opponent. But I also think they should not be enabled in normal games either. As others have said, small player bases, time of day you play, etc, all will effect playing against the same opponent. Why bother having a rematch button if it penalized you for a rematch.

To someone's suggestion for needing to play every 3 days, sorry but this does not work for long games or people who play turn based. I have 30 tables of some games at once, but they may all take weeks to complete, so therefore I would miss the cut off.

If you win against someone (assuming luck based game for now as elo swings are normal) and you are both elo 200, then the next day you face them again and are 150 and they are 300, you will get penalized because the last time you beat them. Mind boggling.
In luck based games, i might have a 50% win rate, and just from the luck of the draw I have most opponents with 50%, some opponents with 100% win rate, and some with 0%, it's just the way it goes. Why are we penalized for being lucky against the same person?

Again as others have said, elo leaderboards only show active players, arena resets quarterly, winning more than once already lowers your elo because the elo difference is greater after each win, seeing elo is important for deciding play styles and as a nice way to see your and others dedication to a game.

Good job on fixing team based games no longer winning/losing based on your teammates tho, that's a positive.

[Penarth 1201]

Moderators - after 22 pages of players explaining how bad some of these changes are, do you have any response? Will you be reversing them?

Thanks to frogstar for this excellent question.

Ceci dit, à quand une traduction en français de cette annonce ?

[LesserJester]

omg I'd missed the arena red thumb change. FFS yes, red thumbing quitters is essential. Also rude players, i can think of one in particular I never want to play because they;re just so awfully rude. The whole point of red thumb is to help you avoid these obnoxious folk. Don't change that!

I think an example might be useful: In some games eg ticket to ride you can get some very aggressive players who are just unpleasant to have to play with. Eg in TTR they don't try to build routes, only to block yours.

I don't want to turn this into a ttr discussion. There are already enough of those. But this isn't a legitimate reason to not face someone in arena and originally why I didn't see a problem w/ bga making this change.. This strategy is within the rules. This is like ppl who complain about the starvation strategy in stone age. You should take it up with the person who created the rules of the game. Now if they were blocking you from the start in a 4p game and making both of you lose that would be different. Considering the testimonies of agricola players here though I can understand them wanting the red thumb option and honestly I would've stopped playing a game w/ such a widespread problem. I have not encountered an influx of quitters in the only long game I play (terra mystica). In fact most of the arena players are really solid.

If you read the whole of my post that is exactly the case I'm describing. Not trying to win just trying to make both players negative score in the hope their routes were lower value than yours. I don't mind tactical blocking. I do mind pointless kamikaze play. Isn't it up to me who I do and don't like playing with? I'm here to have fun, not endure unpleasant games. Anyway thanks for your comment. It's nice to know someone reads them.

[GeoPaladin]

I am very dismayed by my experience with the new elo penalty.

Twelve hours ago, I gained zero elo against a player in Obsession Arena matchmaking. I have six consecutive wins over them, with the previous win having been 4 days and 20 matches ago. Arena matchmaking is blind, so I have no idea who I will be paired with.

I am clearly not exploiting this player. This is a result of Arena's blind matchmaking system and a limited pool of players in the Obsession Arena.

How is this system fair? As a competitive player, I'm extremely demoralized for being penalized for doing what I'm supposed to do in order to climb. Against this player at their current elo, I would need 7 wins without penalty to their 1 just to maintain my rank. With the penalty, it becomes impossible.

I understand the desire to reduce exploitative power grinding, but this solution punishes legit players. It's the first time I've felt like I didn't want to bother with the site in a long time. Having a sense of progression - or at least the opportunity for it - is extremely important to me.

If removing it is not possible, then please at least have the penalty reset frequently as long as you're not repeatedly matching the same player. If I've not won against another player in four days, I'm not power grinding them. If I played 20 games before my next win, I'm clearly not exploiting them (frankly 5-10 should be more than enough). There shouldn't be a penalty for this.

Thank you for any consideration.

[GeoPaladin]

Elo Decay - I know players being afraid of losing their elo is a thing. I have invited a few ppl to games before and they have told me this. But........
I personally do not stop playing games to keep my elo. In stone age I am expert status (but ranked like 300th) and haven't played in probably a year. According to this I would lose over 50 elo every 3 months? I am currently a strong player in 20 games and have been a strong player in an additional 15. So if I don't participate in each of around 30+ games in a 3 month period I lose anywhere from 30-60 elo each 3 month period? If I am understanding correctly this is drastic and should be changed.

If you don't play, why would your elo even matter to you? If you start playing agian, I'm sure you would quickly get back to your old elo score... unless your skill is not the same it was... so losing 10% elo for not proving that you still have the skill is fine. All you have to do is keep playing... or just don't care about a pointless number.

Elo ranking is meant primarily for the active players. If someone climbs to the top and refuses to play anymore, he might have gotten that elo from previous kinds of systems where cheating elo was easier or where you gained more points faster so newer players just don't have a meaningful way to get that high. Plenty of Hanabi players exist like this.

Holding a rank is a small point of pride. Of course it would matter.

Also, regaining elo at higher levels is a very intense climb. I was briefly #3 in Obsession prior to a losing streak. Without any penalties, I would expect it to take multiple weeks of tryharding to regain that position, assuming I hold up to the competition still. This is not simple and can be extremely tedious.

Players should not be penalized for the vague possibly that maybe, it might possibly have been easier to cheat. That needs to be handled carefully, on a case by case basis.

While this system isn't as bad as the rematch penalty, I think it creates more problems than it solves.

[h_illes]

Holding a rank is a small point of pride. Of course it would matter.

Also, regaining elo at higher levels is a very intense climb.

Stroom is a troll, don't bother with him. Most players here are on your side for the exact same reasons. Some of these changes are complete BS; notably, the power levelling fix should be addressed immediately because it does continuous harm. It's completely disappointing that there has been no action from the BGA people.