🌿ELO System Updates

[LesserJester]

When people have 2nd accounts to cheat with, are they playing from the same IP as the original account?

BGA does detect players using the same IP address, but serious cheaters can change the IP address they connect with from one device, or potentially even from one browser window. Using a VPN is one way, or a proxy server is another.

Edit: Two players from the same IP address is quite likely to just be two players in the same house. Like my wife and I when we play together on BGA.

During lockdown my friends had 4 people in their house using the same IP on here. It doesn't necessarily mean cheating at all. You couldn't find more competitive people. I would imagine someone wanting to cheat would go to greater lengths to hide it.

[ChiefPointThief]

Thanks for these updates! I would also love to see an evaluation of how ELO is calculated for games that have no players at ELO higher than strong. This is especially rampant is partnered card games. The way it is calculated players are unable to attain a high ranking without power ranking. This should be reviewed as well.

This was partly addressed w/ the change to team elo. Yeah the old elo system for these games was absolutely terrible and should’ve never been implemented. You should start to see some separation between players now in certain games. Not all team games were switched over to the more fair system but I think classic card games were for the most part.

[LesserJester]

Another ELO reduction applied that I don't understand:

Not Alone. https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=457488964

I just got a consecutive win deduction against someone I'd only played with once before, and we were both on the losing team. Why is this getting a reduction? Previous game https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=457472266, no win/ELO gain there.

Details of ELO calculation LesserJester(1st)
54.17 Before this game
+20.62 ELO variation
74.79 After this game

100 thehung21 (5th)
Win probability: 43%
Consecutive win (1): -3%
WIN +20.62

147 Jeanne dRunk (1st)
Win probability: 37%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

198 suilys (1st)
Win probability: 30%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

190 jasongraph (1st)
Win probability: 31%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

I will happily raise this as a bug report if someone can show me which options I should be using in the bug report area. If I enter the table number it tries to make me select from a drop down menu, none of which are relevant since this is not a game error but BGA wide error with the new ELO system. If I try and raise it as a BGA website error it only gives options for non-table specific details.

[ChiefPointThief]

Another ELO reduction applied that I don't understand:

Not Alone. https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=457488964

I just got a consecutive win deduction against someone I'd only played with once before, and we were both on the losing team. Why is this getting a reduction? Previous game https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=457472266, no win/ELO gain there.

Details of ELO calculation LesserJester(1st)
54.17 Before this game
+20.62 ELO variation
74.79 After this game

100 thehung21 (5th)
Win probability: 43%
Consecutive win (1): -3%
WIN +20.62

147 Jeanne dRunk (1st)
Win probability: 37%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

198 suilys (1st)
Win probability: 30%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

190 jasongraph (1st)
Win probability: 31%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

I will happily raise this as a bug report if someone can show me which options I should be using in the bug report area. If I enter the table number it tries to make me select from a drop down menu, none of which are relevant since this is not a game error but BGA wide error with the new ELO system. If I try and raise it as a BGA website error it only gives options for non-table specific details.

I highly doubt it is meant to be different on a game to game basis. As I stated a few comments ago it resets in bang as long as you aren't beating the same person on opposite teams. You can lose/win together or both lose on separate teams and it resets. This also doesn't have the old team elo structure that takes elo from your teammates. I never played this game so I am unsure if it was always like that or just updated.

Do you recommend this game? Sounds interesting

[LesserJester]

Another ELO reduction applied that I don't understand:

Not Alone. https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=457488964

I just got a consecutive win deduction against someone I'd only played with once before, and we were both on the losing team. Why is this getting a reduction? Previous game https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=457472266, no win/ELO gain there.

Details of ELO calculation LesserJester(1st)
54.17 Before this game
+20.62 ELO variation
74.79 After this game

100 thehung21 (5th)
Win probability: 43%
Consecutive win (1): -3%
WIN +20.62

147 Jeanne dRunk (1st)
Win probability: 37%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

198 suilys (1st)
Win probability: 30%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

190 jasongraph (1st)
Win probability: 31%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

I will happily raise this as a bug report if someone can show me which options I should be using in the bug report area. If I enter the table number it tries to make me select from a drop down menu, none of which are relevant since this is not a game error but BGA wide error with the new ELO system. If I try and raise it as a BGA website error it only gives options for non-table specific details.

I highly doubt it is meant to be different on a game to game basis. As I stated a few comments ago it resets in bang as long as you aren't beating the same person on opposite teams. You can lose/win together or both lose on separate teams and it resets. This also doesn't have the old team elo structure that takes elo from your teammates. I never played this game so I am unsure if it was always like that or just updated.

Do you recommend this game? Sounds interesting

It seems fun so far yes. It's 1 person (alien) vs how ever many others play as the hunted humans. There is no way that tied humans in one game should lead to deduction when someone then plays as the alien. This is an awful handling of ELO and needs fixing asap. I don't care what happens in bang, for this game it's nonsense and people are telling me it never used to be like this.

[h_illes]

To be honest, the total amount of action since the changes is a single comment from lordalx. The promise not to introduce ELO decay is good as it was a bad idea, but it wasn't implemented anyway yet, so technically this decision means they don't actually have to do anything.

No action was taken regarding the winning streak penalty either, just 'continued monitoring'. This is baffling. Clearly significant effort went into implementing the winning streak penalty, yet no effort has been made to fix it so far, even though it continues to cause harm. There is no shame in fixing bad decisions fast. Making poor decisions in the first place is a different matter, but once a mistake was made, the next best thing is to fix it fast. And hopefully BGA will do better with their decision-making in the future.

[juggernaughts11]

Yes, BGA needs to really fix this power-levelling nonsense quickly. As many have explained, it has made ELO ratings significantly worse (less indicative of relative strengths of players). Please refund the stolen ELO points as well.

[Silene]

To be honest, the total amount of action since the changes is a single comment from lordalx. The promise not to introduce ELO decay is good as it was a bad idea, but it wasn't implemented anyway yet, so technically this decision means they don't actually have to do anything.

Since BGA usually only announces changes when they are implemented, I am pretty sure, the decay has been implemented (with all the work needed for that). It just wasn't executed yet because no season has ended since. So I really appreciate that they decided to not apply it although work was put in for that!

And I'm hopeful the necessary action on consecutive wins will follow soon after a bit more monitoring and maybe the implementation of some necessary adaptions like K-factor adaption instead of just applying a point-reduction for the winner.
My hope for this solution: Adapting K-Factor for both players in the match-up regardless of the outcome after a winning streak is detected. This seems the fairest solution that ensures a) no more leak and b) no hesitation to play someone nice again.

[ChiefPointThief]

Another ELO reduction applied that I don't understand:

Not Alone. https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=457488964

I just got a consecutive win deduction against someone I'd only played with once before, and we were both on the losing team. Why is this getting a reduction? Previous game https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=457472266, no win/ELO gain there.

Details of ELO calculation LesserJester(1st)
54.17 Before this game
+20.62 ELO variation
74.79 After this game

100 thehung21 (5th)
Win probability: 43%
Consecutive win (1): -3%
WIN +20.62

147 Jeanne dRunk (1st)
Win probability: 37%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

198 suilys (1st)
Win probability: 30%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

190 jasongraph (1st)
Win probability: 31%
Teammate: -100%
TIE 0

I will happily raise this as a bug report if someone can show me which options I should be using in the bug report area. If I enter the table number it tries to make me select from a drop down menu, none of which are relevant since this is not a game error but BGA wide error with the new ELO system. If I try and raise it as a BGA website error it only gives options for non-table specific details.

I highly doubt it is meant to be different on a game to game basis. As I stated a few comments ago it resets in bang as long as you aren't beating the same person on opposite teams. You can lose/win together or both lose on separate teams and it resets. This also doesn't have the old team elo structure that takes elo from your teammates. I never played this game so I am unsure if it was always like that or just updated.

Do you recommend this game? Sounds interesting

I don't care what happens in bang, for this game it's nonsense and people are telling me it never used to be like this.

You should care about bang because power leveling is bad there also just like for every other game. I noticed a theme of some players not caring about certain changes just because it doesn't directly affect them but people should be advocating for what is best regardless. Also down the line you may decide to play coops, or teams games etc and then you will be calling for change then once it directly affects you.

I looked at your same scenario in another team game and like I assumed it reset there as well so this is probably a bug. At this point I don't understanding what bga is monitoring because there is already clear evidence that power leveling doesn't stop cheating. Maybe the main objective of this isn't about cheating but to encourage players to play different people.

[nik592]

Maybe the main objective of this isn't about cheating but to encourage players to play different people.

Which would be reasonable, if not for the fact that Arena mode means you don't get to choose your opponents, and the way matchmaking seems to work in my experience is you get a lot of opponent overlap (unless the player pool is huge).