The expected win rate VS ELO curve is quite impressive

[L Kama Smurf]

I'm not sure I understand your comment, the plot just shows how the system works. Do you think it's more "ELO profitable" to play against lower rank players ?

Yes, it often can be, depending on the game. Some players I can beat all day, if I only win 1 point each time those are just free points to my score. Even if I only win .5 points each time, free is free. The skill gap has to top the any variation by enough to pull it off, but it's a rating fill-up tactic by some players in the games it works in. Once the gap variation gets large enough weird things happen that go beyond what the elo was meant to account for. In high enough variation games it can be to the detriment of the higher rated player, but as the variation goes down the trend often reverses.

I think there is something interesting to understand about the impact of luck and ranking systems. ELO is great for chess were there is 0 luck. But if a game has some randomness in it, then I believe the formula should be adjusted:
Let's say 1 game in 20 is automatically lost because of draft. Then even if you're a perfect player, you'd lose to any player with that draft. Therefore there is an ELO difference (in this made upo example around 500) where playing will always make you lose on average. An easy fix would be to "flatten" the ELO curve more if the game has mor luck in it.

I fail to see why this is a bad thing. There's going to be a peak rating where you stop moving up. The lower that number is (all other things being equal), the less skill is a factor in that game. This is a rather handy factor in BGA, where the same site and elo system can help give a decent correlation between a game's peak ratings and skill, though factors such as activity, etc. still have to be taken into account Not really sure where you're going with the "flatten the elo curve".

[L Kama Smurf]

Wait I wrote a wall of text explaining the ELO formula tweak and it disapeared :'(

[Ceaseless]

Wait I wrote a wall of text explaining the ELO formula tweak and it disapeared :'(

I tend to double check if the text is still there when I try to post and it pops up again. Copy the text in question in case it deletes it and paste it down in those cases. If I forget to copy the text and it erases it when showing the form again I can sometimes it get it back by using the back button and all the text showing up again.

[silentProtest]

Wait I wrote a wall of text explaining the ELO formula tweak and it disapeared :'(

its just a BGA... feature (not a bug xDD). CTRL+A -> CTRL+C always before posting here ^^

[teallite]

its just a BGA... feature (not a bug xDD). CTRL+A -> CTRL+C always before posting here ^^

I recommend to do this (or use a notepad app) everywhere when you have a big wall of text. Better safe than sorry. And yes, do this for all your messages on BGA forums.

[Stuff by Bez]

That's a pretty graph!