🌿ELO System Updates

[KenFin1]

Sorry to wade in on someone else's conversation, another frustrated hardback player here. As the publisher couldn't you demand its reinstatement for this game, or do you not have any leverage on how your game is handled? Isn't it in your interests to have people able to compete and see their progress at your game?

You're always welcome to reply when I post in a public forum haha.

I haven't actually read the terms of the licensing agreement (I'm still pretty new), but at the end of the day I imagine "demands" would be backed with "do this or we'll pull the game", and while I haven't talked about it with Tim, I'm erring on the side of at least letting people still have access. So yeah. I can't say for sure, but my impression is that the real leverage we have would make the players suffer if we were to use it, whereas BGA probably wouldn't care all that much in the grand scheme of things.

I have hardly played it against other people since these ELO changes were brought in.

The data I have access to doesn't go back far enough for me to know for sure, but I suspect you're right and that this is an overall trend. I'm a little annoyed that I can't get data to show it one way or another though.

If BGA are so worried about people boosting ELO via coop mode can we just have hardback coop and hardback competitive listed as two separate games?

Hmm. This could be a possibility. If there's enough interest in that I could run it by Tim (and probably quietmint, bc let's be real it would be a quietmint project to do), but there's a possibility that would mean the loss of progress so far. Or some other side effects I'm not anticipating. I'll ponder it, though.

Anyhoo it's nice to know that even the game publishers aren't happy about the change either.

Yeah, I've been trying very hard to keep my personal annoyances with the changes separate from my professional opinions, but I did want to confirm that the impacts here (especially on Hardback) are on my radar, but that there isn't an easy fix on my part.

Applause for Quietmint btw, they're a great dev.

100000000% Truly an all-star.

Wow, I'm astonished even the publishers get so little information/stats/etc. I would ask you if that is because BGA don't have the information to begin with, or just they won't respond/provide it when asked, but either seem equally plausible given how this thread and others have progressed.

Regarding losing ELO to date if duplicating the game, I don't see why that would have to happen. If the current incarnation is retained but with the coop options frozen off presumably it can simply have ELO reinstated (since it still exists in the background) and everyone's scores, awards etc remain. The new coop version with the competitive frozen off will start from scratch but it's not got ELO awards/displayed anyway so I can't see that being an issue if that version is reset.

Thank you again for your response. You've no idea how nice it is to hear someone higher up the chain acknowledge some of the issues we're presenting. It's been feeling increasingly lonely down here at the bottom. I hope you're able to make progress with them.

[KenFin1]

Tbh I suspect this might be their ultimate aim.

But if this is the case, why lie about it with some BS about making it harder to cheat?

If they get rid of ELO and Arena then there's no point in cheating as there'd be nothing to cheat for. And then with less of a hook to retain players and keep them coming back regularly there'll be less load on the servers and those will look better to, and that expensive upgrade can be postponed. They can then use the standard "regularity has improved" line to stakeholders despite overall numbers and frequencies actually dropping but present the stats in the right way and you can make it sound like it's a positive.

It all depends what one's aim is. If the aim is simply to appease a boss somewhere, look good and avoid big revenue spends then that's often what you get.

[ChiefPointThief]

Yeah sadly this appears to be the case. I just went up a grade in hardback, and got no XP notification, no award. In a competitive game FFS. BGA again, what is the point of removing ELO from a competitive game? Can you please respond on this.

Hi! So I'm the community manager for Fowers Games. I talked a bit about this with quietmint, who did the BGA adaptation.

Hello Tricksy! I'm a Now Boarding player. I don't know how quietmint handles their other games but I can attest that the experience from Now Boarding's first adaption to now has greatly improved. Before implementing changes Mint has asked for feedback from the community several times. They've even played with a lot of regulars and gotten feedback from them. As a more experienced player I thought it needed something more challenging (or a different mode like time trial) for replayablility that was added etc etc. I can go on about how this way creates a better user experience. What people here are asking for is simply a fraction of that from bga. Just get some feedback from your users before implementing changes that affects them or even less than that at least consider reverting bad changes when there is negative feedback from the majority of the community. I was optimistic about the changes being reverted at first because I can't think of a good reason to keep it but after awhile I realized the chances were slim because if it was going to happen it probably would've already happened. I also thought about how long the time limit w/ friends thread was and the results.

Tbh I suspect this might be their ultimate aim.

But if this is the case, why lie about it with some BS about making it harder to cheat?

Because bga isn't revealing their true intentions and continues to "monitor" the situation it forces us to come up with our own theories. There are a couple things at play here. Elo causes division. It is already hard to find tables for niche games. As a strong player at times it can be even harder because some less experienced players don't want to play with you. Even with a popular game like hanabi I was getting 5+ cancellations every time I opened a table as a novice because people didn't want to play with me.
Another thing is people staying within their groups/family. Bga may want a more social community as a whole with everyone playing everyone. A problem though is that one of their perks as a premium member is being able to play with family so they can't come out and say they are against it. But they can deter you from playing the same person multiple times with elo penalties. In lordalx orginal message they state they believe people care about elo too much and that they encourage playing against others. They could've thought making it about cheating would make these changes go along with the public smoother like when the government says it needs to track us to stop terrorism.

If anyone from bga does ever respond to these post I have a few questions. In the moderation report it says that awards are taken away from people playing w/ multiple accounts in the same game. What awards exactly? It was already explained that you can't change arena winners, I still see cheaters who have kept their xp, and they still appear on the list of players who've reached certain awards. I would also like to know why saying "geez, really great play" should show up in someone's reputation history put cheating for an entire arena season doesn't show in peoples history at all. The fact that there hasn't been changes made to the policy about cheating makes it hard for me to believe that the main objective for the elo changes are about cheating.

On the next episode of tinfoil conspiracies

[Trimpster]

If they get rid of ELO and Arena then there's no point in cheating as there'd be nothing to cheat for. And then with less of a hook to retain players and keep them coming back regularly there'll be less load on the servers and those will look better to, and that expensive upgrade can be postponed. They can then use the standard "regularity has improved" line to stakeholders despite overall numbers and frequencies actually dropping but present the stats in the right way and you can make it sound like it's a positive.

It all depends what one's aim is. If the aim is simply to appease a boss somewhere, look good and avoid big revenue spends then that's often what you get.

To be fair, as someone who doesn't play that often, I'd be much more comfortable with ELO removed, there are many cases where I see games with good players hosting, I join and immediately get kicked, because I have a rating of 0, doesn't matter how much I know the game, I have to play a game or two to get a rating, and with like 800 games or so on the platform, it feels like a pain to get to at least 100 rating, and even then it seems people look down on that rating anyway.

But this isn't really a real complaint, just me venting here, I think it is pretty clear to a 5-year old that losing ELO creates more problems than it fixes, also if they wanted to get rid of ELO they should just say so I guess, and if they don't, then these efforts seem quite misguided.

[TricksyFox]

I don't know how quietmint handles their other games but I can attest that the experience from Now Boarding's first adaption to now has greatly improved.

Oh, I 100% agree. Quietmint is fantastic and I sing their praises every chance I get!

What people here are asking for is simply a fraction of that from bga.

Yes, completely. To be clear, I work for Fowers Games, not for BGA. So sadly I'm in basically the same position as you all in terms of getting BGA to care about feedback.

[nik592]

Another thing is people staying within their groups/family. Bga may want a more social community as a whole with everyone playing everyone. A problem though is that one of their perks as a premium member is being able to play with family so they can't come out and say they are against it. But they can deter you from playing the same person multiple times with elo penalties.

I mean, if this is an issue, sure. I play a lot with a small group of real-life friends, but I do play in the wider community as well. I think it's perfectly fair if these matches among my friend group started to decay in how they contribute to ELO ratings. My partner, who is among my group, rarely plays in the wider community so his ELO scores are probably not that reflective of his actual skill (just his skill against us). If they had made the penalty for ELO a result of how many times in a row you PLAY the same person, not win against them (although penalties only against winning obviously), that might have made sense. Although for a power leveller, that it easy to get around (though so is the solution they have in place). However, this would need to not apply to Arena because if you're actually following the rules, you can't choose your opponent and can easily get matched against the same player a lot, and the penalties should be slower to accrue than 7 - 7 matches in a row isn't much more than a few rematches among the same group (especially for shorter games), if I'm playing with my family, I'm probably having streaks of a lot more than 7 in a row. And really, as you say, since playing with household is a perk for premium, they do have to allow a certain amount of it.

[GeoPaladin]

I would like to thank you all for your feedback on this subject.

I continue to regularly read your messages.
It goes without saying that any regression that occurs may need to be examined and dealt with.

But in reference to the primary remarks:

• Power leveling: we continue to monitor the status and it seems unfair not to be able to win ELO and only suffer the loss, even for players that keep on losing against the very same opponent.
• ELO Decay: based on all of your comments, it appears clear that this was a bad idea and that the leaderboard and arena currently in place allow for the prevention of the mentioned behavior. Consequently, we have chosen not to apply any ELO decay as originally planned.
• Red Thumbs: an attractive suggestion surfaced regarding the potential trade-off of having decaying red thumbs.

It has been 54 days since you last responded.

Respectfully, while I'd be happy to receive an affirmation that the issue is being fixed, at least have the basic level of honor and decency to tell us if you don't plan on doing so or aren't decided.

Thank you.

[anykidrated]

Sometimes the % doesn't show up and I get excited they might have removed this xd

Fwiw it appears friendly games might count toward the winstreak %. So it doesn't seem as if I reset the streak by friendlies for a month. But it appears many games might not count either.

[h_illes]

I would like to thank you all for your feedback on this subject.

I continue to regularly read your messages.

If you meant this, please respond. If you don't respond, that also sends a message.

Edit. Just to provide actual content. Take this matchup: https://boardgamearena.com/gamestats?pl ... d=85036743

My opponent is a strong player in Century: Spice Road, currently in Arena Top 20. I won 38 out of 41 games, a win ratio of ~92%. We only play each other in Arena, where I have no choice over the opponent.

The difference between our ELO ratings is currently 420. Under the current formula, if we keep playing each other (and assume no change in skill or win ratio), in the long run, both our ratings will go down, and the difference will decrease - just from playing each other. How does this make sense if our skills don't change? This makes ELO absolutely non-comparable. On the other hand, if we don't play each other (e.g. I 'red thumb' him), then my rating will not go down. Is this what you want?

[TricksyFox]

On the other hand, if we don't play each other (e.g. I 'red thumb' him), then my rating will not go down. Is this what you want?

There's an irony that they talked about taking red thumbs away from arena so that people don't misuse it, and in the same stroke created a pretty significant incentive to misuse it.