🌿ELO System Updates

[ChiefPointThief]

Why am I penalized for playing? That's the point of the entire site! Also, why is there no response after two months? Is this really how you treat paying customers?

Well, BGA needs active players in order to increase overall engagement. And BGA needs competition between players in order to increase overall engagement. But there are different kinds of active players and different kinds of competition. If you actively play different games with different people then overall engagement increases. If you actively play one or several games with the same group of people then you isolate yourself and overall engagement decreases. Serious competition, sports-like competition also interests only a small amount of players. And such competition may discourage casual players from participating. Light competition, everybody-can-win competition is much better. Now, I'm not saying that BGA made these changes to target highly competitive players focused on specific games. But as long as these changes don't negatively affect the core audience, BGA may experiment, be negligent and wait to see how things play out. And things may actually play out in their favor.

Maybe, but why don't they come out and confirm that?

This is more aligned with my theory. If they wanted less traffic they could just get rid of arena and blame it on cheaters.

H_illes what part of this would you like them to confirm and what would they say that wouldn’t add more fuel to the flame? They’ve already said they’re doing this to stop the bad guys. What is a better pr statement than that?

[h_illes]

H_illes what part of this would you like them to confirm and what would they say that wouldn’t add more fuel to the flame? They’ve already said they’re doing this to stop the bad guys. What is a better pr statement than that?

I consider being honest and transparent better from a pr point of view than staying silent among the outcry.

[RazorOz]

Why am I penalized for playing? That's the point of the entire site! Also, why is there no response after two months? Is this really how you treat paying customers?

Well, BGA needs active players in order to increase overall engagement. And BGA needs competition between players in order to increase overall engagement. But there are different kinds of active players and different kinds of competition. If you actively play different games with different people then overall engagement increases. If you actively play one or several games with the same group of people then you isolate yourself and overall engagement decreases. Serious competition, sports-like competition also interests only a small amount of players. And such competition may discourage casual players from participating. Light competition, everybody-can-win competition is much better. Now, I'm not saying that BGA made these changes to target highly competitive players focused on specific games. But as long as these changes don't negatively affect the core audience, BGA may experiment, be negligent and wait to see how things play out. And things may actually play out in their favor.

The one thing that throws a spanner in the works of theories like this (and I don't buy into them personally) is that BGA is also a subscription model. There will be a huge link between the competitive players being subscribers, and the casual players less so. The core audience is surely your subscribers, they are the ones you should be catering to by definition, as they're the ones paying for your service, and without them the site would die.

I'd also add the current system also disincentivises people in the former category anyway. Most games do not have a player pool so big that you can avoid the same players in open games. The players playing a lot will come across each other a lot, even more so in multiplayer games, so you end up with winning streaks against a good number of players you will constantly play against, and from a pure ELO perspective it's quite obvious the current system does not reward being active at all, it rewards playing like a few times a month, but if everyone did that, again the site would die.

[GTSchemer]

This is more aligned with my theory. If they wanted less traffic they could just get rid of arena and blame it on cheaters.

H_illes what part of this would you like them to confirm and what would they say that wouldn’t add more fuel to the flame? They’ve already said they’re doing this to stop the bad guys. What is a better pr statement than that?

It would be nice to know if, for example, they intended winning players to lose elo when a losing player quits / times out of a game.

Or, if they could officially say "oops that was a bug, we plan to fix it eventually". That would also be nice.


Right now it's in a weird limbo where I have no idea if this was intended.

[Ranior]

It would be nice to know if, for example, they intended winning players to lose elo when a losing player quits / times out of a game.

Or, if they could officially say "oops that was a bug, we plan to fix it eventually". That would also be nice.


Right now it's in a weird limbo where I have no idea if this was intended.

This issue has existed in the past and they've corrected it.

So presumably they'd fix it again, except yeah it's now existed for months again with no correction.

What is so strange is that this error continues to crop up. They had it and then eventually fixed it, then it came up again when arena first was getting added, then they fixed it, and now it's come up again when they've made changes to the elo system, and no correction yet.

I'd like to think that if you have a known error that it would go on some sort of test case you'd make sure to cover before making any changes to your elo system, since you've seen it arise multiple times in the past...

[zizzeus]

I'd also add the current system also disincentivises people in the former category anyway. Most games do not have a player pool so big that you can avoid the same players in open games. The players playing a lot will come across each other a lot, even more so in multiplayer games, so you end up with winning streaks against a good number of players you will constantly play against, and from a pure ELO perspective it's quite obvious the current system does not reward being active at all, it rewards playing like a few times a month, but if everyone did that, again the site would die.

Would it? How many competitive players actually cancelled their Premium memberships, vs. just playing less and paying the same amount. From a cursory inspection of my regular opponents, I'd guess not many. Some are playing less hoping this blows over, while others are playing the same and eating the ELO loss to continue enjoying the site. A third group has switched over to mostly friendly games, probably to preserve their ELO like the first group while still playing, but most have their membership intact. Whether that's because they intend to keep it or because the year isn't up yet is anyone's guess, but the Premium stats won't show the full story until a year after this stupid feature is on the books, so don't hold your breath that they see the damage and do a mea culpa any time soon.

Even if there was a noticeable dip, it would be hidden by any growth that happened over the year as well as any uptake from less competitive players 'scared off' by all the scary Masters lurking around the various lists /s

I think this was planned, as I said months ago. There's really no better explanation.

Fortunately my membership was set to renew on Jan. 1, until I cancelled it after this brew-ha-ha. I'll re-up when they fix these problems, otherwise I'll just drain resources without paying a cent. How ya like them apples, BGA?

[RazorOz]

Would it? How many competitive players actually cancelled their Premium memberships, vs. just playing less and paying the same amount. From a cursory inspection of my regular opponents, I'd guess not many. Some are playing less hoping this blows over, while others are playing the same and eating the ELO loss to continue enjoying the site. A third group has switched over to mostly friendly games, probably to preserve their ELO like the first group while still playing, but most have their membership intact. Whether that's because they intend to keep it or because the year isn't up yet is anyone's guess, but the Premium stats won't show the full story until a year after this stupid feature is on the books, so don't hold your breath that they see the damage and do a mea culpa any time soon.

Even if there was a noticeable dip, it would be hidden by any growth that happened over the year as well as any uptake from less competitive players 'scared off' by all the scary Masters lurking around the various lists /s

I think this was planned, as I said months ago. There's really no better explanation.

Fortunately my membership was set to renew on Jan. 1, until I cancelled it after this brew-ha-ha. I'll re-up when they fix these problems, otherwise I'll just drain resources without paying a cent. How ya like them apples, BGA?

You would be unable to tell the effects of this for some time. Two reasons, the first is at this stage most subscribers are just hoping/expecting it to be removed sooner or later so are waiting to see what happens. #2 is most are probably signed up on annual subscriptions which won't expire until whenever. And it's a risky game from BGA's point of view with minimal upside, because if you let it get to the point where you start losing subscribers, by the time you let it reach that point it's too late and the damage is already done.

[Meeplelowda]

I'd like to think that if you have a known error that it would go on some sort of test case you'd make sure to cover before making any changes to your elo system, since you've seen it arise multiple times in the past...

This assumes there is still someone around who remembers the last time it happened. We have little visibility into the turnover in their technical staff. Companies large and small can be bad at documenting things so that the next person to fill a role doesn't have to reinvent to wheel.

[ChiefPointThief]

H_illes what part of this would you like them to confirm and what would they say that wouldn’t add more fuel to the flame? They’ve already said they’re doing this to stop the bad guys. What is a better pr statement than that?

I consider being honest and transparent better from a pr point of view than staying silent among the outcry.

But if they do make a statement how is that going to satisfy you considering that I can't think of anything they can say at this point that justifies power leveling? (I continue to take consecutive wins deduction against players I only play in arena. Sigh)

It would be nice to know if, for example, they intended winning players to lose elo when a losing player quits / times out of a game.

Or, if they could officially say "oops that was a bug, we plan to fix it eventually". That would also be nice.


Right now it's in a weird limbo where I have no idea if this was intended.

This issue has existed in the past and they've corrected it.

So presumably they'd fix it again, except yeah it's now existed for months again with no correction.

What is so strange is that this error continues to crop up. They had it and then eventually fixed it, then it came up again when arena first was getting added, then they fixed it, and now it's come up again when they've made changes to the elo system, and no correction yet.

I'd like to think that if you have a known error that it would go on some sort of test case you'd make sure to cover before making any changes to your elo system, since you've seen it arise multiple times in the past...

Was the issue ever corrected or did they just put a band aid on it? Sure not losing elo in a game you were on the final move of winning is great but actually getting elo for that game would be fixing that problem.

[GeoPaladin]

While we're reduced to speculation, I expect the reason is a bit simpler than some are suggesting. When I see this behavior in similar cases, it's almost always because the person in charge doesn't want to deal with the problem and just hopes it goes away.

I expect the reasoning for leaving the change involves some combination of organizational inertia/laziness (probably the most likely culprit), pride, and possibly opinionated dev(s) who want the system to work, and potentially poor organization/lack of resources for use in fixing a self-inflicted problem.