🌿ELO System Updates

[h_illes]

I thought consecutive win reduction came in starting on the 3rd win but looks like it now starts on the first consecutive win ie the 2nd match. Not sure if that's a change or i just misunderstood it to begin with but i'm amazed you can't even have a single rematch without getting a penalty? All this does is make me want to decline rematch offers and I imagine I'm not alone on this. Well done BGA. Your unecessary change is discouraging interaction.

It worked like that since it was introduced. Yes, it is completely baffling and obviously flawed. And yet in the sole official reply in 3 months, lordalx (and I assume BGA in general) ignores all arguments and just states it was a positive change. The level of incompetence and ignorance is truly criminal. I have no idea how the people making these decisions justify them.

We're always listening to your feedback and working to make Board Game Arena the best place to play. Keep those messages coming!

Should we expect another 2+ month wait for action? Is that your way of 'listening to feedback'? Is this seriously how you treat paying customers? Unhappy people will vote with their wallet, you know. Many (including me) have already cancelled their premium subscription, you just don't see the results in full effect yet because the already-paid-for periods have yet to run out. But by the time you see the full results of your incompetence, it will be too late. Take action as soon as possible.

[anykidrated]

I thought consecutive win reduction came in starting on the 3rd win but looks like it now starts on the first consecutive win ie the 2nd match. Not sure if that's a change or i just misunderstood it to begin with but i'm amazed you can't even have a single rematch without getting a penalty? All this does is make me want to decline rematch offers and I imagine I'm not alone on this. Well done BGA. Your unecessary change is discouraging interaction.

You can have a single rematch without penalty. You just have to lose (or draw)

[ChiefPointThief]

In 2017 and earlier, the top players in 6 Nimmt reached about 850 ELO. Today the best players reach about 600. (There are several ranked higher, but they are doing things….that’s a whole different discussion). 20th place was about 750 ELO then. Today 20th place is about 525 ELO So players today with the same amount of success have about 200-250 less ELO than they did 6 years ago. The K factor was 25 then, compared to a K factor of 20 now. If an old player returns to playing, their old score doesn’t reflect their current skill, and gives them a huge unfair advantage.

The k was higher than that in 2015. Also it looks like people started at 200 elo. I went to check some stats from top ranked can't stop players and noticed a bunch of the accounts are old accounts that played only a couple games in years. It still depends on the game though because carcasonne was around in 2016 and the top 10 list looks like recent accounts.

[Phoxtrot]

I dislike the consecutive wins thing.
I understand where it come from but I think it hurts people playing between friends more than the cheaters who can just use more accounts and rotate them.

Not counting very quick games like jump drive, more than half of my games are with friends.
There are some games that I "only" play with friends.
But we do play for ELO, we like that.

But now, winning just twice in a row against a friend has a reduced ELO win.
But losing twice in a row has no matching ELO loss reduction !

I think the consecutive wins thing should be thrown out for the reasons explained above but short of that, there should be a matching ELO loss reduction for consecutive losses.

[Silene]

..., there should be a matching ELO loss reduction for consecutive losses.

At least this is being worked on. See here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=172230

It's not enough because it still makes the winners reluctant to accept a rematch which is bad for making friends. If your potential win in a 2nd game is reduced than so should be you potential loss in case you do not win again. Otherwise it's not a fair game for the previously winning player and this ELO-system is less capable of measuring skill because it artificially deflates better player's ELO.

But at least it fixes the elo leak. Let's hope it will be implemented soon.

[h_illes]

We're always listening to your feedback and working to make Board Game Arena the best place to play. Keep those messages coming!

It's feedback time from you as well. You can and should do much better than the 2+ month wait last time around. So let us know about the details of the planned changes and when they take effect. Also, please listen to someone competent this time before applying any changes, because so far the whole handling of this issue has been extremely disappointing.

[ChiefPointThief]

..., there should be a matching ELO loss reduction for consecutive losses.

It's not enough because it still makes the winners reluctant to accept a rematch which is bad for making friends. If your potential win in a 2nd game is reduced than so should be you potential loss in case you do not win again. Otherwise it's not a fair game for the previously winning player and this ELO-system is less capable of measuring skill because it artificially deflates better player's ELO.

But at least it fixes the elo leak. Let's hope it will be implemented soon.

Yup! I will continue to block people when the consecutive loss thing is added who I have win streaks on which prevents possible future friendships in an effort to avoid partaking in ranked games in a rigged system. Why would I want to play a competitor who I have a win streak on under these conditions? To the few people who say, "just play friendly games" I tried offering that before and the other party took it as an insult so blocks going forward. Bga has created unnecessary problems and are opting to create more problems to fix the problems they created. Earlier in the thread I gave an example of how I lost over 100 elo for consecutive wins streak in arena this season. This was against good players. One of which recently passed me on the elo list. Now imagine where this same person would be on the elo list if they suffered no losses during my 11 game win streak over them. I do believe elo leakage is bad but this isn't a fix.

In what way are you considering it a good thing for the elo penalty for repeatedly playing the same opponent? I've got to assume the BGA team sees it as a win because it reduces reports you have to review of people abusing the rating system, and so from an admins daily perspective, it may be a win. But from the point of view of the user, the game player, it's still a total mess. You're penalizing strong players for winning a lot, you penalize players in games with small player pools, you penalize players for playing more often, and you disincentive players from making friends and repeatedly playing the same opponent(s) (even with many games played in between).

I managed to find several people who were previously abusing the system. From the looks of things they were all caught. If you suddenly rise to the top of the ranks someone is going to notice you. Even now unless people are being flagged when they reach 6/7 wins over an opponent it will still require someone reporting to catch a cheater. They created an obstacle that only truly works for 1v1 and it is still possible to abuse the system with this obstacle. The fact that they could see admin time being reduced by a couple of hours as a win when they are simultaneously hurting tens of thousands of their players is troubling.

We're always listening to your feedback and working to make Board Game Arena the best place to play. Keep those messages coming!

It's feedback time from you as well. You can and should do much better than the 2+ month wait last time around. So let us know about the details of the planned changes and when they take effect. Also, please listen to someone competent this time before applying any changes, because so far the whole handling of this issue has been extremely disappointing.

I see you noticed this portion of the post For the people who thought you were commenting too much before bga basically gave you a green light. Considering that this thread has close to 800 comments and only less than a handful of those mentioned the calculation visibility that they decided to address that means that they are actually reading our messages. They are disregarding 99% of them but they are reading

[gmrsmrt]

We keep assuming that the change is bad for BGA and blaming poor management.
But what if they have evidence that it is indeed good for them?

Particularly with the floor to ELO loss for the net effect will be flattening the ELO curve. What if they have number showing that this is
upsetting a minority of highly competitive players and encouraging the vast majority of remaining players? I have noticed recently a lot of players in
arena I didn't face before.

I seriously doubt that if they have noticed some negative correlation of premium subscriptions with the change they keep everything unmodified...

[h_illes]

We keep assuming that the change is bad for BGA and blaming poor management.
But what if they have evidence that it is indeed good for them?

Then they can come out and say so.

Particularly with the floor to ELO loss for the net effect will be flattening the ELO curve. What if they have number showing that this is
upsetting a minority of highly competitive players and encouraging the vast majority of remaining players? I have noticed recently a lot of players in
arena I didn't face before.

I seriously doubt that if they have noticed some negative correlation of premium subscriptions with the change they keep everything unmodified...

I don't see how it would encourage players. Some players don't care about ELO - they are indifferent either way. Everyone else is hurt by these changes, just to a different extent, but the frustration is there for everyone.

[h_illes]

Two more remarks.

1. The ELO calculation after a game includes a winning chance for each player. That uses the difference in the regular ELO formula. For the ELO formula modified due to the consecutive wins penalty, the displayed winning chance value is no longer valid; you have been displaying false information for the players for several months now.

2. The top players in Arena and top players on all-time leaderboard begin to overlap less and less; I witness this in Century: Spice Road, but I expect similar changes for other games. The reason is that players who play more often (this includes players at the top of the Arena rankings) are hit harder by the win streak penalty, and thus fall behind on the all-time rankings. (Of course, the overlap was never close to 100%, but the effect is still noticable.)

I encourage you to actually go and check the all-time rankings in Century: Spice Road; most of the top all-time players play at a very low rate, some of them barely enough to show up on the rankings.

Historically, I have a 93% win rate, and I used to spend a good portion of the time at 900+ rating, occasionally even reaching 1000. My win rate is 96% for the last thousand or so games (since the ELO update), yet I cannot go beyond 900, even struggling to maintain 850. How is this modified ELO a good measure of skill, when it is lower, even though I play better? Meanwhile, players who play e.g. 1 game per week are not affected by the win streak penalty, and maintain their old rating.