🌿ELO System Updates

[GTSchemer]

The second part is the problem with determining answers to the first questions though, that if you go purely by that measure, by the time you realise it, it's way too late. Most the people affected by this are on yearly subscriptions so it could take a long time to be reflected in subs. But generally, if you wait until you realise the rot has set in, it's too late.

I agree, I just don't see anything concrete we can do. I've been a passionate supporter and game developer for years and I want it to succeed, but I don't have data to know how player count / paid player count is doing, we no longer have data of how many tables exist for each game, and I don't know the percentage of real-time vs. turn-based games (other than games I developed -- e.g. Challengers is currently reporting 87% of recent finished games were realtime...but who knows how that works with partially completed games).

Without data like that, it's nearly impossible to know whether the people most affected by changes are a small minority who play lots of games, or a medium portion who play medium games, or what.

If anyone has ideas from a community perspective let me know, but based on the last few iterations, it appears that forum feedback has not been a productive avenue.

[juggernaughts11]

Sigh... It sounds like they've come to the following conclusion: "We invested a lot of time to make ELO significantly worse at indicating players' relative strengths, but we've decided it's too much work to fix it in spite of all the feedback."

With this kind of response, I maintain that at a certain point, management discovered that this new system was useful to reduce the number of games (server load). And that made it successful, even if it wasn't the original goal. Of course, they cannot say that openly. Too bad - they've decided to repurpose ELO for something else.

[RazorOz]

Sigh... It sounds like they've come to the following conclusion: "We invested a lot of time to make ELO significantly worse at indicating players' relative strengths, but we've decided it's too much work to fix it in spite of all the feedback."

With this kind of response, I maintain that at a certain point, management discovered that this new system was useful to reduce the number of games (server load). And that made it successful, even if it wasn't the original goal. Of course, they cannot say that openly. Too bad - they've decided to repurpose ELO for something else.

It sounds more to me that they don't care that ELO no longer represents players relative strengths as in reality they'd like to get rid of it altogether, but can't because it's still serving a key purpose in finding games. Eg. A beginner often doesn't want to play the #1 just to get hopelessly squashed, because it's not fun, they want to play someone of their level, and same is kind of true of vice-versa. I feel like if they had a method of overcoming that, they would get rid of it altogether, but it doesn't really feel possible to have one that doesn't involve some method of measuring a player's relative skill level.

[GTSchemer]

Videogames sometimes use "hidden MMR" (matchmaking rating) which may be elo, adjusted for some factors, and serves the same purpose.

However I think it would lead to some pushback. This site's very name is board game ARENA, even though I don't play the arena specifically, preferring normal time-limited ranked games. How much of the player base only likes playing because they see some numerical measure of skill they can improve? I'm assuming it's a fair percentage but I don't really know.

To take an extreme example, imagine 100% of BGA games became friendly mode only. Even if you could solve the matchmaking issue by using hidden MMR, and even if you could limit / punish smurfs making new accounts, you would still have the problem of players leaving in the final round to sabotage the entire game.

Then to solve that problem you could make normal mode "elo is hidden but you still have leaver penalties" and hope that's enough, and it's just like...this is a lot of effort to make players unhappy and I truly don't get the motivation.

[6element]

I'd 100% prefer current bastardized Elo over no Elo. No Elo would be instant quit for me.

[miklomike]

they decided to disregard their users and used more resources to double down on their already terrible new system.

Do you mean the ELO destruction, the new game "lobby" that doesn't act as a lobby, the games in progress page that doesn't show enough information, or are there even more changes that this exact sentence describes completely?

[KenFin1]

they decided to disregard their users and used more resources to double down on their already terrible new system.

Do you mean the ELO destruction, the new game "lobby" that doesn't act as a lobby, the games in progress page that doesn't show enough information, or are there even more changes that this exact sentence describes completely?

This year Asmodee were bought by Embracer Group who are $2bn in debt according to wiki and looking to float on the stock exchange so guess where their priorities will be. Ad revenue is presumably more easily accounted than user subs, and I imagine is more constant even if users don't play or leave the site altogether. So is it surprising that the new pages are all cluttered with game ads and banners and promotional spaces? And is it surprising that the site ignores user feedback and seems happy disregarding valid complaints, suggestions and community feedback that contradicts their new approach? Once the floatation goes ahead the site then becomes a cash cow for shareholders, so don't expect this situation to improve any time soon. If anything it is just going to get worse.

[thg0724]

→ Power levelling
We encountered many situations of power levelling, linked to multi accounts, even if we are still fighting against such practices, it became obvious that the current system might encourage it.
To prevent this, any consecutive wins against the same opponent will reduce the amount of ELO points awarded from this victory. This reduction will be gradually higher as more consecutive wins are accumulated. This way, we encourage you to challenge other players to keep the original spirit of the ELO: show your skill at a game compared to the whole community, not just the same ones.

I am very late to this and have not read through the thread. Apologies if this has already been addressed, but I'm not wading through 96 pages of messages to find out if it has!

This shouldn't apply in Arena where BSA is making the matches, should it? We don't have the power to "challenge other players" when BSA is doing the matching.

I used to get repeat pairings frequently when playing Ticket To Ride Arena; my son has been paired with the same player four times today. The "penalty" for the 3rd win was only 11%. I don't know the 4th result, but does the deduction also apply to a loss after repeat pairings?

[h_illes]

I used to get repeat pairings frequently when playing Ticket To Ride Arena; my son has been paired with the same player four times today. The "penalty" for the 3rd win was only 11%. I don't know the 4th result, but does the deduction also apply to a loss after repeat pairings?

If eventually the other player wins, both players get the full change. Which means that if you have a 6+ game win streak against a player (where the deduction reaches 100%), you literally have nothing to gain and everything to lose by playing them. And yes, this is even more problematic in Arena where you can't choose your opponents.

[GeoPaladin]

I have some actual news for everyone - thanks to BROT42, who didn't want to directly post here, so this isn't really official, but it still comes from someone at BGA. So the situation is that while they are not completely satisfied with the ELO situation, they are satisfied enough that they do not want to change it in the foreseeable future, and direct their resources elsewhere. Which would be an acceptable stance if (a) it was communicated clearly, (b) the entire problematic situation wasn't the result of effort spent to make things worse. Which just show how incompetent BGA management is.

Even though this is not good news, it is more than whatever came from lordalx, despite his promises. At least now we know what (not) to expect.

Keep in mind that the ONLY performance measure of any service is the user experience. With that in mind, BGA failed horribly with the ELO modifications. You have no excuse for the gross incompetence put on display here.

Thank you for sharing this. It's at least something, even if the situation remains as you say.