Sudden drops of ELO

[euklid314]

If you have an unfinished game you lose Elo *and* EAS (Arena ranking). Thus you can be artificially high during the season but you will be lowered in the final Arena standings. This is indeed reducing the incentive of this kind of cheating.

[ChiefPointThief]

If you have an unfinished game you lose Elo *and* EAS (Arena ranking). Thus you can be artificially high during the season but you will be lowered in the final Arena standings. This is indeed reducing the incentive of this kind of cheating.

BGA presumably now counts the unfinished games as a quit and adds some ELO penalty on top of the usual ELO loss. This might be unfair in ordinary cases but is well understandable with the history of cheating that I have described above...

Ok. I thought the extra elo loss was the deterrence. It does seem unfair to receive a triple penalty for staying within the timeframe of the game. I still think bga shouldn't allow slow games towards the end of the season.

[h_illes]

Counting unfinished Arena games as a loss was implemented since many players would start a lot of (turn-based) Arena games and finish only those that they would win. They would leave all the games that they might lose unfinished. In this way they boosted their Arena ranking because they had a 100% win rate.

BGA presumably now counts the unfinished games as a quit and adds some ELO penalty on top of the usual ELO loss. This might be unfair in ordinary cases but is well understandable with the history of cheating that I have described above...

While this is somewhat acceptable, the solution to cut off Arena games brings its own issues.
(a) It should be made very clear to players how this works, as many are still not aware. Perhaps a warning (or several) as the Arena season approaches the finish. This is something BGA could and should address.
(b) The ELO changes from 'quit-due-to-Arena-season-finishing' games are never properly displayed, not even later. That is something that BGA should definitely address, as the missing information is very disturbing, even for players who are aware of how the system works.
(c) When the Arena season ends, these games are counted as a loss for not just Arena points, but all-time ELO rankings too, despite the fact that the game continues. Why? I understand that Arena points need to be cut off when Arena season ends, but for regular ELO rankings, that's not necessary. So why is the game converted to friendly instead of just continuing as a regular ranked game outside Arena? BGA should definitely separate how they handle Arena points and regular ELO rankings for such games.
(d) Players with ill intentions can still game the system to some extent by starting a game close to the end of the season, then making fast moves to get to a point where they can stop playing altogether (a few moves before losing), and use less time than their opponent even by the end of the Arena season. Of course, this is risky, as it doesn't work against fast opponents, but the issue is real. I have seen this happen not in Arena, but in turn-based tournaments where there is a relatively strict time limit for every round of games. (Once this pattern of behaviour was identified, the perpetrator was banned from the group and all future tournaments.)

[ufm]

While this is somewhat acceptable, the solution to cut off Arena games brings its own issues.

It's true, but BGA chose to follow the lesser evil.

(a) It should be made very clear to players how this works, as many are still not aware. Perhaps a warning (or several) as the Arena season approaches the finish. This is something BGA could and should address.

Actually they do. For example: https://imgur.com/a/LBEdvio
Imo, if players simply ignore these warnings, it's on them.
Also, they link the FAQ in the lobby page and block turn-based table generation during the last week of each season.

(b) The ELO changes from 'quit-due-to-Arena-season-finishing' games are never properly displayed, not even later. That is something that BGA should definitely address, as the missing information is very disturbing, even for players who are aware of how the system works.
(c) When the Arena season ends, these games are counted as a loss for not just Arena points, but all-time ELO rankings too, despite the fact that the game continues. Why? I understand that Arena points need to be cut off when Arena season ends, but for regular ELO rankings, that's not necessary. So why is the game converted to friendly instead of just continuing as a regular ranked game outside Arena? BGA should definitely separate how they handle Arena points and regular ELO rankings for such games.

Because all Arena games change ELO and this is not an exception.
Currently, this type of game ending is treated as quitting the game in question, without rewarding other players to prevent abuses.

(d) Players with ill intentions can still game the system to some extent by starting a game close to the end of the season, then making fast moves to get to a point where they can stop playing altogether (a few moves before losing), and use less time than their opponent even by the end of the Arena season. Of course, this is risky, as it doesn't work against fast opponents, but the issue is real. I have seen this happen not in Arena, but in turn-based tournaments where there is a relatively strict time limit for every round of games. (Once this pattern of behaviour was identified, the perpetrator was banned from the group and all future tournaments.)

It's better than the previous system, as euklid314 said already.
Guess we have to live with this unless someone comes up with an objectively better solution.

[h_illes]

(a) It should be made very clear to players how this works, as many are still not aware. Perhaps a warning (or several) as the Arena season approaches the finish. This is something BGA could and should address.

Actually they do. For example: https://imgur.com/a/LBEdvio
Imo, if players simply ignore these warnings, it's on them.
Also, they link the FAQ in the lobby page and block turn-based table generation during the last week of each season.

I meant something like writing 'You will lose the game if you don't finish in time!' with big flashing letters in the middle of the warning banner, not just a link to the FAQ. But yes, you have a point, they did some form of warning.

(b) The ELO changes from 'quit-due-to-Arena-season-finishing' games are never properly displayed, not even later. That is something that BGA should definitely address, as the missing information is very disturbing, even for players who are aware of how the system works.
(c) When the Arena season ends, these games are counted as a loss for not just Arena points, but all-time ELO rankings too, despite the fact that the game continues. Why? I understand that Arena points need to be cut off when Arena season ends, but for regular ELO rankings, that's not necessary. So why is the game converted to friendly instead of just continuing as a regular ranked game outside Arena? BGA should definitely separate how they handle Arena points and regular ELO rankings for such games.

Because all Arena games change ELO and this is not an exception.
Currently, this type of game ending is treated as quitting the game in question, without rewarding other players to prevent abuses.

But then why is the game allowed to continue as friendly instead of finishing immediately? Also, the actual ELO changes still do not get displayed anywhere, ever. This issue is why this very topic was created in the first place.

[ufm]

I meant something like writing 'You will lose the game if you don't finish in time!' with big flashing letters in the middle of the warning banner, not just a link to the FAQ. But yes, you have a point, they did some form of warning.

Encountering such invasive warnings every time you enter a table is worse than seeing a plain one, for obvious reasons.

But then why is the game allowed to continue as friendly instead of finishing immediately?

Because some users wanted to continue the game, as they didn't quit the table, technically.

Also, the actual ELO changes still do not get displayed anywhere, ever. This issue is why this very topic was created in the first place.

It's a side effect of turning the game into a friendly mode game, I guess. It can be improved, but afaik its priority is very low.

[Robyn Hood]

But then why is the game allowed to continue as friendly instead of finishing immediately?

Because some users wanted to continue the game, as they didn't quit the table, technically.

I don't understand this. If the player who has used the most playing time is dropped or counted as having quit the game, why does the game switch to friendly mode? A normal game does not switch to friendly mode if someone is dropped or quits. The game just continues in normal mode with the remaining players. So the arena game could also just switch to normal mode instead of friendly, the penalty to the arena score could be given as it currently is, which would prevent the mentioned kind of cheating, but elo will be counted based on the final result of the game. This would make much more sense, as there are no "elo seasons", only arena seasons.

[ufm]

But then why is the game allowed to continue as friendly instead of finishing immediately?

Because some users wanted to continue the game, as they didn't quit the table, technically.

I don't understand this. If the player who has used the most playing time is dropped or counted as having quit the game, why does the game switch to friendly mode? A normal game does not switch to friendly mode if someone is dropped or quits. The game just continues in normal mode with the remaining players. So the arena game could also just switch to normal mode instead of friendly, the penalty to the arena score could be given as it currently is, which would prevent the mentioned kind of cheating, but elo will be counted based on the final result of the game. This would make much more sense, as there are no "elo seasons", only arena seasons.

Same as this, probably:

Also, the actual ELO changes still do not get displayed anywhere, ever. This issue is why this very topic was created in the first place.

It's a side effect of turning the game into a friendly mode game, I guess. It can be improved, but afaik its priority is very low.

[Jellby]

A normal game does not switch to friendly mode if someone is dropped or quits. The game just continues in normal mode with the remaining players.

I don't think so. The game "continues" (sometimes, it depends on the game, some of them are broken once a player is removed), but the result is already decided. Also, the remaining players are assigned a (partial) tied victory, this does not happen (as far as I understand) with these cancelled Arena games.

[Woooland]

Weird system!
This creates a situation where I can count the time spent by players and simply not play the arena at the end of the season, guaranteeing myself a victory.
I'm not even talking about the fact that in this case people from the same region in a game for 3 people will have an advantage and so on