Please hide ELO

[Ackter]

It may just be me, but I'm seeing a lot of high ELO players reject matches against lower ELO players - I assume either because they're scared of losing too much ELO if they happen to lose, or the ELO gain for beating a low player is too little to bother with.

Board games should be about having fun. Keep the competitive stuff to the Arena.

[Meeplelowda]

Board games should be about having fun. Keep the competitive stuff to the Arena.

There is a recurring theme across of lot of threads (mostly ones about "blocking" in certain games) that anyone doing something you don't like is playing for some reason other than having fun, as if one person gets to unilaterally define what's fun for everyone else. Your last sentence implies an unstated major premise that competitiveness and fun are mutually exclusive. In other words, you are implying that being competitive is not fun by definition, which I'm sure many people will disagree with.

I assume either because they're scared of losing too much ELO if they happen to lose, or the ELO gain for beating a low player is too little to bother with.

Have you considered that they may be avoiding playing with someone with a low ELO because dunking on less skilled players is not fun for them? I'm sure Magnus Carlsen would have absolutely zero fun playing a game of chess against me.

[Ceaseless]

It may just be me, but I'm seeing a lot of high ELO players reject matches against lower ELO players - I assume either because they're scared of losing too much ELO if they happen to lose, or the ELO gain for beating a low player is too little to bother with.

Board games should be about having fun. Keep the competitive stuff to the Arena.

There are several reasons for this to happen. I'll list a few in no particular order.

1. There are several players on the site with a reputation for extreme toxicity, such as saying blocking should not be allowed. These players are very bad at the game and tend to have low ratings, so by declining games against low rated players people do not have to worry about being paired against them.

2. Higher rated players do not find facing players way below them to be a particularly great experience. Having one player obliterate another completely can be boring for the better player and overwhelming for the one getting wiped out.

3. Yes, there is some risk factor, which comes in 2 flavors. One is the luck factor in games, elo tends to get less reliable as the gap increases, in lower luck games the win/loss ratio is actually understated, the 100 player will never beat the 600. In higher luck games it's overstated, as blind luck will give them better shots at an absurd upset. The other is underrated issues, a new player may actually be experienced to the game but not to BGA, so are laddering up, so the high rated player isn't actually playing a game balanced by elo. If a 200 is actually 600 strength and paired vs a 600, the 600 player is playing with rating odds rigged against them.

In other words, higher rated players cancelling vs lower rated players is not inconsistent with the concept of having fun. It is in fact for a better experience that many players may do such a thing.

[Etoclas]

Hi!

Just my 2 cents: I love to play Santorini (1310 games on BGA so far and 537 ELO), and I don't have so much free time. Since I want to play in a competitive way, to learn from other players and to improve (that for me is what makes this particular game fun), I prefer playing with high ELO players and I set the filter "Good players and above".

On the other side, playing with low ELO players is no fun for me and it may not be fun for them, so why wasting our time?

I love teaching games to beginners (I do it in real life as an educator) and sometimes I've taught extremely competitive games to complete beginners here on BGA, but there's a place and a time for everything and, with certain games, I mostly go for the (healthy) high level (thus high ELO) competition.

I think everyone should be free to look for what they like the most and accept that other people would do the same.

What do you think about it?

Have fun and a good day to you!
Marco

[Ackter]

Board games should be about having fun. Keep the competitive stuff to the Arena.

There is a recurring theme across of lot of threads (mostly ones about "blocking" in certain games) that anyone doing something you don't like is playing for some reason other than having fun, as if one person gets to unilaterally define what's fun for everyone else. Your last sentence implies an unstated major premise that competitiveness and fun are mutually exclusive. In other words, you are implying that being competitive is not fun by definition, which I'm sure many people will disagree with.

I assume either because they're scared of losing too much ELO if they happen to lose, or the ELO gain for beating a low player is too little to bother with.

Have you considered that they may be avoiding playing with someone with a low ELO because dunking on less skilled players is not fun for them? I'm sure Magnus Carlsen would have absolutely zero fun playing a game of chess against me.

Ahe yes, thanks for reminding me. Elitism is another reason to hide ELO.

[Ackter]

It may just be me, but I'm seeing a lot of high ELO players reject matches against lower ELO players - I assume either because they're scared of losing too much ELO if they happen to lose, or the ELO gain for beating a low player is too little to bother with.

Board games should be about having fun. Keep the competitive s..tuff to the Arena.

There are several reasons for this to happen. I'll list a few in no particular order.

1. There are several players on the site with a reputation for extreme toxicity, such as saying blocking should not be allowed. These players are very bad at the game and tend to have low ratings, so by declining games against low rated players people do not have to worry about being paired against them.

2. Higher rated players do not find facing players way below them to be a particularly great experience. Having one player obliterate another completely can be boring for the better player and overwhelming for the one getting wiped out.

3. Yes, there is some risk factor, which comes in 2 flavors. One is the luck factor in games, elo tends to get less reliable as the gap increases, in lower luck games the win/loss ratio is actually understated, the 100 player will never beat the 600. In higher luck games it's overstated, as blind luck will give them better shots at an absurd upset. The other is underrated issues, a new player may actually be experienced to the game but not to BGA, so are laddering up, so the high rated player isn't actually playing a game balanced by elo. If a 200 is actually 600 strength and paired vs a 600, the 600 player is playing with rating odds rigged against them.

In other words, higher rated players cancelling vs lower rated players is not inconsistent with the concept of having fun. It is in fact for a better experience that many players may do such a thing.

ELO has nothing to do with reliability and toxicity. that has an entirely separate rating which obvious needs to remain.

[Ackter]

Hi!

Just my 2 cents: I love to play Santorini (1310 games on BGA so far and 537 ELO), and I don't have so much free time. Since I want to play in a competitive way, to learn from other players and to improve (that for me is what makes this particular game fun), I prefer playing with high ELO players and I set the filter "Good players and above".

On the other side, playing with low ELO players is no fun for me and it may not be fun for them, so why wasting our time?

I love teaching games to beginners (I do it in real life as an educator) and sometimes I've taught extremely competitive games to complete beginners here on BGA, but there's a place and a time for everything and, with certain games, I mostly go for the (healthy) high level (thus high ELO) competition.

I think everyone should be free to look for what they like the most and accept that other people would do the same.

What do you think about it?

Have fun and a good day to you!
Marco

The arena exists to harbour and encourage competitiveness.

Everyone has to start somewhere and low ELO doesn't necessarily mean they're bad at the game.

"They have low ELO so they're not worth my time" is elitism again.

[Ceaseless]

Hi!

Just my 2 cents: I love to play Santorini (1310 games on BGA so far and 537 ELO), and I don't have so much free time. Since I want to play in a competitive way, to learn from other players and to improve (that for me is what makes this particular game fun), I prefer playing with high ELO players and I set the filter "Good players and above".

On the other side, playing with low ELO players is no fun for me and it may not be fun for them, so why wasting our time?

I love teaching games to beginners (I do it in real life as an educator) and sometimes I've taught extremely competitive games to complete beginners here on BGA, but there's a place and a time for everything and, with certain games, I mostly go for the (healthy) high level (thus high ELO) competition.

I think everyone should be free to look for what they like the most and accept that other people would do the same.

What do you think about it?

Have fun and a good day to you!
Marco

The arena exists to harbour and encourage competitiveness.

Everyone has to start somewhere and low ELO doesn't necessarily mean they're bad at the game.

"They have low ELO so they're not worth my time" is elitism again.

Players with lower elo are generally worse players than those with higher elo. Players just starting on the site will throw things off a bit, but consistent play sorts that out. While there will be individual quirks between variance, etc. the general principle stands. If I'm a 600 facing a 200, my chances of winning are expected to be 10/11, or 90 10/11%. Not really exciting chances between players.

[ODog502]

I feel like the current design of BGA already works this problem out naturally, especially by use of the filters:

1) Want to play only high/low ELO players? set the filter for such
2) Want to play anyone? Don't set the filter

If you are getting unmatched from games you join, then the host isn't setting their filter properly. If they did, you wouldn't be able to join their game to begin with.

If you're a play-for-free player, that can't host most games, consider that an incentive for the Premium account. With a premium account, you can set the filter for who you want to be matched against.

Tell me if I'm missing something, but I feel like the functionality already exists to allow people to play against whomever they want. It just sounds like some people aren't using filters where they should.

[Ceaseless]

Board games should be about having fun. Keep the competitive stuff to the Arena.

There is a recurring theme across of lot of threads (mostly ones about "blocking" in certain games) that anyone doing something you don't like is playing for some reason other than having fun, as if one person gets to unilaterally define what's fun for everyone else. Your last sentence implies an unstated major premise that competitiveness and fun are mutually exclusive. In other words, you are implying that being competitive is not fun by definition, which I'm sure many people will disagree with.

I assume either because they're scared of losing too much ELO if they happen to lose, or the ELO gain for beating a low player is too little to bother with.

Have you considered that they may be avoiding playing with someone with a low ELO because dunking on less skilled players is not fun for them? I'm sure Magnus Carlsen would have absolutely zero fun playing a game of chess against me.

Ahe yes, thanks for reminding me. Elitism is another reason to hide ELO.

Just slapping elitism over things that disagree with you is not a good look.