Recent uptick in smurfs?

[nik592]

To clarify further: A new player's K-factor makes that new player's rating highly elastic for the purpose of more quickly bringing that player's rating to its actual true rating. But in the meantime, a 500-rated player who loses to that player can lose a ton of points because of the misfortune of playing someone who is a true 500 player but currently has a rating of zero.

The Elo rating change of someone playing against a non-established player should only change by a factor of K/20, where K is the number of games the new player has completed. I was rather surprised when I played against a very strong and obviously experienced player with a 64 rating and discovered that no such thing exists here.

This is a fair point, and a reasonable suggestion. I personally haven't worried about it because I'm not a 500 rating in anything, and probably never will be, but I can see how this would be frustrating for higher rated players. But, as usual, this becomes the problem of BGA to solve, and that it doesn't exist isn't the fault of the new (but experienced) players, and until such a feature is implemented, there's not much that anyone can do to avoid that problem (apart from avoid beginners as you mention, which is also a perfectly reasonable idea - though it doesn't help you in Arena or tournament play).

[FrankJones]

- though it doesn't help you in Arena or tournament play).

I do not play in Arena, so I might be mistaken, but I do not think Beginners can pay in Arena. I think one's Elo ha to reach a specific level first?

Most of my games, I think, I have set to filter out anyone rated below 200. Even then, I sometimes run into opponents who are obviously a good bit better than their rating indicates.

[nik592]

I do not play in Arena, so I might be mistaken, but I do not think Beginners can pay in Arena. I think one's Elo ha to reach a specific level first?

They have to reach 100, but particularly if your rank should be well above that, reaching 100 only takes a few games.

[FrankJones]

I do not play in Arena, so I might be mistaken, but I do not think Beginners can pay in Arena. I think one's Elo ha to reach a specific level first?

They have to reach 100, but particularly if your rank should be well above that, reaching 100 only takes a few games.

Oh, true. 100 is rather meaningless.

[BananaHarambe]

I've also seen it in St. Petersburg. There appears to be this one player who creates new accounts, pretends he or she is a beginner, dominates 1 or 2 games, destroys the account, and starts all over. I have almost stopped allowing beginning players to that particular game because of this individual.

I never join games with beginners. Not exactly for the reason you said, but similar.

I am accustomed to gaming sites where the Elo of a person playing against a new player is protected against such occurrences. BGA has no such protection.

To clarify further: A new player's K-factor makes that new player's rating highly elastic for the purpose of more quickly bringing that player's rating to its actual true rating. But in the meantime, a 500-rated player who loses to that player can lose a ton of points because of the misfortune of playing someone who is a true 500 player but currently has a rating of zero.

The Elo rating change of someone playing against a non-established player should only change by a factor of K/20, where K is the number of games the new player has completed. I was rather surprised when I played against a very strong and obviously experienced player with a 64 rating and discovered that no such thing exists here.

Great points on rating protection AGAINST new players in addition to the high-K for new players to settle their rating. I play on * where they have cheat detection and will reimburse ratings points for anyone that lost points to a cheater as soon as the cheater is banned. New players have inflated k-factor, but no reduction for old players versus new ones. For BGA.com cheating is uncommon in 2p games so compensation points would be uncommon I believe. However, anti-"smurf" protection when playing against new players would make sense. K-factor adjustment could be 1/x of the new player's multiplier, which 3/4 for first 10 games and 2 for the games 11-20? Something like that anyways. A minor softening results for the old players versus new players would work nicely I think.

On the smurfing topic, I once saw a true smurf (strong evidence the #1 player stopped using their account, created a new one to play, perfect timeline) player with 9/10 first games and immediately climb to 400 Elo, then reach #2 leaderboard spot in arena to join themselves at ~500 Elo. Looked like they hit such a high AES ceiling in Arena with #1 spot that they made a new account to grind arena more to avoid rating loss. They got 2nd in arena with the alt.

I have seen a few other players show a similar fast Elo climb path like a smurf, but far more legit because they have an old account, are good at many other games, and are actually a BGA game developer. They likely played the game a bunch IRL, then started online for fun and started crushing.

*Moderator edit: please do not specifically name other gaming platforms

Banana edit: sorry for name dropping another platform, my bad.

[The Nuzzer]

*Moderator edit: please do not specifically name other gaming platforms

LOL, that's some insecurity going on there

[FrankJones]

*Moderator edit: please do not specifically name other gaming platforms

LOL, that's some insecurity going on there

Right??

So, if I say, "Nintendo 64", is that a faux pas? I mean, It's a "gaming platform".

[h_illes]

In addition, plenty of people could just be playing the physical game

Careful, you might get moderated for talking about other platforms (real life).

To be fair, we have been warned...

[Grimwold]

Yeah, * has been the main gaming place for centuries way before the invention of internet, but still allowed.
I can understand why * might be allowed, it's kinda hard to play boardgame on it.


Note to moderators: I refrained myself to mention other gaming platforms.

[Laxe]

There is Terraforming mars on * .
I invited a new guy to play with on this platform who played on * before this.

Also you should play with people that are better than you, you will improve and become better yourself.
Who cares about rank, i am 300+ and i don't bother kicking out 100+ ranked people as long as they want to stay and have played 10+ matches


*Moderator edit: please do not specifically name other gaming platforms