ELO Scoring

[ChoiceRaptor]

I know this has been talked about a lot, but if not just awarding the winner, why not give more points to first place, some points to second, and zero to 3rd and 4th? At least that would make players want to fight to get either position instead of just gunning for the 4th player.

[FrankJones]

I know this has been talked about a lot, but if not just awarding the winner, why not give more points to first place, some points to second, and zero to 3rd and 4th? At least that would make players want to fight to get either position instead of just gunning for the 4th player.

I thought that is pretty much how it is done ?

[ChoiceRaptor]

I wish. The third place loses way fewer points than the fourth, so players often play to avoid being the fourth, which spoils the game. I think it would be better if the 3rd and 4th would lose the same amount of points.

[Jellby]

The third place loses way fewer points than the fourth

That depends on the elo difference between 3rd and 4th. It is the same as if 3rd and 4th played a 2-player game (and the same for 3rd and 2nd, and 2nd and 1st).

[ChoiceRaptor]

Correct. What I propose is to stop this for the 3rd and 4th players. They would both lose the same amount, which would be the middle of the two scores. That would make the last two help each other the same way players do kingmaking. it would balance out

[FrankJones]

I wish. The third place loses way fewer points than the fourth, so players often play to avoid being the fourth, which spoils the game. I think it would be better if the 3rd and 4th would lose the same amount of points.

My apologies, I must have had a brain cramp when I wrote my post

Your first post in the thread clearly says, "zero points to third and 4th place", but somehow, I missed that part.

I agree this would help, but still, I get just as frustrated when people dump on the 3rd OR 4th place player just to lock up 2nd place, while pretty much guaranteeing that the person in 1st place wins the game.

I think another problem is the lack of the option to add 26 when shooting the moon would end the game and cause a different player to win. Shooting the moon should not cause a different player to win. Just my opinion, but in every setting I've previously played hearts, someone who goes moon in such a situation would gain +26 rather than having everyone else take a minus 26 and end the game.

[buv3x]

I've seen this point brought up multiple times and in different games.
I don't have a developer experience on BGA, so it's a bit of an educated guess from my side, but the simplest solution for this seems to be to place all the non-winning players at T2 (tied for second) at the end of the game by slightly altering the scoring system (not use the game points directly, but give a score of 1 for the player(s) with the most points and 0 for the rest). Importantly with that change the desired result is achieved with no mingling with any BGA Elo calculation mechanisms, just a small-ish change in a specific game.
The question, however, is not about the development itself, but the approval for it. Game rules usually state that players are ranked 2nd, 3rd etc. based on the points they've got in the game (although for classic card games like Hearts it's hard to say where the official rules are stated). As I understand, BGA is strict in implementing games based on the official rules only, so modification like this might be considered "house rules" and generally avoided.

[BibFortuna]

This has been suggested many times. The people running the games on BGA don't seem to understand that their ELO system can also impact the play of the game. So, they refuse to change it. I don't understand why this is so hard for the game maintainers to understand.

[FrankJones]

The third place loses way fewer points than the fourth

That depends on the elo difference between 3rd and 4th. It is the same as if 3rd and 4th played a 2-player game (and the same for 3rd and 2nd, and 2nd and 1st).

That's not correct, is it?

I mean, yes, the Elo change associated with the fact that 4th place lost to 3rd place is the same as it would be if those two players played a 2-player game.

But I think the point being made was that in a game of hearts, 3rd place gets 2 losses and a win, whereas 4th place gets 3 losses. this usually means 3rd place takes a negligible Elo hit, while 4th place gets hir or her Elo Demolished by 20+ points.

[Jellby]

Actually, it's not correct.

I meant that the difference between points lost/won by 3rd and 4th (not the absolute result) is the same as if they had played a 2-player game. But that's only correct if they have the same elo. If they have different elo, given that both have lost against 2 other players, the one with higher elo loses more than the one with lower elo. Still, the partial result of the 3rd-4th sub-match is the same regardless of other players, or how they're placed.

If the loss of 3rd is "negligible" and the loss of 4th is "demolishing", then, if they had been placed 1st and 2nd, the gain of 1st would be astonishing and the gain of 2nd would be negligible, and the difference between them would be the same, which was my point.