Fundamental issue with the elo system and repeated wins

[FrankJones]

It's arguably even worse for games primarily not played at 2 player, because you are even more likely to have repeat opponents.

I'd echo what the majority have said, it's nonsense to be applied virtually immediately, and the reducer to be so exponentially harsh, you could be 50:50 to win and win 7 consecutive games vs players regularly.

If it has to exist it should be much less harsh, and probably shouldn't even kick in at all until about 7 wins, let out max out at 100% then. But really I'd prefer it just didn't exist at all. One of the problems with this system is it rewards not playing, and punishes frequent players, which should kind of go against what the site wants, I've noticed in some games the real best players aren't #1 anymore, because they play regularly and get bodied by the reducer, whereas the players who maintain #1 play a few games every 60 days so it doesn't affect them. That's not really encouraging a healthy system, because if everyone did that there would be no site, as games wouldn't start.

It's also kind of ironic, because in the long thread on this, it's stated one of their goals was to stop players seeing ELO as a trophy and sitting on #1, but instead they've created a system that does exactly that.

For the record I also think ELO decay is a bad idea too, problem is it will be very hard to get right. Say someone is the best player at a game, but then goes travelling for 6 months and doesn't play, if you decay their ELO it will be silly, and defy the point of ELO in the first place, to help people find games of players of roughly equal level, if that player then ends up having to work their way from the bottom again.

Agreed on all points.

Good news is, there is no Elo decay. We do get removed from the visible ELo leaderboard after 60 days of inactivity, which I think is reasonable. And, yes, a player can just play one ranked game against a low rated opponent, take an easy win, and get back on the leaderboard for another 60 days - but that also gives more active players an opportunity to pass that player.

As for the decreased Elo for consecutive wins against the same opponent - I just wish a warning would pop up before the game starts with an option to opt out of the game.

[Jellby]

Just for fun, here's the simulation of the elo evolution of two players playing 1000 matches. Let's assume that the "true" elo of the players is 400 and 200, which gives a 76% probability win for the 1st player (every match, suppose this doesn't change), but both players start with assigned elo of 300. It looks something like this:


Now, enabling the "penalty" (it's actually the opposite for the losing player) for consecutive wins, we get something like this (different random results for each match):


I'm not going to argue which is better, I don't like this consecutive wins cludge at all, but judging from the graph alone, it doesn't look so fundamentally wrong.

[Ehronde]

I'm glad they didn't implement that Elo decay, it's unfortunate they even considered it to begin with. But an Elo penalty for quitting? That also undermines the point of Elo. Yuck.

Having no Elo penalty for quitting games would lead to the people quitting games when they would lose them, so they don't lose Elo. Unfortunately it's necessary.

[Ceaseless]

I'm glad they didn't implement that Elo decay, it's unfortunate they even considered it to begin with. But an Elo penalty for quitting? That also undermines the point of Elo. Yuck.

Having no Elo penalty for quitting games would lead to the people quitting games when they would lose them, so they don't lose Elo. Unfortunately it's necessary.

Removing the penalty for quitting doesn't stop you from losing points after quitting. It would just take away the normal number of points you'd lose. It's not necessary. For some reason, BGA also punishes the winner for quitting that applying a penalty based on how much of the game wasn't completed.

[FrankJones]

I'm glad they didn't implement that Elo decay, it's unfortunate they even considered it to begin with. But an Elo penalty for quitting? That also undermines the point of Elo. Yuck.

Having no Elo penalty for quitting games would lead to the people quitting games when they would lose them, so they don't lose Elo. Unfortunately it's necessary.

Removing the penalty for quitting doesn't stop you from losing points after quitting. It would just take away the normal number of points you'd lose. It's not necessary. For some reason, BGA also punishes the winner for quitting that applying a penalty based on how much of the game wasn't completed.

Exactly. The quitter gets penalized, but, as you noted, the winner also loses out on deserved Elo. Some games can be essentially "checkmate in 1" and yet have a progression in the single digits, depending on how "progression" is calculated.

[Cos-]

I'm glad they didn't implement that Elo decay, it's unfortunate they even considered it to begin with. But an Elo penalty for quitting? That also undermines the point of Elo. Yuck.

Having no Elo penalty for quitting games would lead to the people quitting games when they would lose them, so they don't lose Elo. Unfortunately it's necessary.

If all you mean is, "quitting is treated as a loss and people lose Elo for losing a game", then that's **not** an "Elo penalty for quitting", it's just "quitting is treated as a loss" and Elo just works as it normally would. That's not bad. But if there is actually an Elo penalty for quitting, that sucks, and undermines the purpose and meaning of Elo.

[Jellby]

Quitting (or being expelled), results in losing the game (normal elo loss), plus a penalty of -10 elo (I believe, it may be different game to game), apart from the karma penalty.

[tbhp]

I don't see the issue. If your goal is to have a good elo at a game, you will (and should) do that by playing against many different players. Why would you expect to gain back your elo against the lower ranked player you lost again? The fastest way to gain elo is by beating players who are close to or above your current elo. You should avoid the lower ranked players, since you'll never earn a lot of elo against them anyway.

And with the way the system works, winning against such players after you've already lost would actually make you earn more than if you had not lost at all. So your complaint doesn't even make sense, it's the opposite of what you are saying (which the graph posted above also confirms).

[FrankJones]

I agree. If someone loses some games and drops from, hypothetically, 500 Elo to 380, the best way to get it back is to play against 500 Elo players. If the player in question cannot successfully do that, then the player in question is not actually a 500 Elo player.

[Andrei3009]

I would say that playing with much less experienced players is not profitable under any rating system. Most games are just boring and you easily win, and after most of the lost ones, it hurts you, because you most likely lost due to bad luck and lose a lot of rating.

But I'm still annoyed by the decreasing system for consecutive wins. For some reason, it's working in the arena. I can't not start another game with the same person, so I have to give him a temporary red thumb. Moreover, if you've just completed a turn-based game, you'll probably both start a new one right away and find yourself parried against each other.

Besides, as already mentioned, it is unclear what to do with not very popular games. I recently tryharded the master in one game. In order to get at least some kind of rating for winning, I had to play with players from the top 20. And out of them, 5 people are actively playing, and I need to play at least 20-30 games without losses.Therefore i had to wait two weeks for new games against some players.