Overall XP declines?

[Samiamiamiam]

On August 22, 2026, I took a picture of my World Rank and XP as displayed in the Hall of Fame on BGA's main page. I only recently began to pay attention to these stats and was curious how my ranking would change over time.

I just looked at it now, 6 days later, and noticed that my XP has declined. I went from 30.3K XP to 29.7K XP. Obviously, my World Rank followed suit.

I was under the assumption that, as I earn achievements etc, my XP would only ever increase.

What mechanisms would result in a decrease in XP?

[Jellby]

Penalties, removed (or moved back to alpha) games...

The XP of some achievements depends on some game stats (number of active players, game length/complexity...) at the time they are awarded, I don't think their XP value is updated if the relevant stats change, so that should not be a reason for an XP decrease.

[CrovendianKing]

I also noticed mine drop from 33k to 31k, and I have no clue why.

[FrankJones]

I'm trying to figure out why the world Elo #1 achievement gave 30k experience points for some people and only 10k for others. (In the same game).

Even weirder was that the 10k awards were bracketing the 30k award with regard to timing.

10k, 10k, 30k in chronological order could have plausible explanations. Or the reverse. But 10k, 30k, 10k is puzzling.

[FSKFSK]

The prize for "top elo" depends on the number of active players the game has at the time you win the award. If the number of players increases or decreases, they don't change the value of an award that was already earned.

[tbhp]

If the number used is that of active players (supposedly players who played the game recently) rather than the number of all players who ever played the game, then that would explain the inconsistencies that were found in the recent thread about the badges not always being awarded for top 10 and top 20, as well as the inconsistency FrankJones noted in this thread.

[FrankJones]

These 3 achievements were all attained by the 3 different players in fairly close proximity. Months, not years.

Yes, perhaps "number of active players" is a factor, but did the number of active players in this game really change so dramatically, twice, in a span of months, causing the prize to fluctuate from 10k to 30k and back to 10k? That seems bizarre, especially considering as a regular player at that game, I haven't seen any such indication.

[tbhp]

Maybe the game starts out small, rapidly gets popular because the site advertized it or something, then it starts rapidly decreasing once people realize they don't like it.

Or it could have to do with what Jellby said about the game's length/complexity. If those ratings are subjected to sudden changes, you can't expect much consistency in anything that depends on it.

Ultimately, XP numbers are just a matter of how important some person thought something was at some point in time. Personally, I don't really care what the number is, I care about the actual badge. But I know some people like comparing those numbers and in that case it can seem unfair when they don't obey well determined rules.

[Jellby]

It doesn't need to be "so dramatically". It could be something like this (made up numbers):

If the game has 1000 players or more over the last 30 days, award 30k, if it has less than 1000, award 10k.

Now that particular game could have around 1000 players. Maybe it was 998 when the first player got the trophy, it was 1001 when the second one did, and it was 999 when the third one did.

[FrankJones]

Both of the above replies give plausible explanations.

I still consider this a silly system considering there are more logical ways of awarding XP.