Why ELO doesn't suit to BGA

[glitter and doom]

I'm a slightly different kind of player than Glitter and Doom. My goal for a while now has been to get to a Good rating on each game on this site. I'm currently >1600 ELO on 91 of the site's games. ELO decay would be horrible for me. There's no way I'm playing that many games at reasonable time intervals (plus the many more games that will be added in the future).

I have a lot of respect for players who are trying to play (and be good at) such a wide range of games. This is exactly what BGA should promote.

And this is exactly why Elo decay would be a terrible idea.

I think that positive reinforcement is much better than negative reinforcement.

I totally agree.

My proposed solution would just be to shift the huge trophies that are currently there for top ELO (best, top 5, top 10, etc.) and have them linked instead to seasonal tournaments (somewhat like sourisdudesert suggests, but actually using the tournament system already built here). It seems to me that it's the rewards from these top trophies that are incentivizing people to fake their ELO...

This is an excellent idea.

tl;dr: Just don't have trophies correspond to ELO anymore. But keep ELO around because it's a handy reference value that shouldn't just drop occasionally.

Agree. I'm perfectly fine with this (although I would lose quite a lot prestige points).

[senatorhung]

i don't like the idea of just restricting a seasonal trophy to tournaments. there are already tournament trophies that are unlimited in number. unlimited seasonal tournament trophies would just make a hash of the prestige leaderboard. as sprockitz outlined, there is already a problem with tournament abuse for prestige points. viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10670

i don't like the idea of ELO decay. players work hard to gain ELO as a measure of improvement. the current ELO score should continue to be used for match restrictions and track overall progress. some players will continue to abuse the system to boost their regular ELO, but since there are no trophies associated with it, they are only getting the title.

for seasonal trophies (which should definitely replace the current ELO trophies), a new seasonal ELO stat would be set at the beginning of each season with everyone starting at 1500. you can only get one seasonal trophy per game ... and it will reflect the highest position ever achieved. once someone achieves the #1 position, there are no further seasonal trophies awarded to that player for that game. that encourages anyone aiming for the prestige leaderboard to sign up for lots of tournaments of their favourite game, or to try to gain a higher seasonal trophy for other games.

anyone trying to abuse the system to enhance the seasonal ELO will get caught as outlined by sourisdesert. so other than the initial trophy for current performance, any ELO abusers will mostly get washed out of the prestige leaderboards over time.


full disclosure:
i am currently at 71k prestige, in the #38 spot on the prestige leaderboard.
glitter and doom is currently at 348k prestige, in the #3 spot on the prestige leaderboard.

[latexrhombus]

I have a lot of respect for players who are trying to play (and be good at) such a wide range of games. This is exactly what BGA should promote.

And this is exactly why Elo decay would be a terrible idea.

ELO decay would have virtually no effect on those people. Most people who have supported it have reserved the idea for the top group only. For the guy who suggested it for everyone, under his system they would lose at most 8 points (he said 1 pt per 2 weeks) before becoming unranked (and it would stop), hardly enough to affect them. Provided they were 1608 or higher, literally no effect.

As for the tournaments, they are obviously good ideas that have been discussed for several pages earlier in the thread. The problem is pretty clearly that it may create a prestige wall for newcomers which does not lend itself to site growth.

Edit: Another clarification as to why I am hesitant about tournament-based (major) prestige awards (though I still like the idea) is right now someone who is at the top of prestige is forced to maintain it. If these trophies become too powerful, they may no longer have to use the site ever and become something of a permanent Lord of BGA prestige. That is counter-intuitive to the idea of promoting play. That's why I still favor the ELO decay for top people. You get MAJOR prestige for being at the top (and it is deserved, it is hard to get to the top), but you should not be able to get there and sit and hardly ever play again. At 1% of the difference between ELO and 1500, the cost of not playing is still very small, but is of course eliminated entirely if that person plays. And since this seems to be unclear, I have (nor do I think anyone has) advocated continue to decay unranked players. Unranking serves the same function as a decay so that would not make sense.

[latexrhombus]

Sorry for double post, but if you look at G&D's profile. You can see he regained the trophy for Best Player in Tournay by playing an ELO-off game. Does anyone support that system and should he really be able to gain a 50K valued trophy for that? Once somebody reaches the top, if they aren't playing ELO on, they need to move down or they never have incentive to turn ELO on again. This is really a big reason why decay should exist at least in a moderate doses for the top guys.

[glitter and doom]

In fact, your question confuses me, because luckless games should be easier for a better player to win (and therefore play) being that they are strictly a superior player. I would imagine being forced to play a game like Dragonheart is a much scarier experience for the top players (who I predict you will never see playing).

Cosmosis have explained the reason very well: Playing 20, 30 or even 90 games each month (a week!?) just to prevent losing Elo is no fun at all. Playing games on BGA should be an entertainment, not an obligation.

However, there is an even more important reason against Elo decay. People may be inactive for some time due to some serious illness, an accident, family issues, business trip, etc. It would be unfair to punish those players for inactivity.

I have been inactive for personal reasons for more than 6 months (10/2015 - 04/2016). I haven't played a single game in that period, and I have lost all my rankings and 400k prestige points. But I was totally fine with that. However, I would be very disappointed to lose Elo points for such reason.

Anyway, there are much better ways to solve the issue you are talking about. If the prestige points and rankings are not related to Elo, no one would have a problem with Elo (well, almost no one)). I support the idea of Seasonal points or official seasonal tournaments.

The vast majority of games on this sit, even games like Hive, which are devoid of luck, do not have anywhere near the following (nor will they ever) that chess has. As a result, people NEED TO BE ENCOURAGED TO PLAY! The logical way to encourage someone with a high ELO to play is to take it from them if they do not...

I asked for an explanation of mathematical reasoning for Elo decay in non-luck games. I said the proposal was mathematically illogical, you said it was not... Ah, never mind.

As explained extensively above, I propose it for all games, since there is no reason for a better player to fear playing a luckless game.

When I mentioned there is no Elo decay in FIDE rankings, you replied: "comparing the ELO system here to chess system is mostly far off-base" because "Many games on here have a certain degree of luck inherent in them", yet you propose Elo decay for no luck games as well, including chess.

Don't you see a fallacy in your arguments?

[glitter and doom]

Sorry for double post, but if you look at G&D's profile. You can see he regained the trophy for Best Player in Tournay by playing an ELO-off game.

The reason for that is a bug related to prestige points. The prestige points are often calculated wrongly. Sometimes you get the points you have no right for, sometimes you lose points for no reason, sometimes 1st and 2nd place rankings are mixed up...

I have lost (literally) millions of points because of that bug, and I gained millions of points I didn't deserve. I have complained many times about that bug. Actually, I was the one who reported it first, almost three years ago.

https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!bug?id=254 (49 votes; most voted bug on BGA)
https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!bug?id=336 (25 votes)
https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!bug?id=477 (17 votes)
https://en.boardgamearena.com/#!bug?id=2479 (13 votes)

[latexrhombus]

Cosmosis have explained the reason very well: Playing 20, 30 or even 90 games each month (a week!?) just to prevent losing Elo is no fun at all. Playing games on BGA should be an entertainment, not an obligation.

However, there is an even more important reason against Elo decay. People may be inactive for some time due to some serious illness, an accident, family issues, business trip, etc. It would be unfair to punish those players for inactivity.

This is the last time I am replying to you because you clearly do not read anything I write. I will for the last time state as I have in several posts, I do not advocate ELO decay for non-top ranked players so people like Cosmosis are unaffected. Even the one guy who did would not affect them since he is proposing a maximum loss of 8 ELO points before someone becomes unranked. If you cannot reach a 1608, you probably do not need a good player ribbon in a game anyway.

NO ONE WANTS TO DECAY UNRANKED PLAYERS, STOP IMPLYING THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding serious illness, see caps locked statement above. I'm not even replying to your other two quotes of mine because you are so clearly trolling.

[glitter and doom]

NO ONE WANTS TO DECAY UNRANKED PLAYERS, STOP IMPLYING THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding serious illness, see caps locked statement above. I'm not even replying to your other two quotes of mine because you are so clearly trolling.

There is no need for yelling.

At the time when illness or accident occurs, a player may be active and ranked. According to your proposal, a player could lose a certain number of Elo points before he became unranked.

I was simply pointing out that, in my opinion, that would be unfair. You may disagree, of course, but to say I was trolling was not very polite.

[cosmosis]

The one problem with the tournaments is they may not encourage basic site participation, since players would just be playing against others of similar ELO "on the side". It is really important that people are hosting and joining tables, especially for the less popular games to keep BGA fun and I think the potential (it doesn't automatically happen) of taking a few ELO points from those who care about ELO (the top ones) is enough to get it done.

I think the lack of tables for less popular games is mostly a separate problem from ELO. This site just has so many games, that some end up not getting played. For those, you usually have to resort to turn-based games. I think the only real solution for that is to get more people playing on this site.

I don't think having points come from tournaments would detract much from basic site participation. Plenty of people come here just to play casually, and I think that would still happen. Tournaments would just create an outlet for those competitive players who really want to play for points/prestige.

NO ONE WANTS TO DECAY UNRANKED PLAYERS, STOP IMPLYING THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do understand this point. And I should be on your side (maybe?) because I would potentially not be getting ELO decay. But it does feel wrong to have some cutoff above which players are penalized. Firstly, it sucks for those players. Secondly, it just feels really arbitrary. I think removing the trophies from the top ELO spots seems like a cleaner solution.

The problem is pretty clearly that it may create a prestige wall for newcomers which does not lend itself to site growth.

This is a great point (as already noted by other people). And it is something that is already happening with tournaments on the site. But I don't think it's a hard problem to solve.

You could, for example, have it so that trophies from previous years don't count for the current leaderboard. This would encourage new waves of participation each year.

I'm sure you could think of many other ways.

[glitter and doom]

It would be awesome if the tournaments for a season were bracketed, so that people of similar ELO values faced off against each other. There could be a small, medium and large trophy (or something similar) for the beginner, good, and expert+ brackets for a game.

Ok, I think I am starting to repeat myself, but I think it is an excellent idea! In that way beginners and average players would actually have a chance to win prestige points (Elo reduction in most cases would merely give them an illusion they have a chance). I really like your proposal Cosmosis!