ELO & Ranking - problems and suggesting solutions

[Liallan]

I undertand your ideas, but for me, it is not good at all

You say that players rise their elo and after stop playing more than 1 day to protect their elo. Yes, that's true ! But really, can we say they are bad? Not at all ! Those players played and won elo points as everybody !

The complaint is about people who get a high ELO, and then stop playing RATED games except for once every 60 days. It is not that they are not playing the game because of time constraints or whatever, but that they are only playing UNRATED games, in order to protect their high ELO.

Actually, you're incorrect about that. If you go back to the OP, you'll see it also talks about those who just don't play very often, and not just about people playing no-ELO. Of the two example players given, only one of them was reported as playing mostly no-ELO games. The other simply wasn't playing that often.

[Liallan]

I guess limiting number of games played within a certain time may not be good, as some players may not have time or are retired temporarily

and for the problem of playing no elo games, players can actually start another account to play games if they get a satisfied rank, it sounds that it does not violate the rules on bga

some players who play against beginners very very often say that they want to teach beginners. is this appropriate. but some of them ran away quickly when a non-beginner enters their table. is this their right to choose opponents or...?

though I personally agree with the above maximum elo idea

I totally agree with this.

This same argument happens over on Yucata, except that there isn't any trophies/prestige stuff going on. There's just the skill level and your ranking level. So over there it isn't about "trophies." It's just that people don't like seeing someone in the top 10 who hasn't played for a while and people come up with all sorts of fancy ideas of how to solve it. There is also the same assumption that those who haven't played a particular game in a while are doing it for bad reasons. I'm sure some are, but not everyone is. Can't someone just get burnt on a game and prefer to play something new for a while?

But in the end I don't think you can tell people who to play, how to play, what to play or how often to play. Going with the idea of OP, that for turn based you need to play 5 of any given game in 60 days. That perhaps is far more than one might imagine, especially since you're speaking about any given game. If someone plays a lot of the games here, and are top 10 in just a few, that could add up real quick to try to finish 5 of each of them in that time period, while also try to play the ones they are ranked lower in. Every time someone makes suggestions like that, it's always something totally outlandish that requires someone to live on here. While some people perhaps don't have spouses and kids or own a house to take care of (or even have a job), you can't expect top 10 players to have no life. (One live game every 4 days isn't too much to ask? And that's per game, and some people are top 10 in several games, and this doesn't even include the other things they like to play. Really, that's just a lot to expect of someone! It's not their profession for pete's sake!)

And while I get the site should be more geared towards those who play a lot, it should never require that people live here and have no lives.

I also like the "maximum idea." Actually, I really only care about ELO itself. I want to know where I stand, I want to be able to see where others stand, and right now mine are still totally messed up from the notion that subtracting 1300 off our old one actually had a meaning, so mine are still all messed up. But I could care less about any of the prestige points and trophies and whatnot. One of the problems that seems to exist around here is the whole trophy concept. The first and foremost purpose of the site ought to be having fun playing games, finding appropriate partners, and it seems too many have made trophies the priority.

First of all, the main problem here is that awarding "trophies" to the highest rated players is not necessarily the same as giving them to the best players.

YES!!

[Espina]

I undertand your ideas, but for me, it is not good at all

You say that players rise their elo and after stop playing more than 1 day to protect their elo. Yes, that's true ! But really, can we say they are bad? Not at all ! Those players played and won elo points as everybody !

The complaint is about people who get a high ELO, and then stop playing RATED games except for once every 60 days. It is not that they are not playing the game because of time constraints or whatever, but that they are only playing UNRATED games, in order to protect their high ELO.

Actually, you're incorrect about that. If you go back to the OP, you'll see it also talks about those who just don't play very often, and not just about people playing no-ELO. Of the two example players given, only one of them was reported as playing mostly no-ELO games. The other simply wasn't playing that often.

Fair enough point about the OP's two examples. But the situation I described is pretty rampant. If you look among the top players of Lost Cities, say, you'll see VAST numbers of unranked games.

[Espina]

First of all, the main problem here is that awarding "trophies" to the highest rated players is not necessarily the same as giving them to the best players.

YES!!

I think we all agree on that.

[VolgaChaser]

Would be nice to see something done about this.

One cool feature I've seen on other sites is ELO decay. For example if you don't play for x days your ELO drops by y points.

If you then play a game you both win/lose ELO by the game result and also recover some of your decayed ELO. This stops the leaderboard from becoming stale as people go on hot runs and stop playing, and also gives positive reinforcement for top players to play, since it often feels like your risk/reward is terrible when playing.

I'm currently #3 in Quantum. #2 has played 2 games this year, #1 plays a lot of unranked games but I couldn't even find the last ranked game played. It's demotivating to keep competing when I know the top spot is safe by virtue of not playing.

[Ranif88]

A related issue: I recently had an input issue on my computer that disabled my ability to mouse click and continue a game.

The result was a lost game timed out and "left while in progress" which awarded the win to my opponent and resulted in the following:
- Inability to get back in after time timed out (the problem resolved itself and the opponent was kind enough to wait, but still unable to reenter)
- An email that I left a game in progress was issued
- I lost 8% (100 to 92%) of my perfect karma ranking which has never suffered ever.

Two comments:
- We are adults here and while an in-game notice (or even on-board message) is appropriate, please don't chase me down with shame emails.
- An 8% hit for one game incompletion after numerous perfect/on time/lengthy time on site play is ridiculous.

Suggestions:
- Stop issuing emails for on site "infractions" or even message alerts
- Relook at a much less harsher result from a single game's incompletion (review last 10/50/100 game status perhaps and impact karma fractionally).

Overkill.

[Liallan]

Would be nice to see something done about this.

One cool feature I've seen on other sites is ELO decay. For example if you don't play for x days your ELO drops by y points.

This has been suggested like a gazillion times. It wouldn't surprise me if on this very thread. I personally dislike sites that do this. (EDIT: In fact, scrolling up not very far, I see I've discussed such a suggestion, so very obviously it is on this thread already.)
And some of the problems that come with this is the inherit imbalance balance between those who play real time and those who play turn based, and an imbalance between those who live on here and play a lot and those who play more casually. And when someone knows a lot of games, there just isn't any way to be playing all those games all the time. And it forces people to play things when they don't want to, it means people can't get burnt on a game and just take a break from it.

I have never seen a decay suggestion yet that would really work in any fair way, and not just force people to play things they might not want to, and I'm thinking that really shouldn't be the goal.

[Liallan]

Two comments:
- We are adults here and while an in-game notice (or even on-board message) is appropriate, please don't chase me down with shame emails.
- An 8% hit for one game incompletion after numerous perfect/on time/lengthy time on site play is ridiculous.

I'm not totally convinced everyone is adults but... I agree with this in theory. I suspect people who leave a game and don't care that they left the game, also don't care that they're getting an email.

Thing is, they send out emails about all kinds of stuff and I guess I just lump this in with all the other unnecessary stuff being sent out that I don't care about and have to just delete. Just like I don't need an email that someone else is running out of time - just sounds like an encouragement to be impatient and go kick them from the game.

[Romain672]

@Ranif88 : the system have been created for that if your karma is more than 70, you got no penality. So it stay fine. All players will be at 90 (and 70?) one day.



The problem is just too complex, you need :
- encourage 3+ players games on game who are based on strategic.
- encourage players at the top 10 to play.
- encourage players to play against players near their level.
And if you found a solution who doesn't fit one of this three things, there would be some ranking not 'optimal'.

On sport, there is generally a great competition where all good person are invinted. So it resolve this kind of problem.
It's not really possible on bga (except with some specific rewards) anyway. But it could be fun to participate if there was something 'official', like a tournament created on each game. And a global ranking at the end. And that each year or something like that.

[VolgaChaser]

Would be nice to see something done about this.

One cool feature I've seen on other sites is ELO decay. For example if you don't play for x days your ELO drops by y points.

This has been suggested like a gazillion times. It wouldn't surprise me if on this very thread. I personally dislike sites that do this. (EDIT: In fact, scrolling up not very far, I see I've discussed such a suggestion, so very obviously it is on this thread already.)
And some of the problems that come with this is the inherit imbalance balance between those who play real time and those who play turn based, and an imbalance between those who live on here and play a lot and those who play more casually. And when someone knows a lot of games, there just isn't any way to be playing all those games all the time. And it forces people to play things when they don't want to, it means people can't get burnt on a game and just take a break from it.

I have never seen a decay suggestion yet that would really work in any fair way, and not just force people to play things they might not want to, and I'm thinking that really shouldn't be the goal.

I'm not suggesting at all that people should be forced to play things they don't want to. Certainly ELO is just a fun metric, and in fact the goal of playing should be fun. I'll occasionally hop into a multi player game even though it is ELO suicide where I'm virtually guaranteed to lose a ton of points with minimal upside.

However your post is suggesting that ranking people as elite players shouldn't require actually playing the game if they don't want to! If you don't want to play thats fine, but you shouldn't be ranked.

Since you brought up goals, there's 2 types of people we are concerned about:

- Plays the game frequently but doesn't want to play ranked for fear of losing rating points
- Doesn't play the game
- Plays but on a very casual basis; has a very high rating from a previous life but is now average
- Plays but on a very casual basis; is still a top player

The middle two can be safely categorized as non-top players. I don't think we have to worry about them losing out because a leaderboard is zero sum. If the superior players rise to the top it is doing its job.

The top category is encouraged by a decay or other measure. He now has incentive to play and receives more positive reinforcement when played ranked. If we assume he mostly avoids playing from ladder anxiety this changes that in a positive way. If he's just trying to hoard the leaderboard position we shouldn't be protecting him.

The bottom category is the only one really hurt by any change. It's not a major impact but I don't really see any way of avoiding it. The other option is hurting all the new players who put in effort but get screwed by the rules.

It seems like many people are concerned about people who will be hurt by any change, such as those who now play different games or have left the site. IMO this is just a status quo bias, since the leaderboard is zero sum, only 10 people can be on it. The goal is not to force people to play certain games, its to make the criteria whatever gets us closest to that, and in reality biasing it away from the status quo is the most likely to help with that. As a bonus it also makes the system less easy to 'game'