Elo formula needs a fixing

[ojomojojojo]

You can literally win 20 games in a row and keep getting +1, +2, +3 but as soon as you lose 1 game its minus -4,182. What's up with that? Can the formula be changed to better reflect the skill. It makes elo rating less respectable if great players are losing so much off of 1 game and now their ranking is significantly below them.

[Tisaac]

That's the whole point of elo : reflect the skill of one player.
So if you have a big elo and win someone with low elo, that is not saying anything about your skill as your chances to win are high (you can even display this stat by hovering on elo at the end of the game).
On the contrary, if a low elo wins against a high elo, that means that this player has more skills than his current elo, so he should earn many more to make them accurate (and the other lose as many, since the total of elo never change)

[ojomojojojo]

Well that doesn't make much sense. Some people work up to gain a lot of elo to attest their skills. If I win 20 games and finally lose once, that shouldn't be going down -40. That would not speak much of your skill for the ither 20 games you played.

[Tisaac]

Well that doesn't make much sense. Some people work up to gain a lot of elo to attest their skills. If I win 20 games and finally lose once, that shouldn't be going down -40. That would not speak much of your skill for the ither 20 games you played.

Have you read my previous message ? The skill is not only about winning and losing but also about the skills of your opponent. If you win 20 games against begginner, then i can deduce almost nothing about your skill. But if you lose against a beginner, well you probably dont have that much skill. The elo formula accounts for that.
If you are unhappy with that, just play with people with similar elos, this should make the game more interesting and you wont lose much elo in case you lose (but of course you wont gain much elo if you win).