Board Game Arena

PLEASE READ WINS VERSUS LOSSES AGAIN CANT SHUT OFF WINS OR LOSSES BUT ELO YOU CAN

intrepid wrote: PLEASE READ WINS VERSUS LOSSES AGAIN CANT SHUT OFF WINS OR LOSSES BUT ELO YOU CAN

Do you mean ELO is hidden because you're a standard user but you can still see wins & losses?

You originally said get rid of ELO. Not sure I get what you mean.

Isn't the problem simply that ELO makes less sense the more luck determines if you win or loose? It is quite weird that players with high ELO e.g. in Yahtzee or Can't Stop restrict the table to good players or above - apparently not because they want to play against opponents with similar skill (a child can play these games), but because they want to minimize the risk to loose their "worthy" ELO points and ranking.

I don't care anything about other players' ELO and ranking in games like these, and it is sad that they don't want you to play against them because you didn't have enough luck these days...

"and it is sad that they don't want you to play against them because you didn't have enough luck these days..."

Except... that the design of the Arena is to encourage this behavior. A person may, if he/she so desires, try to accumulate as many points as he wishes. Try to win tournaments. Try to play the most games. The arena even quantifies all these behaviors into a concept called "Prestige".

And, a person may, if he/she so desires, ignore the accumulation of points. The Arena is fit for all. If you're goal is to accumulate points the Arena allows you to restrict your table. It is not 'sad' that players behave this way.

Is it 'sad' that some people want to restrict their table to only friends? Or members of a certain group? No. The design of the Arena allows for this and in fact, encourages it.

This discussion is about refining the idea of restricting a table based on a more precise view of ELO. There is no complaint about ELO or a desire to circumvent it. Only, can we have a way of having more precision when restricting tables using ELO.

Quick observation of a non-member reading this thread, who would love to have an option like this:

I can't tell what my ELO is in any game (except Hive), because I am blocked from viewing it. I can, however, see my 'level': average, good, etc. If joining games was restricted due to ELO, I would never know whether I could join a game until actually entering it and attempting to join. This would be annoying. I would also be able to setup a dummy account and obtain a more accurate estimation of my hidden ELO if I wanted to put in a few minutes of work...

All these issues would disappear, of course, if everyone could simply see their ELO. And since I can just ask a member to tell me what it is at any point anyway, I am still unsure of the point of hiding it in the first place.

I guess the reason for non-members not seeing their ELO is the inconvenience. It doesn't prevent you from playing but it would be more fun if you can see how you score relative to other players. I'm thinking that in the case where the game has a restriction by ELO, the non-members would probably try it out and be unable to join. I could be wrong but I wouldn't think this would be enough to cause people to leave the site. It should be another benefit of becoming a member.

If the administrators think this is too much of a bad thing, then maybe games that are restricted might not show up if you don't qualify. In other words if you can't join a game because it's restricted then it doesn't show up in your games list.

How about like this: average level, expert and master, and there should be average level above 1500 and ALB1500.