Why ELO doesn't suit to BGA

[sprockitz]

As you can see :

• There is way too much yellow => If we keep ELO as it is no (without reset or decay), we cannot use it anymore for rankings.
• The only games with a decent rankings are the new ones : for most of the recent games, top players have all played a significant number of games and no one is "defending a position" => This is what incite me to recreate these conditions for all games at each seasons.

Games tend to stagnate when player's reach their natural Elo...the Elo they have matches their true skill. Once you reach an Elo corresponding to your true skill, there isn't an incentive, from an Elo perspective, to play the game anymore. In newer games, the top players have yet to reach this level, so playing gains them Elo on average, so they are encouraged to play more.

I think moving focus to seasons is fine as you are looking to measure activity & skill, but I think true Elo still needs to remain (even if it is no longer used as the main source of prestige points).

[sourisdudesert]

Unfortunately, the only game for which I am in the top-10 (Expedition NorthWest Passage) does not seem to be listed in your file

I only picked games with a significant number of plays.

[latexrhombus]

Elo Decay or resetting Elo are terrible options! Either one destroys what we've worked very hard to gain. I primarily only play from Oct-Mar because, while I love board games, I'd rather be outside when the weather is nice...you shouldn't punish me by decaying my Elo when I'm not active. I won't suddenly become average at a game by not playing it for 6 months. Resetting Elo is just a harsher form of decay (or maybe equivalent depending on how decay is implemented).

Before replying to this, I just read through sourisdudesert's top 10 play frequency data, which I found interesting but not particularly surprising. Aside from Stone Age, the only games that seemed to have a lot of recent play by top players were the new ones (which are younger than 60 days old in many cases). Both proposals set out to get these players playing again (obviously, they were driven to play to get to the top, but once there they have no more incentive to play). I still support the decay system strongly (but not the reset system, because I do think that just takes away hard work while the decay system encourages working a little bit just to earn the ability to stay in that top spot), but I think for people in conditions like you described (not playing for specific periods) it would be nice to have an opt-out option where they can essentially just go "unranked" like what happens if you do not play for 60 days. That may be getting too complicated though as I really do not imagine it taking more than a few points to encourage activity. As stated extensively, there would be no reason to decay any unranked person, as they are not gaining the corresponding prestige.

To stay at the top and reap the benefits, you should have to play.

I think changing the point distribution for Elo awards is good. Right now there is too much focus on the very top spots. Going from 50k for 1st down to 12k for 3rd and just 3k for 6th is a HUGE dropoff. Keeping 50k for 1st, why not try 35k for 2nd, 25k for 3rd, 20k for 4-5, 15k for 6-10, 10k for 11-20, and 5k for Elite (ranked in top 5% of active players). The added Elite rank helps for the more popular games, but you could scale the whole system for less popular games, starting with say 30k for 1st. Seasonal ranks would give something similar to these numbers, but again you'd be limited to the prestige gained from your best season + your overall (or just do best season or your overall if you really want to take the importance on overall Elo out as one seasonal 1st has earned you max points).

Changing the prestige distribution seems sensible, but I do not think it would encourage any one to play more. In fact, lowering the top prestige for less popular games may actually make them less popular, so not sure this makes sense as a base ELO system. It would certainly make sense for less popular tournaments to yield less prestige though.


Edit: Oh, and for what it's worth, there would be no reason to decay if ELO was detached from prestige. Pretty much everything anyone has said about separating the two seems sensible though most proposals (even those with tournaments) still seem to link them since only the top ELO players would be eligible for the top prizes even if they do not really play that particular game anymore.

[Darnoc]

While a person is "inactive" in a game, I favor gradually decaying their displayed ELO towards the mean, dropping them gradually down the leader-board.

When (if) they return to playing, discard the displayed-ELO and continue them at their pre-decay ELO.

This will eliminate one common tactic I see being used to stay atop a leader-board.

[intrepid]

I agree usually over halve of top 10 has not played a average in 45 days.but also a problem is high elo leads to a player not playing with begineers or low elo .I play with anybody don't care about there ELO OR kARMA RATING.

[glitter and doom]

• There is way too much yellow => If we keep ELO as it is no (without reset or decay), we cannot use it anymore for rankings.

Well, that's exactly what the majority of people here (including me) have proposed. Keep the Elo as it is, and don't use it for rankings (and prestige points).

[chrisa]

I only picked games with a significant number of plays.

Yes, NWP is probably not often played. But if you change the system (and decide to periodically decay/reset Elo points, despite what most people have said in this thread), it will apply equally to long/short, recent/old , often-/rarely-played games, right?

[Game Fondue]

Like many people posting here seem to, I find the idea of separating ELO and prestige pretty interesting. The thing about ELO is that it is inherently valueless and the only reason people play to raise it is to obtain a certain ranking or status. As a result, I would imagine unlinking rankings and ELO would render ELO entirely meaningless, which I am not sure would promote play on the website. But if it is to be done, it should be done in its entirety because if the means to obtaining ranking, such as getting entry to prestige tournaments are still tied to ELO and there is no decay or reset for the top players, all of the same problems the system now experiences would just be magnified.

For unlinking ELO and ranking to really work, it seems ELO would have to be entirely scrapped, which I have to imagine is not in the cards. Up to this point, the ideas laid out here about separating ELO and prestige do not seem to actually accomplish this. They just seem to be protecting high ELOs and the corresponding high rankings. I think people who earned high ELOs deserve a high ranking, but as others have said, being the top player should not be a permanent position unless it can be backed up with some activity, which is good for the community as a whole.

[sourisdudesert]

Some though about tournaments.

For a game like Seasons, 11.800 players played recently. If we want to organize a tournament with the "top 1%", which is quite exclusive, we must organize a tournament with 118 players. It means that we must organize a 8 round Swiss system tournament, 45 minutes between rounds. This is too long for a single evening, so let's say 2 consecutive evenings (Monday+Tuesday) at 21:00 CEST, 4 rounds each.

Needless to say that this is impossible to organize a turn based tournament with so much players : if two players are from very different timezone, they are going to play 2 moves / day and you cannot have your 8 games during a 3 months season.

To conclude : Players from Asia will complain about the time, players who have some activities on Monday/Tuesday will complain. Both of them won't have a ranking anymore on Seasons for a complete seasons - because we are not using ELO anymore for rankings. Players who are on the top "2%" will also complain because the limit is 1% and not 2%.

Hope it helps you to figure the problem with tournaments.

ELO based ranking system advantage is that it includes everyone, and there is no need to be here at a precise date/time to be part of the tournament.

[cosmosis]

Keep the Elo, but untie the prestige points and rankings to it.

This.

This should be the first thing tested.

I don't really see anyone disagreeing with it.