🌿ELO System Updates

[Zozoken]

BGA's yearly April Fools Day joke is coming up soon. Maybe their front page news article this year will be that they're acting on the concerns of the community and have reverted the most unpopular changes as well as fixed long-standing bugs for arena and tournaments. And that this year, they're going to be more transparent and thoughtful about major changes that affect all players with no way to opt out of them. Or maybe for April Fools Day they could announce another sudden change that has a good chance of upsetting the community, claiming it's an April Fools joke and would never happen, but then release it anyway because them saying it's an April Fools joke is the April Fools joke!

[h_illes]

Tbh I suspect this might be their ultimate aim.

But if this is the case, why lie about it with some BS about making it harder to cheat?

[TricksyFox]

Yeah sadly this appears to be the case. I just went up a grade in hardback, and got no XP notification, no award. In a competitive game FFS. BGA again, what is the point of removing ELO from a competitive game? Can you please respond on this.

Hi! So I'm the community manager for Fowers Games. I talked a bit about this with quietmint, who did the BGA adaptation. Apparently BGA fundamentally doesn't support a game that can be competitive OR co-op, so it treats it as co-op. Which is annoying, but there's not much we can do about it.

[KenFin1]

Yeah sadly this appears to be the case. I just went up a grade in hardback, and got no XP notification, no award. In a competitive game FFS. BGA again, what is the point of removing ELO from a competitive game? Can you please respond on this.

Hi! So I'm the community manager for Fowers Games. I talked a bit about this with quietmint, who did the BGA adaptation. Apparently BGA fundamentally doesn't support a game that can be competitive OR co-op, so it treats it as co-op. Which is annoying, but there's not much we can do about it.

Sorry to wade in on someone else's conversation, another frustrated hardback player here. As the publisher couldn't you demand its reinstatement for this game, or do you not have any leverage on how your game is handled? Isn't it in your interests to have people able to compete and see their progress at your game?

So far as I can tell BGA have changed coop ELO because of spurious reasons that seem to focus on a perceived issue in just a few games. They have then blanket applied it to games that weren't affected. Hardback had a small community of nice friendly players, and I've not seen anyone abusing the coop mode in hardback to accrue ELO. Personally I've never seen anyone play / set up a coop game other than for solo mode. I have enjoyed my hardback journey and am very disappointed I can't now ever progress to a higher tier. I have hardly played it against other people since these ELO changes were brought in. There is no incentive for me to try and get to a new tier ( i was >300 ELO and looking forward to seeing if I could get the expert (500) badge. Since that has been removed i just play solo now. I have noticed fewer new players in the available tables lists too when I've been in the lobbies.

If BGA are so worried about people boosting ELO via coop mode can we just have hardback coop and hardback competitive listed as two separate games? Problem solved. Code can be the same for both, no extra work for anyone, just the game options are locked on the two versions. Current ELO gets preserved onto the competitive version (since by BGA's reasoning coop version can't possibly need it).

Anyhoo it's nice to know that even the game publishers aren't happy about the change either. Is there anyone other than a set of BGA employees who do like the change?

Applause for Quietmint btw, they're a great dev.

[Mr_Magic]

Quitting a 4p Agricola game near the end of 2 hours is a very different thing and should not be so easily offset by playing 2p Can't Stop for a couple of minutes to get your rep back.

They should make it so if someone quits a multiplayer game, they are replaced by an AI who makes random moves.

I'm pretty sure this happens already

[KenFin1]

Quitting a 4p Agricola game near the end of 2 hours is a very different thing and should not be so easily offset by playing 2p Can't Stop for a couple of minutes to get your rep back.

They should make it so if someone quits a multiplayer game, they are replaced by an AI who makes random moves.

I'm pretty sure this happens already

no it doesn't and it's not straightforward to implement. I'm glad they don't bother with this tbh, annoying though it is when it happens.

[Zozoken]

Quitting a 4p Agricola game near the end of 2 hours is a very different thing and should not be so easily offset by playing 2p Can't Stop for a couple of minutes to get your rep back.

They should make it so if someone quits a multiplayer game, they are replaced by an AI who makes random moves.

I'm pretty sure this happens already

If someone quits in the middle of a multiplayer game, the other players can leave without elo penalty or continue to play it out. If the players continue playing, the turns of the players no longer in the game are automatically skipped. Whether or not players stay, the end result will be the quitter comes in last place and everyone else ties for first.

[KenFin1]

They should make it so if someone quits a multiplayer game, they are replaced by an AI who makes random moves.

I'm pretty sure this happens already

If someone quits in the middle of a multiplayer game, the other players can leave without elo penalty or continue to play it out. If the players continue playing, the turns of the players no longer in the game are automatically skipped. Whether or not players stay, the end result will be the quitter comes in last place and everyone else ties for first.

This is correct, but not all games allow you to continue. Some fall over and demand you abort. Others auto skip / auto concede each round until the game ends.

[TricksyFox]

Sorry to wade in on someone else's conversation, another frustrated hardback player here. As the publisher couldn't you demand its reinstatement for this game, or do you not have any leverage on how your game is handled? Isn't it in your interests to have people able to compete and see their progress at your game?

You're always welcome to reply when I post in a public forum haha.

I haven't actually read the terms of the licensing agreement (I'm still pretty new), but at the end of the day I imagine "demands" would be backed with "do this or we'll pull the game", and while I haven't talked about it with Tim, I'm erring on the side of at least letting people still have access. So yeah. I can't say for sure, but my impression is that the real leverage we have would make the players suffer if we were to use it, whereas BGA probably wouldn't care all that much in the grand scheme of things.

I have hardly played it against other people since these ELO changes were brought in.

The data I have access to doesn't go back far enough for me to know for sure, but I suspect you're right and that this is an overall trend. I'm a little annoyed that I can't get data to show it one way or another though.

If BGA are so worried about people boosting ELO via coop mode can we just have hardback coop and hardback competitive listed as two separate games?

Hmm. This could be a possibility. If there's enough interest in that I could run it by Tim (and probably quietmint, bc let's be real it would be a quietmint project to do), but there's a possibility that would mean the loss of progress so far. Or some other side effects I'm not anticipating. I'll ponder it, though.

Anyhoo it's nice to know that even the game publishers aren't happy about the change either.

Yeah, I've been trying very hard to keep my personal annoyances with the changes separate from my professional opinions, but I did want to confirm that the impacts here (especially on Hardback) are on my radar, but that there isn't an easy fix on my part.

Applause for Quietmint btw, they're a great dev.

100000000% Truly an all-star.

[h_illes]

Hi! So I'm the community manager for Fowers Games. I talked a bit about this with quietmint, who did the BGA adaptation. Apparently BGA fundamentally doesn't support a game that can be competitive OR co-op, so it treats it as co-op. Which is annoying, but there's not much we can do about it.

Thank you for going the extra mile. You're awesome!

Yeah, I've been trying very hard to keep my personal annoyances with the changes separate from my professional opinions, but I did want to confirm that the impacts here (especially on Hardback) are on my radar, but that there isn't an easy fix on my part.

I get what you mean, but it's also kinda dangerous. Separating emotions from professional opinions can easily lead to a lack of empathy, and this mindset has served as an excuse for a lot of bad things in history. (Now I understand this is just a board game we're talking about, and it's not entirely your judgment call to make either, so take this just as a side remark, something to be conscious about.)