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Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 16:11
by ChiefPointThief
Gooorn wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 15:23
If a player has 90%+ chance to win or lose against someone, they shoudnt play against each other. At least if they want to play for fun not for ELO or rank or thropies.
I prefer play for fun when i have 50% chance to win.
Do you mean an actual 90% chance or using the false probabilities of the current elo system?
Also are you suggesting that players with elo gaps shouldn’t compete against each other in arena and tournaments?
Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 16:32
by MarkSteere
It's not a question of ChatGPT's track record or its veracity. It's a question of "Does its argument make sense?" Is there really any doubt at this point that Elo was designed for pure strategy games like Chess? Or that it's ill suited for luck based games because it overestimates predictability in them?
It makes sense to me. A lot more sense than some of the wild theories posited in this discussion.
I've seen ChatGPT go wrong many times. But sometimes its analysis is spot on, like in this case.
If you want to dismiss ChatGPT out of hand because it "doesn't know anything," or "has been simply wrong," that's your prerogative. In my case, I'm willing to give it a fair shake.
Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 16:36
by Gooorn
I mean when i play for fun i prefer play with similar level players (especially in co-op games). Arena and tournaments is different kind of fun.
Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 16:54
by Andrei3009
ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 16:11
Gooorn wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 15:23
If a player has 90%+ chance to win or lose against someone, they shoudnt play against each other. At least if they want to play for fun not for ELO or rank or thropies.
I prefer play for fun when i have 50% chance to win.
Do you mean an actual 90% chance or using the false probabilities of the current elo system?
Also are you suggesting that players with elo gaps shouldn’t compete against each other in arena and tournaments?
I am not Gooorn, but i usually try to avoid to play players significantly lower than me. It's just not fun to play. Either you easily win or feel very bad after losing, especially when it happens due to you being unlucky rather then him outplaying you.
I my opinion ideall opponent should be rated 100 more that you, but of course it's not possible to do that to all players so playing with +-100 elo difference is OK.
Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 17:05
by FrankJones
MarkSteere wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 07:02
FrankJones wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 06:35
Maybe someone less hostile..
I never said Elo "doesn’t work" in luck based games. What I said was that it doesn't work as well in luck based games as it does in the skill based games it was designed for. And it doesn’t. Not nearly.
It depends what you mean by "consistently." In a luck based game the much lower ranked player might win. In a skill based game they won't.
I'm not trying to be hostile. I enjoy spirited debates, as apparently do you. I thought I was just matching your level of fervor. There's no malice on my part.
I'll take you at your word.
When you say thigs such as "Can you really say with a straight face that you have any clue what you're talking about", that comes across as aggressive and antagonistic and insulting. If that was not your intent, perhaps better word choice might avoid inadvertently conveying the wrong intent.
I do find the discussion interesting.
As for whether Elo works as well in luck-based games as it does in non-luck game, we need the following clarifications:
1) What is a "luck-based game"? This still has not been defined.
2) What would it mean for Elo to "work better" or "work worse" in the context of BGA games?
3) For purposes on BGA, what is the intent of Elo ratings?
Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 17:11
by FrankJones
MarkSteere wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 07:32
tbhp wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 06:55
You seem to be assigning the blame...
Luck based games defy rating systems to a degree because of luck streaks. It's harder to precisely pinpoint a player's skill level.
The only thing I know of that's wrong with Elo in particular, that I learned today from ChatGPT, is that Elo assumes a much tighter distribution of outcomes than actually exists. The real distribution is flatter and effectively capped, so Elo overstates how much rating differences should matter. This introduces systematic inaccuracy.
I don't know why people are struggling with this. It makes perfect sense. The argument doesn't depend on ChatGPT 's credibility, although this is exactly the sort of topic ChatGPT excels at explaining.
The only thing you know that is wrong with Elo is ... something you learned today from chatGPT?
And yet you have openly stated that people in this thread have no clue what they are talking about?
I didn't realize one chatGPT query make someone knowledgeable enough about a topic to deride the knowledge and understanding of others.
On BGA, Elo reflects what actually happened. (With some flaws because of an Elo floor of 100 once a player reaches that level, and because Elo does not decrease while between 0 and 100).
My experience has been the opposite of what you said. In my experience, the higher Elo players generally win against the lower rated players, and the higher the gap, the higher the likelihood of victory for the higher rated player. Do you have any evidence to suggest this is incorrect?
Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 17:16
by FrankJones
ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 09:24
Meeplelowda wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 04:58
FrankJones wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 04:43
How many "high luck" games are there that even have players with a 500 Elo?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say zero. People conflate "high luck" with being non-deterministic, i.e., having random elements as part of the game mechanics. Games that are truly high luck, in the sense that they are really just an elaborate way of flipping a coin, don't have players in the 500s.
Captain flip for one.
I have a 68% win rate. The player above me has a 50% win rate which is a HUGE difference in any game let alone a game with a 4 luck rating. I’ve also maintained this over thousands of games and only play with players good and above (if you see someone lower than it was a game w/ a friend).
As for the whole 90% probability discussion there is a specific arena player that I am calculated to win against at that rate in a game w/ a luck factor of 3. But these win probabilities are off thus resulting in me losing 100pts throughout the arena season to this player even though I beat them 75%. People complain about top players being blocked but for me it is way more beneficial to block a player like this than a top player. After doing numbers I realized how flawed the system is. The system doesn’t gauge who has the best overall season only who finished w/ the best streak. Therefore it is flawed.
The win probabilities are laughable for team games.
Are you sure you're understanding the Elo system? Win% is not relevant. The calculation is based on the Elo difference. If you have a 68% win rate against generally low rated players, your Elo won't be as high as someone who has a 50% win rate against strong players.
If you think there is supposed to be a direct correlation between win% and Elo, then you are not understanding how Elo works.
The "luck factor" listed on this website is meaningless. If you are using that factor in any way, you are misunderstanding something fundamentally important.
If you cannot beat this player more than 75% of the time, then you are not good enough to beat that player 90% of the time, so I'm not sure why you're saying you "should" be winning 90% of the time. When you fail to beat that player 90% of the time, your Elo decreases to reflect that. It means you're not actually a true 400 Elo better than that opponent.
You're also referring to Arena points when you talk about Elo. Arena points and Elo are two different things.
You have a lot of misunderstandings and inaccuracies in this one post.
Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 17:24
by Andrei3009
FrankJones wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 17:05
MarkSteere wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 07:02
FrankJones wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 06:35
Maybe someone less hostile..
I never said Elo "doesn’t work" in luck based games. What I said was that it doesn't work as well in luck based games as it does in the skill based games it was designed for. And it doesn’t. Not nearly.
It depends what you mean by "consistently." In a luck based game the much lower ranked player might win. In a skill based game they won't.
I'm not trying to be hostile. I enjoy spirited debates, as apparently do you. I thought I was just matching your level of fervor. There's no malice on my part.
I'll take you at your word.
When you say thigs such as "Can you really say with a straight face that you have any clue what you're talking about", that comes across as aggressive and antagonistic and insulting. If that was not your intent, perhaps better word choice might avoid inadvertently conveying the wrong intent.
I do find the discussion interesting.
As for whether Elo works as well in luck-based games as it does in non-luck game, we need the following clarifications:
1) What is a "luck-based game"? This still has not been defined.
2) What would it mean for Elo to "work better" or "work worse" in the context of BGA games?
3) For purposes on BGA, what is the intent of Elo ratings?
I will try to answer you questions
2) work better means less deviation from average (true elo) and more probability that given person plays on his/her current level. I think more formalistic definition could be given, but i don't think it's necessary right now.
1) Elo formula was created for games without randomness at all. All other games could be called luck based.
The more luck in game the more players deviate from their average rating. This could be naturally observed by manually checking to players elo(if they are playing frequently enough). In kingdomino for example top player elo fluctuate from 740 and 800, in azul top players fluctuate a lot less.
For me not luck based games are games with at least some 700+ players. In those games i feel in control and never lose to low ranked players.
3) Purpose of elo on most platforms is to give players chance to play with people of the similar level
Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 17:27
by FrankJones
Andrei3009 wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 13:01
I think Frank and Mark are both right.
Elo was really designed for non-random games and works best there. By best, I mean the stability of the rating and the influence of winstreaks. In games with a high degree of randomness and also with a large k factor (arena), people often end up in places significantly above/below their average elo, which may confuse other people a little. When playing with a 700 elo checkers player, you know that his real level (true elo) is close to this value, however, even in such a serious game as conquering Mars, your 700 elo opponent can play much worse than those who are stable on this rating
FrankJones wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 06:35
Can anyone show me evidence of a game in which a player consistently maintains a 550 Elo but cannot consistently beat 150-Elo opponents?
If the true player ratings are 150 and 550, then by definition the stronger player should win ~90% of the time. However, as noted by Mark, in reality, the formula does not work so accurately for large differences in elo, and the weaker player wins much less, up to <1%. So for me, consistently winning with a difference of 400 elo is never or almost never losing. A game where this is not working is 7 wonders duel (base game), where I once lost to a person 355 (140 vs 495) ratings lower and knew that could happen again. This happends in this particular game because there is a strong randomness factor, and sometimes the strongest moves turn out to be the most intuitive, and even a weak player makes them possibly without even understanding why they are strong.
I haven't delved into this issue, but I know that Go uses a Glicko rating that works almost like elo, only without the strong influence of recent games. As far as I understand, it works like this: you take the last N (N is big number possibly containing all persons games) games of a person and assuming that his opponents played for their real rating, you calculate what the most probable ELo rating you should have in order to achieve those results for these N games
Right, but that's my point. The randomness of a high0luck game means that we can never know exactly how closely a player's Elo matches that player's actual skill level.
In the long-run, a player with a true skill level of 550 "should" win 90% of the games against a player with a true level of 150. (This has matched my experience).
But in the short-term, fluctuations are normal, even in games with no luck such as chess. I mean, in chess, a 2000 player can beat a 2400 player, and it could happen a second time.
I think the issue here in this thread is likely this:
Some players go on a winning streak and get to let's say 500 Elo. Then they lose a few games against low-rated players and declare the Elo system flawed.
But that's not a sound conclusion. Maybe the high-rated player was at his or her maximum Elo that could occur after a winning streak or lucky streak. Maybe the low-rated player is better than the rating indicates. We cannot know for sure.
The best way to get a player's true skill level is to look at that player's average Elo over a large sample of games. Otherwise, we would be using our conclusion ("Elo is flawed") in a way that invalid one of the premises of the argument: "I should have won x% of games against this player, but I didn't"). If Elo is flawed and not accurate, then there is no "supposed to win" argument to be made.
In games with high luck (and therefore high variance from game to game), then yes, it takes longer for results to stabilize. But that's true of any statistical analysis. "Small sample size" is a problem in any statistical setting. It's not unique to Elo or BGA or Elo on BGA.
Re: BGA has a serious bully problem
Posted: 04 February 2026, 17:34
by FrankJones
ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 16:11
Gooorn wrote: ↑04 February 2026, 15:23
If a player has 90%+ chance to win or lose against someone, they shoudnt play against each other. At least if they want to play for fun not for ELO or rank or thropies.
I prefer play for fun when i have 50% chance to win.
Do you mean an actual 90% chance or using the false probabilities of the current elo system?
Also are you suggesting that players with elo gaps shouldn’t compete against each other in arena and tournaments?
Depends on what the player is looking for. I prefer to play against players of similar skill level. Though Elo is not perfect in attaining these matchups, it's pretty good, and a lot better than any alternative.