It is fairly clear that the ranking system is quite unstable for games with players greater than 2. I would like to suggest (for discussion) two changes:
- Players do not impact rankings in multi-player games initially. So until a player has played X games, and the system has a reasonable benchmark for how good they are their pair-wise performance against opponents just does not impact that opponent. This is especially important for situations where a strong player starts on a new game.
- Once a players current rating is established the rating that is displayed and used be a rolling average (probably of their rating after the last n games, where n is the square root of the total number of games played). This would stop a players ranking fluctuating wildly *while* they are playing a game. In one tournament game I started two days ago myself and the opponent had the same Elo when we started but mine dropped 50 points in that time, thus having a huge effect on my opponent. The same thing happens with turn based games restricted by players ratings - by the end of the game it is almost guaranteed that several players are not in the original restriction bracket.
That would allow players ratings to be much more stable, while still allowing new players to rapidly approach an approximation of their actual ability.
- Players do not impact rankings in multi-player games initially. So until a player has played X games, and the system has a reasonable benchmark for how good they are their pair-wise performance against opponents just does not impact that opponent. This is especially important for situations where a strong player starts on a new game.
- Once a players current rating is established the rating that is displayed and used be a rolling average (probably of their rating after the last n games, where n is the square root of the total number of games played). This would stop a players ranking fluctuating wildly *while* they are playing a game. In one tournament game I started two days ago myself and the opponent had the same Elo when we started but mine dropped 50 points in that time, thus having a huge effect on my opponent. The same thing happens with turn based games restricted by players ratings - by the end of the game it is almost guaranteed that several players are not in the original restriction bracket.
That would allow players ratings to be much more stable, while still allowing new players to rapidly approach an approximation of their actual ability.