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No luck at BGA?
Posted: 22 December 2020, 20:24
by ElGera
I am concerned about this:
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/postin ... 35&p=66891
Jest Phulin wrote: ↑04 September 2020, 02:47
Tisaac wrote: ↑03 September 2020, 16:29
CaractacusPots wrote: ↑03 September 2020, 15:09
Hi
Thanks for that. Explains a lot. So yet more ways for the site to level everyone !
?? What do you mean ??
ELO calculation is the same as in chess yet chess players ELO are in no ways leveled.
CaractacusPots has posted many times in the Backgammon forums that BGA, since it relies on memberships for its funding, must be manipulating dice rolls to ensure that new players win more often than experienced players. Thus, leveling the wins.
I have no idea how using the worldwide standard method of ranking chess players is another way to level people, though.
Is this true?
Re: No luck at BGA?
Posted: 22 December 2020, 20:37
by dschingis27
Well, you could have a look into the F.A.Q. on this topic and maybe trust them a little more than the statement of some random forum user.
Re: No luck at BGA?
Posted: 22 December 2020, 20:38
by Tisaac
Not any strong evidence for that have been shown.
Re: No luck at BGA?
Posted: 22 December 2020, 20:52
by Jest Phulin
The discussions that started it were in the backgammon forums, where it is common for people to claim that the dice are somehow rigged against them. This discussion also happens in the Can't Stop and Yahtzee forums. (But not in many other games where randomness has a large influence on the outcome of the game.)
In every case where people have claimed that the randomness on BGA is not actually random, there has been no statistical analysis that can demonstrate this. Considering that every game is available for replay, and that something like "my opponent always gets more doubles than me" can be easily verified, the lack of one of the claimants being able to prove a discrepancy indicates randomness is working.
Then, too, consider Occam's Razor, the principle that, in absence of other evidence, the simplest explanation is the preferred one:
Case 1) Randomness happens, and humans are very bad at intuitively understanding random events.
Case 2) The volunteer programmer, who is receiving nothing from BGA*, wrote an AI to play a game and determine what the best/worst possible die throw for a particular player would be. They then accessed the player history (which according to comments from other developers is impossible within the framework of a game [cue conspiracy music here, though...]) and determined who should win based on their recent performance and if they were already a premium member or not. Then, create the die roll in such a way that an analysis of randomness will not quickly flag the discrepancy.
*OK, they may be receiving a premium membership for a year, valued at less than 1 hour of computer programming consulting time.
I'm going with Case 1 on this one.
Re: No luck at BGA?
Posted: 22 December 2020, 22:14
by Giordano Bruno 1974
ElGera wrote: ↑22 December 2020, 20:24
I am concerned about this:
https://boardgamearena.com/forum/postin ... 35&p=66891
Jest Phulin wrote: ↑04 September 2020, 02:47
Tisaac wrote: ↑03 September 2020, 16:29
?? What do you mean ??
ELO calculation is the same as in chess yet chess players ELO are in no ways leveled.
CaractacusPots has posted many times in the Backgammon forums that BGA, since it relies on memberships for its funding, must be manipulating dice rolls to ensure that new players win more often than experienced players. Thus, leveling the wins.
I have no idea how using the worldwide standard method of ranking chess players is another way to level people, though.
Is this true?
It's utter nonsense.
It's worth bearing in mind that CaractacusPots believes that all online backgammon games are rigged not just here but other websites. He also claims that dice algorythms in apps are rigged as well. But he assures us that he is a very strong player with normal dice.
Backgammon is a game that can be analysed by computers. Analysis of his games by genuinely strong players using computer technology show that he is just not that good. Nowhere near as good as he believes himself to be, particularly towards the end of the game. Blaming the dice is what he does rather than accept that there are some areas of his game that he needs to work on.
He's not alone. Many others think the same but as has already been pointed out these complaints are almost always made by backgammon, yahtzee and climb the rope players. These games have a huge element of luck and even the best players cannot win consistantly. That's not to say that there is no skill in the games (backgammon looks rather complicated to play properly) but even the best players will only win about 60% of the time and may lose to some very average players.
People who play other games don't have this opinion. Nor do people who are very good at backgammon.
Re: No luck at BGA?
Posted: 22 December 2020, 23:32
by Jest Phulin
By the way, regardless of the views expressed about die rolling, there was also the mention in those threads that player ranking was being manipulated to sell more memberships. The theory was something along the lines of people won't play and won't support the website if they aren't advancing in the rankings when ranked low. He claimed the use of ELO for ranking facilitated this. Hence my comment of "I have no idea how using the worldwide standard method of ranking chess players is another way to level people, though."
Re: No luck at BGA?
Posted: 23 December 2020, 01:22
by Meeplelowda
Jest Phulin wrote: ↑22 December 2020, 20:52
The discussions that started it were in the backgammon forums, where it is common for people to claim that the dice are somehow rigged against them. This discussion also happens in the Can't Stop and Yahtzee forums. (But not in many other games where randomness has a large influence on the outcome of the game.)
In
every case where people have claimed that the randomness on BGA is not actually random, there has been no statistical analysis that can demonstrate this. Considering that every game is available for replay, and that something like "my opponent always gets more doubles than me" can be easily verified, the lack of one of the claimants being able to prove a discrepancy indicates randomness is working.
Then, too, consider Occam's Razor, the principle that, in absence of other evidence, the simplest explanation is the preferred one:
Case 1) Randomness happens, and humans are very bad at intuitively understanding random events.
Case 2) The volunteer programmer, who is receiving nothing from BGA*, wrote an AI to play a game and determine what the best/worst possible die throw for a particular player would be. They then accessed the player history (which according to comments from other developers is impossible within the framework of a game [cue conspiracy music here, though...]) and determined who should win based on their recent performance and if they were already a premium member or not. Then, create the die roll in such a way that an analysis of randomness will not quickly flag the discrepancy.
*OK, they may be receiving a premium membership for a year, valued at less than 1 hour of computer programming consulting time.
I'm going with Case 1 on this one.
This riggy discussion happens in practically every forum dedicated to online poker as well. Pretty much, people are ok with variance that goes their way (and probably attribute it to their prowess and skill at the game), but variance that goes against them is blamed on nefarious rigging by the site operator. Because such charges are repeatedly made and never backed up with a statistically significant sample of data, one such forum empowers its moderators to sequester all these discussions into one megathread where people can rant their conspiracy theories to their heart's content without infecting the rest of the forum. Perhap BGA can consider a riggy quarantine as well.
Re: No luck at BGA?
Posted: 24 December 2020, 15:39
by ElGera
Thanks very much for the comments!
I am new to the page. I thought CaractacusPots was a developer on BGA.
I glad to hear that luck works as it should. It would be pathetic to do a tunned like that, that would actually expel the veterans loyal to the BGA page.
Continue enjoying BGA!
Re: No luck at BGA?
Posted: 24 December 2020, 17:09
by Speusippus
"must be manipulating" means something different from "must manipulate." The quote isn't saying "bga has to manipulate die rolls," it's saying "I conclude that bga is probably manipulating die rolls."
Re: No luck at BGA?
Posted: 25 December 2020, 02:20
by ufm
I see this topic in every gaming site using playing cards/tiles or dice, literally.
Yet another baseless conspiracy theory. Didn't BGA already reveal own randomizer algorithm?