Being able to abandon games

[ExaltedAngel]

You have 160 recorded games played of Hanabi on BGA with an ELO of 458.

So what? Check again, I never said I'm a good Hanabi player. I'm actually pretty mediocre if not bad

22 of those games were abandoned, for a 13.75% abandon rate.

Most of them were at start when I didn't realize I was not ok with accepting abandon requests and/or before I managed to convince my friend I play with that not abandoning is the right thing to do.

Oh, and from my scan of your last 50 or so games you seem to have as many 25 and 26 results as you have 29 and 30.

Yes, that's because I don't abandon games anymore and I'm not very good, as said at start. You are trying to put the whole argument on a skill comparison, which makes no sense since it's not the point of the discussion.

So please explain why anyone should think your opinion on how likely it is that a 1000 ELO has been earned matters even the slightest bit?

Because you are confusing my Hanabi skill, which is mediocre, with my knowledge on rating systems which is way better than that. If u can't even distinguish the difference between the two I'm sorry I have a bad news for you. And it's not about your, unquestioningly higher than mine, Hanabi skill.

But don't think that just because you haven't yet achieved the skill to get to 1000 that it's not possible to do so without cheating.

It might even be possible, I don't know how exactly different player counts (you play a lot of 5P, I mostly played 3P) differ one from another in terms of expected winrate and what is the exact winrate you need to climb to 1k since I don't know the fictitious Elo assigned to the game for all the different variants, but based on what I saw I still remain convinced that the greatest part of people above 1k, if not all, are there because of the abandon feature. And that's not because I'm not able to reach it, I would be offended by your assumption if I cared about your opinion because that implies I'm very stupid. But since I'm not a monkey, I'm able to process more advanced thoughts than that, so I might be slightly wrong on numbers, and I'm open to be proven so with actual data, but the whole concept remains.

By the way, checked your profile: 5 games abandoned in last 50. It's a decent ratio, you clearly are not a serial abandoner and some of them weren't even consensual but due to one of the players leaving. I'm not saying you have intentionally cheated your rank, but your Elo is naturally inflated by the system. Think it this way: those 5 games only would be -50 now. What is your Elo again? 1040? Math is kinda easy. See you in a few months.

[Travis Hall]

I like playing to get a perfect score and I don’t play for elo. I view it as a puzzle (same as w/ reflection but luckily there is a solo mode for that game). I don’t see a problem with people wanting to abandon if they are doing it because the game is lost to them and not for elo purposes. The problem is your opponent may not feel that way. I could simply put “playing for perfect score” in the description box but many ppl join games automatically w/o even looking at the settings.

You should have been using training mode, and you probably still should. I’m not kidding. The real effect of training mode is just to turn off ELO adjustments for the result. Any time you intend to play a game in a manner that is at odds with the official method of evaluating the results, training mode is appropriate. Regarding Hanabi as a puzzle that is either solved for a perfect score or entirely lost is definitely contrary not just to the ELO calculations here on BGA, but also the printed rules that come with the physical game.

I view flams as “cheating” or easy mode if you will. Do you get less elo for playing with flams?

Flamboyants can improve a team’s overall outcomes over time, but this effect is greatly exaggerated. I honestly think that they make the game harder for poorly-skilled players, because those players don’t understand the complexities of the expansion, can’t plan properly to take advantage of the best it can offer, and play sloppily thinking it’s a magic undo button. Of course, players nearer to my level of play do get benefit from it.

However, even when a team uses flamboyants well, the benefit it offers is more than offset by the use of Black Powder. Neither of these expansions are taken into account for ELO calculations (but the use of the multicolour cards is, and different player counts - although it can certainly be argued that the tables don’t accurately reflect relative difficulty; I think 3-player games are especially harsh on ELO adjustments). If you see players using both, they definitely aren’t doing it for ELO gain (and among the best players on BGA, you almost never see anyone play without Black Powder).

To date I’ve played using Flamboyants heavily, but that’s mostly because it cuts down on abandonment arguments. Players who claim to only care about scoring 30 rarely can claim the game is definitely lost until very near the end because there’s some small chance that a retrieval flamboyant will save it, and they usually know they look stupid if they insist on abandoning with two turns to play. (If you aren’t saving a significant amount of time with abandoning, it’s not because you want to jump into a new game and try again, and we all know it.) I may start more games without Flamboyants, once we see what actual effect the recent change has on player behaviour. I like the challenge of playing with very difficult settings - but there’s different types of difficulty. There’s games that just have a very low probability of a win, and there’s games where skill has more effect on the outcome. Flamboyants influence that second factor. I don’t so much care if Flamboyants increase my perfect-score percentage from 65% to 75%, as long as they require me to think better to achieve my outcomes.

[ChiefPointThief]

It could happen, but that depends on what is the difference in rates and difficulty. Same winning rate at lower difficulty would result in lower Elo at equlibrium.

Do you get less elo for playing with flams?

Last time I checked, no, because the "bot" Elo scores were set before flams and black powder existed.

However, even when a team uses flamboyants well, the benefit it offers is more than offset by the use of Black Powder. Neither of these expansions are taken into account for ELO calculations (but the use of the multicolour cards is, and different player counts - although it can certainly be argued that the tables don’t accurately reflect relative difficulty; I think 3-player games are especially harsh on ELO adjustments). If you see players using both, they definitely aren’t doing it for ELO gain (and among the best players on BGA, you almost never see anyone play without Black Powder).

I don’t so much care if Flamboyants increase my perfect-score percentage from 65% to 75%, as long as they require me to think better to achieve my outcomes.

What I am gathering from this is that the current elo system is outdated and inadequate. Black Powder makes the game harder. Flams make it easier and neither are considered in elo calculation. I think it may be larger but even using your rate of 10% success increase with flams it would drastically change 2 peoples outcomes if one plays with them and one plays without.

Based off of what I observe when looking at games in the lobby and the fact that I just looked at the games list I would have to say that you saying players rarely play without black powder is false. I looked at the top 50 games with any of these settings and 35 games has flams only. 12 have both flams and black powder. 3 have black powder only (a good % of these are turn based so you can fact check and it should be fairly close still). I don't know what players you consider "at your level" but a lot of those players from the stats above are masters. I just started playing and know one convention and base seems easy to me. So are these "master" players that I see playing base with flams actually masters or did they just play a lot on a easy setting? Imo more weight should be placed playing w/o flams and w/ black powder.

I don't think changing the concede option fixed elo for this game. I also don't think it will make it less toxic. If players were acting toxic when they could concede w/o penalty how do you think they will act now?

[Travis Hall]

What I am gathering from this is that the current elo system is outdated and inadequate. Black Powder makes the game harder. Flams make it easier and neither are considered in elo calculation. I think it may be larger but even using your rate of 10% success increase with flams it would drastically change 2 peoples outcomes if one plays with them and one plays without.

Based off of what I observe when looking at games in the lobby and the fact that I just looked at the games list I would have to say that you saying players rarely play without black powder is false.

But that’s not what I said. I said among the best players on BGA you rarely see anyone play without Black Powder. I don’t know where you are looking for your list of the “top 50” games, but I assure you that you are not looking at games played by the best.

You could take a look at my history to see the results of a good player. Go back 1000 games, and you’ll only find a tiny number of games without Black Powder. Single digits, I’d expect. Because I only join games without Black Powder (or Avalanche) if I’ve misread the table settings.

I don't know what players you consider "at your level" but a lot of those players from the stats above are masters.

Master is not a high bar. Reaching master rank usually means that the player is ready to start learning advanced techniques.

I just started playing and know one convention and base seems easy to me.

You have abandoned 35% of your games (156 of them, but a few unrated) playing exclusively 2-player, and even that has taken you only to a rating of 142. Come on.

So are these "master" players that I see playing base with flams actually masters or did they just play a lot on a easy setting?

A player won’t reach master on the strength of just playing with Flamboyants. You are drastically overstating the benefit of playing with Flamboyants. (Besides which, below expert I suspect players get worse results with Flamboyants, not better.)

You get a few players who have managed to boost themselves up to 800 or so without really knowing how to play well. They do it by playing 2-player, quickly abandoning any game that goes wrong, and often by repeatedly partnering with players with very low ELO so that the games they don’t abandon give them much bigger ELO gains. Flamboyants are pretty much irrelevant to the pattern. It should be familiar to you, though. It’s especially bad when one of these players gets it into their heads to try playing with 4 or 5 players.

If players were acting toxic when they could concede w/o penalty how do you think they will act now?

Since so many were mostly acting toxic towards players who wouldn’t let them concede without penalty, I think behaviour overall will improve.

[ChiefPointThief]

I don't know what players you consider "at your level" but a lot of those players from the stats above are masters.

Master is not a high bar. Reaching master rank usually means that the player is ready to start learning advanced techniques.

What does the word master mean? Saying master isn't a high bar validates my point.

Based off of what I observe when looking at games in the lobby and the fact that I just looked at the games list I would have to say that you saying players rarely play without black powder is false.

But that’s not what I said. I said among the best players on BGA you rarely see anyone play without Black Powder. I don’t know where you are looking for your list of the “top 50” games, but I assure you that you are not looking at games played by the best.

So are these "master" players that I see playing base with flams actually masters or did they just play a lot on a easy setting?

A player won’t reach master on the strength of just playing with Flamboyants. You are drastically overstating the benefit of playing with Flamboyants. (Besides which, below expert I suspect players get worse results with Flamboyants, not better.)

Who do you consider the "best" players and why does that even matter? Players that you don't deem the best are still benefiting off of a faulty system. By your own admission playing with flams gives you an advantage. Your words so I am not drastically overstating. If two players play 100 games and one player wins only 65 due to not playing w/ flams and the other wins 75 that is 10 games in which one player receives +10 elo and the other receives -10 elo for those games. That is drastic overtime.

There is a master game list. If you go to hanabi's game list you can see every game being played right now. That is where I got my numbers from. On that list you will see experts and masters playing with flams only. Meaning these players have an advantage over players who are playing without flams and players who play with black powder but their games are both being ranked evenly even though the difficulty level of their games aren't equal.

Conclusion: the current elo system doesn't adequately gage a players skill because it doesn't account for settings such as flams and black powder.

[ufm]

From my perspective, artificial ELO system itself is faulty as bot rating for every possible score and setting combination must be manually addressed.
This causes some unfair advantages/disadvantages as above (no flamboyant / black powder ELO adjustment) and bugs (ending games with scores where bot ratings for negative score are not set makes BGA framework to fail to calculate ELO changes, thus locking players in the game).

[Travis Hall]

What does the word master mean? Saying master isn't a high bar validates my point.

A master is simply a player with a rating of over 700. My peers would generally be over 850, but that condition is necessary but not sufficient, largely because of the number of players who have used illegitimate techniques to artificially boost their ratings.

While master isn't a high bar by my standards, your game history shows it is obviously far beyond your current capabilities. And that's the point of it. It lets us exclude the people who aren't even close yet.

Who do you consider the "best" players and why does that even matter? Players that you don't deem the best are still benefiting off of a faulty system. By your own admission playing with flams gives you an advantage. Your words so I am not drastically overstating. If two players play 100 games and one player wins only 65 due to not playing w/ flams and the other wins 75 that is 10 games in which one player receives +10 elo and the other receives -10 elo for those games. That is drastic overtime.

You only get +10 ELO for a win because your games have a low average ELO (in turn because you have an abysmal ELO). I never get +10. If I play a 4-player game with partners of a similar ELO to myself and score 30, I get something in the region of +0.5 ELO. If we score 29, we our ratings decrease. It's a bigger gain if we play 5-player, but it's still something like +3; nowhere near +10. And Flamboyants aren't generally turning 0 scores into 30s, even in games they rescue; they are usually turning 29 scores into 30, so the losses are smaller than you say.

The way the calculations grant different ELO adjustments based on the existing ratings of the players mean that players scores tend to reach an equilibrium (provided the player does not actually improve their play). Adjustments in the direction of your personal equilibrium are greater.

And I doubt that 10% of games played by players with (legitimate) ratings over 900 are converted to perfect scores by Flamboyants. I didn't say that's the effect on my games; just that it if were, it wouldn't bother me (alongside the requirement to play with more skill to achieve the improved results).

I'd say that the advantage granted to highly skilled players by Flamboyants is probably less than the advantage gained by playing 4-player rather than 5-player. I'd estimate that it's worth something like 20 to 30 ELO points. Maybe 50 at the outside, but I doubt that. Maybe even lower. So yes, you are drastically overstating the benefit.

Now, ChiefPointThief, your rating has been boosted to 142 by abandoning over a third of your games (56 abandonments out of 157 games, not counting 2 in training mode). My rating is currently 961. The difference of 819 is not the result of playing with Flamboyants.

There is a master game list. If you go to hanabi's game list you can see every game being played right now. That is where I got my numbers from. On that list you will see experts and masters playing with flams only.

So, an unfiltered list of games in progress at the time you looked. Not even an attempt to find games played by top players. And I'll remind why you were looking at those games: to check my statement concerning the consistent use of Black Powder (not Flamboyants) by top players.

Conclusion: the current elo system doesn't adequately gage a players skill because it doesn't account for settings such as flams and black powder.

No. The system is certainly an accurate enough gauge of skill to allow skilled players to restrict access to their games to other skilled players. It is adequate for its purpose. We can afford some fuzziness around whether players within a few points of 700 or 500 can join our games, and the system still allows us to exclude you.

It is imperfect, but imperfect is not the same as inadequate. Nobody has claimed that the ELO system we currently have for Hanabi is perfect, and I think we would all like to see the tables used for the calculations to be expanded and updated to take into account Flamboyants and Black Powder. But even that is a lesser priority than the change recently implemented, because players like you who have been using abandonment to boost ratings have produced much larger distortions.

[ChiefPointThief]

What does the word master mean? Saying master isn't a high bar validates my point.

A master is simply a player with a rating of over 700. My peers would generally be over 850, but that condition is necessary but not sufficient, largely because of the number of players who have used illegitimate techniques to artificially boost their ratings.

While master isn't a high bar by my standards, your game history shows it is obviously far beyond your current capabilities. And that's the point of it. It lets us exclude the people who aren't even close yet.

Who do you consider the "best" players and why does that even matter? Players that you don't deem the best are still benefiting off of a faulty system. By your own admission playing with flams gives you an advantage. Your words so I am not drastically overstating. If two players play 100 games and one player wins only 65 due to not playing w/ flams and the other wins 75 that is 10 games in which one player receives +10 elo and the other receives -10 elo for those games. That is drastic overtime.

You only get +10 ELO for a win because your games have a low average ELO (in turn because you have an abysmal ELO). I never get +10. If I play a 4-player game with partners of a similar ELO to myself and score 30, I get something in the region of +0.5 ELO. If we score 29, we our ratings decrease. It's a bigger gain if we play 5-player, but it's still something like +3; nowhere near +10. And Flamboyants aren't generally turning 0 scores into 30s, even in games they rescue; they are usually turning 29 scores into 30, so the losses are smaller than you say.

The way the calculations grant different ELO adjustments based on the existing ratings of the players mean that players scores tend to reach an equilibrium (provided the player does not actually improve their play). Adjustments in the direction of your personal equilibrium are greater.

And I doubt that 10% of games played by players with (legitimate) ratings over 900 are converted to perfect scores by Flamboyants. I didn't say that's the effect on my games; just that it if were, it wouldn't bother me (alongside the requirement to play with more skill to achieve the improved results).

I'd say that the advantage granted to highly skilled players by Flamboyants is probably less than the advantage gained by playing 4-player rather than 5-player. I'd estimate that it's worth something like 20 to 30 ELO points. Maybe 50 at the outside, but I doubt that. Maybe even lower. So yes, you are drastically overstating the benefit.

Now, ChiefPointThief, your rating has been boosted to 142 by abandoning over a third of your games (56 abandonments out of 157 games, not counting 2 in training mode). My rating is currently 961. The difference of 819 is not the result of playing with Flamboyants.

There is a master game list. If you go to hanabi's game list you can see every game being played right now. That is where I got my numbers from. On that list you will see experts and masters playing with flams only.

So, an unfiltered list of games in progress at the time you looked. Not even an attempt to find games played by top players. And I'll remind why you were looking at those games: to check my statement concerning the consistent use of Black Powder (not Flamboyants) by top players.

Conclusion: the current elo system doesn't adequately gage a players skill because it doesn't account for settings such as flams and black powder.

No. The system is certainly an accurate enough gauge of skill to allow skilled players to restrict access to their games to other skilled players. It is adequate for its purpose. We can afford some fuzziness around whether players within a few points of 700 or 500 can join our games, and the system still allows us to exclude you.

It is imperfect, but imperfect is not the same as inadequate. Nobody has claimed that the ELO system we currently have for Hanabi is perfect, and I think we would all like to see the tables used for the calculations to be expanded and updated to take into account Flamboyants and Black Powder. But even that is a lesser priority than the change recently implemented, because players like you who have been using abandonment to boost ratings have produced much larger distortions.

Woah! A lot of hostility coming from your direction. What's the matter little flammy flam? Did me stating the undeniable fact that flams make the game easier and black powder makes it more difficult really hurt your ego that much? Don't worry the number 900 next to hanabi in your profile still makes you very very special I'm not even responding to most of this because it is just ridiculous and you appear to be a person who just likes to talk to talk.

The difference in our elo isn't just flams. Did you forget to account the fact that you played 5400 more games than me? I said I was a beginner in my 2nd post. Never did I procalim to be some hanabi mastermind. The fact that I abandoned games with under 100 elo should tell you that I don't care about elo. You can't go backwards under 100. Such a puzzling post from you.

[Travis Hall]

Woah! A lot of hostility coming from your direction.

No. Just an accurate analysis of the facts.

Don't worry the number 900 next to hanabi in your profile still makes you very very special

No, it doesn’t. It’s not a status symbol. It has a purpose, which I keep pointing out.

The difference in our elo isn't just flams. Did you forget to account the fact that you played 5400 more games than me?

5400 games makes very little difference to the ELO calculations. Under normal play conditions (not attempts to illegitimately boost rating) ratings will settle close to a player’s equilibrium within a few hundred games, at the outside. I already pointed out that equilibrium effect.

The bulk of the difference is due to skill.

I said I was a beginner in my 2nd post. Never did I procalim to be some hanabi mastermind. The fact that I abandoned games with under 100 elo should tell you that I don't care about elo. You can't go backwards under 100. Such a puzzling post from you.

You’re still not getting it. If you had read my posts more thoroughly before responding, you’d have noted the pattern I pointed out concerning the common method to boost ratings: play many 2-player games with partners with very low ratings, and abandon those games that go badly.

You aren’t the one getting a greatly inflated rating out if this. (I think your rating would increase just by playing games to completion with a wide range of partners - allowing the system to act as designed. But not enough to join the tables I typically open.) You’re just a point source for those who do illegitimately boost their ratings. You serve as that very well when your rating is below 100.

Or you have been that. Now you won’t be, so much. Some of those partners will have their ratings drop below 700, thanks to the change, and I’ll be able to filter them out of my games.

[arisanana]

I read the first page of this post and I'm not about to read through the rest of the 8 pages left, but I came to follow up on this because apparently I can't find a thread that talks about the new settings/UI, even in regards to at least Hanabi:

You know what I would really like to see for a cooperative game like Hanabi, though? To have a “concede” option that will just end the game with the current score, and apply appropriate ELO calculations based on that score.

Either of these two solutions fixes the problem overnight:
1. Disallow abandons on cooperative games. Players must use Quit to leave, normal penalty for the quitter applies.
2. Allow abandon with full penalty in case of unanimous vote. As others have echoed I'd gladly use this in cases of true emergency.

We've been complaining about this for years, curating your personal red thumb list by trial and error and joining the no abandon group are the only workarounds.

A few months since the first quote, and I got so tired of the way someone was just.....wasting hints (2P, I'd have 5 saves but there'd be no clues left on my turn unless they discarded, yet they kept hinting a new save....like....OK, I get it, I have a full hand, now what do you want me to do when I know all of these are indisputably saves and there are no tokens left for me to clue? We lost over 5 uniques by then)—but anyways, I made a comment in chat, not to abandon just asking them to just leave the card to be discarded next time, and they instantly said "restart", no question mark. OK, fine, I generally don't abandon but if the other person wants it and I have no **** left to give, I'll let it through. This time, I decided to act faster and did the proposing, but the menu didn't have the word abandon, so I randomly hit the concede (which as you may recall, up til now has just registered an error that you can't concede on coop games or something). Before I could register the fact that the concede button worked and said "Would you like to concede?", the other person accepted and the game ended, and we instantly got -10 ELO. I guess something finally happened somewhere? Not that there's been any announcement I can find to blast it anywhere...

I would rarely be inclined to use it, but it would be nice to have. And would cut the legs out from under the “I don’t care about ELO, but I’m not enjoying this game” crowd; they would have to demonstrate that by suggesting concede rather than abandon.

On a tangent to this, the next person that wanted to abandon after that requested an abandon with some chat related things because of the endgame that guaranteed <30 score, and I had a reason to say "are you sure you want to concede to 'avoid ELO loss' but actually lose -10 points or finish the game and see how many less points we lose?" Not that it makes them any less ruder though....

(Bonus: it would improve the experience for competitive team games too. If everyone on one team wants to concede, mark it up as a loss for that team and a win for the other, immediately.)

Don't know if the changes apply to other coop games though, Hanabi is the only one I've been playing lately.