🌿ELO System Updates

[PaulB-UK]

Hoever, the long term consequence of the current version is that strong players who keep playing through win streaks will be punished (their ELO lowered), while weaker players will have their ELO increased

This is probably the point. Make it easier for casual players to gain ELO and they are less likely to give up due to feeling bad. Make playing the same player over and over and strong players will be disincentivised from picking on the weak players for ELO.

[h_illes]

Hoever, the long term consequence of the current version is that strong players who keep playing through win streaks will be punished (their ELO lowered), while weaker players will have their ELO increased

This is probably the point. Make it easier for casual players to gain ELO and they are less likely to give up due to feeling bad. Make playing the same player over and over and strong players will be disincentivised from picking on the weak players for ELO.

This is not what they stated and this is also not how the original ELO formula works. For regular ELO, each player's rating converges to a value reflecting their skill (relative to the field) regardless if they play strong or weak opponents. There is no long-term gain in picking on weak players.

What they stated was that they want to make it harder to cheat by repeatedly playing one single opponent (or a small group) who deliberately lose. This is accomplished by the current version, just with severe side effects for honest players too.

The current version disincentivizes playing opponents against who you have a win streak. For top players, that would mean most of the field. The next best thing is to play against players they haven't played against yet; however, in a limited field, that will eventually mean new (and weak) players as top players will eventually have played against all of the other veterans. So this system actually incentivizes ''picking on the weak'.

Another issue is that for Arena, you have very limited control over who you play against.

[ChiefPointThief]

Are you sure it is actually being applied? As of yesterday it showed the consecutive loss penalty in the calculation but the full penalty was still being taken away from the loser. I was hoping they didn't actually go through with this. This is terrible honestly.

[h_illes]

Are you sure it is actually being applied? As of yesterday it showed the consecutive loss penalty in the calculation but the full penalty was still being taken away from the loser. I was hoping they didn't actually go through with this. This is terrible honestly.

I'm fairly sure. I noticed it about 11 hours ago. Here it is in action for one of my games:
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=500999065

And these are consecutive games for the same pair of players with different winners:
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=501043324
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=501058136

If it was a decreased K factor, for the second game both would receive a -3% modifier. But they don't.

Granted, it's a small sample (and it would be nice to have official confirmation too), but I think it's enough for conclusions.

[zizzeus]

This is probably the point. Make it easier for casual players to gain ELO and they are less likely to give up due to feeling bad. Make playing the same player over and over and strong players will be disincentivised from picking on the weak players for ELO.

Are you sure that's how the psychology works? I think it's just as likely that new players would say something like "Look at all these great players! I'd love to learn from them." or "Wow, everyone who plays here sucks. Their ELO is barely higher than mine!" The social sciences are littered with examples of interventions that had the opposite effect of what was desired. It's a big assumption if that's what they believe.

I'm kinda shocked that BGA's data scientist still has a job. If I made a change like this at work, got 60+ pages of universally negative comments, many of which clearly spelled out how to do my job for me, didn't address any of the complaints in my next update 3 months later, got 20 more pages, and then pushed an update that did not address the issues raised, well, I would never do that and haven't yet met a QA team that would let that kind of work pass regardless.

As many players have mentioned, there's no point in playing competitively on this site right now. I've cancelled my premium until a proper competitive environment exists again, but in the meantime, I will play non-Premium games so good luck recovering those server costs

Just change it back guys. We will forgive you; nobody wants to write messages on this forum topic!

[RazorOz]

Hoever, the long term consequence of the current version is that strong players who keep playing through win streaks will be punished (their ELO lowered), while weaker players will have their ELO increased

This is probably the point. Make it easier for casual players to gain ELO and they are less likely to give up due to feeling bad. Make playing the same player over and over and strong players will be disincentivised from picking on the weak players for ELO.

Does this actually go on? Like people actually hunting out players for ELO, cannot say I've witnessed it, and eg. at Arena you don't even know who you're going to play. The only context I've heard of anything like this is people badge hunting, so you set your settings to beginners only to try and get Banzai and Beserker badge, but you're not going to gain any real ELO benefits from doing that.

Ultimately putting a consecutive loss reducer changes nothing, I agree with everything H_Illes said highlighting the flaws of the system, it's still a total nonsense, rewarding inactivity over actually playing games.

[PaulB-UK]

Without the data, I don't know. Which is more my general point - we don't have the data to know what problems they're actually trying to fix, and if it's working. I imagine the aim is to grow site usage by encouraging casual players to stick around and play more.

Would agree that it doesn't seem very well targeted - it seems particularly odd to suffer a penalty in Arena, when the site is in control of who plays who.

[h_illes]

I'm kinda shocked that BGA's data scientist still has a job. If I made a change like this at work, got 60+ pages of universally negative comments, many of which clearly spelled out how to do my job for me, didn't address any of the complaints in my next update 3 months later, got 20 more pages, and then pushed an update that did not address the issues raised, well, I would never do that and haven't yet met a QA team that would let that kind of work pass regardless.

The most sad part is that even without any data scientist or QA team, they could have made things right just by listening to the players in this very topic. Players were quick to provide analysis detailed enough for decision-making.

[nik592]

I'm kinda shocked that BGA's data scientist still has a job. If I made a change like this at work, got 60+ pages of universally negative comments, many of which clearly spelled out how to do my job for me, didn't address any of the complaints in my next update 3 months later, got 20 more pages, and then pushed an update that did not address the issues raised, well, I would never do that and haven't yet met a QA team that would let that kind of work pass regardless.

To be honest, I am unconvinced that there is a data scientist. The way the responses (from BGA admin) read, and the fact that these changes have been implemented and the consequences they are having, and yet they remain - it all feels more like a working from gut feel kind of thing. Or they're looking at a very narrow field of data - eg. has it stopped people who clearly power level from ending up in high rankings? Possibly it has, but at what cost? Maybe hiding co-op games ELO has resulted in less complaints from the Hanabi community - which could be just as likely due to less people playing than less toxicity due to hidden ELO. Given the wider ranging consequences that have been pointed out, it feels a bit like, "yeah, but we're not looking at that". A few necessary casualties to win the war (against cheats) or something. I mean, that's not what it is - I feel like the cheaters have or will go elsewhere, and honest players suffer and potentially leave. Which is often what happens when strategies to address problem users aren't delicately handled - "oh, I know how we'll stop speeding, we'll limit all cars to the lowest speed limit!" Such a strategy (assuming it was possible) would probably address some, but those who really want to would find ways to get around the limitation, and meanwhile everyone is is just hugely inconvenienced having to drive everywhere super slowly.

At this point I wonder if removing ELO altogether would be not much worse, cause it feels very much like the rating is meaningless and will become moreso as long as this change persists.

[GeoPaladin]

Hoever, the long term consequence of the current version is that strong players who keep playing through win streaks will be punished (their ELO lowered), while weaker players will have their ELO increased

This is probably the point. Make it easier for casual players to gain ELO and they are less likely to give up due to feeling bad. Make playing the same player over and over and strong players will be disincentivised from picking on the weak players for ELO.

Ironically, if I wanted to climb, the best way to do it now is to pick on weak players for elo. There are dozens/hundreds of new players I've never played before worth 1 elo each.

It's the players one can typically beat but who are good enough to win a few that are the worst elo drains. You'll get a winstreak, reap only part of the rewards, then lose it all.