🌿ELO System Updates

[TricksyFox]

We haven't heard much since then sadly.

FWIW, I'm still around and keeping an eye on things, but don't have very much to offer that hasn't been said before.
We have some fun non-BGA related Hardback news coming up next month though, so you know... keep an eye out for that.

[Ceaseless]

Why shouldn't his post get answered by BGA? They asked for feedback and said they would monitor the thread. So it's the appropriate place to ask the question. I don't get why you're defending BGA tbh but each to their own.

Good to see you now agree it was nothing to do with cheating. It's amazing what a bit of reading can reveal isn't it!

Personally, I have no idea if it's nothing to do with cheating. I just know it having a cooperative mode is a sufficient cause for rating functions to have been affected at this time even if cheating had not been involved. I also know that cheating, as noted in places like https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22542 already were shooting down things in Arena, etc. I don't follow Hardback, so I don't know the extent it was hit, if non-Arena rated games could have gone next. The current complaints from players about Hardback led me to assume that rated play outside Arena was previously unaffected, but that was nothing more than an assumption on my end, combined with not seeing a direct reference to non-Arena ratings getting hit there yet. Even if cheating concerns didn't lead to the elo issues presently in place though, it may end up being a reason BGA doesn't bother to give Hardback a way out if they do end up looking into it.

As for why BGA shouldn't answer the post, that's not the issue I'm raising. It's not that I think they shouldn't, I think it would be nifty if they did answer it, I just wouldn't hold your breath. This is a massive thread already bloated with posts and questions, and this Hardback concern doesn't stand out among them.

[ErikLevin]

This confusion perhaps highlights the unhelpful language used by BGA. There were lots of questions earlier in the thread as to what was a "ranked game". Is that a scoring game (as opposed to a friendly game) or an arena game etc. Similarly here I took competitive to mean ELO could change hands because you're playing someone else. The game options in the simple (non arena) mode menus use this description where you choose between "cooperative" and "competitive" game modes. It's BGA's own language. Clearly they do not intend competitive to just mean ARENA games, but elsewhere they say that people should use Arena for competitive ranking of players so i can see why there might be misinterpretation.

Ah right, Hardback uses the word "Competitive" in a setting. You're right that's a bit confusing, since BGA uses "competitive modes" to refer to Arena and tournaments and (in the FAQ, and in the OP in this thread) the term "non-competitive game" to mean a BGA board game for which Arena and Tournaments are disabled, and (now), exact Elo hidden. Perhaps it would be better if the setting in the Hardback implementation was renamed to "Standard", or something like that.

Anyway. With "non-competitive game" I meant the BGA term. Board game implementations that have disabled Arena mode and Tournaments.

Nope. Hardback was removed from ARENA but standard games between players were still ELO scoring and are described as competitive games in the settings menu. The removal of ELO scoring only changed with this latest ELO nonsense. SFAIK that is what people want reinstating.

Yes, so what I'm saying is, this happened for all non-competitive games, like all the other spelling games, Turing Machine, Chess. That's not unique to Hardback. As admin said:

→ Cooperative play and non competitive game
For cooperative games such as Hanabi, The Crew, or Just One, competition is already disabled. However, some players were too focused on the ELO, which led to unnecessary competitiveness in an environment which should instead incentivize cooperation.
For such games, we decided to hide the ELO value of each player and only display their current rank, from Beginner to Master.
This rank is based on existing win / loss games from the underlying ELO system. This way, you will not lose your rank with this change. For some games where chapters or scenarios are played, the more successful chapter will get you to the next rank faster, but you will not know how far from the next rank you could be at a given time.
This also applies to games where competition is disabled such as Chess.

But of course it's a valid opinion to have that they should revert this and show Elo scores again for those games.

[ChiefPointThief]

*

And mod edit incoming soon...

Please don't dilute and distract from an important subject with irrelevant posts that are both off topic and in breach of forum rules. If you think a player is cheating report it using the report player function. Public calling out on the forum is not permitted and this has no relevance to this thread.

Even though this person just wanted to expose someone it is relevant to the thread. According to bga these changes were made to stop people from rising through the ranks using multiple accounts. The accused received all of their arena points because power leveling doesn't affect arena (arena is the reason for a lot of cheating) and they still received all the elo from the other players in these games. As well as partial elo from the accused secondary account.

I love the way people ask BGA direct questions, ones that are easy to answer, and they just ignore them entirely. It makes me feel so valued and appreciated as a customer.

I don't think we should try and propose alternatives. I'm not interested in a half baked compromise. The alternative is just put it back how it was. That is the outcome we want. Everything else is unecessary. Particularly if "ELO doesn't matter, it's just about having fun".

Yup! The consecutive loss thing is terrible also.

[LesserJester]

I can't speak for what Lesserjester was asking for, but they were asking for their 100 ELO award so I'd be surprised if they were playing it when arena was an option. I presume therefore they also want ELO scoring back as opposed to anything else.

I didn't know hardback ever had an arena option. I just want to score ELO in normal games I play against other people and get my corresponding awards. I currently have a page showing me this symbol but I've not actually been awarded it. That seems contrary to me.

We haven't heard much since then sadly.

FWIW, I'm still around and keeping an eye on things, but don't have very much to offer that hasn't been said before.
We have some fun non-BGA related Hardback news coming up next month though, so you know... keep an eye out for that.

Hi again. I might understand now why you were getting confused in our chat. I didn't realise people mean different things by competitive mode. I just mean the mode/option/user choice that I use in the game settings. Given all games can turn ELO off for friendly matches and have ELO on for head-head matches why can't this be the case for hardback's menu too? That is what I keep asking BGA to answer. It seems a really simple thing to fix.

[anykidrated]

This ws penalty is annoying

Without it, my winning storm would be enough to hit 500 in vidrasso by now

But I would be hitting too many 0%ers

I have to put those kids on ice for a bit before another squeeze but it would only squeeze like 5-10 more rate a month

[ChiefPointThief]

→ Team play
It is obviously unfair for games that play with teammates to have different ELO wins/losses within the same team. From now on, when playing games such as Belote, Decrypto, Tichu etc, you will not gain/lose ELO from the other players within your team.
Not all games that can be played as a team are currently under consideration, as some of them are not exclusively designed for team play. These require individual consideration and additional dedicated work.

Are the team games that didn't receive the update ever going to be considered?

[Ceaseless]

I can see why moderators might like the updates and consider them a success for trying to reduce their need to do things about cheaters, though I do think there are several issues for regular players that would be very nice to deal with. Regarding the consecutive wins issue, a few ideas for potential adjustments.

- Having the consecutive wins penalty only apply to games between players with over x rating gap (x being something like 150 rating).
- Having consecutive wins reset after y number of rated games with other players in that game (y might be something like 50 games)
- Having consecutive wins not start counting down right after the second win, maybe slide things over a few games

These are all individual ideas, they don't have to be clumped together. But these sorts of changes would be more likely to reduce issues with reasonable accounts with little change for the kinds of boosters the initial modifications were meant to affect as far as I can tell.

[TricksyFox]

It seems a really simple thing to fix.

You would think! I wish I had more answers.

[KenFin1]

I thought consecutive win reduction came in starting on the 3rd win but looks like it now starts on the first consecutive win ie the 2nd match. Not sure if that's a change or i just misunderstood it to begin with but i'm amazed you can't even have a single rematch without getting a penalty? All this does is make me want to decline rematch offers and I imagine I'm not alone on this. Well done BGA. Your unecessary change is discouraging interaction.