Board Game Arena

I'll be the first to admit I don't have a clue how the ELO points calculation works, but how can you get 0 points for a win?

My rating was 368 and theirs was 262. Surely that's got to be worth something, even if it's only 1 or 2?

Fluxx game #611586084.

Your opponent was a strong player, normally you would gain approx. 10 Elo points for a win. But you had a longer win streak against him (you seem to be the better player according to ELO) and you won at least 7 consecutive games against him. Thus your ELO wins were capped more and more. If you look at your game history, you will see that last game you still won 2 Elo points against him, the game before 4 Elo points, and before 6 Elo points,...

This gradual ELO capping was introduced in reaction to some cheating events. The cap is not really fair because you can lose full Elo points in case of a loss of a game but can win only reduced Elo points (or none at all, as in your case). But the system reduces the incentive of ELO cheating. Thus it is in place.

If you lose a single game against this opponent then your ELO wins will be correct again. As far as I know, it will be at normal also after some amount of time has passed. But I know no details...

Thanks for the explanation. That seems nuts in a game which such a small player pool. It's really disincentivising. No point even playing if you're literally guaranteed to lose points and can never win.

DField82 wrote: ↑06 January 2025, 20:33 Thanks for the explanation. That seems nuts in a game which such a small player pool. It's really disincentivising. No point even playing if you're literally guaranteed to lose points and can never win.

Well that depends if you’re playing for the sake of the game, for the win/loss record, or for the ELO rating. We’re all different and no judgment implied.

I play for all of that. I do enjoy playing for the sake of playing, but there's very little point in doing so long-term if you're having your legs cut out. I'll just play offline instead.

Please provide feedback to the authors here: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33785 - maybe they'll finally listen?

DField82 wrote: ↑06 January 2025, 20:13 I'll be the first to admit I don't have a clue how the ELO points calculation works, but how can you get 0 points for a win?

My rating was 368 and theirs was 262. Surely that's got to be worth something, even if it's only 1 or 2?

Fluxx game #611586084.

No actually it is very important that we keep this. Do you know how many people come to the forum to accuse others of creating a second account just so their first account can continually win? Then they get very high ELO and they get to have the personal fame/Satisfaction of being the best. King Making behaviors

I am not trying to accuse you of king making because I don't know you or anything about you. But I do know this is exactly what it looks like when it happens. Somebody gets more ELO for continually beating a much lower ELO player. Then they actually have to play another player one day, And that player will be here on the forums accusing you of kingmaker! That you have a second account just so you can win over and over and over again and get better ELO.

It is like having the dirty laundry or having to scrub the toilet posts of the forums. Its a rinse and repeat problem here. Maybe several times a month we have to deal with this topic?

You don't have to keep playing this one person. Say no to starting a game with them or red thumb them. That Simply means you want to avoid the player. Clearly you do because you don't like what happens with your ELO.

And if the game is so tiny you can't have any games to play at all if you don't play this person? Then you have already maxed out on all the possible ELO this game has. You might just wanna go find another one

And do you seriously believe there's no point in playing a game just because it's fun to play? Is it real for you that It's not worth playing at all if there's no chance in getting your ELO higher? That is a sad way to spend your time. Why play a game that brings you no joy just because it's fun? There are ~900 to choose from. Play what makes you happy

DField82 wrote: ↑06 January 2025, 20:33 Thanks for the explanation. That seems nuts in a game which such a small player pool. It's really disincentivising. No point even playing if you're literally guaranteed to lose points and can never win.

It is nuts, and the ELO penalty has been criticised by many players ever since it was introduced in Dec. 2023. Basically, BGA messed up really bad with this change (spending effort to make the existing system worse), and is not listening to players, despite their promises otherwise.

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33785

I am no huge fan of the ELO cap but I can understand the idea behind it - because the site administrators have difficulties to identify 2nd accounts.

And please note that the ELO cap is still fair with respect to the fact that it is the same rule for everybody. DField82 is Elo Top30 and lost some Elo points because of the cap. But also all other Top players will have lost ELO points because they also had longer winning streaks within a small player pool. The ELO separation between top players and medium players will be smaller because of the cap but the relative ranking of players is still somewhat ok.

Thus my advice would be to play on normally (without even blocking players you had a longer win streak) and view the "ELO" number as some relative ranking that is close to true ELO but not 100% (but same for all players).

People do use, or consider using, a second account for all sorts of reasons. Like this player from about a year ago, proposing how to boost their lifetime ELO rating. It does go on and BGA has taken a practical, if blunt, step to address it. If some players were’t continually looking for ‘edges’ to boost their rankings then I suspect BGA wouldn’t have to take steps to tackle it.

https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 79&t=34323

“If I understand this correctly, I am free to create endless accounts, playing until I benefit from enough variance to put myself in a position to dominate the Fluxx leaderboard. Maybe I should just start with one alternative account.”