Board Game Arena

In playing with the Silk Road expansions, I observed that a player abandoned on the turn where the game was about to end, but BGA only awarded 1% of ELO to other players, rather than somewhere in the high 90’s:

https://boardgamearena.com/5/splendor?table=819907359

Is there a way this can be fixed? It seems like exploitive abuse of the ELO system that players can do this.

mickalot wrote: ↑12 March 2026, 16:14 In playing with the Silk Road expansions, I observed that a player abandoned on the turn where the game was about to end, but BGA only awarded 1% of ELO to other players, rather than somewhere in the high 90’s:

https://boardgamearena.com/5/splendor?table=819907359

Is there a way this can be fixed? It seems like exploitive abuse of the ELO system that players can do this.

The person who quit is not exploiting the system. In fact, they get penalized even more than if they had stayed, as the FAQ explains:

This player will lose the same ELO points as if they were the loser (last place) of this game, minus an additional -10 ELO.

Unfortunately, not all games calculate game progression in a way that would be considered accurate. Some don't calculate it at all! So the other players are negatively affected, as in this case. One fix would be to repair the progression calculation for this game, so you could try submitting a bug report.

This looks like a glitch to me. Someone had triggered the end-game condition, and the progress meter was at 100%.
But the "a player has quit" message says "A player has quit at 1% game progression..."

mickalot wrote: ↑12 March 2026, 16:14 In playing with the Silk Road expansions, I observed that a player abandoned on the turn where the game was about to end, but BGA only awarded 1% of ELO to other players, rather than somewhere in the high 90’s:

https://boardgamearena.com/5/splendor?table=819907359

Is there a way this can be fixed? It seems like exploitive abuse of the ELO system that players can do this.

I don't see a player abandoning in this example, a player got kicked for being out of time relatively early in the game and the other players kept playing.

Aha. So, Elo was awarded based on the progression when the player was expelled.

It's worth noting that playing out a game after someone was expelled often has little benefit. Odd things can happen.

FrankJones wrote: ↑13 March 2026, 01:40 Aha. So, Elo was awarded based on the progression when the player was expelled.

It's worth noting that playing out a game after someone was expelled often has little benefit. Odd things can happen.

Yeah, that's a completely different situation.

OP, you can continue playing when someone gets expelled if you want, but as far as the BGA framework is concerned, the game is already over as of the time the person was expelled.

Thanks for all the responses — much appreciated, and apologies for conflating actively quitting and passively quitting (I.e., holding the game hostage and forcing the others to choose between mutually abandoning or expelling you if they want to join any other real-time game).

On mobile it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between a player that quits and one that gets skipped.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑13 March 2026, 04:04

FrankJones wrote: ↑13 March 2026, 01:40 Aha. So, Elo was awarded based on the progression when the player was expelled.

It's worth noting that playing out a game after someone was expelled often has little benefit. Odd things can happen.

Yeah, that's a completely different situation.

OP, you can continue playing when someone gets expelled if you want, but as far as the BGA framework is concerned, the game is already over as of the time the person was expelled.

Yes, and in this case, they were expelled when the game was essentially decided — one of their opponents had an unstoppable winning move they could make on their next turn.

That’s not 100% decided (that player could have done something else), but my point was just that the game at that point was much closer to 100% than it was to 1%.

Thanks for the response!