Board Game Arena

Hi, how can this progression be possible?
In my firts 20-25 matches, I easily got to 200 elo in only 13 games, then a peak of 266 and even silver badge in arena mode. Then I started losing almost all the time, even with a 10 consecutive streak, and I've been stuck aroud 120-150 in the last 50 matches. There's no way to increase my scora anymore. I can accept to suck at this game, but if I suck, how the hell did I have those good results in the first place? This totally makes no sense.

Also it happened in other game, to reach 200 in an easy and quick way, then have a flextion and never go back to 200 again. Did anybody notice the same issue? Is there an explanation? I insist that there's something wrong here.

Mars4ever wrote: ↑05 November 2026, 01:10 Hi, how can this progression be possible?
In my firts 20-25 matches, I easily got to 200 elo in only 13 games, then a peak of 266 and even silver badge in arena mode. Then I started losing almost all the time, even with a 10 consecutive streak, and I've been stuck aroud 120-150 in the last 50 matches. There's no way to increase my scora anymore. I can accept to suck at this game, but if I suck, how the hell did I have those good results in the first place? This totally makes no sense.

Also it happened in other game, to reach 200 in an easy and quick way, then have a flextion and never go back to 200 again. Did anybody notice the same issue? Is there an explanation? I insist that there's something wrong here.

You have correctly observed that, all things being equal, your Elo is going to change faster for your first 20 games than afterwards.

In case you haven't read the related FAQs, here are the links:
How does the ELO change calculation work?
How is my ELO updated?

Unfortunately, in a revision to the FAQ they removed the explanation of how the K-factor works on BGA. The FAQ used to explain that:

K, the 'elasticity factor,' has a value that depends on the number of games you have played: 60 for your first 10 games, 40 between your 11th and 20th games, 20 for your 21st onwards.

The K-factor is a linear scaling factor in the Elo calculation, so a person with a K-factor of 60 will gain (or lose) three times as many points as someone with the same rating who is playing a game for the 21st+ time, all other things being equal. There is also some question of whether friendly games count in the number of times played, which I don't recall off the top of my head.

And see this thread for a discussion for how Elo in multi-player games is awarded, which not a simple as adding up all the Elo adjustments that would have been made in a 1 v 1 match against all the other players: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46254

Mars4ever wrote: ↑05 November 2026, 01:10 Hi, how can this progression be possible?
In my firts 20-25 matches, I easily got to 200 elo in only 13 games, then a peak of 266 and even silver badge in arena mode. Then I started losing almost all the time, even with a 10 consecutive streak, and I've been stuck aroud 120-150 in the last 50 matches. There's no way to increase my scora anymore. I can accept to suck at this game, but if I suck, how the hell did I have those good results in the first place? This totally makes no sense.

Also it happened in other game, to reach 200 in an easy and quick way, then have a flextion and never go back to 200 again. Did anybody notice the same issue? Is there an explanation? I insist that there's something wrong here.

BGA gives bigger changes for an account's first few times playing the game so that BGA can quickly figure out where they are. It lets those players skip over the lower ratings if they do well enough. After enough games the system has a better idea and the account slows down to normal. It's not uncommon for ratings to accelerate the first few games so players don't waste a bunch of time underrated. It's possible to temporarily overshoot a bit, but this will clear up after some games.