Board Game Arena

BGA's tournament timeout system creates a potential loophole for systematic Elo farming.

I recently reported a player who went from 0 to over 550 Elo. Out of 29 recorded games, 25 were abandoned, many ending almost daily at exactly 21:00.

Shortly after my report, I noticed that the player's Elo had been reset to zero and their account had received a moderation restriction. I cannot confirm the exact reason, but the timing was remarkable.

The bigger problem: This wasn't limited to one game. I found similar patterns in several other games.

The likely mechanism is tournament games reaching their maximum duration and being ranked by remaining thinking time rather than actual gameplay results.

Combined with BGA's increased initial Elo multiplier (up to 3x), this creates an opportunity to rapidly climb leaderboards and obtain ranking trophies without actually completing games.

My proposed solution:

1. No positive Elo from unfinished tournament games automatically resolved by time limits.

2. Keep appropriate penalties for abandoning games or running out of personal time, so deliberate stalling cannot prevent Elo losses.

3. Prevent timeout-generated results from contributing to ranking trophy eligibility.

Tournament progression can still be determined by remaining time, but that shouldn't automatically generate Elo gains.

This does not require automated cheating detection or additional moderator workload. It only requires changing how these unfinished games affect ratings.

Moderators can punish individual cases, but that doesn't close the underlying loophole.

Why should players be able to climb the world rankings through games that were never actually finished?

Are you talking tourneys or arena. Sounds impossible via tourneys.

I'm talking about turn-based tournaments, not Arena.

When a tournament game reaches its maximum duration without being completed, BGA can determine the final ranking based on the players' remaining thinking time.

These automatically determined results can still generate Elo gains, even though the game was never actually finished.

That's the loophole I'm referring to. If someone repeatedly benefits from these timeout-based results, they can potentially increase their Elo without winning games through normal gameplay.

Combined with the increased initial Elo multiplier, this could also make it easier to obtain high rankings and trophies.

The issue isn't whether tournament timeouts are allowed. It's why unfinished games should award positive Elo at all, rather than simply determining who advances in the tournament.

BGA's tournament timeout rules are also discussed here:
viewtopic.php?t=17794

I agree with you that there should be no ELO impact when a tournament game reaches the maximum time. I had several times that I was in time, finished 3rd out of 4 and the 4th player had a very negative timer because they left BGA or barely play. I lost ELO just because not being one of the fastest two players (but within the time limit), also with multiplayer elimination players get eliminated this way It's also annoying when someone tries to climb the ELO-ranking that way. I try to avoid these high speed tournaments but unfortunately there are a lot of tournaments have time limits that make it difficult for players who can not play all day.

I'm not sure what you can do with this, because my impression that BGA Support is heavily understaffed. I don't get response from them on e-mails or bug reports myself.

Exactly, and your experience illustrates the problem perfectly. Players can lose Elo despite staying within their own time limits, simply because a tournament deadline is reached.

At the same time, others can potentially exploit this mechanism to gain Elo without completing games.

That’s why I think this needs a system-level fix rather than more moderation.

If a game ends because the overall tournament deadline is reached, it should have no Elo impact. The result can still determine tournament progression, while individual timeouts and abandonments can continue to carry penalties.

This would protect legitimate players and remove the incentive for Elo farming, without requiring moderators to investigate every suspicious case.

And given how understaffed BGA support seems to be, that approach makes even more sense.

Elo is an inherently flawed system, especially for games with a substantial luck component or for multiplayer games. The answer is to not take your elo seriously. I also gave up on taking Arena seriously, because of the way elo works. To get #1 in Arena when a game has a luck component, you keep grinding until you go on a winning streak and get to #1, and then stop playing and camp on your ranking and hope nobody can pass you.

I partly agree. Elo isn't perfect, especially in luck-heavy games.

I'm currently ranked #1 in Arena in five different games, some of which involve a significant amount of luck. Getting there required good decisions, optimizing my strategies, and of course some favorable winning streaks.

But that's part of competitive gaming. Even in luck-based games, skill matters, and consistency makes a difference.

However, I think this misses the actual point of this discussion.

There's a fundamental difference between reaching a high ranking through a combination of skill, luck, and completed games, and gaining Elo by repeatedly exploiting tournament timeouts.

One is a limitation of any rating system. The other is a potentially exploitable mechanic that rewards results without games being properly finished.

We don't need to make Elo perfect. We just need to prevent an obvious way of manipulating it.

I understand what you are saying. I am curious as to how the elo farmer, gets the rest of his opponents not to finish the game in time. Tourneys, he cant pick his friends to do it. So how does he get all of his opponents to timeout. This must go on in Tourneys I dont play. Probably multi player. Since time is confusing for some tourney makers and not nearly enough is given.