SFA (Solo-for-All)

I love FFA and hate solo. It's a completely different game. You need to gang up in solo, so it feels like getting a massive advantage at the start is discouraged, whereas in FFA you can always deliberately play for second. 

In FFA, if you're sitting in a contest between 2nd and 3rd, with no chance of getting first unless you gang up, it's often a good strategy to attack the other lower points player to secure 2nd rather than try to gang up, whereas in solo that strategy doesn't work.

Full respect to people who like solo, but I don't, I hate it, I don't play it and it will probably see me moving away from FFA on chess.com for a while once I start getting up to that level, possibly for good (and it's the only reason I'm happy to pay for membership).

I agree with FlyingPlane that 2nd losing the same points as 4th discourages aggression in the early game. It seems wrong to me that someone who really dukes it out for first, plays the whole game through and only misses out by a narrow margin, gets the same as someone who hasn't had their morning coffee, hangs a bunch of pieces, gets destroyed early on and resigns at move 10.

Otherwise, robertcraigen has given the best answer on here. I haven't quoted it because of the length, but it expresses my view exactly.

If you want to play solo, go for it, just don't force me to.

The point, as made by MagicSteph above, is "why merge them?" People have the choice at the moment, if you enjoy Solo, play solo, if you enjoy FFA then play FFA. 

Hi. I'm going to assume you're apporximately (sorry spelling) 2000 (haven't looked). I don't believe (or if it will I don't understand why) that rating ranges such as that will be affected by the change. For the ones that will (2200+??), the reason that "only one winner" needs to be in place (and is 2300+ games 2nd gets pretty much nothing) is because, in a game with first and second "winning" , the winning strategy was for opposites to team with each other till the end of the game. Which admins/people didn't like.

To summarize, this change shouldn't affect you.

In the new SFA system this is what is going to happen:

If the average rating of the players in the game lies Under 2200: then 1st gains most rating, 2nd gains less, 3rd loses a little, 4th loses a lot.

If the average rating of the game is 2200-2350: then 1st gains, 2nd & 3rd gain/lose nearly "0" (the difference is negligible), 4th loses rating.

If the average rating of the game is 2350+: then only 1st gains rating, 2nd=3rd=4th=lose equal rating.

Basically if you are under 2350, then you shouldn't worry at all. If you are over 2350, then it's high time you start playing for first place.

I'm 2030, but going up pretty quickly, and planning to be 2100 in the next month, so I'd like to think it will affect me soon, but they aren't making the change in the future, they're thinking about making the change now, so if I don't speak up now then I won't get the chance to raise the issue later. 

And I already play in games were the average rating is about 2300, so I'm assume it will affect me from time to time, with that increasing as I go.

And people already create alliances, the thing with FFA is that it's fluid.

Will I know when I start a game how the points will be allocated? Doubt I'll be thinking about that, but maybe it'll affect how I should have played.

My simple point is this: If you want to play Solo because that's how you want to play the game, go for gold. If I want to play FFA because I prefer that, then I should be able to. Why create a limitation on the options available? This is basically a downgrade and I am opposed to it.

Maybe this might influence things. Go look at the top rated FFA rapid players. They have the option to play FFA or Solo right. IF they agreed with the issues being discussed on this forum then they'd presumably have gone and played more solo. 

Rojitto: 3480 FFA, only 424 solo 

Eyeofthetiger: 5426 FFA, only 1384 solo 

Radon: 4892 FFA, only 438 solo

Bicho490: 5150 FFA, only 490 solo

Riba: 4885 FFA, only 986 solo

And so it goes. The players that you're talking about, the ones who are at the top of the game and who presumably would have the most impact from this supposed evil that you're trying to cure, they've all made a choice. They've made it in droves, collectively playing thousands of hours more FFA than Solo. If it was an issue, they'd have played Solo.

@Byers_CJ

Low-rated Solo queues are a joke, because most of the players have no idea how to play for 1st place. High-rated FFA queues turn into a joke IF any of 2350+ player play for 2nd place as it is a waste of time for the other players, because by playing for 2nd place that player is GIFTING the win to one lucky opponent. FFA is a lot easier to play compared to Solo, and hence this change makes a lot of sense. U2200 players who start playing FFA can rise up the ladder (even by playing for 2nd place), but once they get to 2200-2350 they get to "figure out" that 2nd place and 3rd place mean nothing (who cares about +0.8 and -0.5?), and once they cross 2350+ they'll understand that 4PC is not an easy monster to tame and 1st place is all that matters.

If your argument is that "Teaming" aka "co-operation" in high-level FFA/Solo is a problem, then you are mistaken, because that is how the game has to be played. The geometry of the board DEMANDS that the game be played in this dynamic fashion at the elite level. The top-5 players you mentioned above, check their games, do you think any of them reached the level they are at because they did not use Teams theory? FFA/Solo theory relies on "Teams opening lines". Please read the following blog URL I have posted below:

https://www.chess.com/blog/GustavKlimtPaints/free-for-all-in-4pc-ideas-in-the-early-four-player-phase

This rating system will affect you a little only when you cross 2200+ and will be very important when you cross 2350+, in any case... if you plan to climb up the ladder, then you should see this as a welcome change, because now you'll play the game correctly and won't get into any bad habits like pushing pawns in the opening and playing for 2nd place.

The problem with the current FFA rating system is: IT DOES NOT PUNISH PLAYERS WITH BAD NOOBISH HABITS.

I cannot tell you how many times I have encountered overrated noobs in the 2400+ queues who keep pushing pawns in the opening phase because they think having many Queens would get them to win the game.

If you reach 2350, you'll still be able to play 1900 games and it count as 1900 games rating.

To answer your question

highest rated players should have the highest difficulty.

People are naturally predisposed to play the standard, even if non-standard is better. As such, standard should be the best game mode. If admins are confident solo is the best game mode for 2350+, they should put it as standard.

Nope, this argument simply doesn't work. For one simple reason: there are MUCH LESS SOLO GAMES available (especially at high level); plus solo overall is still young (yes, I remember when it was launched, as WTA first) and many strong players began to play well before and thus accumulated games which makes your comparison irrelevant.

For instance to have a 2000+ Solo game often requires 1-2 hours of waiting. In the meantime 500 2500+ FFA take place. Do you think a player who is good at both will have more FFA or Solo games played during this time?... Etc.

If no-one is playing solo, maybe that's a sign. 

None of that addresses why you would take away peoples choice. 

Liberté, égalité, fraternité my friend. The proposal is to take away everyone's liberty to choose, treat those who want to play solo more favourably than those who want to continue to play FFA - where's the equality or fraternity in that? ;-)

People should have choice.

What do you think of 2350+ standard as Solo with an option for FFA (like +40?)

There's been no discussion for a while here but I'd like to make an observation.

Back around the beginning of the year there was a "new standard" tournament evidently to get people accustomed to the new starting position and maybe to gather data about the effect on play.

When that ended there were auto-generated New Standard 1|7 games.  I reflexively signed up for the 2100+ game whenever my rating hit that range.

Early on, I got a few New Standard games like this.  Then it became less and less frequent that other players would join, and nowadays most of the times I join a New Standard game I'm still the only player in the cue for the game 4 minutes later when I'm dumped into a different game.

This tells me something about the player response to New Standard. When people were unfamiliar with the  setup they were willing to experiment with it.  But after becoming familiar with it, and given a free choice between the two standards, the vast majority are choosing the current standard over New Standard.

Admins:  I'm sure it's easy enough to generate site stats that will verify and quantify my observation here.

Players voting with their feet?

100%, Robert!

I think the merge is a good idea, but as for the new standard, not. I do not understand why someone linked them within the same reform, whereas it's 2 different issues.

Looks like players have quickly realised that the New Standard and the New Time Control are jokes. Since the Casual New Standard Arena I haven't played it.

Farming with Jesse in 1/10|4D New Standard Teams crying in the corner

@ChessMasterGS
Bullet and Hyper are jokes itself. Plus we are discussing FFA here.

People don't like to wait, that's the most likely reason the new standard queues got less popular.

Idk if this has been stated yet; the biggest issue is the idiot in the 3-player stage who wants to play for second place. If you're higher rated, losing points is inevitable.

EDIT: I think that this issue may arise if we falsely assume that all players are playing for first. We simply don't have that level of maturity in the current FFA player pool. Many are content trying to make others lose to "establish" their "superiority." In other words, I'm saying that this setup may be problematic because many FFA players are psychologically weak.

I know this is irrelevant to 99% of the players, but SFA in Hyperbullet is cancer; it was FFA one game and then the next it changed into Solo rating change and the play for 2nds didn't change their strategy...