simple improvements on how ratings are calculated

The problem:   it has become too hard to gain a higher rating in both FFA and teams.

The solution: everything should stay the same aside from 2 details in FFA and 1 detail in team

Main idea:   Rating caps (Once deviation has reached a certain level)

FFA 

1: Cap for last place:      a maximum rating loss should be set to 15, since finishing last often only means every one just ganged on you and doesnt mean anything about your play.

2: Cap for second place:  A minimum of 5 rating points should be added regardless of the relative ratings of the players for the player who finishes in 2nd place. It makes no sens for second place to lose rating.

NB:  in order to prevent rating inflation: any points added to  a second place finisher or to a last place finisher should be substracted equallly among the other players.  ie:    I finishh last agsint weaker opponents and shoulld have lost 21 rating but only lose 15:    the other 3 players each gain 2 points less than they would have.   Or if a player finishes second and wins 5 points instead of ganing 2 points,  all 3 other players make 1 point less. This way,   the total rating changes in a given game stays the same. the only difference is that players who tend to often finish first second would be higher rated,  and finishing last against lower rated opponents wouldnt punish as much. Hence,  this should help having ratings that reflect playing strenght more accurately.

TEAM

1 Loss cap: a maximum rating loss of 15 should be set independant of rating. 

NB.  a maximum rating gain could also be set to 15,   although this will not affect the top of the leaderboard since strong players  will never get the opportunity to play for maximum rating gain.  So I think it's better to not set a rating gain cap,  as to allow new strong players to climb the rating latter quicker.

Won't this lead to rating inflation though? Or the total rating gains-loses of each game will remain balanced?

@skeftomilos

You're right,  I edited my post and psoposed an idea to resolve that problem

thanks

i don't like tampering with the rating. it doesn't seem right.

i think it's in the nature of FFA that the high rated get brought down a bit more often as ppl will earn the most rating finishing ahead of the highest rated player. i'm not surprised it's hard to have a big edge in FFA and just crush everyone.

For teams i think the rating is fine. it looks like the best will end up with a rating around 2500.

i wonder if starting out at 1500 rather than 1200 would be good? add 300 to everone's rating and start new ppl off at 1500?

i also wonder how much deflation the abort punishments are causing overall? how about  distributing the total rating lost for aborts among the active players once a week or so?

@_-__-__-___-

'' i'm not surprised it's hard to have a big edge in FFA and just crush everyone. ''

There IS an edge,  it's just not being rewared properly

of course there's an edge, but i don't get what isn't proper about the rating calcs.

is there something that you find unfair?

any cap is a big distortion to the glicko system imo.

if anything you could reconsider the model of the matches played, eg the 3 results (against each of the other players). they could be weighed in some way for example.

@Nutsyci   Sure!    But isnt my idea a way to somewhat compensate for that problem?

The point of a rating system is to provide a measurement of the playing strength of each player. This was the initial point at least, because nowadays it has become common to embed in the rating calculation other factors, like for example the quality of each player's internet connection, or his tendency to abort games. Anyway, an ideal rating system should take into consideration when a player is playing with handicap, and adjust the rating changes accordingly. In practice this is easier said than done. For example other chess sites give players the option to handicap themselves by halving their available time (going "berserk"), and still rate them like they played with no handicap. Which is obviously incorrect.

My point is that if we all agree that playing FFA 4PC against three much lower rated players is a handicap for the high rated player, then adjusting the rating mechanism accordingly is logical, and @Bill13Cooper's idea is one way to accomplice this task. The counter-argument could be that the high rated player has already the option to avoid such a matching, so he willingly accepted the handicap, so let him suffer the consequences of his choice. The counter-counter-argument then could be that finding a match with equal rated players becomes very difficult for the highest rated players, so accepting the handicap is not really a choice but a necessity if they want to play a game!

@nutsyci so you are proposing that the high-rated player should report the three lower-rated players that ganged-up on him, and hope for them to be banned, and for him to have his rating restored? How much fun is that?

Btw ganging up and teaming is not the same thing. Ganging up is about who you attack first, while teaming is about who you avoid to attack the whole game.

Players can decide to attack other players for any number of reasons. They may attack you because they don't like your color, your name, your style of play, because they want to steal your rating, because they want to take revenge from a previous game or whatever. Turtling may even provoke them to attack you, just because they hate players that turtle and do nothing but wait. There is no established rule in FFA 4PC that forbids you to attack players with strong defenses. Do you advocate for such a rule to be established?

Thanks for the link. So teaming is not allowed, either prearranged or through chat, but a formal definition of teaming is missing. Previously I made a distinction between ganging up and teaming, and I stand by it. What constitutes teaming is for the teamed players to coordinate their pieces, and form a combined army. They support their teammate's pieces, and never capture them. This is not allowed, and rightly so. But as long as the attackers proceed with caution, and still capture each other's undefended pieces, there is no teaming IMHO. They are just ganging up on you. It sucks, but they are still playing by the rules.

@nutsyci «Playing what you think is the move that offers you the best chance of winning.» I don't always play with this goal in mind. Sometimes I play with the goal of having fun by creating maximum chaos on the board, and messing my opponent's plans. Do I break the rules by doing so? Should the rules be amended to disallow such a behaviour?

Lets talk with an example. In the position bellow I was Red and sacrificed my Queen, giving my frenemy Yellow the opportunity to immediately checkmate Green. Yellow didn't cooperate, and I lost my queen for nothing.

Lets suppose that Yellow HAD cooperated, and then Green reported us for teaming. YOU are tasked to handle the report, and impose sanctions if needed. Would you punish Red (me), Yellow, none of us or both of us?

"Sometimes I play with the goal of having fun by creating maximum chaos on the board"

me too

This conversation is going the way it was intented. 

The formal definition of what is not allowed is this:   It is when a player plays without consideration for trying to win or to secure second.

The important thing is for players to always have their self-interest in mind.  that is what fair play is.  If you stop trying to win the game,  and you play moves that someone who is genuinely trying to win would never play, know that a player will not attack you because he's your friend or whatever,  than that's cheating.

Alliances are allowed as long as they are startegically useful for both players

It's quite simple

@nutsyci your position on this thread, correct me if I am wrong, is that implementing a compensation for the handicap of playing against lower rated opponents is not needed, because the high rated player is already able to protect himself and his rating by legal means. He will report his opponents that ganged up on him for teaming, sanctions will be imposed, and his rating will be restored.

In the example I gave lets suppose not only that Yellow cooperated, but also that Green (the victim) was rated 300 points higher than every body else. After the checkmate he reported Red and Yellow for teaming, and now he waits for your decision. From his point of view he lost to a couple of dirty teamers, who obviously coordinated a mating attack against him (even a beginner sees that the attack was coordinated). Your response «this is not even close to teaming» does not satisfy him. He demands a detailed explanation based on the official rules and definitions. Could you provide one? I think it's important if we go this route to ensure clarity and consistency. Encouraging players to report each other for teaming, and having judges issuing inconsistent decisions because of lack of solid definitions, will not be good for the game on the long run.

Btw I have already provided my own definition of teaming at #15.

@nutsyci «For this player, I will point to the fact that he left a mate in 1 available.»
The player could respond that he saw the mate-in-1 threat on n6, but he opted to ignore it because his best defense against the coordinated mate was to push his king's pawn forward, which was a highly undesirable move since it opened the possibility of an exchange of queens with check, and the loss of a pawn. He was confident that he had adequate legal defenses against a coordinated mate like this, because if it occurred he could report the teamers and have his rating restored. And in our hypothetical scenario that's exactly what happened! And now the staff member of chess.com that handled his report (hypothetically you), dismissed his claim with the reasoning that although coordinated attacks are against the rules, he is still supposed to defend against them, or else they are perfectly legal! How does this make any sense?

There is one way to fix this: get good

Coordinated attacks constitute teaming by definition (by my own definition), so they are against the rules. Since we don't have an official definition of teaming, everyone can have its own.

You say that supporting another player's undefended pieces and avoid capturing them is OK, as long as by doing so I increase my own chance of winning. Well, of course I do! I am teaming with the other guy, with the intent of destroying the other two players and securing at least the second place for me. Coordinating my pieces with my buddy's pieces is the best thing I can do!

@nutsyci «You are telling me you saw the mate in 1 and let it happen, good on you!»
Yes, because I was counting on you, that you would protect me from the dirty teamers. And now you are mocking me! I will never trust you again!

@nutsyci my definition is better than yours. It is also shorter, which is a good thing, as long as we are talking about definitions.

So the word teaming has become semantically loaded.

Semantic discord is the situation where two parties disagree on the definition of a word or several words essential to communicating or formulating any concept at issue. The two parties basically understand two different meanings for the word, or they associate the word with different concepts. Any word or instance of communication that has its effectiveness reduced due to semantic discord is said to be semantically loaded.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)