Start ratings at 1200 instead of 1500?

It seems to me ratings in variants are a bit high when compared to live chess.

How would you feel of having new players start a 1200? If we change this, we'll of course also deduct 300 from all existing ratings.

+1 or -1 ?

why don't they just use the  same ratings?

Because they aren't related? Many of the variants are quite different from regular chess. (And we don't actually have an easy way to access player's live ratings, technically. Plus we have rapid, blitz, bullet and hyper ratings for each variant. In short, it's not really an option)

I'm okay with this but I don't think it's really needed. Ratings for a variant are only useful to compare ratings for that specific variant, and adding or subtracting 300 points doesn't really change that. It's still the same usefulness for predicting the outcome of games between players in that variant, which is all ratings should really be used for anyways.

Like BCF chess ratings aren't in line with FIDE or USCF ratings at all, but they're still completely fine and don't need to change since they're only meant to be compared with other BCF ratings.

Ultimately I do think ratings need an overhaul, as many variants are a forced win for one side, meaning a draw is a good result for the weaker side, and therefore shouldn't lose points (or at least should lose less) when drawing against a slightly weaker player, but this is an extremely complicated topic for another day. I've seen papers on the subject before, but I'd have to dig them back up.

+1

i can see how this would work and i like the idea but what about existing users with already high ratings? would they get a -300?

Yes. In the first post Spacebar wrote "If we change this, we'll of course also deduct 300 from all existing ratings." So this would apply to all players, both those with high ratings and those with low ratings.

oh i didnt see that

-1

Live chess uses a diffeNt rating system. Once variants IS 4pc, we should use glicko-2. A disadvantage on making this is that people can think they are really a 2000 player in live chess format. A 2000 player in live is more than a 2000
Player in glicko-2. We can adjust to make it more similar, but i glicko-2 ratings will be increased faster.

+1

+1

Erm, for all I know live chess uses glicko2. What may differ is what RD (devation) new players start off with. For variants it's 120 (as in 4pc). It could be higher in live chess (like 300).

I meant for variants like 3 check. I have two different ratings for it.

After some further internal consulting it seems this idea is not popular, bottom line: "players like high ratings"

closing topic..