Variants Poll: What rating system do you prefer?

You already made a long-winded forum post about this very position.  I will post the response that I had in a discord conversation with admins:

"I mean, ultimately speaking, any starting position will require at some point your opposite to intervene and work with you if you are ganged up on and want to survive (that is purely the nature of the game). The only difference for omatamix is the immediacy of the help required from blue to green in the opening. As for the specific example mentioned in the link, while there is no guaranteed way to ensure green survives, a skilled player could still maximize their chances of surviving the opening. For example, green could start with 1.l8. While there is the chance of 2.Qxm7+ pass Qxm9# happening, green would be smart to risk that for the short-to-medium term absolute safety that comes with Qm8 next turn. On the flip side, red would have to risk Qxm7+ getting punished by Bxh13+ and besides blue's rating, would have absolutely 0 information to work with to be confident in such a gambit working out. A skilled green player would recognize this and would choose this path as most likely to maximize their survival chances."

This was in response to an admin asking what the defense to such an opening would be.

I could sense a bit of sarcasm in Icy's "opinions". 

How many Teams games were played during the same period last year pre-merge?

Is FFA being played more now than pre-merge?

The Old Standard theory is far more interesting than New Standard could ever be.  It's not like we were RY every game we played, it all balanced out by hitting the Rematch button or playing another game.  We don't see players like Icystun or Illingworth playing this New Standard, why do you think that is?

just take the queen blue can check he's not doing anything wrong

Well, simply by the response from Space, we see one of the fundamental problems here. When speaking about the set-up (and about the disbalance), in most cases participants presume that FFA=Teams for that. But I am sorry, it's a prejudice. It's not guaranteed AT ALL that the "best"/"the least worst"/"the optimised" set-up would be the same in Teams and in FFA.

Also, for the zillionth time: it's not only about the balance. I fully believe the admins when they say that the new set-up is more balanced. But we also must think about the variety of openings possible, about the predictability of the first moves, about the imagination and freedom to play this or that, about the drama and suspense and fascination. It is very clear that the new set-up is MUCH MORE BORING and obliges to play some specific moves, especially for BG (unless RY are incompetent). From my perspective, ANY set-up, even the most balanced ever, is to be rejected if there are less than 10 potential openings playable.

There should be a penalty for getting fourth. To have fourth be equal with second and third is not reasonable at all because 99% of the time fourth is fourth by his own incompetence, and second and third get to the 3p stage playing well enough to survive the opening, not to mention that fourth exits the game in the first three minutes and second and third exit the game much longer than that. So clearly third and second should lose less than fourth. Second and third should be equal as the game is usually decided in the 3p stage.

Justin, that is what happens when join low rated games. We are trying to improve high rated FFA games, so that more people will play. 

Exactly, it's just not logical for 2nd who played an hour longer in some cases trying to win, to end up losing the same as 4th who got mated first.  2nd = 3rd makes the most sense.  

According to the Phoenix Engine, the BYG setup has over 5 Million winning lines.  The eval starts it at +0.12.  Most importantly, it has a variety of playable openings. 

Old Standard has about 2 Million winning lines. 

New Standard has less than a Million, and it's not fun to play at all due to its repetitive nature. 
We're gonna have a BYG League at some point, so we can explore this setup further. 

A BY League will be much more exciting for everyone.

I am sure that many will prefer BY instead of BYG. BY little by little begins to have activity, although it is not the main option.

I already lived the experience of both Setup, and I much prefer BY Setup.

Now it is available in the lobby, it is time to carry out the tests in BY, so that everyone knows it and has an opinion about it.

This opinion strikes me Carlos, since you are precisely a player who has been stuck at 2200 or 2300 in FFA Rapid for a long time.

If we analyze your games, you are an active player in lines of attack, but many times your opposite do not optimally accompany your plays. This usually leads you to get annoyed with your opposite, since it happens that you just get the 4th, for having a passive opposite player.

You are a player that I consider to be strong in TEAM, but in FFA you have a hard time progressing, so I don't think you don't get 4th for being a bad player in FFA, you get 4th for having a very passive opposite.

Players who are passive, seek at all costs to reach the stage of 3 players, no matter what happens to their opposite, is that a reality that is lived in FFA, or are you going to tell me now that there are no passive opposites?

So in your particular case, 2nd = 3rd , it is not for your convenience, since many times you are not guilty of being 4th, many times you play well, but you get 4th for reasons external to your good game. This is just an opinion of the vision that I have of your games, maybe you have another opinion about it, but comment me to know more in detail.

I would like to incorporate another thought here, @Neoserbian, @Darksquareman ,  @Radon , @JustinD7 @LazyImp @HSCCCalebBrown among others, are players who have been active in this discussion. 

First I want to say that this is greatly appreciated, as it provides valuable information for decision making. I continue saying that all these players that I mention, are all World Top Player, both with the FFA rating system and SOLO rating system. All of them have shown that you can be successful with both systems, if you really put your mind to it. I also want to add that everyone in their arguments mainly highlighted their motivation to seek the best for FFA.

Finally, to say that it will be very difficult for us all to agree on which rating system is better, but I am sure that everyone has the best intentions of perfecting this.

I've played less than 40 Rapid games in the past 8 months, while I had played over 500 games prior to the merge.  I didn't play Solo prior to the merge because it was a mode I did not enjoy and now that it's been forced on me, I'm choosing not to play it, it's that simple. 

The New Standard & Solo system gave me no incentive to continue playing Rapid 4 PC.  I found too many cases where lower-rated players would attack me, don't co-operate, leave my Queen hanging instead of taking mate, and then I'd get punished by losing points even when I finished 2nd.   In the old FFA system, if we got targeted by survived and finished 2nd we didn't gain or lose rating.  New Standard is such a boring position to play, why did I spend all that time learning Old Standard theory for it to just be thrown out the window? 

There's no comparison between Old Standard theory and the New Standard forced openings. 
As a result of the merge, I've become more of a Teams player than FFA, and I'm aware of the adjustments I need to make.  I do find it annoying playing now as the quality of games has dropped dramatically.  Solo was supposed to stop players from throwing, but I've had too many instances where players throw thinking they're getting 2nd, and were shocked to find out they were losing points.  Until the Solo system and starting position change, I'll be 2300 Rapid, with little incentive to play. 



I would love to play more Rapid games to continue improving, as I really enjoy playing against higher-rated players in the League.  However, I have almost no incentive to play Rapid now the way things stand, it's not fun playing 4pc anymore thanks to the merge and the endless server issues.  Some of my best and most fun League games came against higher-rated players, it's nice playing with people that know what they're doing. 

I'm down to analyze games, it's always good to address mistakes, I've gotta prep for this weekend anyway.  Gotta at least make it interesting for jbolea.  

why are we still arguing about this? just play in the variants league!

on a more serious note, I do think rating system change is a good idea, but we need people to actually consider the options given rather than continue arguing why Solo is bad and we should bring back FFA. Isn't +3 -0.5 -0.5 -2 so much better than what we already have? If you think about it, we're actually getting closer to what used to be the FFA rating system (+3 0 0 -3). Of course, there are still people who don't like FFA either, but one step at a time, guys

cheers

@LosChessquire :

It's perfect, I understand you. Well thank you for expressing your opinion regarding the current situation. Like you, I also want the changes to be made soon, we need a definitive solution for FFA.

This has been discussed ad nauseum so forgive me if I didn't pay attention. Is there any objection to Solo or +3 -.5 -.5 -2 that would remain if we left aside the lack of high-rated players?

eta: I have seen people claim that solo makes people more passive. I think there is a lack of evidence for it; in addition, it should affect stronger players' strategies very minorly; for weaker players, I don't think there would be, and have not seen, much variation in their games due to solo. Finally, I would think that this effect, if it exists, would be small enough to make this only a minor consideration. If players have logic or evidence that disagrees, I would sincerely like to know it

That's how we always recognise Justin: kindness and friendliness personified...

stick to being a bad player and complaining it's what you do best

I completely agree with Los. I have not played (on purpose) since it became solo because solo is utter garbage. I am always happy to play diplomacy which I think is what the true goal of FFA was.

Rating System Update (4 Player Chess)
After numerous discussions, debates, and polls on the rating system, we have decided to change it from “+3 -1 -1 -1” to “+3 -0.5 -0.5 -2”

Note this applies to games with an average rating of 2400 or higher.
Up to 1800 the rating changes for 1st to 4th remain +3 +1 -1 -3. From 1800 to 2400 the formula gradually changes to 3 wins for 1st, 0.5 losses for 2nd and 3rd, and 2 losses for 4th

Exactly like some predicted above, Solo "lost". I confess that I didn't expect that, I'm always too optimist about collective intelligence. Whereas in fact we should call it "collective stupidity".

Why am I saying that (and that abruptly)?

Because the +3 -0.5 -0.5 -2 will mean that:

1) 2nd=3rd which is good (the players are pushed to play to win in the 2nd stage, and normally shouldn't play for 2nd, even if yes, all of us sometimes throw games inadvertently),

2) 4th is punished a lot (because -0.5 is not a punishment at all), i.e. it will create the obvious effect of "I try to pass to the 2nd stage whatever the cost, because being 4th costs too much". Therefore it will in many cases create passive behaviour like "I don't care about my opp, I don't want to risk being 4th, I prefer him to be 4th, and I certainly won't sack my nice queen in order to help this idiot", and I strongly believe that the quality of the game will suffer a lot from this "I don't want to be 4th" stance,

3) being in the 2nd stage means with this system a mathematical expectancy of 0.66(6), whereas with the solo system it was 0.33(3). YES, this system multiplies the expectancy by TWO exactly. Which implication it will have? It becomes critical to be in the 2nd stage. That will have one small positive consequence (slightly less teaming because we shall see more betrayals which could make games less predictable and more dramatic), but many negative ones, the main being that the players will try to eliminate a flank (or the opp!) whatever the cost, which will make the decision-making much less subtle ; and in the same time it will push many players to play passively, avoiding taking risks. Probably the games will become longer and less interesting.

My 5 cents...