Variants Poll: What rating system do you prefer?

Holybull still hasn't learned pushing those 4 pawns is terrible and makes you a target, well-deserved 4th!   Your future 3500 got 4th today, passive players like yourself deserve to be punished with the new rating system. 

+25 for 1st, -15 for 4th, while 2nd & 3rd played better and got -5 each. 

This is a far more logical FFA points system, it's a good compromise that may get me to start to playing again, we'll see. 

Here's a puzzle from a game using the new rating system, Blue to move. 

Your lame jokes don't work when the 4PC admins are actively working on fixing the issues that drove the majority of FFA players away.  This is the best compromise we've gotten since the merge. 

That logic is flawed though. Unless you can guarantee not 4th 100% of the time the equation becomes much more complex. You have to weigh the expected values of playing Strategy A that aims to win and not care much about 4th against Strategy B where you avoid 4th then play to win. With respect to the old 3 0 0 -3 rating system:

w = 1st, l = 4th, p() = arbitrary Probability Function and |O()| = absolute value of point change

EV(A) = p(A(w))*|O(w)| - p(A(l))*|O(l)|
EV(B) = p(B(w))*|O(w)| - p(B(l))*|O(l)|

simplifying it slightly to use number of wins/losses gained instead of points we can just rewrite as:

EV(A) = 3(p(A(w)) - p(A(l)))
EV(B) = 3(p(B(w)) - p(B(l)))

The question then becomes is EV(A) higher or lower than EV(B) and what I am saying is that EV(A) > EV(B).

For reference p(A(w)) is the probability of winning whilst using strategy A.

I think it depends quite a lot on the risk adversion (=personal parameter), as many players will prefer a less fast progression but much less volatile variations; and on the level of the person involved (typically, it is true for you, and for JonasRath as well, but could be totally wrong for a 2100 player for instance).

Yes Uncertainty of Wealth falls under the umbrella of each respective strategy as naturally someone pursuing Strategy B will have a much higher risk aversion than someone pursuing Strategy A however the fact that there is a clear correlation between the best players and pursuance of Strategy A just demonstrates that the EV(A) is higher. Players who operate under B should expect to perform worse. I know Indi knows this but those who dont I recommend you look up Utility of Wealth and Certainty Equivalence for context.

Checkmating your opposite has become a thing now. Players do NOT care about any theory, they just want to save their rating (which is also logical) Betrayal is so common now and it makes sense since the rating system change. Not always, but even when a high rated player doubts in his opposite's skills, he'd rather let him get mated than help (which occurs oftentimes (quite often))

Dont worry, no one thought you went to Oxford Brookes let alone Oxford. Just because you don't understand the point of what I was trying to explain to Jonas there is no need to deflect your intellectual insecurities. Also you should be well aware that 1 Win does not equate to the same magnitude as 1 Loss. If you got a -2 Loss for a high rated player can be significantly more than a +3 Win so no your logic is not solid.

Also imagine making fun of @carlosgabriel1234 's English when he isn't a native yet you can't even use your and you're correctly pft. 

Such a wholesome argument between two grown adults 😊

Obviously, you can't guarantee a not-4th, but the idea is reducing variance. Also, I think we have slightly differing definitions of "playing to avoid 4th". It's obviously situational. That is, under this strategy, you do cooperate with your opposite, but if faced with a choice between saving and not saving/killing them, you choose the latter.

With this I think many of us agree, just go back to pre merge where solo and ffa were different modes and retain those modes of play.

+3.7 -1.05 -1.05 -1.6 is more balanced. The difference between 2nd/3rd and 4th is also not that big, only 0.55 while 1st place gets (close to) 4 wins like it's supposed to be

I think technically as is, we could list Solo instantly but it would use the same rating. Which I think would be a good idea anyway, to use the same rating.

My reasoning is, there will likely never be enough active players for a Solo leaderboard to exists, which will make it very unattractive, seems like it would hardly get played at all.

wow, that was mean

@JustinD7

The only problem with that was the existence of 2 separate sets of ratings. And as Solo was played much less, it was challenging to get a decent level Solo game, etc. 

We could re-separate, why not, but in this case I believe the games should impact the same rating.

Nobody playing solo isn't a bad thing. It's proof of the free market showing that it sucks.

IMHO, it's proof that people will play whatever the default mode is and not bother with the rest.