Currently it seems that elo change after a battle is calculated using the players' elos at the end of the battle. I believe that this is a problem, and should be changed, so that rating change is calculated using the players' elos at the start of the battle.
Notably, the current system allows the potential for substantial abuse. If I queue into a roughly equally rated player, and gain a decisive upper hand, I could maliciously queue and throw multiple games while intentionally dragging out the end of the battle, so that my defeated opponent takes a much larger elo hit than they otherwise would. This would be especially damaging, say, at the end of ladder tours, when even a few elo could make a huge difference and someone who wouldn't necessarily qualify could drag down someone else at the same time.
It also creates frustrating dynamics when playing multiple battles at once, where it becomes in one's best interest to timerstall a decisively winning game that's being played at the same time as a losing game in order to complete the loss first, and thus gain more elo from the win, and less from the loss. Anything that incentivizes timerstalling is bad.
Please change this (it'd be really nice for ladder tours). Thanks!
edit: a change like this might also need to come with a reduction in k-factor for 1000 elo players because taking this to its logical extreme would mean that if I load 6 games at 1000 elo I'd gain a whole bunch from beating them one-after-the-other
Notably, the current system allows the potential for substantial abuse. If I queue into a roughly equally rated player, and gain a decisive upper hand, I could maliciously queue and throw multiple games while intentionally dragging out the end of the battle, so that my defeated opponent takes a much larger elo hit than they otherwise would. This would be especially damaging, say, at the end of ladder tours, when even a few elo could make a huge difference and someone who wouldn't necessarily qualify could drag down someone else at the same time.
It also creates frustrating dynamics when playing multiple battles at once, where it becomes in one's best interest to timerstall a decisively winning game that's being played at the same time as a losing game in order to complete the loss first, and thus gain more elo from the win, and less from the loss. Anything that incentivizes timerstalling is bad.
Please change this (it'd be really nice for ladder tours). Thanks!
edit: a change like this might also need to come with a reduction in k-factor for 1000 elo players because taking this to its logical extreme would mean that if I load 6 games at 1000 elo I'd gain a whole bunch from beating them one-after-the-other
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