Lots of highly active bullet + blitz players in the 2200-2700 range have noticed sudden 100-200 point spikes in rating since around August.
Many of us have discussed it and concluded that (a) rating increases far exceed any potential skill increase, this is particularly observable in 6+ month previously inactive players who've experienced a several hundred point jump when they resumed play (2) more points seem to be coming into the system (3) a gradual increase still seems to be occurring rather than stabilizing (at least, not yet).
Almost every player in this range is showing the same phenomena.
From the analysis I've done:
(1) Ratings equivalent to percentiles (e.g. rating that = 99th percentile) have been steadily increasing over the past 6 months.
(2) The degree of this is extremely unlikely to be explained by an increase in lower rated players coming into the pool
(3) It is probably not statistically explained by the change to the minimum rating floor.
(4) Recently, we have also observed several times in matches of 20-50 games between players of near equivalent ratings (with relatively low rds close to 50) having a near equal score will result in a net increase in points. Both players will gain rating after the match. E.g. started at 2600 each, played 50 bullet games with an equal score, then both end up at approx 2606. In the github issue @IsaVulpes posted below, he references several examples of this.
We suspect that changes to rd decay earlier in the year unbalanced the glicko2 system and may have caused points to be generated out of thin air, or at least a trend towards a much higher stabilization point.
Perhaps someone with a background in statistics could comment on how these changes might affect the system?
I don't have the programming expertise to do it personally, but think it would be a good idea to do deeper data analysis to assess the degree of these changes and if it will stabilize. Then, maybe look at reverting any tweaks to the system.
Otherwise everyone may end up 3000+ rated. Which honestly does sound like an attractive prospect, but there's also the inevitable heartbreak when you realize all your friends are now 3000 rated too.
Kind regards,
Burrower
Many of us have discussed it and concluded that (a) rating increases far exceed any potential skill increase, this is particularly observable in 6+ month previously inactive players who've experienced a several hundred point jump when they resumed play (2) more points seem to be coming into the system (3) a gradual increase still seems to be occurring rather than stabilizing (at least, not yet).
Almost every player in this range is showing the same phenomena.
From the analysis I've done:
(1) Ratings equivalent to percentiles (e.g. rating that = 99th percentile) have been steadily increasing over the past 6 months.
(2) The degree of this is extremely unlikely to be explained by an increase in lower rated players coming into the pool
(3) It is probably not statistically explained by the change to the minimum rating floor.
(4) Recently, we have also observed several times in matches of 20-50 games between players of near equivalent ratings (with relatively low rds close to 50) having a near equal score will result in a net increase in points. Both players will gain rating after the match. E.g. started at 2600 each, played 50 bullet games with an equal score, then both end up at approx 2606. In the github issue @IsaVulpes posted below, he references several examples of this.
We suspect that changes to rd decay earlier in the year unbalanced the glicko2 system and may have caused points to be generated out of thin air, or at least a trend towards a much higher stabilization point.
Perhaps someone with a background in statistics could comment on how these changes might affect the system?
I don't have the programming expertise to do it personally, but think it would be a good idea to do deeper data analysis to assess the degree of these changes and if it will stabilize. Then, maybe look at reverting any tweaks to the system.
Otherwise everyone may end up 3000+ rated. Which honestly does sound like an attractive prospect, but there's also the inevitable heartbreak when you realize all your friends are now 3000 rated too.
Kind regards,
Burrower