Hello, amazing work Lichess/Lila folks. One place that I've noticed some frustration among very novice friends I've brought here to the site is the frustration of starting at 1500, which is an extremely high rating for a brand new player or very young player who is still learning how knights move etc., Generally their first four or five games are pure slaughters (maybe against a 1550 player, then after 150pt rating loss, against a 1400, then 1200, then 1000, then 800, then finally at around 700 or so which is about the right skill level to be fun). All of which can be extremely discouraging for a new player to begin with five or so games where you never stood a chance. Plus it can be a waste of time for other players (except to welcome someone new to the community).
Some ideas for alleviating this might include:
1) (easiest to add) let someone choose between two or three or so options on signing up for the site such as "Just Learning the Rules" "Know the Rules but Played Less than 100 games" "Average Player (or above)" and assign initial ratings of 700, 1000, or 1500 based on those answers.
2) (moderate to add) Ask people (optionally) to solve some chess puzzles, from the most basic you could imagine to more complex, and assign a rating based on that. (Problem is that I don't know if there is an "easiest" level that wouldn't still be discouraging for brand new beginners)
3) (most complex but would be the best and better than the competition) -- ask if the new user wants to start with an unrated game against the computer. Start the computer at a low level (1200-1500) and then adjust the AI up or down so that the +/- analysis remains close to zero (ideally, optimally, letting the player win eventually). So the player blunders their rook in move 5; instead of taking it, the computer adjusts to a lower and lower difficulty level until the game is even, and whatever the median difficulty level across the game determines the initial rating. So essentially every game from the first encounter in the site on is a competitive game. Downside: lots of programming, and I'm not sure Lichess has AIs at sufficiently low levels (another feature request).
Some ideas for alleviating this might include:
1) (easiest to add) let someone choose between two or three or so options on signing up for the site such as "Just Learning the Rules" "Know the Rules but Played Less than 100 games" "Average Player (or above)" and assign initial ratings of 700, 1000, or 1500 based on those answers.
2) (moderate to add) Ask people (optionally) to solve some chess puzzles, from the most basic you could imagine to more complex, and assign a rating based on that. (Problem is that I don't know if there is an "easiest" level that wouldn't still be discouraging for brand new beginners)
3) (most complex but would be the best and better than the competition) -- ask if the new user wants to start with an unrated game against the computer. Start the computer at a low level (1200-1500) and then adjust the AI up or down so that the +/- analysis remains close to zero (ideally, optimally, letting the player win eventually). So the player blunders their rook in move 5; instead of taking it, the computer adjusts to a lower and lower difficulty level until the game is even, and whatever the median difficulty level across the game determines the initial rating. So essentially every game from the first encounter in the site on is a competitive game. Downside: lots of programming, and I'm not sure Lichess has AIs at sufficiently low levels (another feature request).
