It definitely seems like the weakest fed bonus by a long shot. I would bet the stats show that.

Right now this site is small so it's not a big deal, but based on my understanding of this post the system lends itself to abuse. Elo is based on a 0 sum system. When you beat someone, your elo goes up, theirs goes down. There is a reason for this design. If you have an elo floor, people can gain elo by beating opponents without their opponents losing elo. This means I could win an infinite number of games against my 100 elo friend without them ever losing a point, with me gaining the whole time. Again right now this doesn't matter, but if this site grows people will abuse it.

In addition, the system you have implemented means the first 100 points don't matter. Why not just start at 100?

The original system that starts at 1000 still prevents people from having a negative elo rating. If you are worried about new players, a 5 or 10 game grace period would give them time to learn the site without breaking the system.

I don't want to sound critical but the elo system as originally designed works well and has decades (in fact almost a century) of track record. I don't think there is a need to change it.

Thanks for the quick fix!

@Babbuc49

From my perspective satellite scoring just doesn't add enough strategic interest for how complicated it ends up being. It ends up being some fiddly thing about manipulating the board in ways that are almost impossible for casual players to understand (blocking out one fed so you are forced to build satellites around it the long way etc). I have already found two bugs in how the online system handles satellite building in corner cases, but I'm hoping it will just be removed from the game so I don't have to explain them :)

Hello. We discovered a bug today in which the auction -VP calculation subtracts far more points at the end of the game than it is meant to. In this game, both the Itars and Ivits had their bids subtracted 3 times from their final scores rather than once. You can see this in the game log, and we confirmed in recalculating the proper scores. It should have been Ivits 143, Itars 141, Ambas 138

https://gaiaform.io/game/Large-paint-7596

@Robert-Shepherd That's not how the rules regarding Lantids read. It specifically says "it does not count for any effects that relate to how many planet types or Gaia planets you have colonized". If it was meant to include gaia planet round scoring it should simple say "it does not count for any effects that relate to planet types or Gaia planets".

Edit: Upon further investigation, you are right. There is a lengthy discussion on a thread where the developer weighed in here https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1875760/lantida-question/page/1 While the rulebook is effectively wrong (or ambiguous at best), apparently the intent is more clearly demonstrated on the Lantids board. The rules for this site should be clarified as we can't see the actual playboards.

I agree on color wheel point. I end up Googling it whenever I start a game so I can look at it and the map at the same time.

The extra tokens can matter. If you leech enough power you could end up with more coins during scoring (I assume bowl 3 power automatically converts to coins at the end)

Good post. For me point 15 is the most important quality of life upgrade in the post. The current coordinate system is basically incomprehensible. I honestly don't care about points 16-19, just listing the tile number would solve the problem as people should know the general game state and if directed to a tile should be able to easily figure out where something was built.

Point 7 seems like it would be a lot of work, as stated, but would not provide all that much value IMO. There are a number of upgrades that the Snellman TM site has made that would provide far more value to most players such as:
• ELO system (which I know is being worked on)
• Searchable player/faction stats
• Estimated final scores when playing in Round 6 based on current game state

A few other comments/ideas on my mind:
• Ability to abandon games if all players agree. My friends and I do this when there is an boring/annoying setup (mostly satellite scoring) but one of us loses karma by letting it time out.
• We would like to see satellite scoring removed from the game, or at least the option to exclude it from possible scoring tiles. Not sure how others feel about this.
• This is a small point, but I think in Taklons games it only tracks the braincube if you have to make a decision about it. I'd like to see it always tracked in the game log for future analyses purposes (I'm pretty sure number of times braincube cycled will end up being the most important Taklon metric).
• Lantid gaia planet round scoring needs to be either fixed or clarified. Currently, you do not get VPs for building on a gaia mine occupied by another player during gaia planet scoring rounds. Based on the wording in the rules, this is wrong. The rules state " This mine counts as a normal mine in all ways except the following: this mine cannot be upgraded, and it does not count for any effects that relate to how many planet types or Gaia planets you have colonized." Note it only mentions effects related to "how many" gaia planets you have, which is not relevant to round scoring.

My friends and I are new to the site, so I only have a couple games under my belt.

Having said that, after only a few games it sure seems like the K track is now too weak. Knowledge is so much easier to come by, it just doesn't ever seem worth it to prioritize that track. You could scale the rewards up, as you suggest, or you could give K bonuses at certain steps.

The additional power actions seem like a pretty big buff to Taklons. That might be OK though, as I don't think anybody was worried about their balance before. At any rate I dropped a 268 in a 2-player game which was about 65 points higher than my previous 2-player best with Taklons. Not sure how much you think the expansion inflates scores, but that seemed like a lot to me, especially for a first try with the expansion.

Anyways thanks so much for including us. Will continue to provide feedback as we play more.