Adjust Rating Decay Timing | Voters

Adjust Rating Decay Timing

PipungKhunpee

Rating Decay Should Use Weeks Instead of Days
Geoguessr is not a game that most people play every day. Many players only play on weekends or whenever they have free time. With the current system, players can start losing rating after just a few days of inactivity, even though their actual skill level has not changed.
Using weeks instead of days would still encourage players to stay active while preventing unnecessary rating loss for community members who simply cannot play every few days. It would also make ratings feel more reflective of player skill rather than activity frequency.
For example, the exact same decay values could be kept, but the unit could be changed from days to weeks:
Week 1-2 > 0 decay/week
Week 3-8 > 1 decay/week
Week 9-16 > 3 decay/week
Week 17-23 > 5 decay/week
Week 24-30 > 7 decay/week
This would still remove inactive players from the top of the leaderboard over time, while being much fairer to players who only have time to play on weekends or occasionally throughout the month.

June 15, 2026

FestiveDesert147

i took a mounth to try ranked. you made it shity, i won't pay again.

Fxf_DuDa

Decay has to go or people will turn away from ranked, period!

Pokervane

What a naive post. Punishing people for not playing every day is literally why this "feature" exists.

GlobalOtter

Pokervane What, were you Paid by GG? Do you play everyday and twice on Sundays?

Pokervane

GlobalOtter How does that even relate to my post?

GlobalOtter

Pokervane I'm saying that every misses days, so they shouldn't punish that but you think they should

Pokervane

GlobalOtter On what planet does anything I said mean that I think they should punish players for missing days?

Loars_

Pokervane yes and the people here think it shouldn’t exist and let the team know it instead of crying lonely if they lose rating.

Pokervane

Loars_ No kidding. You needed to tell me what the "people here" think because it isn't already completely obvious. What you haven't seen is how ridiculously naive this whole thread is because GG doesn't give a crap about how it affects the qualify of the game. As if they are so stupid they don't know what impact it will have, and what the reaction will be. Obviously, they do. "letting the team know" what they already know. They just don't care (they, being the ones at GG who have the final say). Or if they care at all they care less than they care about what does or does not get people coming to the site every day. This is so painfully obvious but apparently it needed to be said.

Pokervane

Loars_ Since we're about stating the obvious here, I will say further what they do care about. If people "let the team know" by playing a lot less in response to this change (which I have done), it might actually have an impact. Much more so than this verbal response which I'm sure they fully expected.

morningscifi

Decay should not be used at all, period. Elo and other esports ranking algorithms are already designed to balance themselves. Find a better ranking equation if you want player pairings to improve.

I think the decay will potentially lead to a lot more mismatches. Not to mention how demotivating it appears to be for a lot of people here. Let players naturally lose points when they lose real matches, that's the only way people are going to feel like they're being treated fairly.

silent one🤫

yes please

Manu福

I don't even understand why.
Who asked for this?
Who wanted this?
If you don't play for one week you lose like 10 Elo?
No way anyones skill level changes this much when they don't play for a week. 
I didn't play for 3-4 months, and I felt like I even improved a bit?
I really hope they will remove this, otherwise a lot of people will quit ranked I feel like.

Moe_Zart

I'm just an average player - Master 1. I do put in hours to improve and I like to think my rating is hard earned. Why do you want to steal it away? Me not playing competitive for a couple of weeks doesn't mean I don't play at all. 
I've had my share of "black screens" - some days the game is unplayable especially if you play competitive. Perhaps my Internet connection is part of the problem, but nevertheless... 
With this "Rating decay" I'll probably stop playing competitive, which I think is sad...
Wow - did this game change over the last couple of years.... :-( 
Focus on the problems in the game (black screens etc.) instead of punishing the loyal players, who logs in almost every day without playing competitive...

PiorunWichru

I agree

SurrealSoul

I don't see what the issue was with keeping your elo but it disappearing from the leaderboards after 2 weeks of inactivity...that was fair for skill representation. If someone doesn't play for a couple weeks who cares if they keep their elo as others won't see it on the leaderboard or even their profile.
Playing ranked isn't even an indication that you keep your skill level, most of the people I play tds with don't play solo ranked but they keep on improving 'cause they regularly practice singleplayer maps.
Gaining elo in ranked requires you to be locked in and in the mood to compete. That's not possible every two days. It's so unhealthy to feel pressured to play. People have important things in life: work, family/friends, projects, vacations or just taking time off to avoid burnout.
If you want to encourage more people to play, forcing them every couple days is not the way to do it. Let people play at their own pace and keep their hard-earned elo. If they don't play ranked, it's already hidden to others. And when they do come back after a while, the games will naturally adjust the elo. What's wrong with that?

Loars_

SurrealSoul what proves your point is that in Germany there is a Player called lufi that has 100.000 classic games but just 200 ranked duels because he rather plays singleplayer but he still was on 2000 Elo. There is No elo shown currently but I don‘t think he lost any skill in the Game.

Flubbersticks

this is very annoying, I work very hard to get into the promotion each week, and once i do, i don't play after that in hopes that no one overtakes me. and now if i don't play every three days i lose my rating, and my spot in the promotion zone.

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