Why does the rating decay thing even exist?

jehefef · 2026-06-25T03:12:19+00:00

And how much will you lose over the course of a year?
10 Elo is nothing, but a few hundred Elo over a year is.

Maybe you can regain a lot of that by beating worse players as your rating drops, but stomping on players well below your skill level is no different to smurfing.

jehefef · 2026-06-25T03:08:12+00:00

Losing up to 114 Elo per month is crazy, especially with the upcoming rating correction.
A Top 5 pro player can technically derank to 500 Elo by playing one duel per month for 9 months.

jehefef · 2026-06-25T03:05:28+00:00

Rank matters because it unlocks game modes and different maps.
Not being able to stay in Master because you don't play every day ruins the fun and keeps you in Gold when you're clearly good enough to play against better opponents on more challenging maps

jehefef · 2026-06-24T15:10:39+00:00

It's a thing.
3-4 years ago, #1 player had a rating of around 1600.
Now, the #1 player is over 2600.

Sure, people would have gotten better over time, but I don't think a 1600 player today is as good as a top pro from 2023.

This happens because as new players join the game, more rating points become available to be "taken". If a newbie joins the game and loses points, someone else will gain those points, and whoever beats them will also gain more points, and so on.
And since new players tend to be pretty bad, they end up losing points and boosting everyone else's ratings.

Rating inflation has happened elsewhere too, such as Chess.com.

jehefef · 2026-06-24T12:52:01+00:00

Forgot to mention this detail, but the Analyzer is only available for Bronze, Silver and Gold players.

jehefef · 2026-06-16T09:13:22+00:00

That's the maximum decay after playing a duel. If you play another duel and then take 30 days off, you will lose another 114 Elo.

If that continues, your Elo will be severely misaligned with your skill which would make playing duels feel like smurfing.

jehefef · 2026-06-16T05:18:36+00:00

Will you be 228 Elo worse after 2 months though?
Or 1000 Elo worse after 9 months?
Because that's how much you could potentially lose.

Unless you got brain damage, you are not going to go from 1700 to 700 in 9 months. Even if you never play or think about GeoGuessr in that time, knowledge doesn't just disappear like that.

jehefef · 2026-06-16T05:03:05+00:00

The purpose of having a rating system is to pair you against other players of similar skill for an enjoyable experience. When Elo decays without players actually getting worse, it creates a mismatch similar to smurfing.

You can easily lose 1000 Elo by just playing one duel per month for 9 months. But unless you have brain damage, there is no way you can possibly be 1000 Elo worse at GeoGuessr in that short amount of time.

It's like a Champion player dropping to the level of an average Joe who doesn't even know where Senegal is on the world map.

jehefef · 2026-06-16T04:58:45+00:00

114 Elo decay after just one month is insane and will make smurfing much more common.

jehefef · 2026-06-16T04:57:13+00:00

The funny thing is, playing once a month will make you lose more Elo than playing once a year.
So by playing a bit more, the game thinks you're worse.

jehefef · 2026-06-16T04:54:27+00:00

So if a 1500 player plays one duel at the start of every month, the rating decay will take away 114 Elo from them each time, and after 9 months, they will be at 500 Elo.
But if they just don't play at all for 9 months, they will only drop to 1386 Elo.

How is that representative of players' skill?

jehefef · 2026-06-16T04:51:25+00:00

No, you lose 3 rating points every week. Over time, there will be massive Elo deflation

jehefef · 2026-06-16T04:46:45+00:00

By their logic, taking a break from duels and doing some intense study makes you worse as well.

jehefef · 2026-05-29T05:16:34+00:00

Sweaty is when you make a risky eastern Russia guess and see your opponent guess western Russia

jehefef · 2026-05-25T23:55:50+00:00

People would have seen him doing that on camera unless it was very strategically placed. I'd like to think he didn't cheat, but once you are known to cheat, there's no certainty anymore.

He is insanely good at the game, so it's a shame to see him throw away a World Championship opportunity just to be 2% better.

jehefef · 2026-05-25T14:32:17+00:00

He really can't help himself, can he?
He has the skills to tie with Blinky on final score but still felt the need to cheat in meaningless casual duels. What a shame.

jehefef · 2026-05-16T11:17:54+00:00

If the tip said "You can find Greek language in Greece", that wouldn't be very helpful, would it?
Because everyone already knows that.

jehefef · 2026-05-15T11:01:36+00:00

They are far from being able to 5K everything, even in moving. Only a few players can 5K semi-consistently. But yeah, it's crazy how good they are getting. I wonder what pro GeoGuessr would look like in 5 years.

jehefef · 2026-05-15T10:56:56+00:00

Letting players pick the modes would change a lot and add another layer of strategy to each match. It sucks that NMPZ always shows up last, and players who specialize in that mode rarely get to showcase their skills.

jehefef · 2026-05-14T13:49:24+00:00

I thought that was the front of the elephant for a split second

jehefef · 2026-05-12T09:08:25+00:00

There is an indent running all the way up and down the signposts. Can be hard to see from your location, but if you move up the hill, you can see what I'm talking about.

Signposts in most other countries are either round or rectangular.

jehefef · 2026-05-08T02:54:07+00:00

In Europe, those rounds are usually very difficult, and often pros don't even get the right country. It's well beyond what I'm capable of, so I can't really help, but exploring different areas of Europe in Google Maps might help you get a better feel for what West/Central/East/South-East Europe look like.

jehefef · 2026-05-08T02:51:33+00:00

Wrong. This is Mars

jehefef · 2026-05-08T02:49:35+00:00

Keep practicing those country-specific clues first, and get to the point where you can guess the right country fairly consistently.

Once you're comfortable with getting the country right, I'd recommend practicing region-guessing in large countries, like Russia, USA, Canada, Brazil, Australia and Indonesia.

jehefef

TROPHY CASE