110 replies to this topic

[Egomane]

Biased poll is biased! No vote!

[Arete]

Koshirou, on 28 February 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

What for: You have your W/L and K/D stats, that should give you a good enough picture.

W/L does give some insight, but it doesn't reflect real rating gain. If you get matched against better opposition for 10 matches, you are expected to lose. If you do lose all 10, your rating won't move much, but your W/L ratio goes down. For now, it's the best indicator we got though.
K/D really isn't an indicator of skill whatsoever.

[Agent of Change]

Exoth3rmic, on 28 February 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:

You do sound like a person capable of reason. I'm sure, on that basis, should MM rating ever be visible you would be able to present a vigorous discussion on who/what/why the number was not representative of actual performance.

Everyone else would want to use it as a yardstick to measure their progress personally within the game community - whether they had wanted to see it or not. How is this bad?

Ilwrath, on 28 February 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

I would like to see just how I am doing. Good or bad.
...
So you say the stats will become public? I cannot see how Elo being visible being bad then because people will mostly focus on kill stat.
...
I think I really nailed it with option 3. IMHO. All polls need a little bit of leading to get people involved.

I just want to respond to both of you at once.

I too would very much like to know where I am, how I am doing, etc... However I do not need to know.

What I do know is that the introduction of it being visible would lead to people trying to game the system to the detriment of those around them, getting into ******* contests over it, and bitching to high heaven about how it's "being done wrong". (if you have a strong case as to why these things wouldn't happen i'd be happy to hear you out but to me it would be a miracle if it was only half as bad as i expect it would be)

In light of the things I do expect to happen vs. what i would gain it's a simple cost/benefit analysis for me. I don't need to know my Elo so badly that i am willing to risk my enjoyment of either game or forums be damaged. The desire to know is harmless and in fact a good thing because it means you care, but what will be our cost as a community for knowing? So int eh end i want to know but don't need to know so i come down on the side of not making it public in anyway even only to the individual.

The Devs clearly are thinking along these lines anyway as they statement from the git go they weren't going to make Elo public in anyway.

[Viper69]

Ilwrath, on 28 February 2013 - 03:58 AM, said:

That or just make it visible for all. There is no shame in such stats.

You are obviously new to the internet so I will explaine what will happen if Elo is open to the public and not visible only to you.

Someone will make a 3rd party program to run in the background using screen grabs to make a odds of winning calculator. Also people will be shaming people into the fetal position in debates. Look right now the first thing to pop out of some dumbass's mouth if he sees someone post a complaint or criticism with a low post count or new to the forums they say "come back when your post count is x). Now imagine if you will your Elo was public and every tom, d. i. c. k. and teabag could see it. If you need further explanation of the resulting asshattery then I cant help.

Edited by Viper69, 28 February 2013 - 06:59 AM.

[Ilwrath]

Egomane, on 28 February 2013 - 06:51 AM, said:

Biased poll is biased! No vote!

Not that biased. Several voters had posted that information is bad for the players.

[Agent of Change]

Ilwrath, on 28 February 2013 - 07:01 AM, said:

Not that biased. Several voters had posted that information is bad for the players.

Not that information is bad for the players, that this specific information will likely be detrimental to the game if released to the players. Nuance does matter.

[Exoth3rmic]

In society, your level of education or income doesn't impact the weight of your vote, or give you more votes. I don't see why, as an older community, we couldn't expect to have people with varying Elo ratings or otherwise be taken seriously when they have a valid point (or not).

There will always be trolls and we can always ignore them.

As for 'gaming' the system; this isn't something I'm overly concerned with when we have simply 1 game mode (8v8).

Edited by Exoth3rmic, 28 February 2013 - 07:06 AM.

[Chrithu]

Agent of Change, on 28 February 2013 - 06:56 AM, said:

I just want to respond to both of you at once.

I too would very much like to know where I am, how I am doing, etc... However I do not need to know.

What I do know is that the introduction of it being visible would lead to people trying to game the system to the detriment of those around them, getting into ******* contests over it, and bitching to high heaven about how it's "being done wrong". (if you have a strong case as to why these things wouldn't happen i'd be happy to hear you out but to me it would be a miracle if it was only half as bad as i expect it would be)

In light of the things I do expect to happen vs. what i would gain it's a simple cost/benefit analysis for me. I don't need to know my Elo so badly that i am willing to risk my enjoyment of either game or forums be damaged. The desire to know is harmless and in fact a good thing because it means you care, but what will be our cost as a community for knowing? So int eh end i want to know but don't need to know so i come down on the side of not making it public in anyway even only to the individual.

The Devs clearly are thinking along these lines anyway as they statement from the git go they weren't going to make Elo public in anyway.

The thing is you can figure out pretty easily how you're doing by tracking your win/loss ratio. Is it above one then your Elo rating is currently climbing thus it hasn't found your exact skill bracket yet. If it is 1 your Elo is maintained at a steady level. This means you have arrived your bracket on the Elo Scale and can now rest assured that the majority of your matches will be quite even. If your W/L is below one your Elo is decreasing also meaning the system has not yet determined your skillbracket on the Elo Scale.

This must allways be seen in the light of the system trying to match equally skilled teams and not equally skilled individual players. And in the way it is implemented your personal rating is biased by your teammates. In other words to repeat it again. Even if you had your Elo Score visible: It does not necessarily tell you where exactly you are standing in the grand scheme of individual playerskills.

[Ilwrath]

Agent of Change, on 28 February 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

Not that information is bad for the players, that this specific information will likely be detrimental to the game if released to the players. Nuance does matter.

Okay I changed it a bit.

[Exoth3rmic]

Jason Parker, on 28 February 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

This must allways be seen in the light of the system trying to match equally skilled teams and not equally skilled individual players.

This is from the command chair post on how the system works:

"The way the match maker works it tries to group players within certain thresholds and grows those thresholds over time to ensure a match is made within currently a 2 minute time period. These curves will likely see some tuning for both skill and weight as we monitor the data coming in and work to ensure more and more matches are created within good thresholds."

Key words here are "within certain thresholds" which to me can mean "not equal" to "quite disparate" ratings. The MM isn't trying to give us equal matches, its just trying to organise it so that when you do play a mismatch you are not penalised heavily for losing and a rewarded proportionately for pulling it out of the bag.

Over time, this is meant to mean everyone should get good matches and this is what I am experiencing myself. But until such time as they come out and say "balanced" matches are what they are now aiming for it purely suposition to say we're heading for a 50:50 win loss equal-chance-matches position.

[Kylere]

ELO scores will be gamed into invalidity. Whiny kiddies should be happy with other stats such as KDR, Damage, etc.

[Exoth3rmic]

Thontor, on 28 February 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

Though we will be getting a seperate thing, unrelated to Elo rating, called Combat Score for our global ranking.

I'd glossed over this in my reading previously.

[KinLuu]

A ladder of some kind would be most appreciated.

[Ohgodtherats]

Jason Parker, on 28 February 2013 - 04:00 AM, said:

No. Information is bad for the players.

Gives them reason to express stupid viewpoints based on the assumption this stat had any meaning beyond it's function. Other than that I doubt a lot of people truely understand how Elo works and thus will flood the forums with posts about how it isn't working and must be bugged. Which they already do without having their score.

Just for example: One misconception still is that this stat would somehow measure individual skill while it does not. It is purely based on win or loss. So what it measures - and it does so quite indirectly - is the skill of a team.

This means for solo players: On average and the long run your Elo rating will stagnate if you're good because that helps turning the tide in close games half of time. Means you are not hindering the team if the rest of the team is good players aswell but if the rest of the team is bad they'll drag youu down to a loss. If you're bad your Elo will fall until you're good and keep it at in a stagnating state.

For Team Players that allways drop with the same people and just them: You will all have the same Elo rating.

This of course is based on what information we have about the system from official side.

The purpose of Elo is not to keep score but match you to other players via the match maker. Knowing your Elo does you no good whatsoever.

[Kylere]

Poll answers should be

Visible
Not Visible
No Need

Only a serious tony writes the options like this poll has them. Besides which, grow up.

[Tarman]

Exoth3rmic, on 28 February 2013 - 07:06 AM, said:

In society, your level of education or income doesn't impact the weight of your vote, or give you more votes. I don't see why, as an older community, we couldn't expect to have people with varying Elo ratings or otherwise be taken seriously when they have a valid point (or not).

There will always be trolls and we can always ignore them.

As for 'gaming' the system; this isn't something I'm overly concerned with when we have simply 1 game mode (8v8).

Internet game societies do not operate like this. If there is an environment for it to become a statocracy, it will become so. And you're assuming the crowd playing this game is all us old bastiges who started back in the olden days. Not even all of that crowd is trusted with sharp objects, dude.

"Gaming" the system in this case means griefers intentionally working their ratings so they can drop down and wipe out noobs for lols, of which we have always had a segment of players in any game base who think this kind of thing is fun.

[Exoth3rmic]

Tarman, on 28 February 2013 - 08:02 AM, said:

Internet game societies do not operate like this. If there is an environment for it to become a statocracy, it will become so.

"If". Given the community provides the environment, and given my point was about something completely different, I can but agree.

[SI The Joker]

Yay another thread about seeing elo score.

Scenario:

Player A: "I have an idea for the game.... <inserts idea here>
Player B: "Oh player A, your elo score is only XX... your opinion is invalid!

If you think that it won't happen... go read some previous threads on it. Go read some threads on what people think of players who run spiders... or players who score under 200 damage in a match (for whatever reason)... Just... go... read... these... forums.

Garbage poll is garbage poll. "Information is bad for the player"... That's one of those "Well how the heck could I say that?!" type things... kinda like "no child left behihnd". What... am I to leave a child behind?

[MaddMaxx]

Pihb, on 28 February 2013 - 04:19 AM, said:

If you can see it, you can game the system. MWO players never try to game match making systems do they?

Or as a LW, add that to an allowed "Kick" feature in the Lobby and you had best hope you maintain a God like ELO baby or you won't be playing much Team based MWO.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 28 February 2013 - 08:15 AM.

[Tarman]

Exoth3rmic, on 28 February 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

"If". Given the community provides the environment, and given my point was about something completely different, I can but agree.

Your point was you think a video gaming society is similar to IRL society, and also mature and responsible enough to be given this kind of data. I'm pointing out that's like giving assault rifles to chimps. Yes, they are smart enough to operate them. And they will use them to attack each other.

The "if" there is helped along greatly by releasing a stat that's only really used by the devs to organize the players for relatively fair matching. Give that number to the playerbase and it instantly becomes a peenstick that people will beat others with, even if the difference is 0.5%.