148 replies to this topic

[Glythe]

Vodrin Thales, on 14 March 2013 - 09:53 AM, said:

It's really not. My groups of 4 that I play with are running a 75% win percentage or better when I am playing with vets from my group, and around 50% when I fill up with relatively green members.

It's bad form to defeat your argument with your own post. You have a 50% win rate with pugs you say?

Vodrin Thales, on 14 March 2013 - 09:53 AM, said:

If you are having that much trouble carrying 4 pugs to wins they are not the problem. The problem is that ELO is frequently matching you against players like me.

Nope I can deal 600-1000 damage regardless of who is in the game. I've proved that in 8 man group drops against an ally clan that we were helping practice for the Rho tournament. I should mention the ally clan practes 8 man drops all the time and performs much better than we have been doing in that arena.

When you get placed against an enemy team of all competent players and have 3-4 incompetent players on your team it's a near guaranteed loss (happens mostly but consistently during off hours). When I'm matched against evenly ranked players the games are closer to even (only seems to happen consistently during peak hours). And just like you when that happens I win more than I lose by a large margin.

If we throw out base capture for a minute you need to deal just a little over 2000 damage as a team to win (Adjust according to mech weights and if you destroy critical locations first). A realistic scenario is that you have three players dealing 400+ damage and the rest deal 200 damage except that two people have 100 damage.

By comparison in off hours you tend to see the other 4 players in the game with extremely low damage. A recent example that comes to mind is : 900, 500,400, 200, 50, 20, 9, and 0. The bottom four players might as well not have brought weapons and focused on maxing their armor and engine speed. Four mechs on the enemy team are extremely close to death but they didn't die because the bottom four players were worthless. What was the enemy team's damage score? It was the first example I listed.

You will not win (unless by cap) if you have 4 players who deal collectively under 100 damage (I suppose there is an exception if the enemy team is all commandos).


I think overall we need strict Elo brackets. Let's have increment brackets where you are not allowed to be matched against someone who has more than X +/- when compared to your score. In a group setting the highest players score will be used as the cut off point.

If you go play a game like Smite you'll see the elo of everyone in your game and when I was playing there was never someone in the game who was more than +100 points (realistic translation 50 up or down). That is to say if your score was 1950 you only played with players ranked between 2000 and 1900 Elo scores.

I have repeatedly put forth the position that Elo does not work when the population is low. It does not just fail... it fails beyond all expectation. To use the smite example the computer for this game apparently thinks the following is a fair match. One team has every player with an Elo score of 2000 with five players for a total score of 10,000 points. The other team has one guy who is 4000, two players who are 2000 and two players who are worth 1000 points.

There are a limited number of scenarios that would happen with such a match up. The first is that the 1000 ranked Elo players get ganked repeatedly (game has respawns) and only serve to make the enemy team stronger. Another possibility is that the 4000 rank player keeps beating down the rank 2000 players (individually or in a group of two) so that the 1000 rank players have the means to surpass the better players on the enemy team. The final scenario is that the average team works as a group because they all are good players while the enemy team has a poor composition and does not (the 4000 rank player can hold his own solo and might do just that; this leaves the 1000 rank players in a weak position to utilize team play even if they knew how).

I am drawing some conclusions here but since we cannot see our Elo score that is all we can do. It is possible that there are lots of people returning to the game after playing during the Elo seed phase who have an inflated score. This is unlikely because an inflated score should rather quickly be deflated by repeated loss. Moreover when this scenario happens I tend to see one team with an average damage/team score and the other team tends to have an incredibly lopsided score.

My description of what I think is happening fits with the data I see for team performance.

Edited by Glythe, 14 March 2013 - 06:25 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Targetloc, on 13 March 2013 - 05:21 PM, said:

I'm experiencing the exact same thing as Glythe.

About 1 game in 4 I'll see a pretty decent team on both sides and maybe a name I recognize, but most rounds end with 2-3 players doing under 100 damage. Most rounds end with the top 2 players doing 600-800 damage and the rest doing 200 or less.

I managed a 70% win rate over 86 games in my heavies during the Be a Hero tournament when all this elo was supposed to be shaking itself out and there were lots of high value targets around, so I assume my heavy elo is at least decent.

But I'm still seeing trial mechs in my games. And LBX10 Altai.

Frankly I think the most telling factor of how a match is going to go is looking around at the start and seeing how many mechs are default green camo.

Though I will applaud PGI because since elo, games have definitely been far more challenging.

This is it. This just won. In fact I think this needs to be the background of the games startup screen.

'why can't I legs' and the guy humping the building are my two favorites. The fact that the other team is just dumbstruck makes it better.

Where did you find this?

[Mackman]

ThomasMarik, on 14 March 2013 - 10:40 AM, said:

This is not LoL. LOL goes to great lengths and pains to make every single one of the characters "balanced" Every character is supposed to have a 50/50 chance of being able to defeat any other characters. The difference resting only with skill. In MWO we do not have that. The Devs are making no effort in balancing one mech against another. All they are trying to do is balance by some nebulous value called "skill" while throwing us into wildly different mismatched scenarios.

I know I keep belaboring this point but it is my number 1 bugaboo about the ELO system. I don't care if you are trying to match me up with some kind of mystic ELO number you pull out of your crystal ball. What I do care about is a level playing field to start with. either by weight class, tonnage, or BV. That has to be the priority when putting together the match. I never got frustrated with the matchmaker before ELO came out. Yeah sometimes I would get stomped 8/0, Never did I feel cheated when I lost. even when people were allowed to run 8 mans versus pugs I never felt cheated when I got steamrolled by an 8 man. It was fun trying to take them down, and I think we sometimes were able to.

It is only after ELO has come out and we continually get rolled by a group that out tonnes us by 200 tons that I've frankly gotten sick of even dropping. I've not quit but I don't play anywhere near as much as I did. It feels cheep when I'm on the heftier side and It's annoying bordering on boring when you are on the smaller side. Now on those rare instances where the match is almost even then yes, the game is still fun. I just find it rare to drop into a match where the deck isn't stacked against you from the start. Maybe I am just unlucky but this is why sorting by weight or weight class is far more important than sorting by ELO. I understand the need to separate the pros from the little league players. All I want is for both sides to be playing the same game at the start.


EDIT: yes I know sometimes you can win while under tonned. I would point out that you should only be able to do that through skill which is supposed to be equal with ELO or by luck which isn't something we should be relying on. I also know that it is sometimes to your advantage to be lighter. Even so if you are at an advantage having the smaller force on a map then you are still stacking the deck against the other team.

You won't have any arguments from me when it comes to tonnage matching. It boggles my mind that the possibility of coming in with mismatched tonnage even exists.

That said, that's not a problem with Elo itself, just with PGI's implementation of it (which, I believe, they said they're looking into).

Oh, and you really don't know what you're talking about when you say that in LoL, every character is 50/50 against every other character. Counters, both soft and reasonably hard, exist: That's why character pick is so important in LoL. And I would bet that PGI has been collecting data this entire time that they will use to "balance" various mechs and tonnages against each other, and that they will use that info to further tune their Elo system.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Z0MBIE Y0SHI, on 13 March 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

Leave my people out of this.

you've inflamed the wrath of the undead op... time to get redacted out of the country!

[Corbon Zackery]

AFKer's are the new issue the newest ones will log on taking up a assault slot and then push it up to a wall or building.

When this happens your looking at a 80 to 100 ton advantage for the other team. It's in the top 5 of issues that need to be taken care of.

To add to that topic if your just pushing your mech into a wall your ELO should be next to nothing so I shouldn't even be matching up with them that's how we know ELO also known as sky-net since its a chess program hooked up to the internet.

Edited by Corbon Zackery, 14 March 2013 - 06:46 PM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

btw "why can't i legs" is now the new MWO chant!

[Targetloc]

MischiefSC, on 14 March 2013 - 06:08 PM, said:

This is it. This just won. In fact I think this needs to be the background of the games startup screen.

'why can't I legs' and the guy humping the building are my two favorites. The fact that the other team is just dumbstruck makes it better.

Where did you find this?

My friend Felknar drew it. He's one of those internet comic drawing guys. http://www.picklezombie.com/

Based on a few drops we had.

[SpiralRazor]

Z0MBIE Y0SHI, on 13 March 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

Leave my people out of this.

quoted for lul.

[Tarman]

Z0MBIE Y0SHI, on 13 March 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

Leave my people out of this.

OUR people.

[SpiralRazor]

LoL has rock paper scissors for the most part


Tanks own ADC

ADC/APC kills support and other ADC/APC

Support kites tanks to pieces.

There are exceptions, but mostly this is true.

[Mackman]

SpiralRazor, on 14 March 2013 - 10:31 PM, said:

LoL has rock paper scissors for the most part


Tanks own ADC

ADC/APC kills support and other ADC/APC

Support kites tanks to pieces.

There are exceptions, but mostly this is true.

In addition to being wildly off-topic, this is the worst way I've ever seen LoL described... why would you think that the "support", of all people, is specifically good at "kiting"? Everyone kills supports in a 1 on 1. That's why they're "support" characters, and many (I think most) don't even have slows to kite with. If anything, it's the AD Carry who's going to be doing the kiting.

There is very little role-related "rock-paper-scissors," (except probably tanks vs. AP Carries), although there is a lot of character-related countering.

Sorry for going off-topic, but i can't stand mis-information.

Edited by Mackman, 14 March 2013 - 10:51 PM.

[Glythe]

This game has paper rock scissors too.

If you have lots of armor and many weapons you are rock. If you are fast with light armor you are paper. If you're somewhat speedy and have a medium armament you are scissors.

An Atlas is a rock, the Jenner is paper, and the Trebuchet is an example of scissors. But things get complicated.

A centurian that goes around 120-140 is suddenly paper instead of scissors. But he kills paper as if he were scissors.

An Atlas with a 350 engine can kill paper as if he were scissors (but has slightly more trouble with other rocks). He is meanwhile even better at killing scissors.

Sniping CTF (2x ERPPC+Gauss) is now paper in regards to killing assaults with the speed of scissors. But in so doing he gets killed by paper.

I could go on but I think you get the point.

Elo isn't going to balance this game..... weight alone won't balance this game..... but balancing weight and ECM (getting them close) will make for good games for all involved.

[Hobietime]

Yokaiko, on 13 March 2013 - 10:30 AM, said:

My KDR jumped a full point after ELO......even though my win loss is dropping like a stone.

Really? Then I don't know what the ****'s up with my Elo.

When do you play?

All my W/L does is skyrocket. I think it has to do with the fact that I live out far west and play late at night (time to go to sleep when people start saying g'day in chat).

After about 50 games in my first assault (Stalker 3F) these are my stats:
STALKER STK-3F 48 33 15 2.20 65 19 3.42 18,157 33,445 04:31:33

I don't get get Elo, but it sure makes me happy.

[Yokaiko]

Hobietime, on 16 March 2013 - 11:19 PM, said:

I don't get get Elo, but it sure makes me happy.

I play at like 6am your time, I work nights.

[Hobietime]

As long as I don't play at 3-4 PM it seems like most people are pretty bad. I killed a 3L trying to face hug me with a 4x PPC stalker build with zero pilot upgrades. It took me something like four alphas to his ct since only one was when he was more than 90 meters away.

Edited by Hobietime, 16 March 2013 - 11:38 PM.

[Ozric]

Elo is working well, giving me maybe the fairest matches since early beta. I pug exclusively, in a support mech, and have gone through long periods of just getting facerolled by premades. Since Elo, I'm winning matches, my stats have turned into positive numbers and I'm generally having a lot more fun. That's what they said Elo would do, and for me at least it is achieving it.

[Yokaiko]

Yeah, well the issue is that for those of us that DON'T always pug you basically can't.

Apparently mine gets jacked from running in groups so when I do pug its loss after loss after loss, and usually frigging rolls. MUCH MUCH worse than phase two.

[MischiefSC]

I'm mixing pug and premades a lot tonight and it's still fine. Playing with a good group, certainly winning a lot more than losing.

Another part of your problem is that you're probably dropping in mostly premade queues, who are effectively ignoring the pugs - which is now you. This can engender a sense of being 'left to it' and in effect gimps the premades chance of success since you're a good player - if you're involved, or else your teams wouldn't do so well.

Also there are certainly some twits left in high Elo to shake out.

Give it time.

[Yokaiko]

MischiefSC, on 17 March 2013 - 12:05 AM, said:

I'm mixing pug and premades a lot tonight and it's still fine. Playing with a good group, certainly winning a lot more than losing.

Another part of your problem is that you're probably dropping in mostly premade queues, who are effectively ignoring the pugs - which is now you. This can engender a sense of being 'left to it' and in effect gimps the premades chance of success since you're a good player - if you're involved, or else your teams wouldn't do so well.

Also there are certainly some twits left in high Elo to shake out.

Give it time.

If some of these teams are premades.....just wow.


First thing said this game, "going tunnel"

....atlas RS

/facepalms.

Nevermind I thought that tunneling on couquest was kind of facepalm......but the enemy didn't move foreward at all. So they go wrecked lol

Edited by Yokaiko, 17 March 2013 - 12:20 AM.

[Volume]

Mackman, on 13 March 2013 - 08:27 AM, said:

So you're saying that League of Legends did not become one of the most played games in the world by relying on Elo matchmaking? You're saying that they've been using an ineffective matchmaker for... what is it now, three or four years at least?

Every game will not be close: You're right about that much. But Elo will result in each player getting more equally-matched games on a consistent basis.

Also, am I to understand from your last comment that you don't want any matchmaking at all? Because if so, then I can rest easy knowing that your opinion on how to make competitive games fun for everybody is effectively worthless.

Ranked games are entirely different things.

Also, to the OP, tell your friend to try playing better. ELO will take an average of the ratings and match them against eachother. This could be 8 players with 1000 ELO, or 4 players with 1500 and 4 players with 500.

What I'm saying is that his suicide ELO tanking won't help at all, and he's better off just making a new account, or better yet, managing his expectations.

Edited by Volume, 17 March 2013 - 12:28 AM.