597 replies to this topic

[tenderloving]

Livewyr, on 07 June 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

They do that already for bugs- without public Elo.

Balance is a different animal. (Balance, all too often, is a matter of opinion.)

When hard data is available it ceases to be an opinion.

1. Does a certain tactic/weapon consistently overperform or underperform in the hands of equally skilled players? (Win rates/KDA with and without this tactic/weapon)
2. Is there evidence that the only viable way to counter said tactic/weapon is to copy it (performance of X vs Y compared to X vs X)

The opinion stuff can come in when you talk about HOW to address imbalance, but whether or not it exists is easy to see in the data.

Other games have managed to quantify balance; there's no reason PGI can't do it. If you look at League of Legends, they 've got it so fine tuned at higher brackets that a Win/Loss Ratio of 55% is considered grossly overpowered.

[MaddMaxx]

Easy solution without using ELO.

How many games have you played?

Post that number, in every thread, that you want your opinion to have some basis for substance.

It has to have some weight as what you think you know right?

Everyone knows how many games they have played right?

[Livewyr]

tenderloving, on 07 June 2013 - 09:59 AM, said:

When hard data is available it ceases to be an opinion.

1. Does a certain tactic/weapon consistently overperform or underperform in the hands of equally skilled players? (Win rates/KDA with and without this tactic/weapon)
2. Is there evidence that the only viable way to counter said tactic/weapon is to copy it (performance of X vs Y compared to X vs X)

The opinion stuff can come in when you talk about HOW to address imbalance, but whether or not it exists is easy to see in the data.

Other games have managed to quantify balance; there's no reason PGI can't do it. If you look at League of Legends, they 've got it so fine tuned at higher brackets that a Win/Loss Ratio of 55% is considered grossly overpowered.

Indeed, mass data collected is a good thing-
PGI can do that, and they also have the power to act upon it.

Mass data given to the playerbase can be collected by a dedicated group/player to form an opinion the way PGI should.. but in the end, they can only tell PGI to do it and hope.
(Meanwhile the ***holes can go to town on anyone who has an opinion different then theirs, if they have a lower Elo... nothing stops that once it's available.)

[FrDrake]

Livewyr, on 07 June 2013 - 09:56 AM, said:

^^^^
I share this. (I tend to think I'd use the information for 'good')
The problem is, reality of forum life is- most don't. It just creates a (more) toxic environment.

I never played WoT, so maybe the situation can get worse beyond anything I can imagine.

I just have this overwhelming nagging feeling that PGI is and will be balancing the entire game based on the most vocal group, and that the most vocal group may have as we talked about just some "L2play" issues. And that's really where I'm going with this whole topic, in my opinion our community polices PGI's changes way better than it seems their internal people do, and I want our community to have as much data at its hands as it can so when the time comes we can argue our side if we need to.

*Edit 2116 games since OB, at least that many in CB.

Edited by FrDrake, 07 June 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Would be a better idea to create tiers, Bronze>Platinum.

Nobody's specific skill level is advertised, but their bracket is, stats are then weighted based on how X,Y,Z perform at each bracket level, because as much as people want to deny it here in this thread, the game is different at various elo levels.

Yes you may get people that elo peen, but we already have that, and this community is as toxic as it gets between RP'ers, TT, FPS'ers, Sim'ers.

There is nothing to lose, and some actual meaningful discussion may come of it at each tier level, as opposed to the current whining x,y,z is overpowered because this is not my interpretation of MW.

The game certainly can't get any worse than it currently is.

[Livewyr]

FrDrake, on 07 June 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

I never played WoT, so maybe the situation can get worse beyond anything I can imagine.

I just have this overwhelming nagging feeling that PGI is and will be balancing the entire game based on the most vocal group, and that the most vocal group may have as we talked about just some "L2play" issues. And that's really where I'm going with this whole topic, in my opinion our community polices PGI's changes way better than it seems their internal people do, and I want our community to have as much data at its hands as it can so when the time comes we can argue our side if we need to.

Your nagging feeling might be correct. (PPCs are evidence of that.)

But that vocal group gets challenged now as it is when their arguments are flawed...
if PGI can:
see the flawed arguments
see the arguments against it based on logic
and
see the Elo scores of both/all sides
and they still choose to go with the vocal side.. what hope would public Elos give us anyways?

[Livewyr]

DV McKenna, on 07 June 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

Would be a better idea to create tiers, Bronze>Platinum.

Nobody's specific skill level is advertised, but their bracket is, stats are then weighted based on how X,Y,Z perform at each bracket level, because as much as people want to deny it here in this thread, the game is different at various elo levels.

Yes you may get people that elo peen, but we already have that, and this community is as toxic as it gets between RP'ers, TT, FPS'ers, Sim'ers.

There is nothing to lose, and some actual meaningful discussion may come of it at each tier level, as opposed to the current whining x,y,z is overpowered because this is not my interpretation of MW.

The game certainly can't get any worse than it currently is.

Incidentally- I was playing SC2 the other night in a 3v3 unranked match.. and we lost. (I think I performed the best of the team and the scores afterwards supported that.)
But the first insult hurled at me (ironically by the guy who got displaced first for having no units and was living off of the other two of us) was "You're a bronze bracket aren't you, noob."

(I honestly don't know what bracket(s) I'm in in SC2.. I don't care enough to look.)

But that was the first thing he said when the loss was obvious and inevitable.

[FrDrake]

Livewyr, on 07 June 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

Your nagging feeling might be correct. (PPCs are evidence of that.)

But that vocal group gets challenged now as it is when their arguments are flawed...
if PGI can:
see the flawed arguments
see the arguments against it based on logic
and
see the Elo scores of both/all sides
and they still choose to go with the vocal side.. what hope would public Elos give us anyways?

Right now we don't know, we just have to "trust". If a few people raised a concern about a change and they all happened to be from the same bracket, I think the community would have an easier time discerning, digesting and voicing that.

Whether the pros outweight the cons though you have me doubting at this point.

[Metallis]

Screech, on 06 June 2013 - 12:51 PM, said:

Why not just have everyone post a picture of their junk and put it next to their name. Would accomplish the same thing.

I could not stop laughing!!!!

[Soy]

DV McKenna, on 07 June 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

Would be a better idea to create tiers, Bronze>Platinum.

Nobody's specific skill level is advertised, but their bracket is, stats are then weighted based on how X,Y,Z perform at each bracket level, because as much as people want to deny it here in this thread, the game is different at various elo levels.

Yes you may get people that elo peen, but we already have that, and this community is as toxic as it gets between RP'ers, TT, FPS'ers, Sim'ers.

There is nothing to lose, and some actual meaningful discussion may come of it at each tier level, as opposed to the current whining x,y,z is overpowered because this is not my interpretation of MW.

The game certainly can't get any worse than it currently is.

I don't necessarily agree or advocate this but it's hard to argue with the spirit of the post.

Edited by Soy, 07 June 2013 - 11:01 AM.

[PEEFsmash]

I have read every post here, and now I want to try to show that we are talking past eachother.

The anti-public Elo folks biggest complaints:
#1: "People will have bigger #s than me and wave them at me." This is a non-issue. Let them wave their number, you should only care if you care. If you don't care about that number, then it shouldn't bother you.
#2: "When someone makes a balance suggestion, it should be based on the quality of their argument. They can have a low Elo and still have interesting ideas/relevant discussion. They should not be ignored because they have a number next to their name."

I think that #2 is right in a way, but in another way it is clearly wrong, almost wrong by definition. On one hand, arguments about balance are absolutely only about the quality of the argument. However, if we want this game to be balanced at the highest level, then balance discussions based on player experience of low-level players is not relevant to balancing the game. That sounds harsh, but is the conditional false? Let's put it more concretely, so that my argument isn't strawmanned which I think it has. I'm going to be as explicit as possible:

Premise 1: We wish to balance the game so that it is balanced at the highest level of play. (AKA, all seeming imbalances should be deal-with-able by improving one's play.)
Premise 2: When player feedback comes from the player's own gameplay perspective, these perspectives are very different at different levels.
Premise 3: What might be a solution to a balance issue at a low level is not relevant to top level balance whatsoever.
Therefore: When balancing the game at the highest level, personal testimony from low-level player experience is simply not relevant because none of that experience is of the game at the highest level.

If you disagree with me about this above conclusion, please not explicitly what premise you disagree with.

So the worry that many people are raising is that this would mean that ALL low-level input would be irrelevant or written off. Some even say that if Elo was public they would be ignored in this very thread! That is a total non-sequitur. Low-level players can add TONS to balance discussion. For example, who cares what level the player was who discovered the SRM splash damage bug? It is totally not relevant to skill level. Discovering that Streaks core almost exclusively CT is not relevant to skill level. When a player is stating raw facts about the game, talking about weapon statistics, etc, their level of play is completely irrelevant. However, when the low-level player provides personal testimony of this sort, "Nerf light speed because they are too fast and its impossible to hit them" this input is not relevant to balance at the top level, because his low-Elo EXPLAINS his difficulties. Does this mean I will just walk around telling people L2Play? No, I would provide information that would help that player realize that this is not an imbalance in the game, but something that the player herself needs to work on.

How is the low-level player's personal experience testimony useful...well it is useful for the quality of the game! It is the opinion of someone from the playerbase for god's sake, and should not be ignored! Improving the quality of the game for low-level players is important. The problem is that testimony from experience of low-level players is completely irrelevant to one thing, and that is balance at the high-level.

I have tried my best to be very explicit here, and I would appreciate it if the content of this post was discussed, and I wasn't strawmanned as an E-peen waver or something of that sort. I have made very clear and distinct claims.

Simply put: Testimony from low-level players about their in-game experience is not relevant to balance at the top-level. Low-level players are entirely capable of providing useful balance discussion in many ways. The only way that they cannot provide useful balance discussion is by saying that something is imbalanced in their games. That may well be true for their level of play, but their level of play explains why they see something as imbalanced. Their concerns matter, but their problems and solutions are often functions of their level of play, and the proper solution is not to change the game for players who are doing things wrong, but rather to educate them on how to improve their own play so that they can fix the issue that they falsely see as an inherent imbalance.

Please tell me what particular part of my argument is false or invalid if you disagree with me. I hope this has clarified my position.

[Deathlike]

Ideally, the points posted are logical and sound. It sounds perfect when it is explained like that.

However, the practicality of the argument is that it doesn't work, and fosters a skill-class based structure that does not actually achieve either goal. It is possible that higher level players will ignore what lower level players say, even if what is said is correct. People are selfish at times, and will not always "give up" their advanced understanding or "abuse" of the current gameplay in order to "stay at the top". This is what many legit arguments/discussions end up being... they are neutralized by saying "I have higher ELO, and thus I believe your OP is worthless". That happens more often than not in any discussion that occurs here, even when we don't know our own ELO. It can be easy to determine a comment from a newbie that a comment from a veteran player of this game. It doesn't mean that the veteran player of this game is a good player... it simply means he's played longer. It doesn't mean he has more skill or has a better argument over the newbie. That is the problem.

TL;DR
So, in theory, showing ELO ratings sounds like a good idea to give people some context of what they are talking about.

Reality says that these things are actually more than irrelevant, if not more divisive than that they intend to accomplish.

[Sable]

My mind was made up at the title of this post and I didn't even make it through the whole first page before i wanted to post. Public stats are bad because the internet is full of jerks. Its the main reason i usually don't play pvp games, because jerks on the internet ruin the "game" part of it for everyone. Give them hard facts to beat someone over the head with and they'll use it. Being a jerk in real life has consequences, when you don't have to face any kind of consequences being a jerk intensifies. I don't want that to happen to MWO.

I think everyone's opinion that plays the game is important not just the elite ego crazed top end.

[tenderloving]

Deathlike, on 07 June 2013 - 11:47 AM, said:

TL;DR
So, in theory, showing ELO ratings sounds like a good idea to give people some context of what they are talking about.

Reality says that these things are actually more than irrelevant, if not more divisive than that they intend to accomplish.

Lots of insightful stuff in this post.

I keep using League of Legends for examples because it is massive and the devs have their crap together.

There are champions that appear to be blatantly overpowered at low levels of play:

One of them, Katarina, essentially resets all of her cooldowns upon getting a kill, and she has a very strong ultimate that can shred an enemy team in a couple seconds. Against new players, she is godlike, and can quickly rack up a lot of kills and gold she can use to purchase stronger weapons, allowing a "snowball effect" where the game becomes imbalanced.

At higher levels of play, she is mediocre at best because there are many abilities that can stop her ult completely. A calm team of competent players will save one of these abilities for her and make her a squishy, worthless target that is stuck in the middle of their team. She can still be used effectively, but it is much more difficult to completely trounce her enemies.

Now, if Riot listened to the people whining at low-levels, she could be unnecessarily nerfed. That's why it's important to ask objective questions, and to consider the source of complaints.

Alternatively, I can think of a time they nerfed a champion (Teemo) because of play that was emerging only at the tip-top levels. Lower level players hadn't even started adopting the unfavorable tactics (which would take a while to describe, but they essentially turned the game into a siege-mode), and they decided to pull the plug on them before it trickled down. (Goodbye shrooms :'( )

Example in MWO: With our recent jump-sniping issues, you had very competent players complaining about the staleness of the game. When the pros are unable to find a better tactic or a tactic that reliably counters something (because they try constantly) then that thing is probably busted.

TLDR: ELO is important to the value of feedback, because things that are broken at one level of play may go unnoticed at another level of play.

Edited by tenderloving, 07 June 2013 - 12:15 PM.

[Bilbo]

tenderloving, on 07 June 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

........

TLDR: ELO is important to the value of feedback, because things that are broken at one level of play may go unnoticed at another level of play.

The problem is we were able to make the determination about poptarting without knowing anyone's Elo. Just like we are able to deduce that high damage pinpoint alphas are a problem without knowing anyone's Elo. If there is a difference in usage or ability to counter at the higher levels, the differences can be brought out easily enough through discussion and you get all the good with none of the bad.

[FactorlanP]

tenderloving, on 07 June 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:

TLDR: ELO is important to the value of feedback, because things that are broken at one level of play may go unnoticed at another level of play.

The developers having the ability to look at issues and consider ELO is important... Public ELO has nothing to do with that at all.

[Orthodontist]

No. I am against this.

All it leads to is regulation by the player base over whose opinion may or may not matter. ELO has no bearing on what a person is trying to say.

Rather we should look to the content of the players message and judge it by its presentation and context, not the arbitrary number the games matchmaker uses to make the games "fun and enjoyable."

No to public ELO. Thanks for your time on page...lost forever.

[tenderloving]

Soy, on 07 June 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

[DELETED CONTENT]

Not really. PGI isn't operating in a vacuum here. There is tons of valuable data available in existing games, and other game developers have done a lot of grunt work that doesn't need to be duplicated. Regardless of the game, humans behave in certain ways when placed in competitive situations. Intelligent game designers build upon the findings of others instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

I'm sorry that you can't see the connections I'm making, but I have faith in the other posters in this thread to have the critical thinking abilities to do so.

Edited by Destined, 10 June 2013 - 03:59 PM.
Quote clean up

[MuKen]

PEEFsmash, on 07 June 2013 - 11:34 AM, said:

Premise 1: We wish to balance the game so that it is balanced at the highest level of play. (AKA, all seeming imbalances should be deal-with-able by improving one's play.)
Premise 2: When player feedback comes from the player's own gameplay perspective, these perspectives are very different at different levels.
Premise 3: What might be a solution to a balance issue at a low level is not relevant to top level balance whatsoever.
Therefore: When balancing the game at the highest level, personal testimony from low-level player experience is simply not relevant because none of that experience is of the game at the highest level.

Your chain of reasoning seems to assume that either

1) The forum posters are the ones who will implement the changes
2) The devs will make changes based upon the conclusions the forums come to, whilst ignoring all conversation that led to those conclusions

Neither of these is true. I'm not even sure they DO take into account what the forums say at all, but if they did, they wouldn't do it by blindly observing what the final consensus is.

They can see the ELOs of the posters, and decide whose personal testimony should be listened to for what purpose. Making us able to see each others adds nothing to that process. A good game is balanced at ALL levels of player skill, and hence all discussion is useful. And the devs can see whose discussion is coming from what level of play, and act accordingly. Seeing as posters are not the ones who will be acting on that data, there is no reason for us to see that.

It would add nothing, but it would however, make the community more toxic, anybody who's ever BEEN in a game community with public stats can see that.

Edited by MuKen, 07 June 2013 - 01:02 PM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Livewyr, on 07 June 2013 - 10:18 AM, said:

Incidentally- I was playing SC2 the other night in a 3v3 unranked match.. and we lost. (I think I performed the best of the team and the scores afterwards supported that.)
But the first insult hurled at me (ironically by the guy who got displaced first for having no units and was living off of the other two of us) was "You're a bronze bracket aren't you, noob."

(I honestly don't know what bracket(s) I'm in in SC2.. I don't care enough to look.)

But that was the first thing he said when the loss was obvious and inevitable.

SC2 is a good example, of how tactics differ on a bracket basis.

Some of the tactics are not compatible put together.

Edited by DV McKenna, 07 June 2013 - 01:07 PM.