597 replies to this topic

[LonestarrSB]

When LoL showed your ELO all people did was complain how they were in "ELO Hell" and the system was broken. Nothing was ever their fault.

[Zerberus]

Something I think most of us completely forgot that throws a nice monkeywrench into the discussion....

Which of the player`s 4 Elo scores should be displayed? The highest? The lowest? The average? The class with the most playtime?

Becasue we all have 4, 1 per weight class, and I can almost guarantee without doubt that my light Elo is significantly higher than my Heavy or Assault Elo, becasue my Trollmando plays to win at all costs and not to run around grunting "Hulk smash robots" like the Atlases and to a lesser extent Cats, and teh W/L ratio clearly reflects that (1.39 Com vs ~ 1.0 on teh others.)

LonestarrSB, on 07 June 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

When LoL showed your ELO all people did was complain how they were in "ELO Hell" and the system was broken. Nothing was ever their fault.

Yep, and I earned quite a bit of money gettig them out of "Elo hell", just to watch them drop down back to bronze within a week of getting their account back.

Edited by Zerberus, 07 June 2013 - 03:29 PM.

[BoPop]

hmmm. ELO.... the thing is, if I did nothing but run around in the same greased up mech all the time my elo would be much higher than it is. however i'm ALWAYS in a new mech. I very rarely run a mech that I've mastered. kinda funny, once I get a module slot I usually strip the mech and leave it to collect dust and move onto the next mech that has zero basics.

plus there is flat out experimentation, going into a match with a totally silly build just to see what it does. and does elo measure accuracy at all? what about all those times we shoot just for fun? I think that if ELO scores were released there would not only be elitism, but there would be math junkies demanding to know ELO's formula and that might be an evolving thing. (could you imagine the forum wars?)

PGI probably wants to stay away from that whole argument and who could blame them. Plus there may be times a person with low ELO is flung into a match with super high ELO players (happens to me all the time...) just because at that moment in time they were the only player up for grabs by the servers. Would we whine and say that's not fair and that the engines should "search" longer?

basically announcing ELO would be a Pandora's box imo.

[Deathlike]

LonestarrSB, on 07 June 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

When LoL showed your ELO all people did was complain how they were in "ELO Hell" and the system was broken. Nothing was ever their fault.

The irony is... people do this DESPITE not knowing their own ELO.

[Wispsy]

Sorry I could not quite read all of it, there are limits to what a man can endure. There is a lot of people saying that the argument should stand on its own merits only. This would be fine if the majority also felt that way. However they do not, so arguments are not really based on their own merits by a large proportion of the posting community, this leads to perfectly sound arguments being drowned in flames.

Also I am generally not fond of promoting ignorance, more information is rarely a bad thing unless you personally for some reason cannot handle it. I still see people occasionally posting lights are overpowered because they are unhittable and core people really quickly etc. Now at the top Elo this is simply not the case and perhaps these players could benefit from some tips from them. However if there is a serious post on light mech balance, something that the devs may read and could actually get ideas from, one of these types of people are going to know more about the real issues involved. If they are flamed out before ever getting all their ideas out there and give up before the discussion gets anywhere (I have seen this happen often by angry bad people). If their Elos become visible then it puts it in perspective for all to see, so that a number of angry people that have not learnt you can just put your back to a wall can be helped quickly with the least amount of suffering on all sides, instead of it devolving into constant personal attacks as so many threads on this forum end up as.

[PanzerMagier]

but what if ELO is not an accurate way of measuring one's skill? As in like every game ever...

Honestly whispy, those with high ELO will probably be stat whores who play too much cod... Do we really want to give power to their opinions? Yes, I've seen this before. Stat whores' opinions are all that matters.

The last time that happened, I recall ppc's got buffed. Horrendously so.
It's disappointing that people think more information isn't a bad thing, especially if it's false information/propaganda...

[Wispsy]

It is based off winning. The whole point of this game is to win. It shows who wins more. How is somebody that wins more not better at the game? I mean yes you have some very clever people with no mouse skills, but mouse skills are part of the game, and everything changes in your tactics and your perspective when you have those mouse skills available and when you do not (yeah I know what it is like, sometimes I practice playing with my feet, I am not jealous if you have that problem). You can always say it is a team game and one person cannot make the difference. However this is not true, one person can make all the difference. This is shown by the fact that some people consistently win more then others. Of course some people somehow manage to get stuck well below their level for a long while, random is random and eventually random will go all ways, my brother on LoL is stuck in bronze 5 getting nothing but trolls despite the fact that he is not that bad, easily high silver. If he was as good as I am though it would not be possible for this to happen. You can only stray so far from where you belong.

[PEEFsmash]

Panzer, Wispsy is at the tip top Elo so he probably isn't the right person to ask whether high elo players should be listened to.
The point, and there has still not been a single objection to its validity, is that personal experience testimonies of low-level players are not relevant to balance concerns at the highest level. Low level balance complaints are often explained by their low-level play itself. Top level players are not necessarily right about their claims, but when they tell about their experience, at least it is the experience of someone playing with and against other top level players.

Edited by PEEFsmash, 07 June 2013 - 04:13 PM.

[Livewyr]

Wispsy, page 13ish-16, my conversation with Diety and FrDrake

At least read that. (It explains that even the tiny amount of good that might come out of public Elo is heavily outweighed by the tremendous bad that is exhibited everywhere where stats are public.

[JSparrowist]

1453 R, on 07 June 2013 - 02:42 PM, said:

Come on, PEEF. You have to know that this would do enormously more harm than good.

As MuKen pointed out, you're already dismissing low-ELO players as folks whose only real problems are the fact that they suck - and you were the one who insisted that everyone's opinion matters! In your ideal system, these players do not get to offer input to game balance issues, they get to make self-effacing "I suck, please help me q_q" threads until their ELO improves to the point where they're allowed to have an actual opinion of their own. You may believe otherwise, but the notion of "Balance only matters at the highest levels" is utter garbage and indicative of a player who disdains anyone who does not already play at that level.

If the game is all but broken and unplayable unless you are at the highest levels, then you will never get anyone new to play this game. If you try to insist that balance discussions are only valid when conducted between players of competitive eight-man league drops with 1800+ ELO, then your balance will be horrifically skewed and broken and unbalanced for the mid-range pug drop - which comprises the vast majority of all games. You cannot ignore the needs of the mid-level pug drop, however much you may want to. We're the ones who carry all you l33tz0rz, high-ranked league players around on the backs we're supporting this game on. You need us. You do not get to ignore us or trivialize our problems as "Oh, they wouldn't be having that problem if they didn't suck."

We all have opinions, PEEF. They are as valid as they deserve to be, independently of our ELO numbers. Whether or not you would acknowledge that low-ELO players have as much right to form and offer an opinion as a high-ELO player - and I honestly doubt you would, considering the fact that you're proposing a system whose only function is to give players a free lever with which to flush their opponents' arguments - you know full well that the forum in general would find itself flooded with venom and vitriol as Internet Bad Boyz (abbreviated from here out as IBBs) use their magical new number to beat everyone else upside the head with.


It doesn't matter if, as has been stated before in this thread, someone may have an excellent grasp of the game's mechanics and interactions without the corresponding mechanical skills to fully implement that knowledge. Their ELO is low, so their opinion is ship. You may not think so, FrDrake may not think so (or, as I suspect given the language being used in this thread, you really, actually do), but the thousand neckbeards of the Trollsian Empire will absolutely think so, and anything worthwhile these players have to say will be buried under dozens "L2P NOOB" and "Y U TALKIN, **** ELO?!" responses.

Whether or not those posts are valid and warranted or not doesn't really matter - if nine out of ten responses a thoughtful, insightful, well-reasoned player with fat fingers gets are "L2P NOOB", they will eventually cease offering their thoughts and insights altogether. Why should they bother when they get nothing but grief for doing so?

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Elites have proven time and time again that they do nothing but ruin things for the majority. Whether it be a game or government, etc...

I've read both sides of the argument and my answer is still NO!

[Zerberus]

Homeless Bill, on 07 June 2013 - 04:20 PM, said:

Personally, I'd like to think that at some point a developer has started reading a thread, checked that player's Elo score, said, "******* noob," and stopped reading.

Yes, that thought warms my heart significantly, and I can`t imagine that it`s never happened before. The big question is WHO it happened to and how good they perceive themselves as.., that we will probably never know, and it`s probably better that way

[MuKen]

PEEFsmash, on 07 June 2013 - 04:07 PM, said:

The point, and there has still not been a single objection to its validity, is that personal experience testimonies of low-level players are not relevant to balance concerns at the highest level.

It's been addressed, you just ignored it. The point is that ALL levels are relevant and need to be balanced. The devs know which players are low and high elo, so they know which experiences are which, and they all need to be paid attention to.

Low-level testimonies don't NEED to be relevant to high level balance concerns. They are relevant to low level balance concerns, which are just as important.

Your suggestion to make it visible to the posters as well has no merit, because it's not the posters who make decisions and need to know which experience is high and low level.

Edited by MuKen, 07 June 2013 - 04:58 PM.

[Livewyr]

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

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.

Are you aware of how 'highschool' that sounds?

<Insert caricature of highschool 'tough guy'>
"C'mon man, shows us dude, if you don't care about it, then it shouldn't bother you man.. c'mon show us..."

-----------------------------------------------------------

This is a prime example of why any possible good that could come of having public Elo's is outweighed by the crap it would upturn.

Claim: It would allow you to determine why someone's flawed argument is flawed.
Reality: We can already do that without Elo. If you see someone complaining about Light mech speed, with their argument being that they can't be hit - then that is not evidence. Patently false since most people can. No Elo required.
Same with: Missiles nuke me really bad!

Claim: Game must be balanced at highest level.
Reality: One must be very careful with this one. Balancing at the highest level, in theory is a pure mechanical balance (since theoretically, players at High Elos have the practice and talent necessary to push the mechanics closer to their maxims. Thusly it should be balanced on numbers, OR the amount of effort and thought to perform, versus the amount of effort and thought to counter.
Sad Reality: Players with High Elo aren't necessarily actually good and therefore still wouldn't be qualified to have more say.
IE: The bad Poptarts who exploited a broken system in order to fluff their Elos...which are now cratering since they aren't good enough to Jumpsnipe, and aren't that good at anything else.
A similar reality will come to those who have higher Elos relying on the currently broken PPC and heat mechanic that allow for stupid amounts of PPC boating- when that gets fixed, they will crater too. But as of right now; by numbers definition, they deserve more say...

-------------------------
Straight Reality:
Good: Numbers might help the higher level non elitist players make a more informed decision with which to Beg PGI to change something.
Bad: Numbers WILL recreate Highschool in this forum with E-peens.

Unacceptable.


Just outta curiosity; PEEF, Diety, Soy, and.. Wispsy?
Did MongTb put you 3-4 up to this? There's a pattern that has been nagging me through this thread.

[Odins Fist]

The bottom line is this.. Making the whole ELO thing public doesn't bother a lot of people, what bothers them is the unintended problems it "WILL" cause.. "PERIOD"

Anyone that can't see that has obvious issues with reality...

Just like all the crying that goes on in the forums about this and that, it will add one more thing to MWO that will make new players think twice about spending "ANY" money on a F2PLAY game.

There are some good ideas, and then there are the really awful ideas put forth in this forum, and this idea is afwul, not because I care about my ELO being out there for everyone to see, but because it will just add another useless facet to MWO.

These kinds of awful ideas make me want to go to people's houses (the people that whine and cry all over the forums) in the middle of the night, go to their bedrooms while they sleep, then chug an entire bottle of ipecac, and then "VOM!T" all over them while they are dreaming..

Listening to people with only high ELO (if that became the case), would only result in them being proponents for what works best for them, and then you would hear even more crying.. You cannot tell me that a vast majority of them wouldn't be "BIASED" to recommend things that work best for "THEM".. I would, I definately would, I would fall right into that, even if I didn't really mean to do it. I bet if ELO had been public all this time, and it came down to things like the JJ shake being considered on the recommendations of only high ELO players, then it wouldn't have happened this quickly, or at all.. Think about it.

In the future making everyone's ELO public may be a good thing, but "NOT" while MWO is still an unfinished product that has been brought to market, and not until a few months after release of certain game content.

An awful idea is still just an awful idea.

Edited by Odins Fist, 07 June 2013 - 05:46 PM.

[Livewyr]

Odins Fist, on 07 June 2013 - 05:44 PM, said:

These kinds of awful ideas make me want to go to people's houses (the people that whine and cry all over the forums) in the middle of the night, go to their bedrooms while they sleep, then chug an entire bottle of ipecac, and then "VOM!T" all over them while they are dreaming..

Thank you for that. My wife is looking at me strangely, wondering why I burst out laughing in our living room for no apparent reason.

Odins Fist, on 07 June 2013 - 05:44 PM, said:

In the future making everyone's ELO public may be a good thing, but "NOT" while MWO is still an unfinished product that has been brought to market, and not until a few months after release of certain game content.

I don't think it'll ever be a good thing, but agreed, certainly not while MWO is as it is now.

[Praehotec8]

xDeityx, on 07 June 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

Yes, an argument from a less informed person is less valid by its very nature. Balancing games is hard. What you're saying would be ridiculous if applied to any other genre. For example if an engineer and a layperson are talking about how to fix an engine, it would be ridiculous to take the statements of the layperson at the same value as the engineer. Yes, it's possible that the layperson could get completely lucky and make a suggestion from ignorance that happened to be as valid as something the engineer said, but it is extremely unlikely.

As I posted before...for better or worse, the forum-goers are not the ones making the decisions. Therefore it is of absolutely no value for ELO rankings to be public to us. If PGI chooses to, they can see the ELO of any player. If they choose (correctly or incorrectly) to value to "layman"'s advice over the "expert"'s, then that is their decision.

While in certain instances it could be interesting to know a player's ELO, there is no practical benefit in terms of improving the game as all discussions here are largely philosophical. In a perfect world we could all handle knowing each other's ELO and behaving in a respectful manner toward one another and that would be fine. In the real world, the disadvantages of elitism and inconsiderate behavior towards others outweighs any potential value to the comunity.

Last, I think it likely that most of those who want public ELO harbor, at least at some level, the desire to know that their ELO is higher, and ergo, their opinion matters more than the next player. It's really human nature that we would (myself included) at least subconsciously think that way. (no disrespect to proponents of the idea, but I do believe that it's truly human nature).

Edit: One additional thought: even if ELO is public, whose opinion matters most in terms of balance? For example, say at med-low ELO SSRMs are overpowered because players without them cannot aim effectively, yet at high ELO they are almost weak because harder hitting weapons can be brought to bear accurately. Whose opinion is right? The elite players, for whom adjusting to cater to would increase SSRM damage, making a bad situation worse for the majority; or, the moderate-poor players, for whom adjustment would further make SSRMs useless at high ELO? It's not an easy decision, nor is there definitely a right answer, but the reaction certainly should not ALWAYS be to defer to the elite opinion. (please excuse the poor balance example)

Edited by Praehotec8, 07 June 2013 - 09:38 PM.

[S p a n i a r d]

It'd be interesting what PGI would do after reading this topic

All of us will just have to wait won't we? Just like after the LRM and Poptarting issues.
Coz PGI are the "god" of this game

Regardless of how they manage it (making ELO public or not), we just have to suck it up
or be happy afterwards (again just like the LRM/Poptarting issues). If you're not happy about
it, then bring it up again, and again, and again (the cycle continues). Or just quit.


But if what the other poster's here said was true (player's ELO known/visible to PGI),


then players' belonging in the higher ELO bracket (like me, super trollolol hahaha!) should just voice
out their opinion like the other players,


just like what they would do if the ELO is made public. Just like what they did in this topic.


Then PGI would see their post, take note of their ELO, and take note of their opinion and make changes.

But if that is already happening, (PGI reads/knows the high ELO players' opinion) and balance changes
still are not agreeable to the higher ELO players or PGI is still not "getting in touch with them",

..Which resulted in Koreanese quitting(?) and KaOs quitting(?) as mentioned by another player here

then the problem is between PGI and the smaller population high-ELO guys, and nothing will change even if the ELO is made public, since ELO is already "public" (for PGI) and PGI are the ones who chose not to prioritize the high-ELO guys opinion.

Edited by S p a n i a r d, 07 June 2013 - 09:47 PM.

[Seleucus Ontuas]

I don't particularly care whether or not ELO is made public; whether it is or not wouldn't affect me. I understand the points the Peef is try to make, and I also understand the points those against it are making. Personally, I don't believe public ELO truly creates a toxic community in itself; there are several other factors to consider.

What I am interested in, however, which could be considered a middle ground, especially for anyone interersted in waving their E-peens and "brofisting their e-country club buddies" as Neverfar has put it, would be to allow players to know what their ELO is. If I wish to share my ELO with someone else, let that be my prerogative, but don't withhold that information from me. PGI already shows us our KDR, our win/loss, our effectiveness with different mechs and weapons; they tell us just about everything we need to know to guessimate our ability without actually telling us it.

Why?

There will always be elitism and there will always be {Richard Cameron} and there weill always be trolls. We are, after all, on the internet. But, at the end of the day, I'd like to know whether I am improving or not and where I stand amongst my fellows. I don't want to have to guess at the fact when there exists a number and a way to keep track of the change over time of that number. Tell everyone or tell no one, but at the very least, tell me.

[DanielZX]

In my opinion better be to do following things:

1) allow people to see their own ELO at player profile - as default visible only to yourself

2) add option to make it visible to everyone else on forum

3) do not add any ELO indication ingame - you can see on WOT example that anyway most of the ordinary/casual people have less then 50% W/L rate, and if everyone will see your elo ingame or win/loss or k/d or any other general stats info it will give enemies additional reason to avoid/focus players with highest elo/stats

BUT IMO before adding any of this things PGI firstly needs to do following:

1) solve problem with syncdrops - syncdropping vs PUGS is an exploit and it allows to get your ELO higher. IMHO an easiest way :do not allow people who already were in the same team get into one match (except lance mates, but to prevent abusing it by reforming lances add check if same 8 man were in the same team), only if they will be in opposite team (session based,time based ot any other way).

2) fix game matchmaking - currently weight balance isn't working as it should -IMHO

3) add possibility to create custom games - so people will be able to train and LEGALLY play 1v1,2v2,4v4,8v8 and etc. - to prevent c-bills/xp farming nobody will get any credits or experience but repairs after custom game will cost nothing ( as it is made in WOT)

Edited by Zin, 07 June 2013 - 10:33 PM.

[Gaan Cathal]

Villz, on 07 June 2013 - 10:26 PM, said:

Cognitive dissonance. That's why all these fools don't want a public stat made of ELO. Because in their world its never their fault for their team losing. Its because they had bad team mates. But removing the iron curtain of ELO would force them to face the facts that they are indeed terrible and all those "noobs" they were complaining about are actually just as bad as they are. So casual kings who like to live in make believe land where they aren't terrible can maintain this dillusion. Thats why your always going to have resistance to public ELO. So now i can't have a metric to determine how my progress changes over the course of patches and my play time and to see how i improve over because a bunch of tards want to live a dillusional fantasy.

You...do have that metric. It's your W/L ratio. Your W/L ratio is right there, and is the basis for ELO ranking, the latter being your W/L in a chassis type compared to an arbitrary yardstick. W/L ratio is purer data and ergo more useful.

Note: The above is true irrespective of the rest of the thread and the public or private nature of ELO, on which I am not commenting.