597 replies to this topic

[FrDrake]

Neverfar, on 06 June 2013 - 01:12 PM, said:

No.

First off, all the cowering and K/D ratio preserving running and hiding in matches would only multiply manyfold if this was done. And to the neurotic people obsessed with the hierarchy, the match would not matter, the team would not matter, only whatever metagame nonsense gave them the most internet points.

"Whats ur gearscore?" manchildren on World of Warcraft, among many other examples, made it quite clear that the first consequence of your proposal would be immediate shutdowns of people with anything resembling an opinion unless they fit neatly into your heirarchy (even if the opinion has no direct loss of validity except in the eyes of "hardcore gamers" that need everything to have a rank to it).

We don't need locker room comparison contests in this forum or in the game.

Nothing you mentioned helps your Elo, running and hiding assures your Elo to drop.

[jakucha]

xDeityx, on 06 June 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

A bunch of people are making these statements yet we have the two most popular games in the world as examples otherwise. In WoW arenas your matchmaking rating is public. In LoL there are two separate queues, ranked and unranked games. Your Elo rating for ranked games is public, your rating for unranked games is hidden to everyone including you. Neither game has suffered for it.

Can anyone give an example of an otherwise popular game that was ruined by the OP's suggestion? Because all I see is groundless fear mongering and baseless assumptions so far.

Take a look at how terrible the community is in LoL. Elo has a part in that.

[IceSerpent]

Volthorne, on 06 June 2013 - 12:31 PM, said:

And what if the "best" players only fight each other 1v1? Would you still trust them to help make decisions about how the game should be balanced? I sure as hell wouldn't.

Just out of curiosity, whom would you trust?

[Homeless Bill]

Personally, I'd just really like to be able to see where I sit. Being able to see what percentile I fit into really should be an option. Who gives a **** if players can better "game" their Elo ranking? They can do that now without knowing where they actually stand.

Public rankings would be nice to be able to filter feedback. Playing in lower Elo brackets is truly an entirely different game - that much was proven to me when I started running my first medium.

That said, I think just as much bad as good would come from public Elo rankings. It would essentially be used by top players to say the opinions of everyone else are of less value.

You can say, "Well, everyone is right and feedback will be more directed," but you'll get more of, "If the game is balanced for top-tier players, it's balanced for everyone else; your Elo is low and your input is useless."

TL;DR: Bill doesn't give a ****, but he'd sure like to be able to see his own Elo.

[DaZur]

Nope...

All public access to Elo would do is provide the tin-foil hat brigade valueless metrics to be taken out of context and quoted erroneously in vain attempts to prop up their cardboard theories and propagate their myopic agendas.

... Or in other words, nothing would change.

Edited by DaZur, 06 June 2013 - 01:22 PM.

[Stoicblitzer]

Both sides have valid points. However, I'm gonna have to side with the people who want to keep it private. Since the top players don't really seem to visit the forum, I don't think making the Elo scores public is really going to help balance the game. The scores don't directly measure skill/knowledge anyways.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

I like to keep my ELO nice and low by rushing in and brawling on my assaults to make up for the matches I crush it on my lights.

[Thorqemada]

If PGI likes to value feedback in context to the ELO-Rating PGI can already do so as they know each and every ELO-Rank.
Forum will only fight ELO-Wars.

Keep ELO hidden to the public, let Players see their rank private, make it an MC based service.

[Caviel]

xDeityx, on 06 June 2013 - 12:08 PM, said:

If someone is acting elite because they are in the top .01% of Elo ratings then what's wrong with that? They ARE elite, and I'd like to know what they have to say about the state of the game because they have a better understanding of it than 99.99% of the players out there.

I completely disagree. This is relative to me saying my opinion should weigh more because I am a Legendary founder as opposed to "just an Elite" founder; since I put in more money I should have more say.

Just as gear scores have done with WoW and public Elo has done with LoL, releasing Elo ratings for MW:O will do nothing but divide the player base into a group of have and have-nots. While there are some benefits to releasing the Elo score, the cons vastly outweigh and outnumber the pros due to the shear amount of disrespect and insults the information would generate.

[Mister Blastman]

Homeless Bill, on 06 June 2013 - 01:22 PM, said:

Personally, I'd just really like to be able to see where I sit. Being able to see what percentile I fit into really should be an option. Who gives a **** if players can better "game" their Elo ranking? They can do that now without knowing where they actually stand.

This. It'd be nice as a measurement--to know if you're working smarter and not just harder (or the other).

Of course, at the very top of the player curve the best usually know who they are, anyways. This was a fact in Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries, for instance, where the best could be counted on one, maybe two hands (and named) for the entire community.

Beyond that it is just fun to see where you're at. At the end of the day duel mode will be the greatest addition ever for this game so we can finally cross mlas/mplas and fight it out with great honor and tenacity.

[FrDrake]

Neverfar, on 06 June 2013 - 01:28 PM, said:

A little bit would change.

The next misuse of game mechanics would be given lobbyist-style power over the forum and by extension the game's future.

Imagine if it already happened: the bloat boaters and poptarts would shoot down anyone and everyone with an opinion who wasn't farming Elo with their cheap easy-to-do crap (yes, it IS easy, get over yourselves. Not everyone, especially not me, want to do the same damn thing every match). The hurf-blurf would be a steep hill any suggestion would have to climb over. We'd have to hope we had some high Elo people to at least say "you know, I poptart a lot and it's getting boring, I agree with the peasants".

It would lead to a stuffy, stiff bunch of uncreative elitists congratulating each other. Which is a bit like now, but worse.

You obviously didn't follow that situation very well then did you, many of the people who I'm sure Elo would show are up there called out against the pop tarting as stagnant gameplay.

I don't know who did something to you to make you distrust humanity so much but it was apparently very tragic.

Edited by FrDrake, 06 June 2013 - 01:31 PM.

[FactorlanP]

lockwoodx, on 06 June 2013 - 01:26 PM, said:

I like to keep my ELO nice and low by rushing in and brawling on my assaults to make up for the matches I crush it on my lights.

It doesn't work that way.

[FrDrake]

FactorlanP, on 06 June 2013 - 01:30 PM, said:

It doesn't work that way.

He can't see his stat so how would he know

[Mister Blastman]

Neverfar, on 06 June 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

And Peef and Blastman are both notorious whiny elitists on these forums.

I like the infamy but you obviously don't read my "important" threads that I post not for trolls and lols but to sincerely help things.

I've made plenty and done quite a bit of rooting for the "little" guy in them. Just check my post history and threads I have made. I'm full of great, fair and balanced ideas... to borrow a term.

[Raso]

One Medic Army, on 06 June 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

I'll say no, for a new reason.
If something was hypothetically to be overpowered, those that used it would see their Elo value increase.
This wouldn't mean they got better, or were more skilled, it just means they were using tactics or loadouts that allowed them to play against and beat more highly skilled players.
Now when said hypothetically overpowered thing inevitably gets nerfed, those people claim it was their unique and awesome skills giving them said wins, and use their Elo to back up their statements, even though their Elo was boosted by the same overpowered tactics/loadouts.

Or in other words it wouldn't add to balance discussions, it would only detract from them. The only party that can truly get a handle on the interaction between Elo and balance is PGI where they can see that, hypothetically, mediums have the lowest Elo on average, or that PPCs are more predominant at high Elo levels, or several other metrics that could provide balance insight.

Those folk will just tell you they are playing the game the way it was meant to be played. To those people the terms OP and FTW don't have the same negative connotations that others have with them. To them, a balance pass is the same as nerfing or dumbing down the game. To them anything that they enjoy playing is fine and you need to just learn to adapt but when what they enjoy playing gets nerfed than the developer gave in to the cry babies. To them there is nothing wrong with a game having useless or unplayable weapons or vehicles because how else would you know what weapons are the best?

Those people confuse skill with exploitation. They view balance with contempt. They should never be taken seriously.

[xDeityx]

Caviel, on 06 June 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

I completely disagree. This is relative to me saying my opinion should weigh more because I am a Legendary founder as opposed to "just an Elite" founder; since I put in more money I should have more say.

Just as gear scores have done with WoW and public Elo has done with LoL, releasing Elo ratings for MW:O will do nothing but divide the player base into a group of have and have-nots. While there are some benefits to releasing the Elo score, the cons vastly outweigh and outnumber the pros due to the shear amount of disrespect and insults the information would generate.

I don't see how your Legendary Founder example is in any way analagous. If you had said something along the lines of "I've been here since day 1 so I know the history of the development of the game therefore my opinion should be weighed more" you would have an actual analogy. And I would agree with you...we should weigh the words of the people who have been here from the start more than someone who just joined a week ago. We shouldn't DISMISS the words of the newbie, but we should take them with a grain of salt and maybe give more of an ear to the person who has been around since th start.

This is exactly how it would work with a public Elo score. People with low Elo wouldn't be ignored, they would just have to show that they are coming at the game from a low Elo player's perspective, which would then explain why they think X weapon is overpowered or whatever.

More information for decision-making is never bad. If you think that Elo doesn't portray skill then just ignore people when they try and claim a high Elo as the source of their authority.

[FactorlanP]

The problem with granting the highest ELO folks such importance and relevance is that they are most likely to be the very same folks who abuse balance problems with total abandon.

What motivation would they have to be honest about broken things, knowing full well that by doing so they will make it that much harder for them to stay at the top and maintain their position of inflated importance in the community?

Honestly, a game developer might be better served by listening closely to what the least of their clients think about the game. Then filter that through their own unbiased position of having a much much better view of the bigger picture.

It's the lower end folks who the game designer needs to retain as players over time for the game to remain viable in the long term.

The high end of the ELO spectrum players are already committing their time to the game, usually at insane levels. They will continue to play until they become bored and then move on anyway.

[Hammerfinn]

xDeityx, on 06 June 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

People with low Elo wouldn't be ignored, they would just have to show that they are coming at the game from a low Elo player's perspective, which would then explain why they think X weapon is overpowered or whatever.

More information for decision-making is never bad. If you think that Elo doesn't portray skill then just ignore people when they try and claim a high Elo as the source of their authority.

The problem here is that PGI ALREADY HAS THIS INFORMATION. All that making it public would do is invite ridicule for low-ELO players. YOU don't need that information to do anything other than make a judgement call on that player. The people who NEED this kind of information for informed decision making--already have this information!

[Kaeb Odellas]

Consider this:

People already resort to worthless ad hominem attacks constantly in this forum. We've seen plenty such attacks in this thread alone. Why should we hand players yet another weapon to attack each other with?

Ideas should be judged on their merits, not their source.

[Caviel]

xDeityx, on 06 June 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

I don't see how your Legendary Founder example is in any way analagous. If you had said something along the lines of "I've been here since day 1 so I know the history of the development of the game therefore my opinion should be weighed more" you would have an actual analogy. And I would agree with you...we should weigh the words of the people who have been here from the start more than someone who just joined a week ago.

OK, I've been playing since Frozen City was a new map, if that helps. It's still a bad idea for the community no matter how you slice it. You can argue the merits all you want, both WoW and LoL are recent examples and have both shown that it is a bad idea overall, and PGI agrees. Need more examples? Look to gear rank in Rift, realm rank in WAR and DAoC, pretty much any MMO with any sort of measurable progress meter.

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We shouldn't DISMISS the words of the newbie, but we should take them with a grain of salt and maybe give more of an ear to the person who has been around since th start.

To paraphase what you just said, "We shouldn't ignore what low Elo players say, although we shouldn't pay as much attention to what they say because they have a lower Elo score and they may not know what they are talking about."


Thank you for proving my point.

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This is exactly how it would work with a public Elo score. People with low Elo wouldn't be ignored, they would just have to show that they are coming at the game from a low Elo player's perspective, which would then explain why they think X weapon is overpowered or whatever.

They wouldn't be ignored, they would be ridiculed, flamed, and or dismissed if they disagree with the higher Elo bracket players by the higher Elo bracket players.

Am I saying everyone with a high Elo score would be a vitriol spewing elitist? No, not everyone, although it doesn't take many bad apples to spoil the bunch and set a trend. After all, you just did it yourself based on time played.

Quote

More information for decision-making is never bad. If you think that Elo doesn't portray skill then just ignore people when they try and claim a high Elo as the source of their authority.

PGI already has this information and they are the ones who makes the decisions. What is the point in putting this info into player hands except as a way to measure yourself against others? On that note, how can you possibly think that this wouldn't do anything except devolve into Elo size measuring contest between players? Maybe I've been around too long, although I've seen what the Internet is capable of, and I wouldn't expect anything different in this case.