597 replies to this topic

[Soy]

I had an epiphany of sorts just now.

I've changed my mind, I am now in favor of public ELO.

Why?

Well, my reasoning is very simple and sound.

I run my own business, which revolves around this single piece of capital:

[Wildstreak]

xDeityx, on 10 June 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:

This totally depends on the context. Is the person making a valid point and people are saying to him "talk to us again when your Elo is higher?" Then those people are just shooting themselves in the foot. Not everyone behaves this way.

Are they saying "come talk to us when your Elo is higher" to a person making an invalid point that obviously stems from his perspective as an unskilled player? Good! They can also explain why to him and do a little teaching in the process.

Bad!
Whether a point is valid cannot be measured based on player skill, it has to be measured based on the argument itself backed up with evidence, that is a completely different skill set that those required to play.

IOW, I will just come out and say it, using player skill to decide who is listened to, that's like claiming someone's ethnic group, religious beliefs, etc. decides who should be listened to. No more Political Gamers in discussions, they ruin things.

xDeityx, on 10 June 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:

I don't think that's a reason to give up though. I think if we had public Elos back when ECM was first rolled out it would have been much harder for PGI to ignore all the top-level players saying what a bad implementation the hard-counter was. You could probably have seen that the people defending ECM weren't that skilled if they didn't understand how broken it was in that metagame.

I have come to believe PGI ignores certain posts that tend to follow a Political style of arguing compared to Legal/Scientific, the second works better than the first.

Dude42, on 10 June 2013 - 02:33 PM, said:

Its forumwarrior noob. Your forum ELO is obviously too low to post here.

But in all seriousness, I support either public ELO or some sort of bracketing system. If for no other reason than to know when I'm about to have to carry some fresh recruits through a game, or have no hope of winning. It's never fun to find out after you've gotten 3 kills in your raven, that the entire lance of Assault Mechs on your team all died while doing a combined total of less than 150 damage and you're the last man left. At least if i could see their rank in game I'd be able see that **** coming. Not look up after doing 500 damage and be like "No ****, I'm the only one left alive? And I got all the kills for our team? In my light mech? Again?"

That is why I want public ELO or brackets, to help me to know what to expect at the start of the match. I couldn't care less about forumwarriors and their epeens tbh.

Sometimes I think my Forum ELO sinks just from reading certain things.

Brackets though will not work, they could mess people up. Say you are in a mid range bracket. Over time you become one of the best in your bracket that results in you stomping people a lot. Then you get pushed up to the next bracket, bang, YOU start getting stomped because being in the bottom of the new bracket you are a noob all over again. Such a change could mess with people's heads, so I say no to brackets, just have one big group where people get gradually better over time instead of what I described happening every time you move up a bracket.

M e g a M a n X, on 10 June 2013 - 09:29 PM, said:

True. Human nature is like that. Especially the shallow ones (in that case it's not the opinionated person's fault). They don't listen to reason you need to show them some sort of badge or something. But I think creating a system that encourages badge (ELO) flapping to prove merit is worse compared to a system that proves merit by simply proving merit. Is it really that hard to prove something without an ELO badge? I would immediately instinctively say "No".

As I've said a top player should be able to present his ideas clearly due to the sheer amount of experience.
If there is really such a player who can't explain himself because he's such a special genius, then that is not the fault of the majority. Friends in his group should just act like spokesperson or something. Because it is truly unreasonable to accept someone's idea over the majority without a decent explanation (i refer you to my topmost post)

"We can get all high and mighty and make the claim that every last post on the forum should be judged on its merit alone"

- i think this is not a completely high and mighty idea because we are in a forum. Discussion and explanation are the reasons why forums were made. It is plainly a basic (not high and mighty) requirement here. Forumers automatically read interesting things for them (because we are in a forum) without looking for the poster's ELO. Words are your swords and shields here. Unexplainable OMG tactics in the battlefield. Here, words.

Words don't always work though, in some cases Screenshots/Video are needed. I believe that gets forgotten at times and is hard to do in others.

[GrimlockONE]

Destined, on 10 June 2013 - 05:23 PM, said:

Sweet Mech Lords, that took a ridiculous amount of time.

One last reminder to behave ladies and gentlemen. This is why we can't have nice things.

Is it also the reason we are getting third person view in the next two months?

PGI: Take away the GD section, that will teach everyone a lesson!

Mods: Are job has gotten harder supreme overlord PGI! Help us out!!!

PGI: Execute executive order 66, third person view before community warfare.

[xDeityx]

Merchant, on 11 June 2013 - 08:53 AM, said:

Bad!
Whether a point is valid cannot be measured based on player skill, it has to be measured based on the argument itself backed up with evidence, that is a completely different skill set that those required to play.

IOW, I will just come out and say it, using player skill to decide who is listened to, that's like claiming someone's ethnic group, religious beliefs, etc. decides who should be listened to. No more Political Gamers in discussions, they ruin things.

If we want to convene a panel to figure out how to solve global warming, do we get a panel of experts or do we grab a random sample of the population? Do we look at the opinions of experts or do we read each and every single opinion of each and every person who has an opinion on global warming?

The reason we rely on experts is time. We can't be asked to look at each and every single opinion of every person who has one. Is it possible that some random person could come up with the perfect solution to global warming? Absolutely. Is it likely that a random person will succeed where experts failed? No.

This is why your point is invalid. Expertise does indeed directly impact your ability to speak intelligently about a topic. If time wasn't a factor then we could afford to be as idealistic as the nay-sayers in this thread, but we live in the real world where we don't have time to listen to every Joe Schmoe with an opinion.

Your point about ethnic groups is so off that it's almost scary. You can't change ethnic groups by being a good person. You can change your Elo by getting better at the game. Using player skill to decide who should be listened to (not even what I'm advocating...you can listen to whoever you please regardless of their Elo but whatever) is much more akin to my example above of listening to experts in a certain field talk about their expertise. If you want to sway public opinion on global warming, go become an expert. Anyone can do it. If you want to sway public opinion on balance, go improve your Elo. Anyone can get better at the game.

Merchant, on 11 June 2013 - 08:53 AM, said:

I have come to believe PGI ignores certain posts that tend to follow a Political style of arguing compared to Legal/Scientific, the second works better than the first.

And I have come to believe that PGI just reacts to the people who complain the most on the forums. I think what you state above is true for most players in the community though. I certainly give more weight to an argument that brings some scientific analysis into the discussion. Really though your above statement is a tautology because a "political style" is basically another way of implying "sleezy" or one of any other negative connotations that we ascribe to politics and politicians.

GrimlockONE, on 11 June 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

Is it also the reason we are getting third person view in the next two months?

PGI: Take away the GD section, that will teach everyone a lesson!

Mods: Are job has gotten harder supreme overlord PGI! Help us out!!!

PGI: Execute executive order 66, third person view before community warfare.

Are you derailing the thread to troll a mod? Why are we suddenly talking about forum structure, CW, or 3PV in a thread about public Elo ratings?

Edited by xDeityx, 11 June 2013 - 10:06 AM.

[Gaan Cathal]

xDeityx, on 11 June 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

If we want to convene a panel to figure out how to solve global warming, do we get a panel of experts or do we grab a random sample of the population? Do we look at the opinions of experts or do we read each and every single opinion of each and every person who has an opinion on global warming? The reason we rely on experts is time. We can't be asked to look at each and every single opinion of every person on. Is it possible that some nobody could come up with the perfect solution to global warming? Absolutely. Is it likely that an untrained person will succeed where experts failed? No.

Excellent football players rarely make good managers, never mind excellent ones. The ability to recognise the consequences of a game design decision does not inherently convey the ability to capitalise on it, for various reasons (ping, physical ability, narcolepsy, whatever). Both these reasons are relevant to the point that not only Teh Elitez can comment with authority on game design decisions, but not covered by your global warming panel example.

Additionally, the whole thing is based on the idea that the game is fine anyway. If there is a player out there who is the best poptart in the whole damn world, but **** at every other aspect of the game, he will have had a massive spike in ELO with the arrival of proper poptarting and - in his position on the MW:O Important World Panel Of Important Game Design People will have pointed out that mass poptarting is entierly fine and doesn't need even slight nerfing. With his epic ELO +5 of n00bslaying he will have been listened to over the cries of the terribads and people who like balanced games. With his newfound authority he uses his incredible wisdom to point out where PGI are going wrong elsewhere. In six months we have MW4 with a graphical update.

[Bilbo]

xDeityx, on 11 June 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

If we want to convene a panel to figure out how to solve global warming, do we get a panel of experts or do we grab a random sample of the population? Do we look at the opinions of experts or do we read each and every single opinion of each and every person who has an opinion on global warming?

The reason we rely on experts is time. We can't be asked to look at each and every single opinion of every person on. Is it possible that some nobody could come up with the perfect solution to global warming? Absolutely. Is it likely that an untrained person will succeed where experts failed? No.

This is why your point is invalid. Expertise does indeed directly impact your ability to speak intelligently about a topic. If time wasn't a factor then we could afford to be as idealistic as the nay-sayers in this thread, but we live in the real world where we don't have time to listen to every Joe Schmoe with an opinion.

Your point about ethnic groups is so off that it's almost scary. You can't change ethnic groups by being a good person. You can change your Elo by getting better at the game. Using player skill to decide who should be listened to (not even what I'm advocating...you can listen to whoever you please regardless of their Elo but whatever) is much more akin to my example above of listening to experts in a certain field talk about their expertise. If you want to sway public opinion on global warming, go become an expert. Anyone can do it. If you want to sway public opinion on balance, go improve your Elo. Anyone can get better at the game.



And I have come to believe that PGI just reacts to the people who complain the most on the forums. I think what you state above is true for most players in the community though. I certainly give more weight to an argument that brings some scientific analysis into the discussion. Really though your above statement is a tautology because a "political style" is basically another way of implying "sleezy" or one of any other negative connotations that we ascribe to politics and politicians.



Are you derailing the thread to troll a mod? Why are we suddenly talking about forum structure, CW, or 3PV in a thread about public Elo ratings?

Those experts are considered to be experts through peer review of their research and papers, not because they may have high SAT scores or where ranked in the top 10% of their class.

[xDeityx]

Gaan Cathal, on 11 June 2013 - 10:11 AM, said:

Excellent football players rarely make good managers, never mind excellent ones. The ability to recognise the consequences of a game design decision does not inherently convey the ability to capitalise on it, for various reasons (ping, physical ability, narcolepsy, whatever). Both these reasons are relevant to the point that not only Teh Elitez can comment with authority on game design decisions, but not covered by your global warming panel example.

I'm not quite sure this analogy is appropriate because I'm not advocating that the best players take over PGI and suddenly become the devs. But a good manager would give more weight to advice from one of his best players than he would give to someone who plays football in their back yard with their friends just to have fun.

Gaan Cathal, on 11 June 2013 - 10:11 AM, said:

Additionally, the whole thing is based on the idea that the game is fine anyway. If there is a player out there who is the best poptart in the whole damn world, but **** at every other aspect of the game, he will have had a massive spike in ELO with the arrival of proper poptarting and - in his position on the MW:O Important World Panel Of Important Game Design People will have pointed out that mass poptarting is entierly fine and doesn't need even slight nerfing. With his epic ELO +5 of n00bslaying he will have been listened to over the cries of the terribads and people who like balanced games. With his newfound authority he uses his incredible wisdom to point out where PGI are going wrong elsewhere. In six months we have MW4 with a graphical update.

Your premise is flat-out incorrect. The whole thing is based on the idea that balance has been way off patch after patch and we need to raise the level of discourse on the forums because the current system is resulting in absolute crap balance. Nowhere do I make the claim that balance is fine - in fact I say the exact opposite.

People really need to stop making this ridiculous claim that I'm arguing for people to blindly follow players with high Elo. That's not what I'm saying and it's dishonest to pretend that's my argument. It's straw man at its finest. I'm not saying that we should stop evaluating arguments based on merit, so pretending that some guy who is only good at poptarting can make a claim and run off with the metagame to shape however he wants is just absurd and an example of terrible reading comprehension and critical thinking.

Bilbo, on 11 June 2013 - 10:13 AM, said:

Those experts are considered to be experts through peer review of their research and papers, not because they may have high SAT scores or where ranked in the top 10% of their class.

Experts are labeled as such because they have demonstrated their expertise. In the scientific community you go about doing this differently than in the gaming community...so what? Having a high Elo rating publicly shown is a very quick and easy way to see who has demonstrated their expertise.

[Gaan Cathal]

xDeityx, on 11 June 2013 - 10:34 AM, said:

People really need to stop making this ridiculous claim that I'm arguing for people to blindly follow players with high Elo. That's not what I'm saying and it's dishonest to pretend that's my argument. It's straw man at its finest. I'm not saying that we should stop evaluating arguments based on merit, so pretending that some guy who is only good at poptarting can make a claim and run off with the metagame to shape however he wants is just absurd and an example of terrible reading comprehension and critical thinking.

Small misunderstanding, I'm not saying that's what you want. I'm saying that's what will happen. People who happen to both be arseholes and have high ELO will use the latter fact to shout down, trump, troll and so forth anyone who disagrees with them about anything. Especially if it that person is disagreeing about a game element they rely on to sustain that ELO.

Long story short, you are handing people ammunition to be arseholes with on the internet. They're bad enough without it.

[Bilbo]

xDeityx, on 11 June 2013 - 10:34 AM, said:

Experts are labeled as such because they have demonstrated their expertise. In the scientific community you go about doing this differently than in the gaming community...so what? Having a high Elo rating publicly shown is a very quick and easy way to see who has demonstrated their expertise.

No, it shows they can win games or run with people who help them to do so. If they can't produce evidence to back up their arguments, a high number beside their name won't make the argument any more valid. Since the evidence is how you can objectively determine the validity of an argument, the number is meaningless.

[Gaan Cathal]

Bilbo, on 11 June 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

No, it shows they can win games or run with people who help them to do so. If they can't produce evidence to back up their arguments, a high number beside their name won't make the argument any more valid. Since the evidence is how you can objectively determine the validity of an argument, the number is meaningless.

This. A fair number of players I believe to be of fairly high ELO (based on who they come up against and my awareness of how good these second parties are) were adamant that missile mechanics were absolutely fine a while ago. The splash damage bug was only shown when someone actually went out, did tests and ran numbers. That didn't take skill at the game. And, to boot, several (presumably, see above) decent ELO players adamantly refused to believe it.

Evidence gathering and number crunching like that is what should get you listened to, not your ELO score.

[xDeityx]

Gaan Cathal, on 11 June 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

Small misunderstanding, I'm not saying that's what you want. I'm saying that's what will happen. People who happen to both be arseholes and have high ELO will use the latter fact to shout down, trump, troll and so forth anyone who disagrees with them about anything. Especially if it that person is disagreeing about a game element they rely on to sustain that ELO.

Long story short, you are handing people ammunition to be arseholes with on the internet. They're bad enough without it.

I see it not as giving people more ammo to be jerks with, rather as more ways for rational people to identify the jerks and ignore them. Trolls will be trolls regardless of the information they have available to them, and rational people will still be rational people.

Some people misusing a tool is not a valid reason to outright ban that tool for everyone. We don't ban cars even though they kill people and we don't ban pools just because kids drown in them. If you have a problem with people, you address the people who are the problem.

I don't buy into the fear-mongering that dire consequences will happen if we make Elo public. These forums are already toxic and balance is already in the dumps. Giving open access to information will not change the former but it might change the latter.

[Odins Fist]

Awful, just awful.
The fact remains that this idea about ELO is just awful, it's such a bad idea for MWO at this point of development. ELO being made public with the current level of development of MWO would be a nightmare, there couldn't be a worse time to suggest this than now. It's not the ELO being public that bothers me at all, it's the problems that it would create if implemented the way some posters would like.

For the issue that making ELO public is supposed to help, there will be unitended consequences (plural) that are negative, and would spawn a whole new breed of mutated trolls that would roam about with reckless abandon, attempting to wave their shriveled little genitalia around like it's supposed to be impressive, when it actually is the exact opposite.

You want to know why?? Their are too many variables to this. NOT one player here is qualified over another that has been in MWO for more than 2 months because MWO changes, and nobody here has access to what will happen next, the DEVs tell us what will happen next, and if they can't fix an issue for some unkown reason we see the player base exploit these issues to bolster their gameplay performance for some sort of advantage.. You want to know how I know this..?? I will explain that too.

When people complained about the LRM apocalypse happening I saw a lot of players say "Learn to Play/Adapt/find cover", and quit crying, and a lot of those people were would be considered top tier/high ELO players, when ECM was being argued about I saw the exact same thing "Learn to Play/Adapt" ( I was one of those, and I didn't run any ECM for a long time ), but again I saw the same people saying the same "Learn to Play" comments.. Then came the PPCs and poptarting, and yet the same groups fo people using this opportuntiy to bolster their performance ingame would say "Learn to Play/Adapt".

If the issue here is that higher ELO players should be listened to over people that have only been around for 3 months, then it is quite obvious how bad of an idea this is.

Does anyone really think the people that latched on to every issue of the month, then used it to improve their gameplay performance is going to recommend things that are "NOT" to "THEIR" advantage, or be unbiased, then you obviously don't know the player base in MWO since closed beta.

I have a friend that has run every single (perceived) cheese boat, or used every weapon/loadout config that was addressed by a patch/hotfix, and he would give the excuse "I'm doing this so they (DEVs) see how cheap it is and they will fix it", then after he relied on it for a couple of weeks or months, the DEVs would announce that the issue was getting patched/hotfixed, and my friend would go ape about it saying "why the F are they going to patch this out, there's nothing wrong with it".
Remember having to lead lights by 2 mech lengths, yep he ran lights, and cried when it was addressed, remember LRMs, yep he did that and cried then too, remember SRMs, remember poptarting, those are just the most obvious. The really funny thing is that he never POSTED about how originally bad he thought they would be, he just ran them, and then exploited whatever (percieved) advantage he thought they gave him (or actually did), until they were addressed, then he would cry about it being changed/nerfed in the forums.. Weird, he didn't say it was bad here, only came in when I told him they were changing it to cry, and I saw a lot of that from others as well.

I don't see any of the people that told the rest of the community, that consistantly told others to "Learn to Play" as being any kind of resource for the influence of MWO development..
Their entire excuse was "everyone else is doing it, if you can't beat them, join them", then they would tell other people to do the same, and you want these people having any influence whatsoever..?? WOW

Nobody here has access to what DEVs have access to in terms of knowing "exactly" what's broken, they don't seem to know all of the time either, and some people want the players that will obviously have "BIASED" opinions having more influence, or thinking that they should have more influence?? No, that would lead to all kinds of awful.
That's incredibly lame, and if people can't see the obvious potential for disaster, and slowing of development, then they are a complete loss, and display really awful 2 dimensional thinking.

As it stands now making ELO public, then looking to the higher/highest ELO players for suggestions is a joke with the current level of development of MWO.

In the future (3 months after relase) I see no issues with making ELO public, but as it stands now, it is an awful Idea.
I don't have any problem with ELO being public right now, I have an issue with the problems it "WILL" cause.

We do "NOT" need something else slowing down the development of MWO.

[Gaan Cathal]

xDeityx, on 11 June 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

Some people misusing a tool is not a valid reason to outright ban that tool for everyone. We don't ban cars even though they kill people and we don't ban pools just because kids drown in them. If you have a problem with people, you address the people who are the problem.

I don't buy into the fear-mongering that dire consequences will happen if we make Elo public. These forums are already toxic and balance is already in the dumps. Giving open access to information will not change the former but it might change the latter.

We ban guns.

And these forums aren't anywhere near as toxic as they have the potential to be. The LoL "community" comes to mind.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

I'm just chiming in again because I constantly see this bumped at the top.

Public ratings are the worst idea ever for a casual F2P game unless it's popular. MWO is still in that "niche" phase of building community and adding to the elitism won't help it grow.

[Deathlike]

xDeityx, on 11 June 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

I don't buy into the fear-mongering that dire consequences will happen if we make Elo public. These forums are already toxic and balance is already in the dumps. Giving open access to information will not change the former but it might change the latter.

History has already shown the discussion tends to decay as soon as any metric that shows the person's current "skill level" is used as part of the discussion.

Why repeat it when it's readily apparent?

[Caviel]

xDeityx, on 11 June 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

This is a completely invalid argument. Any thread on this forum discussing a divisive topic that is 30 pages long will have plenty of content that violate the rules. That doesn't mean that the side advocating the status quo automatically is correct.

The point is that this thread alone is bad enough that mods deleted 10 pages of content. People are advocating for the release of Elo scores that have shown in multiple other games that release a similar ranking mechanism to be a divisive, antagonistic factor in forums. This is a case of "Let's not make things even worse than they already are based on what has happened elsewhere by throwing Elo score waving into the mix."

It isn't going to silence the low Elo group, just spur more low vs. high Elo arguments among the existing discussions/arguments:

[Low Elo player]: It would be really great if the game had feature X because of <listed reasons>
[High Elo player]: I disagree. Once you get better at the game you'll see that feature X isn't important
[Low Elo player]: It has nothing to do with skill, this will make the game more fun
[Mid Elo player]: I kinda like the idea, maybe if we tweaked it a bit more and did Y, I like that better than X
[High Elo player]: You both don't know how top-tier play works, you don't need X or Y, it's fine. I've played up to my Elo score without X or Y just fine
..etc.

Quote

And I have come to believe that PGI just reacts to the people who complain the most on the forums.

If the masses object to some aspect, and said masses leave due to some aspect, that is a concern for a game developer. If it wasn't for public outcry, we would still be dealing with pay to win consumables, just to site a recent example.

The difference between us forum posters and PGI is that PGI has the game data to measure the validity of the complaint. For example, the base capture win rate in Assault matches showing it is not as bad of a problem as projected by forum posters advocating for the removal or reduction of base captures. Again, it doesn't matter if the player has a high or low Elo, the data doesn't back up the idea.

Quote

I certainly give more weight to an argument that brings some scientific analysis into the discussion.

Would you dismiss or give less weight a thoroughly researched idea that is well presented because the person has a low Elo score?

I'm not saying there is no value or good things that can come out of releasing Elo scores. I'm saying the negative aspects of playerbase division and personal attacks outweigh the positive ones, and Elo has little bearing if an idea has merit or not.

I am willing to forgo having access to how I'm doing in comparison to a global scale via Elo if that means new players and players with low Elo scores are not segregated or dismissed on the forums or in the game.

[DEMAX51]

Bilbo is completely right. Just because a person might be a good pilot, or might belong to a good team, thereby attaining a high ELO rank, it does not mean that they understand what accounts for good game balance - it only kind of demonstrates an understanding of how to use the current game balance efficiently.

Similarly, just because a person isn't the best pilot in the world, it does not mean that they don't have a good understanding of balance, and their skill level should certainly not be used as a way for others to be dismissive of their opinions.

In the end, when we're talking about balancing issues, the things that matter the most to me are:

- The person's ability to communicate their ideas rationally and effectively.
- That their ideas are based on hard evidence (such as research and statistical analysis, as opposed to anecdotal evidence or "feel").

If somebody can present an idea for a change to the game that meets those two criteria, I'd be more than happy to hear what they have to say regardless of their K/D ratio.

Finally, let me pose you with this hypothetical question:

Do you think Steven Hawking would be good at this game?
Do you think Steven Hawking could provide some good statistical and analytical evidence to demonstrate why something should be changed?

Because I'm pretty sure if he played this game his skill level would be fairly low, but it would be idiotic not to listen to what he has to say, because he's clearly an intelligent and capable person when it comes to analytics.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

Deathlike, on 11 June 2013 - 11:04 AM, said:

History has already shown the discussion tends to decay as soon as any metric that shows the person's current "skill level" is used as part of the discussion.

Why repeat it when it's readily apparent?

It's like that scrub who was trying to direct me at his "awesome pwnage videos" the other day to back up his l33t skills then I see the date on them and LAWL because they were from patches ago.

I'll leave the epeen waving to the assault pilots.

[Milt]

i could care less what a higher elo pilot has to say on the forum. I want public elo so that i can measure myself against other ppl. with the current mm you may have a nice 50/50 w/l and be the best pilot in mwo or the worst pilot. how do you know?

[xDeityx]

Bilbo, on 11 June 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

No, it shows they can win games or run with people who help them to do so. If they can't produce evidence to back up their arguments, a high number beside their name won't make the argument any more valid. Since the evidence is how you can objectively determine the validity of an argument, the number is meaningless.

People at the highest Elo levels don't get there by riding the coattails of their partners. If they can't hack it on their own then they just drag their teammates down.

You are making it seem like I am claiming that Elo is a perfect and direct measurement of skill. I am not. But the fact that you are focusing on that point shows that you missed the goal of this thread. Public Elo will be great because it will let players understand each other by showing the perspective from which they are drawing their conclusions. It is an imperfect measure of skill which is good enough for that purpose. Yes it has its flaws but in general someone in the bottom 25% of the curve will not have as much knowledge as someone in the top 25%.

From the OP:

PEEFsmash, on 06 June 2013 - 11:53 AM, said:

Starting Point 4 (the most important one!): The game is entirely different for low level, mid level, and top level players. What might be an extremely good technique at low levels (such as lights circle strafing heavies/assaults for example) becomes a somewhat risky maneuver at the mid level, and becomes utter suicide instant death at the top level. The game is entirely different at the various levels, and this leads to players at lower levels believing that they are all good players because they win half of their matches, they do well with whatever builds they are using, but because Elo is private, they don't know that they are playing primarily against lower-quality opponents (or getting paired with higher-quality teammates), and the main problems they face are due to their own poor mechanics (like bad aim or movement control). Players of different levels are playing different games, in a sense.

Conclusion: The input that players give in the forums is a horrid mishmash of tons of different players at different levels each arguing back and forth about certain balance changes that will affect them all differently. In discussions like these, EVERYONE MIGHT BE RIGHT, RELATIVE TO THEIR OWN LEVEL OF PLAY! So we get things like "I have just as much fun in my jump-jet light as I ever have! Doesn't really bother me" at the same time as "I am now unable to excecute extremely important maneuvers such as pinpointing certain components on my ascent in my jump-jet light because of screen/reticle shake." The former statement I have seen come from several low level players, and the latter statement is the consensus of all of the top light pilots I have spoken to. Each may be right, but they are really living in different worlds, and are each reporting from a play level with each its own issues.

Public Elo would be a heuristic shortcut that lets you see what version of MWO the poster is playing since the experiences of the top 25% are so much different than those of the bottom 25% they may as well be playing a different game entirely. The experience of the bottom 25% is so cluttered with false assumptions, misunderstanding of mechanics and self-imposed rules ("only wusses use ranged weapons - real men are brawlers CHAAAAARGE!") to the point that they don't have a clear picture of the actual game as it was created. The experience of the top 5% is much more pure because at that level they are playing to win by the most efficient means possible. If poptarting is the most effective way to win then they will be poptarting. But meanwhile they are giving feedback that it doesn't make for a fun game. This is exactly the scenario that played out recently.

Gaan Cathal, on 11 June 2013 - 10:57 AM, said:

This. A fair number of players I believe to be of fairly high ELO (based on who they come up against and my awareness of how good these second parties are) were adamant that missile mechanics were absolutely fine a while ago. The splash damage bug was only shown when someone actually went out, did tests and ran numbers. That didn't take skill at the game. And, to boot, several (presumably, see above) decent ELO players adamantly refused to believe it.

Evidence gathering and number crunching like that is what should get you listened to, not your ELO score.

The high Elo players who were saying missiles were fine were correct in the Elo at which they were playing. Even with the splash damage bug missiles weren't that impressive because the projectile speed was so slow and the angle of attack so weak that they were easily avoidable in most situations.

This is actually a perfect example of why Elo should be made public!

If all the low Elo players are saying that LRMs are brokenly OP and all the high Elo players are saying they are fine that doesn't mean that they LRMs be looked at - it means that we should look into WHY the players are saying this. For the hundredth time - Low Elo players shouldn't get ignored, but their feedback should just be treated differently because they are coming from a completely different perspective.