Abivard, on 16 November 2013 - 09:07 PM, said:
It is not working because it is not possible for it to work. No surprise there.
Elo = A system to rank chess players by individual ability. Can be used for many things where one on one play is involved.
MWO= Multiplayer team based game, with dynamically changing teams.
What part of 'Elo is not applicable to MWO' do you not understand?
What you are implying is the same as the statement about monkeys randomly typing out the complete works of shakespeare. it may be possible in theory, but not likely to ever happen.
It most certainly is not something that can be done consistently!
You ask for empirical evidence to support my position but in return I must accept your interpretation of these theories as they may apply to MWO with no evidence what so ever?
Yet the mathematical theorems you present refute your position. You seem to be just trying to baffle us with walls of text as well as hoping to prey upon the ignorance and pride of others.
Mathematical formula are not theories. Statistics could be viewed as a theoretical science I guess but one played out by clear mathematical principles.
Your position seems to be that 'Elo doesn't apply to MW:O because it's too complicated'. That's not an argument. What is your mathematical basis for saying that unlike any and every other statistical variable win/loss in MW:O is simply too complex to be accounted for.
Given that I deal with statistical variables literally dozens of times and in large data aggregates even thousands of times less significant than your impact on win/loss in MWO every single day your assumptions are ones that I disprove 8 or 9 times every morning by about 9:30 am PST.
It's human nature to believe that human behavior can not be predicted or accounted for. This is not correct. When you roll a six sided dice there are countless variables. Force with which it is thrown, twist on release, air viscosity, friction on impact, gravity, imperfections on the dices surface, would be hard to list them all. Yet regardless of them all the odds of any number coming up on a dice, no matter who throws it, are 1 in 6. The impact of your fellow teammates can be largely distilled down to a dozen or so criteria and the probability of them playing out in a match with you is the same as their playing out in a match with someone else. You know what is the same in your matches? You. Your impact is what can be reliably measured from all your matches.
It's not a tough concept.
I'm not asking you to create a mathematical formula, I'm saying you want to challenge the viability of Elo then track 100 matches and show that it somehow defies probability theory. I'd love to see it. I already know you're wrong but why don't you show us.
All you've got right now is bad feelz and a philosophical attempt to make that mathematically true. It's not. Not to be offensive here but you're demonstratively wrong. That's okay but if you want to demonstrate that you're right, put some actual data here.
Nightfire, on 16 November 2013 - 11:21 PM, said:
*snip polite and well thought out response*
Slicing metrics more finely is possible but provides diminishing returns. It also increases the probability of including a mistaken or skewed variable. Most people in statistics will tell you simplify simplify simplify, the more fundamental the result you're trying to find the more reliable it is. I'll add the caveat that it depends what you're trying to do. If I'm trying to identify how you'll vote in an election or if you prefer scented or unscented deodorant then I do want a lot of variables because I'm not solving for a performance point but creating a consumer mosaic.
What you're wanting to do is pin down precise behaviors or instant metrics to tie to how you affect winning or losing. I absolutely get the impulse but it's a whack-a-mole objective. The current system makes sense because you get awarded XP and cbills for such things for an immediate reward for performance but measured on win/loss as an aggregate over time.
I get that Merc Corps will want stats and I'm all for providing that but again, that's different than Elo. Elo measures how well you impact your teams odds of winning no matter how you do it. Stats say what exactly someone is good at. A Merc team can build a squad with specific metrics to give them the right synergy to win matches. Elo doesn't see or account for synergy - even with premade teams it treats everyone like a pug. Right now that's what we want and for any pug environment that's what you want. I don't think Elo should be involved in CW matches, I think instead you'll have a ranking with factions (driven by your win/loss on missions for them no doubt) which is similar but without the pugging concept behind it.
A team is made up of individuals. Each individual contributes to the team. You can look at a teams overall metrics and see how each teammate influences the total but the easy metrics (in MW:O it's score, KDR, damage) don't actually paint as clear a picture of overall performance.
Each individual impacts their team statistically and measurably. To pretend otherwise is to abdicate personal responsibility for your performance. If I have a team of 15 people and only 1 works hard they will still get more work done over 1,000 hours than a team of 15 in which nobody works hard. I won't notice it much after 5 hours, but after 1,000? Absolutely I do. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
I don't disagree at all that perception is important - that's why I'm all for changes that make the matchmaker tie bands of Elo players more tightly, though I suspect the outcry then will be that it puts people with someone who is too hard for them to beat or that even if I could show you that everyone on your team was generally as good or better than the other team you'd still say the rest of your team sucked because you lost.
There in lies the rub. Nobody likes to lose and when they do nobody likes to say 'I should have done more'. Especially in a team. I'd bet that in more than 9 out of 10 losses there was someone on your team who 'did better' even though your team lost. I'm all for managing expectations but the reality is that we're simply more comfortable blaming a group of strangers than a group we know. That's the only real difference between dropping in a 12man and losing a bunch and dropping in pugs and losing a bunch.
The math behind Elo works. It may not create an environment everyone enjoys - some people don't want things to get more challenging as they progress, they want to progress so that they have an advantage over others. Someone prior called that 'being competitive'. I'd say it's the opposite but whatever. Personally I like having my matches continue to be challenging. If it's not why don't I just play an offline game in godmode?
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