198 replies to this topic

[Diablobo]

You guys do understand how Elo works don't you? It takes two players who are assumed to have the EXACT SAME STARTING CONDITIONS AND CAPABILITIES, and then makes predictions on who should win when player X competes against player Z.

Have you figured out the flaw with using Elo for MWO yet? It's not too hard to see....if you don't see it, then you have no business even trying to comprehend the intricacies of Elo in the first place.

Elo assumes both players have the same basic starting point. Apart from white getting the first move, chess is an extremely balanced game. Both players have the same pieces, and both players' pieces can do the exact same things.

Is that what happens in MWO? Does someone who takes a zero unlock Commando with 3 small lasers, a standard engine, and single heat sinks stack up against a fully mastered, fully optimized Spider? No. They do not. Neither do the other mechs that come into the matchmaker that are not as powerful as the fully optimized meta builds. Using Elo with a game that has such widely divergent starting positions is just a recipe for disaster. It turns out that PGI has cooked up a wonderful dish of one-sided mismatch stew.

Until PGI ditches Elo and uses some sort of Battle Value system, there can be no matchmaker that is anything other than random, luck of the draw crap. The sooner they acknowledge this fact, the sooner we can all get on to enjoying our epic well matched battles we were promised. Instead, we have to be saddled by noobs on our team who think it is fun to pilot an Atlas with a couple of med lasers and some LRMs with single heat sinks and no unlocks, while the other team has fully unlocked and optimized meta builds and pilots who know how to use them.

There will never be a decent matchmaker as long as we use Elo. It is supposed to be used for teams that have identical starting positions. As we all know, that is not the case with MWO.

Edited by Diablobo, 08 October 2014 - 09:12 PM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Yeah, pretty much this...elo needs to go away.......its an attempt at a sort of skilled based MM, but it doesnt really work...

[Bhael Fire]

Thank you.

In fact, can I like the OP again?

[LordKnightFandragon]

Diablobo, on 08 October 2014 - 08:40 PM, said:

saddled by noobs on our team who think it is fun to pilot an Atlas with a couple of med lasers and some LRMs with single heat sinks and no unlocks, while the other team has fully unlocked and optimized meta builds and pilots who know how to use them.

Well, that is partly due to how the money works in this game....its 1.5mill for DHS, then you gotta have the $$$ to actually buy them...

So a noob Atlas with that loadout would probably be a true noob who doesnt have a bank acct sufficient to make an optimal loadout...

[Abivard]

Elo is a religion to some, they think it is magical and works for anything, 'you just need a large enough sample size' is what they say, Never mind that sample size is in the billions of games per person for MWO conditions.

[Targetloc]

Many forms of matchmaking have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that Elo is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that Elo is the worst form of matchmaking, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…

[Abivard]

Targetloc, on 08 October 2014 - 09:01 PM, said:

Many forms of matchmaking have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that Elo is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that Elo is the worst form of matchmaking, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…

BUUUUUUTTTTTT only the Elo supporters say that!

Everyone else says that almost anything is better than this MWO Elo bastardized MM system that is currently in use.

[ApolloKaras]

Your battle value suggestion is not taking into account the pilot.

This game is less about build and more about the skill of the pilot. (TO a point to the guy thats going to post OMG SINGLE HEAT SINK 4 ER PPC AWESOME)

Edited by Saxie, 08 October 2014 - 09:08 PM.

[Rhent]

ELO + Weapon Load Outs = Workable System
ELO Only = Random Variability that makes it completely, utterly totally useless

Lets say the following:
ELO matchmaker sets up two teams who have a score of 100 for each sides ELO, but by the luck of the draw its Alpine and one team has 4 LRM mechs + 2 ECM light spotters versus a team of brawlers w/o ECM. Equal ELO, but the map and the mechs are set that the brawlers are going to lose all the time, assuming the lights w/ ECM play as spotters and its just game over, very, very quickly.

ELO has to take into account certain builds and tools, things like:
ECM
Large LRM Loadouts
Large AC Loadouts
Large Gauss Loadouts

You could have a high ELO player running a very subpar mech versus another high ELO player in a carry mech and the carry mech is going to win always. MM has to identify the carry mechs and take that into account for ELO. You can't ignore them and have ELO work.

[Diablobo]

If you take two matches with the exact same pilot, 99 percent of the time, the better mech build will perform better. So given equally skilled pilots, the one with the better mech will win. That does not work for an Elo matchmaker. Elo is strictly for balanced starting positions and capabilities. A pilot in a better mech is instantly elevated to a higher level, and the opposite is also true. Elo's formulas and calculations are completely thrown out the window with this imbalance.

[ApolloKaras]

Diablobo, on 08 October 2014 - 09:20 PM, said:

If you take two matches with the exact same pilot, 99 percent of the time, the better mech build will perform better. So given equally skilled pilots, the one with the better mech will win. That does not work for an Elo matchmaker. Elo is strictly for balanced starting positions and capabilities. A pilot in a better mech is instantly elevated to a higher level, and the opposite is also true. Elo's formulas and calculations are completely thrown out the window with this imbalance.

I agree with this 100%. I mean there isn't a way in the world I am going to be able to bring a locust and see the same folks that I did while piloting an Ember. Or any other non top tier mech for that matter.

[Alistair Winter]

Diablobo, on 08 October 2014 - 08:40 PM, said:

Until PGI ditches Elo and uses some sort of Battle Value system, there can be no matchmaker that is anything other than random, luck of the draw crap.

So how will this Battle Value system help when I'm playing the game with a group of friends who are new to MWO, and we get matched up against a House of Lords 12-man group?

How will it stop the pug-stomping we saw in Beta?

Did you really think this through?

[LordKnightFandragon]

Alistair Winter, on 08 October 2014 - 09:38 PM, said:

So how will this Battle Value system help when I'm playing the game with a group of friends who are new to MWO, and we get matched up against a House of Lords 12-man group?

How will it stop the pug-stomping we saw in Beta?

Did you really think this through?

No MM system will help you in that scenario.....

[Alistair Winter]

LordKnightFandragon, on 08 October 2014 - 10:23 PM, said:

No MM system will help you in that scenario.....

The current MM system prevents it from happening as often as it would if match-ups were completely random.

I don't think it's an ideal system, but just pretending that Battlevalue is a viable alternative is... well, a bit short-sighted.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Dunno about Battle Value, but could somehow utilizing accrued Match Scores for each weight class be possible?

So maybe using the mode of accrued Match Scores, where each player would have one value each for Lights, Mediums, Heavies and Assaults instead of (or maybe in addition to) the current Elo value based on W/L?

The reason I throw out the idea of using the mode is if a player consistently gets Match Scores in the 60s, but then gets a stinker in one match or gets 100+ in another since most are around 60 that would be the base line for that player. Gotta explore this further but hey, at least it's something that could be test-able.

At any rate, I too feel alternatives to Elo at least should be explored.

[Karl Streiger]

ELO can work - in theory i don't see any reason why it should not work.

If the ELO gap between team one and team 2 is to big - the new rating is hardly effected (only if the loosers win)
The ELO is a aggregat of team ability, weapon usage, weapon configs and more.

If you run a Mech that is not optimized like your build in this weight class before - you automatically can't keep your level - and its ok - you can adjust your Mech in lower ELO levels - until you have a setting that fit you like a glove.

There is only one concern: team sizes.
OK:
Worst case secenario:
Voting is reimplemented for: GameMode and Map.
a 12 men team average ELO 1300-1500 could 100% controll their drop deck - and have major impact on the game mode and the map.

Next there is one ELO created for this team - it will be average: 1300-1500. The MM will search for a team composition with a average elo of 1050-1750 as well. Its possible that this new team consits of multiple smaller groups.
Obviously the 12er team will win - advantage of communitcation, map, mode and composition.

They will farm - the group que for a long time - maybe until they hit a >6men >2000ELO team.

So to prevent such "abuse" the ELO, as well as voting weight should be modifed by team size - a 12men team should get a ELO boost at least of +500 - so that those average players may still drop vs multiple smaller teams -but each of those team consist of >2000 players.
Next the voting weight of a 12 men team shouldn't be more as 8.

[Eddrick]

Elo does have problems in an environment like MWO. Personally, I liked it being totally random without Elo.

Pilot rating has to be established to make a proper Battle Value system.

Praetor Knight, on 08 October 2014 - 10:38 PM, said:

Dunno about Battle Value, but could somehow utilizing accrued Match Scores for each weight class be possible?

So maybe using the mode of accrued Match Scores, where each player would have one value each for Lights, Mediums, Heavies and Assaults instead of (or maybe in addition to) the current Elo value based on W/L?

The reason I throw out the idea of using the mode is if a player consistently gets Match Scores in the 60s, but then gets a stinker in one match or gets 100+ in another since most are around 60 that would be the base line for that player. Gotta explore this further but hey, at least it's something that could be test-able.

At any rate, I too feel alternatives to Elo at least should be explored.

Battle Value has it's flaws. The only way Battle Value would work at all is was dynamic or was allowed to be adjusted regularly. It can't stay the same when nerfs/buffs happen and it can be a direct reflection of TT Battle Value, because combat mechanics are not the same here.

You can start with a rating for weight classes at first (To get a good enough sample to make an accurate rating). But, it would work better if it spread into be rated by a per variant basis. Because, Chassis and even variants in the same weight class are not equal. The game is not balanced enough to assume that.

[L Y N X]

Karl Streiger, on 08 October 2014 - 10:54 PM, said:

The ELO is a aggregat of team ability, weapon usage, weapon configs and more.

No I do not think ELO is what you think it is... Your Average Match Score would be a better aggregate of a players abilities, and skills. ELO is a rating based off of Wins and Losses, period. Two players on a losing team, one scores 79 the other scores 2, are these players equivalent in skill? not in my book. They contributed at greatly different levels; same scenario can exist on winning teams. However, using an average Match score then you get matched up with other players of your ability and arguably will have closer matches played out.

Edited by 7ynx, 08 October 2014 - 11:00 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Eddrick, on 08 October 2014 - 10:57 PM, said:

You can start with a rating for weight classes at first (To get a good enough sample to make an accurate rating). But, it would work better if it spread into be rated by a per variant basis. Because, Chassis and even variants in the same weight class are not equal. The game is not balanced enough to assume that.

Currently we just have 4, one for each Weight Class though.

But yeah, by variant would be best, I wonder what amount of coding that could take to get that going.

[Karl Streiger]

7ynx, on 08 October 2014 - 10:59 PM, said:

No I do not think ELO is what you think it is... Your Average Match Score would be a better aggregate of a players abilities, and skills. ELO is a rating based off of Wins and Losses, period. Two players on a losing team, one scores 79 the other scores 2, are these players equivalent in skill? not in my book. They contributed as greatly different levels same scenario can exist on winning teams. However, using an average Match score then you get matched up with other players of your ability and arguably will have closer matches played out.

I have to disagree.
The team elo is a average - yes it may happen that a absolute beginner with 1300 elo is matched in the same team as a good player rising >2000 ELO.
But this shouldn't happen often (I know it happens, but it shouldn't)
One or two extreme Elo players are hidden in the average team elo. Maybe a Median system would be better -have to evaluate.

Anyhow - Matchscore is not a good mark - for efficency - quite the oppostie to be efficent means you automatically get lower matchscore - because a huge chunk of matchscore is damage dealt.
You can shoot with 1 LRM 20 at 12 targets - and your matchscore is would be bigger as shooting as hitting 3 targets with 4 gauss rounds each in the CT.