277 replies to this topic

[arghmace]

I just bought a Centurion 9-AL and didn't put FF, Endo or DHS in it. As crappy a build as possible and now playing pug to get my ELO down. Marvellous system.

EDIT: Well, there's another reason as well. I only intend to open basics with this and then sell the chassis away. Since you don't get anything back from upgrades, it wastes a shitload of money buying DHS and Endo for a mech you're gonna sell soon. Don't understand why you don't get at least a bit of money back from them...

Edited by arghmace, 17 February 2013 - 09:01 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

And there is no system that cannot be exploited?

Mycrus, on 17 February 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

LOVE THIS PUG!!!!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 17 February 2013 - 09:02 AM.

[MischiefSC]

arghmace, on 17 February 2013 - 08:59 AM, said:

I just bought a Centurion 9-AL and didn't put FF, Endo or DHS in it. As crappy a build as possible and now playing pug to get my ELO down. Marvellous system.

So....


You're going to 'game the system' by losing all the time?

Okay. Feel free to 'game the system' with me any time.

As soon as you start winning more than 50% of the games your Elo will climb back up.

You'd have to always lose 50% of your games regardless of your skill to somehow keep your Elo score down.

Good luck with that. Tell me how it works out.

[Joseph Mallan]

MischiefSC, on 17 February 2013 - 08:57 AM, said:

My big concern is the being stuck aspect.

Changes in rating are going to involve a lot of wins/losses to see much of a shift. If you end up 'in the wrong place' for some reason (maybe you were in a guild who carried you and are now pugging) it's going to be hard to shift.

If you're very good but ranked too low you might end up bad enough off that your teammates hamstring you.

If you're not very good but too high up you'll see a diminishing returns trap - the excellent players will beat you but your ranking will drop very little due to it. It'll take a constant and ferocious beating to get down to where you belong.

Give it 60 days. A few hundred matches will even it out. There will still be swings but I think for the vast bulk of players it'll be fun.

Y U Bring Logix to a doom/gloom thread???

[80Bit]

MischiefSC, on 17 February 2013 - 08:57 AM, said:

My big concern is the being stuck aspect.

Changes in rating are going to involve a lot of wins/losses to see much of a shift. If you end up 'in the wrong place' for some reason (maybe you were in a guild who carried you and are now pugging) it's going to be hard to shift.

If you're very good but ranked too low you might end up bad enough off that your teammates hamstring you.

If you're not very good but too high up you'll see a diminishing returns trap - the excellent players will beat you but your ranking will drop very little due to it. It'll take a constant and ferocious beating to get down to where you belong.

Give it 60 days. A few hundred matches will even it out. There will still be swings but I think for the vast bulk of players it'll be fun.

It's not really as bad as all that. Elo does not care if it took you 10 games or 1000 games to get to the rating you are at. It only compares your current rating to your enemies. So if you are way to high, you are going to get stomped in say 8 out of 10 matches. In at least a few of those matches, it will be lower Elo players that stomp you, making you drop fast.

[arghmace]

MischiefSC, on 17 February 2013 - 09:02 AM, said:

You're going to 'game the system' by losing all the time?

Sorry for editing my post. If you check it, there's a financial reason as well. But what comes to ELO, I've been playing more than usual premades lately so I fear my ELO is higher than it should be. Bringing it down a bit will likely put me in my proper place.

[arghmace]

Anyway I really don't think ELO system is good. What's the point of being a skilled player? It should be that being good gets you more wins and thus more xp and credits. But when this ELO system tries to make it so that you win 50% no matter what, where's the incentive to get better? You don't gain anything. You might as well make as crappy builds as possible and drink two bottles of whiskey before playing. You're still gonna win 50% and gain the same xp and credits in the long run. This is as bad as the scaling system in Elder Scrolls Oblivion for instance. When opposition scales, you're completely stuck and getting better gives you no reward.

[MischiefSC]

Joseph Mallan, on 17 February 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

Y U Bring Logix to a doom/gloom thread???

This isn't a doom/gloom thread! It's a celebration and preparation for the GLORIOUS times ahead!

80Bit, on 17 February 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

It's not really as bad as all that. Elo does not care if it took you 10 games or 1000 games to get to the rating you are at. It only compares your current rating to your enemies. So if you are way to high, you are going to get stomped in say 8 out of 10 matches. In at least a few of those matches, it will be lower Elo players that stomp you, making you drop fast.

Possibly, but remember it's going to look at your specific Elo, not the teams Elo, but compare it to the average of who stomped you. For most people this is great but the people who've inflated their rankings by sync-dropping to stomp pugs they're going to be on the high end near the elite players even though their actual skills are more like average or above average. That's where Elo hell is. The excellent players will farm these guys, pushing their rankings higher and higher while these guys will have to lose a correspondingly large number of matches to the elite for each win they get against pugs.

arghmace, on 17 February 2013 - 09:05 AM, said:

Sorry for editing my post. If you check it, there's a financial reason as well. But what comes to ELO, I've been playing more than usual premades lately so I fear my ELO is higher than it should be. Bringing it down a bit will likely put me in my proper place.

No problem at all, my bad. Just pointing out though that gaming the system is going to have to involve losing half the matches someone plays in OR creating a new account and starting over, losing everything you gained, all your stats, etc.

So excited. Two more days!

arghmace, on 17 February 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

Anyway I really don't think ELO system is good. What's the point of being a skilled player? It should be that being good gets you more wins and thus more xp and credits. But when this ELO system tries to make it so that you win 50% no matter what, where's the incentive to get better? You don't gain anything. You might as well make as crappy builds as possible and drink two bottles of whiskey before playing. You're still gonna win 50% and gain the same xp and credits in the long run. This is as bad as the scaling system in Elder Scrolls Oblivion for instance. When opposition scales, you're completely stuck and getting better gives you no reward.

Your reward is more challenges. You can still win a lot but it's going to be against better players. The point is that it's always challenging. There isn't a point where the challenge stops. Otherwise making the game 'fun' for someone who likes to win all the time involves making it less fun for everyone else.

Elo is there to protect the majority from the minority. Prevent 'pug stomping' and make competitive play, well, mandatory for people who get good. Above a certain level it's all 8-mans. No way to escape it. No way to get back into 4mans and pug-stomps.

[arghmace]

MischiefSC, on 17 February 2013 - 09:18 AM, said:

Your reward is more challenges. You can still win a lot but it's going to be against better players.

But the point is I won't even know this since the ELO score is hidden. If I could see that ok, last week my ELO was 1700, now it's 1750, I could at least feel some accomplishment about getting better. But now there's no way to know if my skills progress or regress. All the time I win about 50%, not sure if it's against worse or better players.

[Jabilo]

arghmace, on 17 February 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

But the point is I won't even know this since the ELO score is hidden. If I could see that ok, last week my ELO was 1700, now it's 1750, I could at least feel some accomplishment about getting better. But now there's no way to know if my skills progress or regress. All the time I win about 50%, not sure if it's against worse or better players.

It is a reasonable point, but I guess the answer is that game after game of team death match is not the ultimate point of this game.

At some point in the future there will be community warfare that will bring back goals and focus to the game?

[CancR]

Vassago Rain, on 16 February 2013 - 09:33 PM, said:

Illustrated.

Former MW4 pros should be added to the top, and mechassault/Chromehounds/Armor Core/Hawking converts at the very bottom.

[arghmace]

Jabilo, on 17 February 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

At some point in the future there will be community warfare that will bring back goals and focus to the game?

I'd prefer getting those goals before we destroy the only goals we now have. Not much point playing this in the meanwhile, is there?

[Tankski]

Interesting analysis. I sincerely hope that there is a separate rating for group vs. PUG. Would hate to have to create a separate account for each...

[MischiefSC]

arghmace, on 17 February 2013 - 09:25 AM, said:

But the point is I won't even know this since the ELO score is hidden. If I could see that ok, last week my ELO was 1700, now it's 1750, I could at least feel some accomplishment about getting better. But now there's no way to know if my skills progress or regress. All the time I win about 50%, not sure if it's against worse or better players.

You can see your own wins and losses, KDR, all that still. Just not the Elo score. If you're winning more than you're losing though you're getting better!

Rewards and improvement, goals and such are best met currently (until CW comes out) by getting money, XP, that sort of thing. Each match should be fun and challenging. You shouldn't end up in a situation where the matches are easy, that means the challenges of getting the rewards you want are shallow.

[Ebynfel]

Well, I just have to say with the idea of going further back, going past the ECM patch may not be a good idea. I'm a closed Beta founder, and my current w/l rate is somethign like 33/73 and my kda is .59 or somesuch. Now, before december patch, of which I have only played 2 dozen games since, I had a vast majority of losses. My PC just simply could not handle MWO before then, and now though I can play on low graphics, the maps that require alternate vision modes(River night, frozen day) I get some serious FPS drops when switching.

That being said, I have won more than I have lost since(which I played mostly this past week). Going off of my ELo and info(wish I could look this up)from the past two weeks is a little more testament to my skill. I know, for a fact, I suck. I am not good at this game, deserving of bottomfeeder? Maybe, but the stats in my profile dont stack up due to technical limitations that are nearly resolved. No superior equipment, just better game code allowing my machine to handle it better, and a drastic improvement. Now, I'm on an older laptop. I may get to upgrade(hopefully)really soon, but going too far back and you're looking at a lot of people who were testing and providing feedback in a BETA whose machines were struggling far too much, and you have the technical issues limiting our ELOs.

Again, I'm no great player, but hte past 2 weeks have seen my play be dramatically better. I havent dropped enough for it to be skill raising I do not believe, and a LOT of it, if not all, has to do to the lower barrier on machines thanks to increased efficiency of the code. A lot of people may complain about features and problems, but take it from me. 3 months ago I could not play this game on this machine. Today it's completely playable, these guys are making improvements, and there's a lot of guys/gals like me out there with similar issues. Can't afford to upgrade yet and the reworking of code has made this game actually playable, and fun at that.

Now when it comes to how it fleshes out. 2 weeks is too small of an ELo sample, but there are 2 ways to work it. Start everyone mid range, and they raise/fall from there. Being the entry point, the people in that ELO may have issues because they're getting paired with pugs that should be FAR lower than them.

Start everyone at the bottom. This causes problems for a short time because skilled players are in the same bracket as the bottom of the barrel players(like me) and the pros wreck us. This issue should, in theory, not last too long as the more skilled players would skyrocket out of our range.

in either case, their should be seperate rankings for each game mode, imo. How a player handles the 2(with more to come eventually) could be completely different. A team actually using their lights to cap in conquest while the other team just zergs points will potentially have a better time. However, in assault, that same team may send it's lights to cap, and run into hunchbacks or splat cats hanging back, waiting for an easy mark. The same approach isn't used, because assault should be much more deathmatch style in it's current incarnation. They're different systems following the same sets of rules, but should have a different set of ratings.

As per dropping PuG and team, it could work to seperate the ratings, but I really only see the need for full premades. I guess lances could be helpful, as the level of VoIP comms could make a difference if the players are good. If I drop with 4, and our coordination wins, I could see a rating reflecting the 4/8/eventually 12 man drops. There are several interesting factors. The largest of which will be the 'reset'

I'm all for a flat reset of game stats. And pick a method to start people off and let us shake down our position under live testing. A sample size, IMO, isn't strictly needed. And if you use one, it should sample hundreds of games. BUT, it should be done in a matter of consistency, under the live testing. We should shake out the system and positions live. Because if I pubstomp for 150 matches, then youre suddenly matched against good 4 man teams, how does that help? It just wildly misplaces your level when you're not matchmade during the shakedown.

[Goose]

Say: If Elo is per chassis, then what happens if you have two of them?

[RedMercury]

To my understanding the MWO rating system will not change ratings of anyone involved in a game if the prediction of the outcome based on the ratings was correct. That means, if your team average score is lower than that of your opponents and you lost, you won't go down in score.

"Elo hell" at the top won't exist for several reasons. Due to the floating point numbers and logarithmic changes, it is very unlikely for scores to clump so much that there will be such big gaps between clumps to make "jumping the gaps" unlikely. In other words, even if you inflated your rating via pugstomping, you will randomly face teams which are slightly lower in rating (maybe other pugfarmers）, and if you lose to them, your rating will lower. Also, if the matchmaker fails to find similarly-ranked players, it will randomly give you players with more dissimilar ratings, giving you a chance to change your score, good or bad.

[Mycrus]

Utilyan, on 17 February 2013 - 08:40 AM, said:

I apologize. I thought I was clear. Will having a bad ELO have restrictions on the meta-aspect like factions/planets?

nah, you were right the 1st time... i was just trolling... peace!

[arghmace]

MischiefSC, on 17 February 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

You can see your own wins and losses, KDR, all that still. Just not the Elo score. If you're winning more than you're losing though you're getting better!

With the ELO system W/L, K/D and avg xp will stay put. Whenever you do better, you're matched higher and start doing worse. Those stats won't tell anything anymore.

[RedMercury]

What I forsee will be people who want to continue pugfarming by disco or suicide to lower their rating. If they were in it for the satisfaction or for the cbills and xp, a quick disconnect doesn't hurt, and they can just use another mech in the meantime.


And the disconnects will massively anger those who really care about their ratings, because it really puts them in a bad position through no fault of their own.

Edited by RedMercury, 17 February 2013 - 09:51 AM.