Beta testing and balance

[TheVoid37]

wouldn't it stand to reason that over a long period of time if this option was always on wouldn't ranks slowly begin to converge and become the same?

I won't pretend to know the algorithm but if teams were always balanced, and outcomes were always neck and neck, 50/50 a truly balanced system would balance out in all aspects.

The only way I would see elo not balancing out and slowly everyone merging into the same number would be if it did reward personal points for objectives, because then while your team won and all got elo, you got alot more because you were the one who killed every miner, podded every player, and blew up every base.

Course I have not looked at or seen the ranking system so could be totally off.

[Terralthra]

QUOTE (TheVoid37 @ Oct 20 2006, 05:50 AM) wouldn't it stand to reason that over a long period of time if this option was always on wouldn't ranks slowly begin to converge and become the same?

I won't pretend to know the algorithm but if teams were always balanced, and outcomes were always neck and neck, 50/50 a truly balanced system would balance out in all aspects.

The only way I would see elo not balancing out and slowly everyone merging into the same number would be if it did reward personal points for objectives, because then while your team won and all got elo, you got alot more because you were the one who killed every miner, podded every player, and blew up every base.

Course I have not looked at or seen the ranking system so could be totally off.

The issue you bring up is a potential problem, and the dev team is looking into it. The main problems are:Points are not awarded for all critical game activitiesPoints are set by core constants, not constant across all of AllegianceThe first is more of an issue than the second.

[factoid]

QUOTE (Pook @ Oct 19 2006, 01:49 PM) That's because the people you talked with were either misinformed or purposely spreading misinformation. The balance algorithm is specifically written in such a way as to NEVER lock out an individual from both teams.

I'm not sure how this can work, so perhaps someone can enlighten me.

If you have a player with high ELO, and the team that is down players also has a higher team ELO. How does the game resolve this. Does it allow him to override the player imbalance to join the team with more players but worse ELO? Are ELO balancing and player imbalance mutually exclusive?

I'm gonna go check the "How ELO works" thread right now to see if there's an answer there. But I did want to make sure that scenario was addressed. As it stands I can't imagine a way to enforce both ELO balance and team size balance without creating a scenario where a player would be locked out of both teams until the situation becomes more even.

[Terralthra]

It is a good thing Shizoku brought this to our attention, we're discussing it in the dev forum at this very minute.

[Pook]

QUOTE (factoid @ Oct 19 2006, 02:53 PM) I'm not sure how this can work, so perhaps someone can enlighten me.

If you have a player with high ELO, and the team that is down players also has a higher team ELO. How does the game resolve this. Does it allow him to override the player imbalance to join the team with more players but worse ELO? Are ELO balancing and player imbalance mutually exclusive?

That's my understanding of how it should work, yes. It appears it may not be doing that, I've started the discussion in the dev forum.

Edit: Actually Terralthra and I both started posting, my topic won because he was nice. /mrgreen.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="mrgreen.gif" />

QUOTE (factoid @ Oct 19 2006, 02:53 PM) I'm gonna go check the "How ELO works" thread right now to see if there's an answer there. But I did want to make sure that scenario was addressed. As it stands I can't imagine a way to enforce both ELO balance and team size balance without creating a scenario where a player would be locked out of both teams until the situation becomes more even.

"How ELO Works" has to do only with the stat calculations and doesn't have anything to do with the FAZ autobalance feature.

[TheVoid37]

Hopefully coms will remove player imbalance before using ELO balance.

[Raindog]

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:46 PM) Every other game you play, there are rewards for excelling at the game, battlefield you get extra weapons, other places you get a fancy star. In allegiance we make it so that the better players can only play on the teams filled with dip@#(!s and newbs.

In Alleg I'm fairly sure we have a system that increases your damage with each kill (of course KB is cheating, FACE THE FACTS!) I assume you are reffering to the novice players that will be evenly distributed on both teams to help them improve their skills by actually flying with good players on both sides.

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:46 PM) People I talked to predicted in a number of months, there will be a few players with a lot higher ranks than everyone else, and when a commander uses the auto ballance button and they don't join, if one side is up one but still has less elo, they wont be able to join either side. This is punishing people for being good, why would anyone want a $#@!ing high rank if all it does is prevent you from playing with the people you have fun with?

2 things here, first, I don't see ELO doing that, it will certainly behave like it did before the reset, there will be a bigger spread of ranks and those antistackers on the list will catch up as their artificially low ELOs let them win more vs teams with inflated ELOs from stacking.

Second, as already stated, this is not the intent and I didn't see any issue with it last night, but if it needs to be fixed it will.

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:46 PM) I don't play this game for the exciting gameplay anymore, you $#@!tards suck too much for that. I play to have fun with my buddies, this system prevents that.

Well, you and your buddies might actually enjoy the gameplay a bit more if the teams were even and competitive. Other than that, if you don't like playing the game why should the players that do enjoy Alleg cowtow to those who don't even like playing?

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:46 PM) You kept telling me it's optional, yes it is, but there are so many weak and self diluted commanders out there who would not dare to take this off. The kind of people who play for not even a year and think that they should be able to command against myself or aarmstrong, then whine because they are stacked against.

If teams are relatively even, we will see a huge increase in competant vets stepping up to comm. There are large numbers of them that won't comm because they know they will be stacked against right now. With more people willing to comm, we won't end up with the novice comms as often and everyone will be happier.

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:46 PM) I just don't see why we are rewarding sucking. It seems anti competitive.

This makes absolutely no sense. I have no idea what you are talking about here.

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:46 PM) All I can say, is that this game will not be worth playing once this comes out. I see I have two options, either purposly loose games so that I can play with those I wish and be called a cheater or exploiter or whatever, or I can just stop playing pickup games altogether. I'm going to choose the latter because it's not worth the flaming I would recieve if I did the first one.

Again, this system will actually let you play with who you want more often than the current system. Since the teams will always be even, you won't have a stacked team that is constantly up 1 player that you have to race against the other stackers to join and because more vets will be willing to play for either team you will have many more opportunities to join the team you want even if they are ahead ELO wise when you first join.

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:46 PM) I can see why your "majority" wants this. The "majority" is unable to compete with the few good members of the community and instead of actually spending the time to get better, they just want to dumb it down. Fine, have fun podding the newbs without fear of being podded by someone better than you.

As Pook said, this is the very definition of stacking, podding novices with no fear. Even you have to admit that playing a competitive game with the people you want to play with is a huge improvement overwaiting in noat waiting to join a completely stacked game because noat is filled with people that don't want to join the team with no chance.

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:46 PM) The only problem is that I need to find a new game.

You won't ever find a better game.

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:46 PM) Thanks jackasses.

You are Welcome, Shiz, glad you appreciate all the hard work that goes into making Alleg the best game around.

[Dogbones]

QUOTE (Shizoku @ Oct 19 2006, 02:55 PM) If it's a predetermined algorithm, then why last night was I unable to join either side?

Yellow down one, higher elo
Blue up one, Lower elo
Shizy with high elo unable to join either side.

Deng sort of summed up the ramifications of this...

Not a bug, I don't recall the exact numbers but I will make them even more extreme so hopefully the situation is clear.

Yellow, 9 players, ELO total of 120
Blue, 10 players, ELO total of 100

Lets say Shiz had an ELO of 15, if he joined Yellow, it would violate the balance threshold as it would be 135 versus 100 and thus horribly stacked. He cannot join Blue as that would make it 11 players versus 9 players and violate the max player imbalance.

So is is working as it should. Although in this case it would block vets as well as newbs. To address this I'd suggest setting the max player imbalance to 2 when balance is enabled.

Edit: damn you guys are fast posters... 7+ of you 'snuck in'

Dog

[Pook]

I don't think it's really "working as it should"... I think it's "working as written" but I think there's a piece of the pie missing.

Nobody should ever get locked out of the game entirely.

(DB see discussion in the Dev lounge)

[Badger]

QUOTE (Dogbones @ Oct 19 2006, 03:59 PM) Deng sort of summed up the ramifications of this...

Not a bug, I don't recall the exact numbers but I will make them even more extreme so hopefully the situation is clear.

Yellow, 9 players, ELO total of 120
Blue, 10 players, ELO total of 100

Lets say Shiz had an ELO of 15, if he joined Yellow, it would violate the balance threshold as it would be 135 versus 100 and thus horribly stacked. He cannot join Blue as that would make it 11 players versus 9 players and violate the max player imbalance.

So is is working as it should. Although in this case it would block vets as well as newbs. To address this I'd suggest setting the max player imbalance to 2 when balance is enabled.

Dog

Thanks dog, that example is helpful.

Setting imbalance of 2 should be kewl. Considering the game is trying to keep it even anyways, havign 2 more players on one side will not be too bad.

Kewl beans! /mrgreen.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="mrgreen.gif" />