This is what I see each time I see people picking teams:
Random Veteran Player: "Don't worry about ELO, it doesn't mean anything."
Random Uber Veteran Player 2: "My rank went down because I tried to even out the teams..."
Newbie: "I'm a 15, just like Random Uber Vet who has been playing for 6 years!"
Noir: "Make me commander!"
What's my point? My point is that ELO is a broken, useless stats system. It doesn't reflect player ability and it never will. Giving people arbitrary starting ranks based on the age of their account is not reflective of their SKILL level. I could have created an account 4 years back, but never played. I'd still be a 15, just like the dude who has been playing daily for 6 years.
I understand that the goal of ELO is to *eventually* reflect player skill, since the general idea is that over time, the best players will be on the winning team the most, and the worst players will be on the losing team the most.
In Allegiance, though, a system like that is terribly flawed. TERRIBLY flawed.
This is why ELO is flawed in Allegiance:
You have a HUGE mix of players of differing skill levels playing. Some play daily, some play weekly, some play once a month or less. A system like ELO only works if everybody plays the same amount of time and against the same people. In Allegiance, old veteran players might not play very much, but that doesn't mean they don't still completely kick ass at the game. However, thanks to ELO, their skill will NOT be reflected because they learned to play the game (and became good at it) long before ELO was introduced. So, their skill level is far beyond what ELO shows. When this person plays, they skew the balance of the team, since ELO shows them as being far less "stack" than they really are. This alone completely destroys any credibility ELO has.
ELO is a TEAM BASED stat system. While Allegiance is a team game, one player generally cannot change the tide of the game by themselves. They rely on the other players, and if they're on a crap team, they are going to get negative ELO.... even if they were a generally good player. It's unfair and inaccurate.
The ONLY way ELO could ever work is if there was a commitee of players who went through each individual player and ranked them. They would have to vote on all 300 of us or so, and decide who should be ranked what. The game has been around for far too long for a system like ELO to just be dropped on us when some of the best players are only logged in for a couple hours a day, while the worst players (newbies just discovering the game) may log dozens of hours in a week. That on top of + or - ELO being dished out to the *entire* team makes it a very flawed, very unreasonable stats system.
I suppose that perhaps in a few years, ELO might sort of reflect player skill. But I doubt it. You guys tried to reset it before, but it's just as useless now as it was before stats got reset. I see old vets who I KNOW are awesome players set at rank 12, while newbies who I've seen do completely idiotic things are ranked 15. That is a laughable stats system. It plain doesn't work.
My suggestion:
Bring back personal stats. Yes, they are also flawed. Yes, they reward whores and do not reward support-players. However, I never recalled sucky players or newbies having super high ranks in the old system. The best players had the highest ranks, and it was about as accurate as we're going to get.
Yes, we'll run into the same problems of the "old vets" only playing occasionally, but at least if this "old vet" is a badass, it will be reflected in their personal stats MUCH quicker. Perhaps a system where kills/comm wins/etc. are weighed against hours logged. The less hours and the more kills, the higher your rank. The more you play, the more "evened out" your rank will get. We might have people starting at rank 30 simply because they start off with an awesome game, but if they continue to play for any length of time, they rank will lower in accordance to their actual skill level.
ELO is flawed. Very, very flawed. I realize that a lot of time and effort has gone into it, but it simply is not an accurate way to track statistics in a game like Allegiance. This isn't Chess. This is an action shoot-em-up game with many facets of play. ELO might work if it were merely judging comm wins and commander skill (in fact, it would be a brilliant way to rank comms), but with everything else thrown into the mix, it's a piss-poor mechanism to track statistics for the entire playerbase.
I really, really hope that Tiger and the FAZ devs won't just brush this off as a silly rant. I know I'm right, and I think that deep down, you also know I'm at least partially right. Nobody in-game takes ELO seriously, and I doubt they ever will.
I'm more than willing to help figure out a better stats system. I'm not just going to post a rant like this then say "FIX IT FAZ DEVS!!!", because that's a stupid thing to do. I have ideas and I have some coding background, at least enough to manipulate numbers and spit out a rank... I want to help, and I want the FAZ devs to keep an open mind. ELO doesn't work -- let's fix it!
Official Proposal by Supreme Ruler Bacon:
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takingarms1
- Posts: 3052
- Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2004 8:00 am
FYI, your premise has a huge fault in it. It is based on data that is only a few weeks old or something. Recall ELO was recently reset.
Also, note that ELO will never reflect true player skill until there is an autobalance system based on ELO, otherwise stackers will have inflated ranks and anti-stakers will have under-rated ranks.
So basically, ELO as it stands right now IS broken because it's not finished yet.
I wish people would stop posting this crap. /mad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":mad:" border="0" alt="mad.gif" />
Also, note that ELO will never reflect true player skill until there is an autobalance system based on ELO, otherwise stackers will have inflated ranks and anti-stakers will have under-rated ranks.
So basically, ELO as it stands right now IS broken because it's not finished yet.
I wish people would stop posting this crap. /mad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":mad:" border="0" alt="mad.gif" />
"You give my regards to St. Peter. Or, whoever has his job, but in hell!"
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I refer you to this thread
http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index...showtopic=25960
The larger community is still for this.
http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index...showtopic=25960
The larger community is still for this.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
Bacon,
As you can imagine, this isn't the first time something like this has been posted. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
However, I'll give you a taste. Effective immediately and for the next day or two, Ranks will no longer be ELO based. They'll be strictly based on kill count.
The more kills you get, the higher your rank. Wonder Whore Powers, Activate!
As you can imagine, this isn't the first time something like this has been posted. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
However, I'll give you a taste. Effective immediately and for the next day or two, Ranks will no longer be ELO based. They'll be strictly based on kill count.
The more kills you get, the higher your rank. Wonder Whore Powers, Activate!
The impression I get is that the ranking system is being made to be far more complicated than it has to be.
And I realize that ELO isn't "finished," but it still isn't going to be that accurate for the reasons I listed in the original post. It's a crappy, flawed ranking system for a massively multiplayer game. It plain doesn't work =(
Anyway, I know this is the millionth time something has been posted about it, but you'd think that'd be a hint that a lot of the community dislikes it.... but I guess you guys already know that.
And, what do you mean about ranks being based on kills? Are you actually doing that for a few days, or what?
And I realize that ELO isn't "finished," but it still isn't going to be that accurate for the reasons I listed in the original post. It's a crappy, flawed ranking system for a massively multiplayer game. It plain doesn't work =(
Anyway, I know this is the millionth time something has been posted about it, but you'd think that'd be a hint that a lot of the community dislikes it.... but I guess you guys already know that.
And, what do you mean about ranks being based on kills? Are you actually doing that for a few days, or what?
"Leave Bacon alone. When he's unsure of what sector he's in somehow it works out better." -Lee
It's already implemented. Go look for yourself - or check out the leaderboard.
Rank = kills / 100
There's no formula, no weighting, no penalties, none of that "broke" stuff.
If you don't kill other ships, your rank does not go up. Simple, eh? If you look at the leaderboard, you'll note that the good dogfighters are at the top, and the guys that fly scouts are at the bottom. Shiz is a (25), Noir is a (5). That's how it works.
To put it simply, the ranking system is now "Whore Based" rather than "ELO Based".
Enjoy!
/mrgreen.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="mrgreen.gif" />
Rank = kills / 100
There's no formula, no weighting, no penalties, none of that "broke" stuff.
If you don't kill other ships, your rank does not go up. Simple, eh? If you look at the leaderboard, you'll note that the good dogfighters are at the top, and the guys that fly scouts are at the bottom. Shiz is a (25), Noir is a (5). That's how it works.
To put it simply, the ranking system is now "Whore Based" rather than "ELO Based".
Enjoy!
/mrgreen.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="mrgreen.gif" />
Last edited by Pook on Sat Nov 04, 2006 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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BeaerSidhe
- Posts: 174
- Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2004 8:00 am
- Location: near St. Louis, MO
people, please, don't get your knickers twisted in a knot over this...your elo is wiped, it's just "filtered" differently. I believe it and can be easily switched back and forth and your "pre-kill" elo scores are still there and are being tallied. I'm sure if pook had a wild hair, he could flip it over to ejects.
As a sidenote, I think it would be interesting to be able to "flip" the leaderboard filtering ourselves like we can in the aftergame leaderboard in alleg itself, but in an external website form.
As a sidenote, I think it would be interesting to be able to "flip" the leaderboard filtering ourselves like we can in the aftergame leaderboard in alleg itself, but in an external website form.
