Right, now that im sober again ill try to explain in detail why it does not make sense MrC.
The ELO concept has s design flaw. Here's why:
The whole point of having a ranking system is to have some kind of indicator that allows us to evaluate the players skill in order to make balanced teams. That is its main goal.
Now, lets say for two minutes that would actually work, and games would be balanced. The chance of winning or losing game would be about 50%, meaning you would gain as many points as you would lose, thus your ranking would never change regardless of the amount of experience you have gained.
Now i can hear you say "No, thats wrong, because if you are better than your ELO says you are you are more likely to win." But you'd be wrong, because that would be true for all players, thus your chance would still be around 50%. This system only applys to 1 vs 1 situations. Even chaos theory might apply to this (Pendulum problem) . Actually it would pervert the concept itself by underrating the team with most low ranked players.
Why? The learning curve of allegiance is most likely a
logarithm.
Let the probability to win a game be p
Let player skill be S
Let the difference of actual skill to ELO be ΔS
ELO thinks (roughly, its bound to be more complex than that) :
...........ΣS(blue)
p = ------------------ ( ignore the "...", used only for spacing )
...........ΣS(yellow)
In real life it is:
...........(ΣS(blue) + ΔS(blue))
p = ---------------------------------
..........(ΣS(yellow) + ΔS(yellow))
Since ΔS is greatest where the learning curve is steepest that would mean the newbies tip the scale. /huh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":huh:" border="0" alt="huh.gif" />
Negative points for the losing team do not make sense, as it counteracts the design goal. Having a system that only lets you gain ELO by beeing on the winning team more games than losing team counteracts the design goal. Its a Negative-Feedback-Loop.
Therefore i repeat myself:
- Ditch it
- Make it age based, better yet total time played but i dont know if that is available after all the resets.
- Good riddance
There is no better skill indicator than total time played / age. Thats as good as its gonna get. All the time spent on ELO would be better spent on teaching a newbie to not drop probes in alephs, fixing GT doors, teaching Jimmy not to comm when drunk, teaching ToXiC not to post on sensitive topics when drunk, dreaming of Lima and last but certainly not least: play Allegiance.
Edit: fixed some spelling errors
