The Newbie Factor

[Pook]

QUOTE (Wasp @ Nov 22 2006, 08:17 AM) How can you measure experience by the number of games played?

Because that's what experience is. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Now, in your specific case, it appears that your primary callsign WAS "GluteusMaximus" but was somehow moved to "Wasp".

This resulted in 186 games not counting.

I'll fix that up for you and we can see where you stand.

[Raveen]

The relative skills of different players are calculated using ELO. To keep ELO working properly new players start with 1500 ELO points (the theoretical mid point of the system). However new players are not mid range skilled as they need time to learn the game. Therefore a modifier is added to their rank (not ELO, rank is ELO/100) so that a new player starts at (0) not (15). This modifier starts at -15 and drops by 1 rank for every 10 games they play. This rising rank should coincide with new players learning the game. After 150 games the new player's rank will be solely ELO based.

If you were to leave and rejoin then your rank would not be affected.

[Wasp]

If I play 1000 games and always fly a scout in circles on the winning team, I gain no experience yet my rank will increase. If I whore in my interceptor, cap in my htt, kill miners in my stealth fighter and always outscore every player on the game I will lose rank if I'm not on the winning team. If this is correct, then I don't see how this measurement system can possibly measure skill. Experience is measured not by how many games are played, but rather what events the player "experiences". There are players who can adapt to many roles in the game and therefore yield a greater value to the team. A player who logs 10 games a day yet never experiences what it is to accomplish these complex actions, cannot be considered as valuable.

btw Pook, I like the (4) /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

[SNAFU]

QUOTE (Wasp @ Nov 22 2006, 03:19 PM) If I whore in my interceptor, cap in my htt, kill miners in my stealth fighter and always outscore every player on the game I will lose rank if I'm not on the winning team.

Maybe you should have been nanning in your scout instead then. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

I think the leaderboard sums up how many more games need to be played before this thing evens itself out.

[Pook]

QUOTE (Wasp @ Nov 22 2006, 09:19 AM) If I play 1000 games and always fly a scout in circles on the winning team, I gain no experience yet my rank will increase. If I whore in my interceptor, cap in my htt, kill miners in my stealth fighter and always outscore every player on the game I will lose rank if I'm not on the winning team. If this is correct, then I don't see how this measurement system can possibly measure skill. Experience is measured not by how many games are played, but rather what events the player "experiences". There are players who can adapt to many roles in the game and therefore yield a greater value to the team. A player who logs 10 games a day yet never experiences what it is to accomplish these complex actions, cannot be considered as valuable.

btw Pook, I like the (4) /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Yes, but overall if you always fly a scout in circles you won't BE on the winning team because your team is effectively a man down. If you always whore / htt / whatever and you're contributing you're helping your team to win and you'll more often be on the winning team.

Just because someone doesn't whore, cap, kill miners, and outscore every player in the game doesn't make them invaluable as you've said. Someone who does nothing but probe every single game is in my mind more valuable than an int whore.

As a note, my last sentence above is why Bacon's system will never work /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

[Raveen]

QUOTE (Wasp @ Nov 22 2006, 03:19 PM) If I play 1000 games and always fly a scout in circles on the winning team, I gain no experience yet my rank will increase.

Yes, but the odds are that you're team won't win (because 1 player is flying in circles etc). Any win that does occur is likely to be a statistical anomoly and therefore becomes insignificant compared to the majority case.

QUOTE (Wasp @ Nov 22 2006, 03:19 PM) If I whore in my interceptor, cap in my htt, kill miners in my stealth fighter and always outscore every player on the game I will lose rank if I'm not on the winning team.

Yes. But if you do all that in every game then you should be on the winning team more often than not. Your rank will increase.

If you think you're doing all the right stuff but you keep on losing maybe you're not as good as you thought you were?

QUOTE (Wasp @ Nov 22 2006, 03:19 PM) If this is correct, then I don't see how this measurement system can possibly measure skill. Experience is measured not by how many games are played, but rather what events the player "experiences". There are players who can adapt to many roles in the game and therefore yield a greater value to the team. A player who logs 10 games a day yet never experiences what it is to accomplish these complex actions, cannot be considered as valuable.

btw Pook, I like the (4) /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

If you are consistently on teams that win then you are contributing valuably to those teams and are therefore a good (or skillfull) player. If the converse is true then you are a poor (or unskilled) player. ELO works by taking a wide view of many games rather than looking at any one game.

As for the number of games being used for the newbie modifier (which shouldn't affect you) what do you suggest would be better? Time since account creation is obviously worse and I can't think of anything else which would be better. After 150 games if someone isn't as experienced as they could be then their ELO will drop due to them being a poor player. Conversely a very experienced player will have their ELO rise as they are more likely to be on winning teams.

Can you try to keep posts in this thread on topic please. If you want to discuss ELO there's the thread that Bastard started, this thread is to discuss the newbie modifier, if you have a suggestion regarding that then please post away.

[Wasp]

Oh CRAP! You're right. This IS the Noob Modifier post. Don't know how I ended up here. Was reading another post that linked to this one I believe.

I'll take it to bastard's post.

My Apologies

Pook, can you move post #10 through post #16 to bastard's topic? I think they're significant to the subject and I'd like to see other's responses as well.

[Gothmog]

I remember as a newbie taking almost two weeks to get to a (1) from a (0). Thereafter, my rank rose rather steadily as I played.. I think the system at the time was 'newbies gain the points they would have lost for losing and gain the points they got for winning'. Not exactly sure how it worked. Anyway, onto my suggestion: The 'average' game in allegiance is worth something around 15 elo near as I can tell. This would equate to 6.6 games per rank(100 elo). Based upon this, would not 7 games be a reasonable number for newbies to gain 1 rank? Just something to chew on; input appreciated.

[Tkela]

This is off topic from what defines a newbie, but has anyone considered giving each rank its own formula mapping kills to kill bonus?

Newbies, for example might map from +10% (0 kills) to +30%.

Each rank would move the min and maximum values out till vets reach the current -10% to +50%.

[madpeople]

probers dont get KB for dropping probes