2 easy things that will make more people play more often

[cashto]

QUOTE (Ryujin @ Sep 5 2014, 07:06 AM) I believe with regular rank resets, shown rank would better reflect someones true skill, especially for people who have learned the game in the previous rank cycle. Take Djole for example, he has learned the game in this current cycle, and as a result he is ranked much lower than he should be, because all his learning games are still being counted. All not resetting ranks does is let old vets get uber stats with minimal losses, while keeping newer people stuck at lower ranks. Old vets don't have their learning games counted, why should newer people?

Having bad games in the past does not in any way limit how high a rank you can eventually achieve, it only limits how fast you can get there. Allegskill is based on a mathematical model that emphatically does not assume that a person's skill level is static and constant. (It's not exactly an exponential moving average, but if you're familiar with the concept of an EMA you should be familiar with the concept of a system in which all data is taken into account, but the most recent data is weighted heavily, and the oldest data has almost no weight).

Yes, Allegskill is inaccurate, but it is the least inaccurate system we have come up with. Rank resets will make it provably less accurate, which, in time, will make even FEWER people will care about it. `qu to think that people are going to log on en masse to fight for position on a leaderboard that TenForward is at the top of. We might as well not even have ranks at that point.

Half the people supporting the rank reset just want to hide/stack easier. Is that what you want? Because that's also what you're going to get with a rank reset ...

. . .

Anyways, +1 to bringing back the ACSS online box on the forum.

[ryujin]

QUOTE (cashto @ Sep 5 2014, 01:28 PM)

Having bad games in the past does not in any way limit how high a rank you can eventually achieve, it only limits how fast you can get there.

Half the people supporting the rank reset just want to hide/stack easier.

So why limit it? Why not be able to get there equally fast as everyone else every 3 months?

It is already very easy to hide/stack easy.

[qqmwoarplox]

Ranks in such a small community are pointless, everyone knows whose worth what regardless of the stupid number.


EDIT:


QUPENIG!@@@@@@@@@@@##########


<3

[cashto]

QUOTE (Ryujin @ Sep 5 2014, 11:05 AM) So why limit it? Why not be able to get there equally fast as everyone else every 3 months?

QUOTE (cashto @ Sep 4 2014, 05:12 PM) Again, when AS doesn't have much information about you, your sigma is high and your rank is far more correlated with time-in-game than it is with skill.

The limiting is not very strong; it can be reduced by tuning a parameter in the model (called tau in the link MrC provided), but keep in mind that the accuracy of the algorithm depends heavily on the assumption that people's performance isn't just random from game to game, that their skill level can't change arbitrarily fast, so raising tau too high (or resetting everyone's sigma to the max value, which is essentially what you're proposing, and has a very similar effect) will make it harder for AS to converge on accurate ranks.

The way it works, AS assumes everybody's rank is more or less correct. So if you play against a good team and win, AS goes, "oh, I guess I was wrong about you, you're better than I thought" and updates your rank accordingly. Now, with a rank reset, AS has no idea you just beat a good team. You just threw out all the information it had on everybody. So the ranks it assigns are going to be pretty much $#@!ing random and full of uncertainty until it figures it out again.

tl;dr: please stop proposing we change things just because you don't have the slightest clue how they work.

[beeman]

What are the purposes of the ranks? I'm being genuine in my question and am not as knowledgeable as anyone who has posted here. But I believe a discussion on any matter should boil down to what purpose or goal is trying to be achieved. In the case of ranks, what is their purpose? What are they meant to do? I have heard some say it makes the newbies feel like they are making progress. So is that the purpose of the ranks? Others have mentioned they are an attempt to make games more even and prevent stacking. So is that what the ranks are for? A third suggestion was they are "goal" that one may try to reach using a seasonal reset.
This is a third purpose. I know nothing about ranks or how they are calculated. A leaderboard in my mind should not exist. What purpose would that serve other than to massage one's ego? As far as stacking, that has always happened and will always happen. Not all of the time, but like Chaos pointed out, there are too many variables
to attach a "number" to a player's skill level. So from my naïve perspective, one must first decide the purpose of a thing before they decide on how and why to implement a thing. From reading this thread, there are multiple opinions on what the purpose of a player's rank is. This needs to be defined before the "how" and the "why" to implement.

Fishbone

[Freyja]

There's no interest in the administration to use a rank system that works in general terms, let alone the garbage we currently have.*


*Even more garbage-y as a full reset is a bad idea and you get worse ranks.

So, unless the admins are going to do something useful, remove ranks other than newbie ranks or be silly and use the time=rank option.

I of course prefer a system that works, however nothing (literally) would be best as opposed to a system which clearly is broken like it is now.

[Dome]

QUOTE (Qupenig @ Sep 5 2014, 10:05 AM) Folks get tired of playing any game/sport/activity after a while and move on. New players are the lifeblood of game/sport.

Is there still an advertising campaign going for gaming websites?

Donations needed for advertising campaign?

The paid facebook ad campaign is still going. As in, it's running right now. I've been turning it on intermittently on Fridays-Sundays. Donations are still accepted.

[ryujin]

I'd be content with rank resets, or getting rid of ranks.
I have nothing to gain in my rank by rank resets, I'm more concerned about people that haven't been playing for years, and have a rank lower than they should of because of their learning time. but cash will just shout at me that i'm stupid i'm sure. cuz he don'twa nt to lose his hard (read long time spent) earned rank

[cashto]

The purpose of a leaderboard is to stroke egos That's not necessarily a bad thing. People like the sense of accomplishment -- not just newbies, but vets also. (Balancing games is also useful, but it's a secondary purpose).

But in order to be effective at stroking egos, the leaderboard must measure something real. A high rank should take effort. Let's imagine the worst case, in which the ranking system is purely a random number generator. No one would pay attention to it. In a slightly less worst case, let's say it ranks people by time they spend in game. Well, that's slightly better: it's real, and it takes some effort. But there's not many people who will fight for the title of "person who wastes the greatest portion of their life here".

Let's go one better and say we rank people by kill/death ratio, or kills per hour, or drone kills, or similar. Now we're talking about a real leaderboard, something that takes significant skill to climb up. But as we all know, whorepower is only part of the skills that make this game fun, so some people are not going to be happy, all the time they spend probing when really it's sitting in base, undocking to chase scouts that gets reward.

So the ideal is some number that blends all the skills needed in Allegiance. Yes, that's not easy to do, but if you have enough games you can look at peoples wins and losses and begin to notice trends -- not just, "this person wins a lot of games" (that's easy to do if you're a stacker), but "this person wins a lot even when he plays against teams that ALSO seem to win a lot". And that's what AS does, or attempts to do -- tries to assign every player a value that reflects their average contribution towards winning games.

[cashto]

QUOTE (Ryujin @ Sep 5 2014, 03:22 PM) I'd be content with rank resets, or getting rid of ranks.
I have nothing to gain in my rank by rank resets, I'm more concerned about people that haven't been playing for years, and have a rank lower than they should of because of their learning time. but cash will just shout at me that i'm stupid i'm sure. cuz he don'twa nt to lose his hard (read long time spent) earned rank

I don't give a @#(! about my rank. I think my anti-stacking record proves that.

If anything, it's more probable that the reason you want a reset is because you're tired of being #2 behind P32. But, I'm going to be charitable and assume that that's not the case. I'll assume you and I are motivated by the same principle, that is if we have a leaderboard at all, it should be as accurate / meaningful as possible. And the reason that we disagree on how to accomplish that, is that I understand how AS actually works, and you don't.