Elo System

[ichwillrotsein]

Just for a change a thread not regarding a ban, unfair unban or whatever

I recently played some Btank games after quite a while and noticed that most of the players have <1500 elo. Even the top200 consists of 75% players with <1500 elo. One problem might be the very small player pool nowadays. I remember (years ago) you needed at least 1600 elo to be in the bottem of top10. Top3 had up to 1700+ elo.

In theory, the following calculation should be "0" for a good elo system.

sum((Elo of every single player)-1500) = 0

That means, if someone is above 1500 (for example 1550) you need the counterpart with 1450 elo because elo can only fluctate.

Problem is now, if someone leaves a game and his remaining team still wins 4v5 he doesnt gain elo while all five players of the opponent team lose elo. This drains elo out of the system and over time the average of all players drops below 1500 when it should always be 1500.

I also noticed that a team doesnt gain the same elo in summery that the other team loses, but I dont have any data to determine if thats a zero-sum game over the time.



Finally my suggestion:

Rework the formula in that way that it is settled before the game starts how much elo the whole team can win/lose in summary.

For example:
Team1 has 50.5% win chance
Team2 has 49.5% win chance

average elo gain per player in a 50:50 game is 10.
Team1: 10* (49.5/50.5) * 5players = 49
Team2: 10* (50.5/49.5) * 5players = 51

If team 1 wins they can gain as a team 49 elo while team 2 loses 49.
If team 2 wins they can gain as a team 51 elo while team 1 loses 51.

If team 1 managed to win the game 5v5 the players share the 49 elo

If team 1 managed to win the game 4v5 the elo of 49 will be distributed between 4 players now.


After the game ended and the elo win for the team is fix the actuall distribution among the players can be caltulated with parts of the old formula. If you did well on the game you earn a bigger part of the cake.



Why am I suggestion this?
Simply because the ranking, with all due respect, sucks for the current situation. A lot of good players have <1500 elo. New players with fresh 1500 elo unballance games. You can reach top10 within 1 day. It might be frustrating if you play decent while having <1500 elo. You are still over the average elo (of maybe 1450? idk), but it feels low. In addition it might be better to halve the Elo you can win/lose per game to reduce the high volatility due to winning or losing streaks.

[Prog]

I agree that the current state of the top 200 is unsatisfying.

A couple of points though:

1) It's not a pure elo system. We use ingame stats to modify the pure elo point gains. The reason we do this is to balance games quicker by letting good players reach their elo potential quicker. This is especially helpful to make smurf rise faster for the balance calculations. As a result of this the sum of all elo changes after a game is not 0.

2) Accounts with high elo became inactive and hence the elo got lost, in a sense. For instance my old 17xx elo account is lost because I did not play for 3 (i think) months.

3) Smurfs that climb in ranks and then don't get played any more "drain" elo from the overall system.



Personally I think it would be a pretty good idea to reset the ranking completely and then implement something like 6 month long seasons with ranking resets after each season. (with the end ranking being saved somewhere for statistical and nostalgia reasons). Additionally one can create something like a hall of fame for season winners and otherwise impressive league results.

This could also create some incentive for playing league. At least for me personally back when the league system was in Beta I was hugely motivated to be #1 at the end of the beta and it felt like an achievement to do so. With the regular league it is different though. There is still some motivation to be at #1 or in the top10 for as long as possible, but after a certain time it is more like a non-rewarding work you have to do every 2nd week. No goal in sight and every game is only a new chance to lose like 15 elo.


PS: I removed the typo from the title.

[ichwillrotsein]

2) Accounts with high elo became inactive and hence the elo got lost, in a sense. For instance my old 17xx elo account is lost because I did not play for 3 (i think) months.

Good point here. Just watched through the accounts I lost due to inactivity and found a lot of 1630-1700 elo
Maybe all in all about 500 elo points taken out of the system ... sue me

But I thought the league elo is reseted at least once year? But since I can still find those accounts it obviosly wasnt since the last 2 years.

And about the fake accounts
We all had fakes and everyone knows that the top 10 (years ago) constists of actually 3-4 players and top25 about 10 players
I dont have a proper solution without to much effort to solve this problem

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This could also create some incentive for playing league.

This was my original intention. Honor good players with good elo. Whats the point of playing in a league when you always have the feeling of beeing below average even if you actually arent.

But pls consider the Elo loss due to leavers. I think its realy a huge factor.

[RaptorXI]

I like the idea with seasons. It works at other maps (was usual over years for Civ Wars, for example) and it could motivate top players to stay with their main accounts if their achievements where memeorized somehow.