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| Ladder Discussion Everything related to altitudeladder.com and the ladder servers goes here. |
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#121
02-08-2011, 12:26 AM
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It was more my gripe with 6-5 loses than 6-0 loses. 
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#122
02-08-2011, 12:30 AM
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#123
02-08-2011, 05:40 AM
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#125
02-08-2011, 01:17 PM
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#127
02-08-2011, 01:40 PM
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I'm NOT pushing for a change to include final scores in the rankings. Now that that's clearly out of the way, can someone explain to me (and Ribilla perhaps) on what is quoted above? "A win is a win" <-- No I don't think so, ranking is like grading performance, which means it's not ALL or nothing. IMO ranking should take your "effort" into consideration. Or no? (Honest question really). A 6-5 loss could mean a fluke last goal a "could have gone either way situation", but chances of 6 fluke goals in a 6-0 chance are a magnitude more improbable. York said, ****ty plane composition is why they lose 6-0 and it has nothing to do with badly balancing teams... Maybe... but that still does not answer WHY should they not be penalized more for this? People who refuse to "play for the team" and being selfish with their setups and lose badly -should- lose more points... Can someone explain why 6-5 losing teams lose as much points as a team losing 6-0 ? I don't know if I'm being annoying, and I'm not doing this to piss off anyone, I'm really just curious and honestly want to know your reasoning behind this.
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#128
02-08-2011, 03:58 PM
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#129
02-08-2011, 04:06 PM
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If you're only going to gain or lose a significantly reduced portion of your ~25 rating that you usually get for a game, all of a sudden those 6-5 games become a lot less intense.
The all or nothing method allows a lot more rating variation which keeps rankings from stagnating too much. That adds to the fun, and it lets people get to their approximate rating faster. Sometimes those 6-5 games aren't as close as they seem either. Last night we had a game where the other team went up 4-0 while our team struggled to find a good composition. The second we found the right composition we went on a 6-1 run and won the game. If that game had been allowed to run for another 10 minutes we may have doubled the other teams score. Then again the other team may have restructured their composition and started to dominate us again. That's just one of those things that you can't really know. All you know is that someone has to win, and you have 6 goals to figure out what you have to do to get it right. In the end, losing 25 rating isn't going to blow you out of the water.
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#130
02-08-2011, 05:30 PM
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Something to think about, but let's not run before we can walk.
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#132
02-08-2011, 07:14 PM
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#133
02-08-2011, 09:28 PM
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[tangent]This is why I'm all for Nipple's idea of not showing player's scores so that people won't have as strong an incentive to ratio whore.[/tangent] For instance, you might have the chance to bomb the opponent's base with a counter attack to win the game. However, knowing that they will bomb your base and you won't get as many points you might choose to defend instead. Basically, you are giving up the guaranteed win for a chance at a higher rank. As for ball: Once a team is down 3-0 in a very even match-up they are unlikely to win. Therefore, they have an incentive to take big risks. Much like a hockey team that pulls their goalie. They don't care if they lose by a little or by a lot, but a goal that sends them to overtime would be huge. You could also liken this to an option that is out of the money. The more you increase volatility the more likely you are to get back into the money. The downside is irrelevant, because losing is losing. However, if ranking took into account the difference in score then people would have an incentive to "play it safe". Why? Because, big risks could just as easily cause you to go from 3-0 to 6-0 or from 3-0 to 5-6. So, your upside is small and your downside is large. Does this make sense? Quote:
Second, you asked if there was a better way to distribute points to the winners other than equally. I may be missing the point, because wouldn't K do this? Not everyone on the team will have the same number of games played, the same winning streak, etc. Therefore, they would all receive different changes in rank. Third, you asked about composing a "team rank" based on individual ranks. This is the question that is the most interesting to me and I don't have an answer, just some thoughts. Currently you use an average which I think is flawed to some extent. For example: If you had a very good player ranked 2400 and a guy who was effectively useless ranked 0 against two so-so players ranked 1200, would the teams be even? I really doubt it. I think that 2 on 1 would be such a large advantage that it would over shadow the difference in skill. Thus, 2400 + 0 < 1200 + 1200. Perhaps an algorithm that took into account difference in skills. Sort of like an OLS. Thoughts? Alternatively, is it really that important for the teams to be ranked evenly? Chess doesn't restrict the opponents to be the same skill level. If you were to allow for somewhat unbalanced games then it might more quickly show which players were ranked incorrectly.
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#134
02-08-2011, 10:47 PM
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#136
02-09-2011, 03:52 AM
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It would make sense to have their actual ranking start at 1500 and then adjust over the first X games as it does now. However, not be displayed on the ladder page and not be used in the balancing algorithm. For the balancing algorithm, the first idea that pops into my head would be to assume they are the worst person playing and then pit them against the 2nd worst person in the server. For the actual numbers used in the algorithm, you could assign them the same ranking as the 2nd worst person in the server. I think this would work well if there was a representative sample of players in the server. However, if everyone playing was 2000+ I guess this would be pretty ****ty. I'll think about it more and get back to you. If anyone else has any thoughts please feel free to jump in. Quote:
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OLS = Ordinary Least Squares, which I admit was a pretty terrible way to have described what I was thinking about. I was thinking of basically the same thing that Eso was: variance. Sort of. The problem with variance is that VAR(1200,1800,1800,1800,1800) = VAR(2400,1800,1800,1800,1800) because variance is the squared deviation from the mean. Instead, it would have to be something like (x[i] - avg(x))*abs(x[i] - avg(x)). So, as for Eso's question, I think variance is bad and I would have said that the all-1800 team would have won more often. However, it doesn't really matter, because whether you think high-variance is good or bad, if the teams have the same "variance", as I wrote it above, your preference is irrelevant. I wrote a Monte Carlo simulation to see what would happen if you created teams by minimizing the difference in "variance". On average, the difference in average rankings was roughly 94. And, in 10,000 simulations, the maximum difference in average rankings was roughly 400. If you're curious I can send you the Excel file. Quote:
 Obviously there would be games that were just blowouts. However, in those games player's ranks wouldn't increase or decrease much, but should the underdog pulled off a win then ranks would change by a lot. I can see some benefits to this, but the costs probably outweigh the gains. So, just loosening the criteria is probably a better first step. I don't know if you've run any tests to see how much your suggested method might change the difference in team averages, but I'd like to see how it compares to the method I proposed above.
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#137
02-09-2011, 05:15 AM
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It works pretty well, though you might want to add some extra code something like: If avrg.team1 > avrg.team2 do; ....player5 -> team2; ....player6 -> team1; else; . This is because sometimes ranking this way comes with a difference of + or - in avrg rating. difference.
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#138
02-09-2011, 06:01 AM
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#139
02-09-2011, 07:29 AM
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What do you mean? Allowing a difference of average rating to be greater than absolute zero is the entire point of switching the balancing system to the one I proposed. If you wanted to minimize the average rating difference then you'd just have the system I have already.
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#140
02-09-2011, 08:04 AM
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#141
02-09-2011, 09:50 AM
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VipMattMan and vintage, thanks a lot for the explanation as to why 6-5 or 6-0 losses are to be viewed equally.
I can now see your argument and reasoning for having this, thanks. I think then it is correct, but still the frustration of losing 6-5 in a 20-minute match lives on
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#143
02-09-2011, 05:43 PM
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We could provide a posthumous ranking in awarding points after the fact when trying to balance inexperienced players. After X amount of games, when we have a better idea of the rank of the inexperienced player, we can award points according to what his rank really was. Games will be unbalanced, but they already were unbalanced. This just would result in teams winning less points if they were more heavily favored versus winning more if they were more favored.
However, I am not pushing for this in general, as over time, players get better. Winning with a 1200 player today, but a month later seeing them become a 3200 player shouldn't have an effect on your points earned. But I think it would make some amount of sense for points, when dealing with newer players, to be handled after the fact. If we do it this way, the problems that we are faced with seem to be the following. a. What time X would we use? b. How would we decide to place this new player after a set number of games? c. How do we program ladder to check after x games what this person's ranking is? d. What if this person stops playing ladder and cannot be accurately modeled? a is largely arbitrary, b I provide food for thought below, c is a programming issue that I can't deal with, and d is a problem already inherent in ladder. I think a possible solution is to assume that new players in ladder are various differing ranks between, say, 500-1500 (or perhaps 500-2500 for the sake of a 1500 medium, although massive butthurt will ensue if a noob gets 2500), and then after a set number of games to award them a ranking that seems in-line with their performance. Perhaps give games where the first 3 games are a 1500 game, a 2000 ; 1000 game, a 2250/1750 ; 1250/750 game, etc. for as many X iterations necessary, depending on previous wins and losses. After their base rank has been set, then points can be awarded. It's not the end of the world, considering that ladder is already programmed to give more or less points in the case of more uneven games. Sure, it's flawed, especially if this player wins their first game and probably shouldn't have. But it's not a problem that is either likely due to this player's likely contribution, nor something that ladder doesn't see anyway (overrated players winning). In the case that this person just stops playing ladder, their points value can either be assumed to be whatever point level ladder assumed them to be at. While imperfect, especially if this player wins their first game and throws everything for a loop, it would still be fairly effective, I think. It may be unfair to base a ladder ranking largely based on the first game, so perhaps the system i provided is not the ideal one, but I feel that the assumption of differing values could be effective in trying to place their point in a ladder. Thoughts/criticisms/etc are appreciated. Last edited by Duck Duck Pwn; 02-09-2011 at 05:49 PM.
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#144
02-09-2011, 06:26 PM
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Not sure how this would work, but how about something like this:
Every player new to ladder would receive a "provisional" rank that is not initially displayed on the master ranking list (Yahoo has a similar method). For balancing purposes, these provisional players would receive a rating of X (you could adjust X based on what you think the average newcomer's skill is about - probably somewhere in the 1000-1500 range). Although they technically have this rating, they are still not displayed on the ranking list until they complete a certain number of games (say 20). For the time that each player is ranked as "provisional," each team playing in the same match with them would earn fewer points for a win and lose fewer points for a loss - hopefully taking into account the fact that the player is not yet correctly rated. However, the "provisional" player's rating would fluctuate greatly during this time. Using whatever method you deem appropriate (larger rating fluctuations, variable uncertainty for skill, etc.) this period would be the time in which the player's rating would be expected to settle at its correct value. By the time the player completed 20-30 games, a good system would have their rating figured about right - they could then be automatically added to the ranking list and their "provisional" status removed. As the player nears the end of their provisional status, their games should start affecting their rating less (reflecting the settling of their ranking) and their teammates rating more, until they both arrive at the normal +/-25 again. Obviously we'd still need to come up with something that makes the new players' scores converge to their true values quicker than they do currently. However, this system might help to mitigate the huge gameplay differences that we currently experience when new players join ladder. If a new player is assumed to not have reached their definite rank and the system awards points to reflect this fact, they should be able to reach their true rating pretty quickly without hugely affecting those who have already settled. I'd still recommend some sort of rating deflation for players who haven't participated in ladder for a while. That should prevent them from sitting on a high rank or leaving the game and coming back months later extraordinarily overrated. Maybe if someone's rating falls too much as a result of inactivity they could be automatically reassigned to the "provisional" class, so that when they return the system will take into account that their rating is probably much different since they last played and will need some time to readjust without affecting others? You could give them the benefit of the doubt and allow their "provisional" rating to begin at the same value as their former one. Hope that made sense - if I didn't make myself clear let me know and I can try to explain better. I'll add a couple of example rating graphs later for how I envision this would work to better support the idea. Last edited by Pieface; 02-09-2011 at 06:39 PM.
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#145
02-09-2011, 10:09 PM
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For clarification, this is what I meant (with pictures):
New players should have to play a certain number of games before they are assumed to be correctly rated. When they are still in their "provisional" state, they should not be ranked on the ladder website in the normal category and anyone playing in a game with them should not be able to win/lose as many points. After a certain point, the "provisional" status should be removed and normal endgame behavior can continue. It would have to be decided whether the provisional status should be removed after a fixed number of games or when the player's rating has stopped fluctuating as rapidly. I personally prefer the latter, as it allows for the possibility that it would take more than a specified number of games to achieve the general range in which you should be located. To this end, I'd recommend scaling down the amount your rating can fluctuate with the number of games you play during "provisional" status and meanwhile scaling back up the amount of points correctly rated players have at stake. Eventually, both numbers should converge to 25 and the "provisional" status should be removed. At this point, the player is assumed to be in the correct range of scores and can be ranked on the website without too much consequence. I ran some example numbers to get a visual representation of what I'm suggesting. I assumed all players starting at a correctly placed rating of 1800, with the newcomer starting at 1500. You can see that for the first few games the new player's score fluctuates wildly while the others' scores only change a small amount. As more games are played and the new player's score is assumed to be getting slightly more accurate, his rating should change less in amount and the others should return to winning or losing similar amounts to before. Here's what my predicted rating behavior is for an underrated player:  And an overrated player:  Note that I assume the player gets the same team for each game, which obviously won't be the case. If the teams are composed differently, I expect the rating shift of correctly rated players to be affected even less while the "provisional" one's rating range is being located by the system. Also remember that this is only a proposed solution for addressing the problem of newcomers to ladder and does not take into account what should happen after everyone's correctly placed.
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#146
02-10-2011, 01:59 AM
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Hmmm, interesting Pie face!.
I proposed something similar to what you are saying (even to the same amount of numbers for a 1st approach to the rating: 20 games, at double rate that others player K. So if "regular" player is getting 25 points per match, newcomers should get 50. Quote:
I've tryed other formulas, but a K' variable as: K' = variable K K = constant K (the current one is 50) K' = (0.999^x)*K x= amount of games, seems to be a good one. For 500 games, you win/loss 60% from the original. For 693 games, you win/loss 50% from the original. After that I think that keeping K' = 0.5K would be reasonable. Quote:
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