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  #1  
Old 04-24-2011, 07:26 PM
blln4lyf blln4lyf is offline
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Default The Ladder Team Assigner System

Right now it assigns teams 1 then 2/3 then 4 etc, while it used to attempt to balance the ratings between the 2 teams.

This new method causes a lot of games to have a team that has a 75% win percentage and a team that has a 25% win percentage. Also, I tracked the % of points that goes to the 75% win team if they win and if they lose(along with the 25% team ofc) and if they 75% win team wins, they get around 40% of the points pool, while if they lose they lose about 60%. A team that has a 75% chance of win shouldn't get 40% of the points pool for a win and only lose 60% when they lose. This makes it harder for people to obtain their real ranking because these games are lop-sided and not properly balanced through the point scale as well.

I am of the belief that ladder should never have games that are more than 60/40% chance of winning/losing anyway because when there is a team with a 75% of winning, there could be a player decently underrated on the 25% team and a player decently overrated on the 75% team, and both can play to their true ratings, holding all else constant, the 75% team will still win the majority of those games. It doesn't allow people to make as much as a factor to overcome the odds stacked against/with them to get to their true ratings, imo.

If your not going to go back to the old system or at least a modified system of this one that does not allow a 75/25% game and caps out around 60/40%, at least change the point scale so that the 75% win team only wins around 25-35% of the point pool for a win, and loses around 65-75% of the point pool for a loss. I like the new ladder system a lot, but the team assigner system has been downgraded since last season which is causing people to have a large delay in reaching their true ratings, imo.
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  #2  
Old 04-24-2011, 10:44 PM
elxir elxir is offline
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I see no problem with this system. It forces the team with the lower overall rated players to actually prove that they deserve to be rated higher, instead of ****ing the high rated players in the butt by handicapping them with dead weight

It feels a lot like the beginning of the old ladder, when players would be like "YES WE HAVE TMIC WE SHOULD DEFINITELY WIN THIS"

whereas later in the season when crappier players became the rule instead of the exception, it became, "**** WE HAVE TO PLAY PERFECT TO EVEN HAVE A CHANCE THANKS TO THIS ASSHOLE"

Last edited by elxir; 04-24-2011 at 10:47 PM.
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  #3  
Old 04-24-2011, 10:55 PM
blln4lyf blln4lyf is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elxir View Post
I see no problem with this system. It forces the team with the lower overall rated players to actually prove that they deserve to be rated higher, instead of ****ing the high rated players in the butt by handicapping them with dead weight

It feels a lot like the beginning of the old ladder, when players would be like "YES WE HAVE TMIC WE SHOULD DEFINITELY WIN THIS"

whereas later in the season when crappier players became the rule instead of the exception, it became, "**** WE HAVE TO PLAY PERFECT TO EVEN HAVE A CHANCE THANKS TO THIS ASSHOLE"
It gives a team a 75% chance of winning and doesn't penalize them for having such a superior team.
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  #4  
Old 04-24-2011, 11:00 PM
elxir elxir is offline
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well better players should win more often
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  #5  
Old 04-25-2011, 03:11 AM
bummeln bummeln is offline
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My main question-mark with it is just how predictable teams are, you can easily count the good and horrible players and know what kind of team you'll get.
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  #6  
Old 04-25-2011, 07:20 AM
nobodyhome nobodyhome is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blln4lyf View Post
This new method causes a lot of games to have a team that has a 75% win percentage and a team that has a 25% win percentage. Also, I tracked the % of points that goes to the 75% win team if they win and if they lose(along with the 25% team ofc) and if they 75% win team wins, they get around 40% of the points pool, while if they lose they lose about 60%. A team that has a 75% chance of win shouldn't get 40% of the points pool for a win and only lose 60% when they lose. This makes it harder for people to obtain their real ranking because these games are lop-sided and not properly balanced through the point scale as well.
The problem here is that you are looking at each game indivdually, and that is not how the points are calculated. As described in the post about the rating system, the point are distributed such that a 75% chance of winning team will get only 12.5 points if they win and lose 37.5 points if they lose. The point disparity that you are seeing is a result of the multipliers (as described in the post about the ratings), which takes into account past performance.
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  #7  
Old 04-25-2011, 05:17 PM
blln4lyf blln4lyf is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodyhome View Post
The problem here is that you are looking at each game indivdually, and that is not how the points are calculated. As described in the post about the rating system, the point are distributed such that a 75% chance of winning team will get only 12.5 points if they win and lose 37.5 points if they lose. The point disparity that you are seeing is a result of the multipliers (as described in the post about the ratings), which takes into account past performance.
I understand there are other multipliers, but i don't understand why I haven't seen even one case of it being anywhere near 12.5/37.5 split and always more like 18/23.
1,4,5,7,9,12 vs 2,3,6,8,10,11 right?
Just change it back to trying to balance the teams ratings out which is a known system, and profit imo. Plus the games will on average be more competitive, nothing wrong with that.
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  #8  
Old 04-25-2011, 05:37 PM
Dark_Sage Dark_Sage is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blln4lyf View Post
I understand there are other multipliers, but i don't understand why I haven't seen even one case of it being anywhere near 12.5/37.5 split and always more like 18/23.
1,4,5,7,9,12 vs 2,3,6,8,10,11 right?
Just change it back to trying to balance the teams ratings out which is a known system, and profit imo. Plus the games will on average be more competitive, nothing wrong with that.
Here's an example of losing a very small amount

But overall I agree with you ball'n, especially after what happened to me in ladder last night. There were a ton of new people, and I kept getting them on my team because none of them had achieved their true ranking. What was even worse was all of them played loopy, which is my main, so I had to go bomber or something else in order to give the team a fighting chane with 3 loopies. It's a little freakin ridiculous when you're mvp in 11 out of 13 games you lost while consistently leading the team in kills as well.

And I do agree that when the team with the better team wins (like they should) they aren't penalized enough. Why can't the good players on the losing team lose a small amount and the players on the winning team win a small amount?
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  #9  
Old 04-26-2011, 05:49 AM
nobodyhome nobodyhome is offline
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The old system was a major part of the reason why the top few ranks of ladder were so dominated by bomb runners and ball carriers. Nowadays it's a bit more balanced and that's the way I'd like to keep it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Sage View Post
And I do agree that when the team with the better team wins (like they should) they aren't penalized enough. Why can't the good players on the losing team lose a small amount and the players on the winning team win a small amount?
That's exactly what happens.
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  #10  
Old 05-03-2011, 07:32 PM
zz- zz- is offline
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This new team balance system is, frankly, trash. I really love all the effort and thinking that's going on about ladder now, and I wouldn't be so blunt if it wasn't so blatantly evident that the new team-balance system is just terrible. And I also wouldn't be so upset if the previous system weren't so proven to be near-perfect.


If you're the highest ranking player on, you can simply choose who you play against. If you're #1, you can ALWAYS choose the top two opponents you play against. Of course you will never know exactly how the teams shake out, but it's painfully obvious every time I play now that it's either a "good" time to play or a "bad" time to play. And usually, the teams are simply NOT balanced. Game selection is currently the most important skill in ladder. The beauty of the old average team rating balance is:

#1] You can't NEARLY as easily predict any teammates or enemies

#2] If you're the highest rated player on, there is NO ADVANTAGE for playing when there are stronger or weaker players on, because the system ADJUSTS ACCORDINGLY. If there's lots of weaker players on, giving vipmattman the 4th,5th,8th,9th,and 12th best teammates will be way too strong for him -- usually he'd get like 4th, 7th, 9th, 10th, 12th. Look at the matches in the matchlist - the higher rated team wins too much, and most of the games are BORING.

#3] Every game is close

----

The reason you are seeing a mixed balance of players at the top is because the standings are simply SKEWED and INCORRECT right now because the current system is keeping the games ****ty (and mirandas etc cant gravitate to the top as they rightfully should since miranda is the most influential plane in the game). I don't see how there's any argument that the quality of the games has dropped considerably. Just go back to average team rating!!

Last edited by zz-; 05-20-2011 at 10:25 PM.
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  #11  
Old 05-03-2011, 07:54 PM
zz- zz- is offline
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Sorry for double post but I started editing that one too much and wanted to clarify:

The new team balance mechanism takes EXACTLY what's good about the old system and removes it. With the old system, no matter which 12 players were in the game, it created a close game that would properly reward underrated players and punish overrated ones. The new system prevents the games from being properly balanced, forces one team to have a higher rating with the top 2-3 players on each team having a good idea which top players they'll be playing with and against.

Since simply fixing how much it rewards players for losing imbalanced games doesn't address the issue of game-selection being the most important factor in moving up the ladder (semi cheating in my opinion), or fix the issue of so many games being imbalanced (BORING), I think we really should go back to the average-team-rating balance mechanism.

Last edited by zz-; 05-20-2011 at 10:24 PM.
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  #12  
Old 05-04-2011, 08:40 PM
shrode shrode is offline
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I was going to make a thread about this issue, but see you two have it covered already, and very eloquently, I must add.

I will stress zz's third point,as I feel that it is the most important one: Close games are more fun.

And, as the other two have already pointed out, the very best player can easily chose when to play to have the greatest chance of winning. This causes the best player to continue hitting that 'trending' multiplier, and because they can continue to select when they play, they will profit from this multiplier more than they will be harmed.

Thus, the game currently is too much "I hope i'm the 4th best rated person so that I get donk and will probably win" and not enough "alright I don't have donk but the teams are still balanced cause he has yank and prince, so I better try hard cause this game will be close."
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  #13  
Old 05-04-2011, 10:39 PM
nobodyhome nobodyhome is offline
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Yes, it is true that the new balancing system makes games more unbalanced (in terms of ratings and win percentages) than they were in the past. However, it is untrue that the system doesn't punish people enough for playing in the advantaged team. As said before, the system is the same as before in that the side with lower ratings will get proportionately more points for winning and lose proportionately less points for losing. This is, of course, before the multipliers, which you can see by looking at the matchlist and looking at the column under "change".

Once again, this system was put into place because putting people into always balanced matchups is not the best way to accurately rate people. The problem with the old system lies in that the people who are highest rated are not necessarily the ones who are the best at the game, but simply are the ones who are most able to single-handedly drag a bunch of noobs into victory.

A point of clarification about the trending multiplier: the trending multiplier isn't based off your win%, but rather your net gain in points pre-multiplier. This is so that if you are always in the advantaged team, the trending multiplier will still reflect accurately whether you were playing better than your level or not.

Having 100% balanced games, once again, is not required for an accurate rating system, and it can be detrimental as previously stated. Closer games being more fun is also merely an opinion--I postulate that reasonably-close games are sufficient, and that once you get balanced enough so that the underdog doesn't get simply demolished, it may be fun to have games in which the underdog wins and scores more points as a result.
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  #14  
Old 05-04-2011, 10:58 PM
Ribilla Ribilla is offline
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I also feel that the ratings system is flawed, if only because some of the games are so unbalanced one team has almost no chance of winning. Also, if there are only 10 people in ladder and their ranks are all reasonably far apart, you get the same (unbalanced) games over and over. My last few games have been 70% expected win for other team and low and behold they have won all of them. I quite like the idea that none of the games are exact, but can I suggest that some way of limiting the unbalance is put in?

I have no idea how to implement this, but perhaps the server should randomly select a number between 40 and 60 and then balance the teams so that the win% (as close as possible) matches this number. This would give varied games without the predictability or the vastly unbalanced games.
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  #15  
Old 05-04-2011, 11:41 PM
zz- zz- is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ribilla View Post

I have no idea how to implement this, but perhaps the server should randomly select a number between 40 and 60 and then balance the teams so that the win% (as close as possible) matches this number. This would give varied games without the predictability or the vastly unbalanced games.
This sounds like a great idea. Somehow balance the teams "randomly" but with a small range of average rating, or expected win %. This solves the problem of players choosing who they play against (why is this being ignored? its the most glaring problem with this system), AND eliminates the very uneven games, AND keeps the varying evenness of teams that many people seem to want.

seems pretty legit...
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  #16  
Old 05-05-2011, 12:14 AM
nobodyhome nobodyhome is offline
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I consider the staticness of the balancing algorithm right now to be a legit problem (allowing people to choose who they play against, as well as making the same teams happen over and over). I will put in a fix for this asap but this is likely to create a greater chance of unbalanced teams. Let's reserve judgment on that though until it happens.
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  #17  
Old 05-05-2011, 12:43 AM
Ribilla Ribilla is offline
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Do you think my idea, or some variation on it, is workable?
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  #18  
Old 05-05-2011, 02:43 AM
elxir elxir is offline
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i like the new system because the best player generally gets the best chance of winning...the ****tier players shouldn't get a better chance just because they are ****tier
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  #19  
Old 05-05-2011, 10:34 AM
Ribilla Ribilla is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elxir View Post
i like the new system because the best player generally gets the best chance of winning...the ****tier players shouldn't get a better chance just because they are ****tier
Maybe, but in this case the second best player doesn't get the second best chance of winning, he gets ganked having the worst player.
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  #20  
Old 05-06-2011, 04:34 PM
shrode shrode is offline
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The only probably with the old matchmaking system was that it took forever for scrubs to get down to where they needed to, so they often ruined game balance. However, the new ladder points system already addressed that, so no need to fix a non-existent problem and change the matchmaking too
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  #21  
Old 05-06-2011, 04:53 PM
Ribilla Ribilla is offline
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Found another problem:

Playing ladder last night there were only about 10 people on, so everyone played everygame. Blln was the highest rank and I was second (initially anyway, I dropped a lot of points), now blln was the only primary runner playing those games so it stood to reason that his team would probably win. Problem is that I would never be put on the same team, so despite playing well most of the games I still lost all of them.

I know that I should learn to run, especially if I want to be ranked highly, but I feel this system punishes people in a 10 player situation by not modifying the teams enough, so if one team has a player who is clearly better than everyone else, the same team will lose every time. This was not the case with old ladder.

I just want to say that I think the points calculating algorithm and everything else this season is great, it's just the balancing system I have a problem with.
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  #22  
Old 05-06-2011, 06:10 PM
elxir elxir is offline
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sounds like it's working as intended

if you can't muster up someone from five ladder players who is capable of bomb running then that is just a sign of a lack of players who understand TBD and who also don't understand how to protect a bomb runner and work with timing.

You don't need fancy moves in a miranda to be an effective bomb runner. You need knowledge of spam lanes, timing, proper running lanes, and the like. Your teammates need these same things.

These same skills will allow you to defend against a runner such as blln. Each plane needs to know their role, and your team as a group needs to understand how to shut down an attack and muster a counterattack using the game's built in timing.

This new system is simply exposing those who undestand the strategic underplay of the game modes, and those who don't.

Last edited by elxir; 05-06-2011 at 06:14 PM.
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  #23  
Old 05-06-2011, 08:56 PM
Ribilla Ribilla is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elxir View Post
sounds like it's working as intended

if you can't muster up someone from five ladder players who is capable of bomb running then that is just a sign of a lack of players who understand TBD and who also don't understand how to protect a bomb runner and work with timing.

You don't need fancy moves in a miranda to be an effective bomb runner. You need knowledge of spam lanes, timing, proper running lanes, and the like. Your teammates need these same things.

These same skills will allow you to defend against a runner such as blln. Each plane needs to know their role, and your team as a group needs to understand how to shut down an attack and muster a counterattack using the game's built in timing.

This new system is simply exposing those who undestand the strategic underplay of the game modes, and those who don't.
I did do counter attacks and I can defend against runners, better than anyone else, if you would care to look on the tbd stats page. I even scored some hits on the neutral maps. However I am not ever going to be as good a runner as blln, if only because both accurate plane control and use of TA are nigh on impossible using a pure mouse control scheme. What I think is unfair is continually pitting the same set of players against each other when it is obvious one team will triumph.
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  #24  
Old 05-06-2011, 09:55 PM
MajorPayne257 MajorPayne257 is offline
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Yeah I've been running into this problem every time both ball ladders start up. I went on a 5 game losing streak in the original server because the teams were the exact same (maybe one switch here and there), and then I went over to the second server and won 4 games because those teams were similar.
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  #25  
Old 05-07-2011, 02:36 AM
Tekn0 Tekn0 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MajorPayne257 View Post
Yeah I've been running into this problem every time both ball ladders start up. I went on a 5 game losing streak in the original server because the teams were the exact same (maybe one switch here and there), and then I went over to the second server and won 4 games because those teams were similar.
+1.
Same.

chars.
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  #26  
Old 05-07-2011, 03:27 AM
Duck Duck Pwn Duck Duck Pwn is offline
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Honestly, i feel as though the only static conditions should be that the 12th and 11th rated players are on separate teams, because having the two worst players even if you have other players to make up for it blows. Maybe 1 and 2 separate as well but that i care less about. I'm fine with the rest having some form of fluctuation.
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  #27  
Old 05-07-2011, 05:28 AM
elxir elxir is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Duck Duck Pwn View Post
Honestly, i feel as though the only static conditions should be that the 12th and 11th rated players are on separate teams, because having the two worst players even if you have other players to make up for it blows. Maybe 1 and 2 separate as well but that i care less about. I'm fine with the rest having some form of fluctuation.
1 vs 2/3, split 11/12, and 4-10 randomized based on average rankings could work in theory, but a problem arises when the 2/3 get the 4 also and the 1 is kind of stranded on an island
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Old 05-07-2011, 08:29 AM
bummeln bummeln is offline
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What about adding some different matchmaking methonds? Put a selector before setting teams with something like 40% chance of the current system, 40% old system 15% experimental (like setting teams by plane composition) and a rare chance of craziness like full random or if there's a mechanic in place captain games

This could also provide a decent way to compare which methods are enjoyed more even though it would probably end with a consensus that everything is horrible just like every map.
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  #29  
Old 05-07-2011, 12:27 PM
Ribilla Ribilla is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bummeln View Post
What about adding some different matchmaking methonds? Put a selector before setting teams with something like 40% chance of the current system, 40% old system 15% experimental (like setting teams by plane composition) and a rare chance of craziness like full random or if there's a mechanic in place captain games

This could also provide a decent way to compare which methods are enjoyed more even though it would probably end with a consensus that everything is horrible just like every map.
I think this would go badly. At least there is consensus that no one (bar lix) likes the current system.
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  #30  
Old 05-07-2011, 04:19 PM
blln4lyf blln4lyf is offline
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Oh another thing, you could add something so if there are 2 new ppl they get put on separate teams.
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  #31  
Old 05-07-2011, 06:17 PM
shrode shrode is offline
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just do old system, no real need for complicating it with static splits.
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  #32  
Old 05-19-2011, 09:21 PM
blln4lyf blln4lyf is offline
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Default Posted this elsewhere but it fits here more..

Basically, with the ratings not being equal or close to equal between the 2 teams, it causes uneven games. This is obvious, and it is addressed by giving less points to the higher rated team, etc. but that doesn't fully fix the issue imo.

Lets say player 1 is ranked 3k and player 2 is ranked 2000. Lets say player 11 is ranked 1.2k and player 12 is ranked 700. Last season this would be addressed to cause the ratings to be equal between the 2 teams anyway, but now, it's possible for a team to get player 1 and 11 while the other gets 2 and 12, causing team 1 to have a 80% or higher win %. I can't prove that this system is flawed though, but I personally think that it isn't working. Closer games will allow people to make more or less of a difference in every game to properly reach their correct rating, while lopsided games could have an underrated rated player play well above their rating, but still lose almost every time just because the teams aren't balanced. Unbalanced teams, imo, cause outside factors(team balance mainly) to come into play more, which lets people have less of an effect on if they win or lose than if there is balance.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodyhome View Post
The old system was a major part of the reason why the top few ranks of ladder were so dominated by bomb runners and ball carriers. Nowadays it's a bit more balanced and that's the way I'd like to keep it.

However, the new system did nothing to change this at all, the reason those players are the highest is because they have the most impact on the game, it has nothing to do with the way the team assigner is set up at all.


Quote:
Originally Posted by nobodyhome View Post
This system was put into place because putting people into always balanced matchups is not the best way to accurately rate people. The problem with the old system lies in that the people who are highest rated are not necessarily the ones who are the best at the game, but simply are the ones who are most able to single-handedly drag a bunch of noobs into victory.

Having 100% balanced games, once again, is not required for an accurate rating system, and it can be detrimental as previously stated. Closer games being more fun is also merely an opinion--I postulate that reasonably-close games are sufficient, and that once you get balanced enough so that the underdog doesn't get simply demolished, it may be fun to have games in which the underdog wins and scores more points as a result.
I personally, love the new system, minus the team assigner.

I know that close games being more fun is merely an opinion, but its one that most people believe, so why stray away from what the public wants in that regard? And lets be real. Who likes playing in games that are not close compared to games that are close when playing competitively?

As for the problem with the old system that you stated, "people who are the highest rated simply are the ones who are most able to single-handedly drag a bunch of noobs into victory" instead of being the best players, it takes being one of the best players to be able to drag a bunch of noobs to victory. You giving this problem is your opinion and I personally do not think it is a problem at all. If you look at the top players in both tbd and ball ladder, the majority are the same from last season. This doesn't prove that this issue you stated isn't an issue, but it sure dispels it a bunch.



I think the public wants more balanced games, so even something that sets the upper limit to 60% or even 65%(though I'd much rather see 60%) for a game would create much better games, and allow people to make more of a difference in the game, like I described near the start of this extremely long post. Ideally though, I'd change the team assigner to what it was last season, it makes the ratings as close as possible for the 12 people who are in.


Oh, and a totally random point, if there are two relatively new players(less than X amount of games played), they should probably be put on separate teams.

Last edited by blln4lyf; 05-20-2011 at 07:03 AM.
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  #33  
Old 05-19-2011, 10:58 PM
[Y] [Y] is offline
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Losing less points per unbalanced game doesn't make up for the fact that it's unbalanced imo. I'd much rather play games balanced around the total ratings.
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  #34  
Old 05-20-2011, 12:47 AM
shrode shrode is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blln4lyf View Post
I think the public wants more balanced games.
Refer to my poll thread if you need evidence.
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  #35  
Old 05-20-2011, 01:46 AM
Carlos98 Carlos98 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blln4lyf View Post
I think the public wants more balanced games
this.

I'm ok with these changes with the team assigner to find a good system. To be frank S1 wasn't perfect (takes forever to get to true ranking), neither was S2 version1 (people can "pick" their games, teams are predictable), and definitely not S2 version2 (absolutely no balance).

This S2v2 (whatever it is currently) is absolutely terrible. Unfortunately I really don't have any ideas as to a better system (other than S1 or S2v1). But keep implementing others if people have more ideas.
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  #36  
Old 05-20-2011, 06:52 PM
zz- zz- is offline
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I agree fully with balln's post. The notion that the new system somehow rewards a different approach to the game is completely unfounded in math and logic - no matter what method you use to balance teams, the highest rated players will ALWAYS be the ones who are able to "drag the most newbs to victory" - this is just a clever/biased way of saying "win the most games with any mixture of players."

The only possible benefit to NOT balancing the teams according to average rating, is to manually insert more variation in the "winnability" of each game for each player - to see if players can avoid losing as a favorite, or scrape together more wins as an underdog. However, balancing teams according to average rating already contains a large enough amount of variation in REAL overall match expected percentage, because of things that are decided completely randomly (i.e., team 1 gets 6 players who all usually play loopy while team 2 gets a good balance, team 1 has an overrated player and a drunk player and team 2 doesnt - there is no shortage of variables in ladder.

As balln said - by creating games that are not balanced according to average rating, you're forcing the game to be decided by factors outside of the player's control. With the old system, correction to the ladder standings occurred at the margin of winning and losing --- that is, every game was ~50% for either team - you fought to move up in the standings by WINNING the games you played. Winning and losing is now WAY more contextual and in most games, the margin by which you can typically outplay/underperform your rating does not swing your team from a win to a loss or vice versa - that is, your grandmom could play for you in a lot of your wins and you'd still win. And a top 10 player could play for you in a lot your losses and you'd still lose. It is this disassociation of cause-and-effect of playing well -> winning games that has players frustrated. Especially when you just waited 12 minutes to play, got one automatic loss, and now have to spec another game.

I realize that's present in any system, but the new system manually forces an unnecessary extra amount into it. However, most players (myself included) DO see the attractiveness of some variation in average team rating. So I think the idea of capping the expected win% for one team to a certain number is a good one. The consensus appears to be ~60%, which for me would be the absolute max I would consider. As the ladder standings become more and more accurate, the unfairness of 60/40 games will increase. To me, 55-57% would be an ideal cap.

And as a final note: The second version of the team balancer this season is actually worse than the original. It addressed ONE problem: Now the highest rated player only knows the #2 rated player he'll play against, instead of #2 and #3. It is still exploitable in every other way the first one was. HOWEVER, this new system creates teams that are always either equally or more unfair. Using any cookie-cutter method to split 12 players into teams/pairs based on their ranking 1-12 will give each two teams a total sum of the ranks of their players. At first this season, it was locked at 1-4-5-8-9-12 vs. 2-3-6-7-10-11, which is 39 v 39. Now it splits 1v2, 3v4, 5v6 etc and assigns one of each pair to a team - so now it can be anywhere from 36 vs. 42 to 42. vs 36 -- The best case scenario for fairness, hilariously, is when it randomly chooses the method we used at the beginning of the season.

Either way, both team balance mechanisms put into use are inferior to the one used in season 1 - just thought I'd make it evident that the newest one traded a fraction of its exploitability for an increased tendency to imbalanced games. I think just about everybody agrees that balancing teams by average rating (slightly less strictly than s1) is the best approach for creating balanced, fun, fair games and eradicating the opportunity for players exploiting the method by which teams are built.

Edited for clearness. What a long (and brilliant) post.

Last edited by zz-; 05-20-2011 at 07:12 PM.
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  #37  
Old 05-20-2011, 08:11 PM
elxir elxir is offline
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IMO, increased ladder size is in part the culprit.

Due to how static teams are when players do not change RANKING after a game, a full ladder server in essence has two "groups" of players cycling in and out of the game. In effect, you are stuck with the same 7-8 players every game you play, until they leave and are replaced by someone else.

One of the biggest problems of the old season was teams being comprised of the same players, over and over and over. This ****s **** up and is not fun, especially for the losing team.

There needs to be a way to diversify teams more - I think the balancer is pretty good, but the problem is that it is only balancing half of the server in a given game and either you get lucky your first game, or you don't and you're stuck with the same peeps for an hour.
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  #38  
Old 05-20-2011, 08:15 PM
zz- zz- is offline
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Also I wanted to add without editing again :

Quote:
I consider the staticness of the balancing algorithm right now to be a legit problem (allowing people to choose who they play against, as well as making the same teams happen over and over). I will put in a fix for this asap but this is likely to create a greater chance of unbalanced teams. Let's reserve judgment on that though until it happens.
Looks like nobo knew about the last part of my post before he put the system in. Forgot about this post. Also overlooked that the new system put a dent in the problem of the same teams happening over and over again. Still, using average team rating would fix this even further and create better games.

Edit: Just saw elixir's post. Are you serious? You realize that under the old system, there were 924 possible combinations of 6v6, and the system chose the one with the closest two average ratings. Thus, after every game, every player had shifted 25pts in a direction and it was extremely unlikely that the same 6v6 would occur. With the new system, there's only 32 possible combinations of 6v6, and it chooses one of them. Which do you think is more likely to make more similar teams? This is a MUUUUUUCH larger problem in s2 than s1.

Re-edit: d'oh, i misinterpreted your post. apologies. anyhow, this thread should be over, everyone basically agrees that teams should be balanced according to average team rating / team expected win%, with a little wiggle room. All that needs to happen is nobo to find a way to implement it....

p.s. 2nd double post in this thread gg

Last edited by zz-; 05-20-2011 at 09:06 PM.
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  #39  
Old 05-20-2011, 09:59 PM
sunshineduck sunshineduck is offline
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i think that you all are horribly misjudging the purpose of ladder. it really does not matter at all how balanced the teams are as long as the formula is accounting for the expected win% when distributing points, which it most certainly does. if the heavily favored team won literally every time it would actually be problematic, but that's not the case.

the system implemented in season 2 is intended to expedite the process of reaching each individual player's "true" rating, which it does much better than any other formula used before. that's the entire point of ladder - to accurately rate players based on their positive impact to the teams they are on. that's it.
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  #40  
Old 05-20-2011, 10:15 PM
blln4lyf blln4lyf is offline
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I don't think we have, SSD. S2 works better because of the changes to streaking etc, instead of it just being static. We are arguing that making the win % of the teams close to even will actually make it even better in terms of correctly rating people because they it allows people to more easily effect games, for reasons stated in posts above by me and zz.

Also, even if you say it won't make the system better(which I'd strongly disagree with obviously) and just keeps it the same, what is wrong with keeping the rating system's effectiveness the same while creating better games. Either way its a win imo.
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