Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

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llrr
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by llrr »

Hey guys, thanks Const and OP for your questions, and thanks to eti for pretty much answering them. However, I will try to address them as well.

So Const asked: how is this different to tracking performance during FMs?

Ans: Well, basically, nobody cares about FMs and whether they win or not. Maybe some do, but I know I never put 100% effort in an FM and i do things I wouldn't do in an offi. When there are points on the line, you play more seriously and more competitively. Also, ELO gain/loss is not based upon individual performance, but rather only the CTF performance. We want to maintain that the team play and CTF score is the most important aspect of the match, not your individual KDR.

When the system gets implemented, you yourself makes the decision of whether to accept an offi, or to suggest an offi, and who you want to play with. If you want to play with a player with less ELO, that's your decision. Playing with a weaker teammate will result in a weaker average ELO for your team, which means when you lose the match you don't lose many points. The ELO system should accurately reflect what kind of skill level you're at.

OP: If you're talking about the actual formula behind how ELO is calculated, then I don't know either. However, it is pretty much how the team scores are calculated right now. If a low ELO team beats a high ELO team, you can more points. Conversely, a high ELO team will win very few points against a low ELO team. It is basically diminishing returns.

In terms of the points system where you might not gain a significant amount of points. That's the whole point. We don't want some players to instantly get to 1800 points. The players rankings will hopefully be something like this: 1500, 1480, 1450, 1430, 1410, 1400, 1380, 1350, 1330 etc. Small gaps between players. If some players are inactive and come back, then yes that situation could happen where they could win big points vs players with already high ELO. However, we will implement the seasons long enough such that rankings will pretty much work out over time.

On this same topic: eti, we cannot assign different starting tiers for different players, it would not work as it will instantly start bad feelings between players who think they should be in a different tier.

In terms of 2ins: Yes, agreed. There can be serious imbalance when 2in happens. However, as I've stated, 2ins MUST be approved by all players already in the match. If they don't approve, there is no 2in. With this rule in place, there is no reason to enforce a "no 2in" during offis. Players can simply reject the 2in request.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by llrr »

I also just want to clarify: there will be only ONE type of offi, that is just when players declare /official. Players choose who they want to offi with and against, just like now. If a color happens to be made up of players from the same team, then their team ELO gets affected after the match. All of this however is done in the background so players won't have to worry about anything. There will not be multiple types of offis. All offis, regardless of whether a color is made up of a single team or not, will affect individual ELO scores.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by llrr »

As an additional point to my previous two posts:

CTF *score* will be taken into account for ELO gain/loss. This means that 1-0 will not have the same effect as 10-0. However, unlike etigah's suggestion, there will unlikely be a "suggested score" before a match starts, because this again can be too arbitrary and hard to implement. However, a strong team winning 1-0 against a weaker will result in minimal ELO gain as opposed to winning 10-0. Note that this feature will be different to the current ELO system, where the score doesn't matter, only win/loss.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by Monster »

Having the amount of caps influence the amount of points gained/lost might be a bad idea as it encourages pcs and flag camping etc.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by llrr »

Monster wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2017 2:44 pm Having the amount of caps influence the amount of points gained/lost might be a bad idea as it encourages pcs and flag camping etc.
I have had several comments regarding this. Don't worry, there will probably be two options we will discuss about. Either way, they should provide no incentive to flag camping.

1. Caps have zero influence on ELO gain/loss.
2. Caps have minimal influence (i.e. it's not worth flag camping).
Last edited by llrr on Thu Apr 13, 2017 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by kierra »

llrr wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2017 5:34 am CTF *score* will be taken into account for ELO gain/loss. This means that 1-0 will not have the same effect as 10-0. However, a strong team winning 1-0 against a weaker will result in minimal ELO gain as opposed to winning 10-0. Note that this feature will be different to the current ELO system, where the score doesn't matter, only win/loss.
llrr wrote: Thu Apr 13, 2017 2:56 pm I have had several comments regarding this. Don't worry, there will only be two scenarios.
1. Caps have zero influence on ELO gain/loss.
2. Caps have minimal influence (i.e. it's not worth flag camping).
Which is it - Will the # of caps affect elo(minimal) OR NOT(zero influence)? Seems to me your talking both sides. What's the bottom line?
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by llrr »

kierra wrote: Thu Apr 13, 2017 3:14 pm
llrr wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2017 5:34 am CTF *score* will be taken into account for ELO gain/loss. This means that 1-0 will not have the same effect as 10-0. However, a strong team winning 1-0 against a weaker will result in minimal ELO gain as opposed to winning 10-0. Note that this feature will be different to the current ELO system, where the score doesn't matter, only win/loss.
llrr wrote: Thu Apr 13, 2017 2:56 pm I have had several comments regarding this. Don't worry, there will only be two scenarios.
1. Caps have zero influence on ELO gain/loss.
2. Caps have minimal influence (i.e. it's not worth flag camping).
Which is it - Will the # of caps affect elo(minimal) OR NOT(zero influence)? Seems to me your talking both sides. What's the bottom line?
We don't know yet. Little details like this will be sorted out after work commences on implementing the system. I was merely trying to guarantee that flag camping and PC will NOT be an incentive in the new system, no matter which of those two are implemented.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by click click boom »

kierra wrote: Thu Apr 13, 2017 3:14 pm
llrr wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2017 5:34 am CTF *score* will be taken into account for ELO gain/loss. This means that 1-0 will not have the same effect as 10-0. However, a strong team winning 1-0 against a weaker will result in minimal ELO gain as opposed to winning 10-0. Note that this feature will be different to the current ELO system, where the score doesn't matter, only win/loss.
llrr wrote: Thu Apr 13, 2017 2:56 pm I have had several comments regarding this. Don't worry, there will only be two scenarios.
1. Caps have zero influence on ELO gain/loss.
2. Caps have minimal influence (i.e. it's not worth flag camping).
Which is it - Will the # of caps affect elo(minimal) OR NOT(zero influence)? Seems to me your talking both sides. What's the bottom line?

Point is llrr is making a case for both and it gives the council the ultimate flexibility to pick and choose. If we just submitted a proposal and didn't modify it upon feedback the idea wouldn't get past the first day.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by etigah »

I think number of caps should be taken into account if we want a competitive game at all. and as to flag camping and PCs, that's all part of the game, and players who abuse it only hurt their own reputation. Think of it like a football match where a player from the other side is injured and your team has the ball, your team is free to continue play, but it will not look good for you. But on the other hand, if caps are well deserved, counting them will contribute to calculating points more fairly leading to more accurate ranking.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by Moto Unit »

First, please don't misinterpret my comments as being completely negative as they are not. I see merit in some of the suggested changes (llr's) but also see some of them (like ccb's) as having the unintended affect of eliminating the point of having team play. I believe, for any of the players who have been around since the early days of BZFlag, the whole intent behind the creation of the game was to encourage team play, sportsmanship, and friendly competition. There are many players on here who do not wish to affiliate with a team but do like to compete. Some of the ideas reflected in the outline for the new league rules seem counterproductive toward that end. Under ccb's idea for team play unless they choose to become part of a team they have little incentive to play. While exploring new ideas on how to improve the game and servers to attract more players is indeed a good thing, changing something just for the sake of changing it is not normally a good idea and usually has unintended consequences which oft times are difficult to undo once that genie is out of the bottle. While I think most people like receiving personal recognition for obtaining goals and achievements, there seems to be an incredible desire by some individuals to let "wins" and person rankings overshadow what a "team" and being a member of a team is all about. I hope whatever the majority chooses you remember that their is no "I" in team. Sportsmanship, mutual respect, common courtesy, and attitude or lack there of these things will ultimately determine the level of participation on a server or league. Treat people as you would want to be treated and do not fail to take into account that there are more factors and feelings to consider than just your own and you will always have a viable, healthy environment that encourages players to come to your servers.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

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Moto Unit wrote: Thu Apr 13, 2017 6:45 pm First, please don't misinterpret my comments as being completely negative as they are not. I see merit in some of the suggested changes (llr's) but also see some of them (like ccb's) as having the unintended affect of eliminating the point of having team play. I believe, for any of the players who have been around since the early days of BZFlag, the whole intent behind the creation of the game was to encourage team play, sportsmanship, and friendly competition. There are many players on here who do not wish to affiliate with a team but do like to compete. Some of the ideas reflected in the outline for the new league rules seem counterproductive toward that end. Under ccb's idea for team play unless they choose to become part of a team they have little incentive to play. While exploring new ideas on how to improve the game and servers to attract more players is indeed a good thing, changing something just for the sake of changing it is not normally a good idea and usually has unintended consequences which oft times are difficult to undo once that genie is out of the bottle. While I think most people like receiving personal recognition for obtaining goals and achievements, there seems to be an incredible desire by some individuals to let "wins" and person rankings overshadow what a "team" and being a member of a team is all about. I hope whatever the majority chooses you remember that their is no "I" in team. Sportsmanship, mutual respect, common courtesy, and attitude or lack there of these things will ultimately determine the level of participation on a server or league. Treat people as you would want to be treated and do not fail to take into account that there are more factors and feelings to consider than just your own and you will always have a viable, healthy environment that encourages players to come to your servers.
Thanks Moto for your input. However, could I ask everyone to please respond to the first post of this thread which is what the final proposal is, and not discussions of other suggestions please. We are trying to determine if players are happy with the current proposal or not.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by -roo »

Hola, i like the idea but if you guys are worried about new players why not just set an automatic team for them to join? The team would be run by admins and the span of the player in the team would be decided by admins. (Sorry for bad Miro)

-Off topic- can we get emojis in game? :D
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

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-roo wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2017 4:17 am Hola, i like the idea but if you guys are worried about new players why not just set an automatic team for them to join? The team would be run by admins and the span of the player in the team would be decided by admins. (Sorry for bad Miro)

-Off topic- can we get emojis in game? :D
Hey roo, the idea of having default teams have already been discussed and dismissed. The proposal found in the first post of this thread aims to keep the flexibility of player choice in terms of their team selection whilst gaining all the mentioned benefits.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by -roo »

I don't think you are going to reach a solution that makes everyone happy I suggest opening a poll (listing all options) and going by the result. At least to start from somewhere and then build upon that poll result depending on the complains after implementation.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

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-roo wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2017 7:06 am I don't think you are going to reach a solution that makes everyone happy I suggest opening a poll (listing all options) and going by the result. At least to start from somewhere and then build upon that poll result depending on the complains after implementation.
The original post in this thread has been updated many times in order to accomodate as much feedback as possible from the currently active players. There is certainly a majority in agreement with the idea which is why it has been put forward to the council for consideration. It still won't cater to everybody but the end system should satisfy most in its current state.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by M1chael »

Ok, I'll just drop my opinion on this real quick. (btw, I havent read all of the replies, just the original idea)

I really like the idea of introducing individual players' elo.
I also like the idea of being able to offi with players who are not necessarily from your team to change that elo.
What I don't like, however, is that these mixed up offis impact the elo of the players' teams. It bothers me that there is a way for a team to rank up or down without the community of that team working together.

So here is my idea: Individual elo should be introduced.
it changes after every official match based on the CTF score.
Officials are possible with any team composition, no matter the players' team membership.
These officials do affect the individual elo, but not the Team elo of the participants.
Team elo only changes if all members of each (in game) team are in the same LU team. (of course, individual elo will change aswell)

Hope i made my opinion clear to everyone reading this, and i also hope it wasn't already discussed and I look like a fool now. :b
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

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Toast, the current proposal is that as long as a colour is made up of players from the same team, then their team elo changes.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

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etigah wrote: Thu Apr 13, 2017 5:37 pm I think number of caps should be taken into account if we want a competitive game at all. and as to flag camping and PCs, that's all part of the game, and players who abuse it only hurt their own reputation. Think of it like a football match where a player from the other side is injured and your team has the ball, your team is free to continue play, but it will not look good for you. But on the other hand, if caps are well deserved, counting them will contribute to calculating points more fairly leading to more accurate ranking.
I don't understand how you arrive at the conclusion that caps should be taken into account in order to have competitive game play at all. In addition your analogy with football makes little sense as in football the noumber of goals does not result in more points gained. A win always results in 3 points, scores are only taken into consideration if there is a tie at the end of the season. I'd bet there would be much more unsportsmanlike behaviour in football as well if score influenced points gained.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

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Mons - don't worry about this detail. We can easily not implement it.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by etigah »

Monster wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2017 8:13 am I don't understand how you arrive at the conclusion that caps should be taken into account in order to have competitive game play at all. In addition your analogy with football makes little sense as in football the noumber of goals does not result in more points gained. A win always results in 3 points, scores are only taken into consideration if there is a tie at the end of the season. I'd bet there would be much more unsportsmanlike behaviour in football as well if score influenced points gained.
Well, analogy here is not about comparing football and bzflag, but rather about how a team can abuse a certain feature of any game in a way that gives them some advantage at the cost of gaining a bad reputation.

As to the main point, I think if team A is much stronger than team B that normally the score gap would be 5,6 or 10 caps , then if number of caps has no consequence, then most likely the stronger team will stop at 2 or 3 and get bored to death the rest of the match, which is not uncommon. So if caps are rewarded, the game continues to be competitive even when the difference in skill between competing teams is big.

I previously suggested a system where a losing team can gain points, in case the final score was closer than expected. So the idea is not to punish newer players. The whole point is to make game competitive, and rank players accurately.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by Orange Peanut »

I think eti has a good point. Sometimes when I am up 2 or 3 caps with a few minutes left, I stop caring and will not try very hard to prevent a cap or cap myself. If each point mattered, I would keep fighting to the end to get what I deserve. I don't really like the idea of worse teams gaining points because they lost by less than they were expected. I think using an expected outcome at all should not be considered because it would just be way too hard to get right, circumstances are always different. That being said, I am fine with either letting more caps equal more points or just winning deciding how many points you get, but I would like to hear more opinions on it.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

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Orange Peanut wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2017 4:45 pm I think eti has a good point. Sometimes when I am up 2 or 3 caps with a few minutes left, I stop caring and will not try very hard to prevent a cap or cap myself. If each point mattered, I would keep fighting to the end to get what I deserve. I don't really like the idea of worse teams gaining points because they lost by less than they were expected. I think using an expected outcome at all should not be considered because it would just be way too hard to get right, circumstances are always different. That being said, I am fine with either letting more caps equal more points or just winning deciding how many points you get, but I would like to hear more opinions on it.
Guys. Firstly, I just want to say that little details like this can easily be implemented, or not implemented, so in general don't stress over it too much. As of current status, I have still not heard back from the council that the proposal has even been accepted yet. This makes discussions of these details not so useful right now. We would like more support for the general idea of the proposal in order to push it through first.

For the current discussion however, what I can say is that if caps will matter to the resulting ELO, it will have a VERY SMALL impact. There will be no incentive for a good team to win 20-0 vs a bad team in any way, because firstly, there will be a limit in the formula to the effect of caps, and secondly, caps and cap differential will create a small ELO bonus win or loss in order to provide incentive to continue the match even when one team is winning already, but there is not significant benefit for the players who flag camp because they only alienate the players in the community to not match against them after.

I think we also have to realize that flag camping is a sportsmanship level of behaviour, and therefore it is on each player's own moral standards to decide whether they do it or not. While we try to prevent it from being an incentive to flag camp, there is absolutely no rule that can stop it.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by Monster »

I'm not worrying and I agree that this is a smaller detail, I just wanted to understand eti's reasoning.
Let's hope that more people join the discussion and that this will indeed be taken into serious consideration by the council.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

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Monster wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2017 5:35 pm I'm not worrying and I agree that this is a smaller detail, I just wanted to understand eti's reasoning.
Let's hope that more people join the discussion and that this will indeed be taken into serious consideration by the council.
Safe to say all players input has been accounted for now.
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Re: Leagues United New Format - Individual Rankings

Post by Shuist »

As far as I can tell, I am all in favour of the current attachment for llrr's idea.

I think this widens the possibility for competitiveness which a lot of players find attractive, whilst still keeping the option to play freely.

I like the idea of not having the ELO next to name, but have it on the LU site.

With the amount of caps changing ELO with the more caps, the bigger the ELO change, I don't have a major problem. That's how the team ELO is affected at the moment anyway isn't it? And if someone were to win 10-0 against me, it shows what kind of player they are and I simply won't match them again.
On the other hand, I don't mind if it only gets calculated by win/lose. I do believe this will change some game play as some might possibly go a lot more defensive when they are already one cap ahead. That would have to be seen but players will adapt.

Hence, I am strongly in favour of supporting this.

edit: Found out ELO is currently done as win/lose. I feel silly but I think it could still go either way for the same reasons.
Last edited by Shuist on Sun Apr 16, 2017 1:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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