Another Look at 2v2 Super Titan

[GreatGonzales]

(03-22-2013 12:24 PM)amoffett Wrote:  But new people are playing Outwitters all the time, as well as new teams of existing players adding to the 2v2 pool. The size of the population is growing all the time. Therefore, if your analogy is correct, you would've become a supertitan by waiting it out a bit(and by continuing to win a bunch though that goes without saying).

True, but players are also leaving the player pool all the time. Also, we would need to see many orders of magnitude greater number of players to support 10-15 STs with the old threshold. Think of it this way, suppose there are 1500 players in a player pool (approximately the number of 2v2 teams by the way), and the threshold is set at .2%, which is 3 players. Now, suppose we increase the player population by 10%, bringing the total number of players to 1650. Keeping the same .2% threshold, that would yield 3.3 players. In order to reach the lower end of your estimate, 10 players, we would need about 5000 players, which is a 333% increase. There is simply no reason to believe that this was going to happen under the old threshold.

Quote:As far as how ranking systems work, the number of super titans is independent of the number of players in the population. It depends only on the skill distribution of the players. Because of the matchmaking system, there is a maximum number of supertitans, but there is no minimum. For example, if everyone played everyone 50/50, there would no supertitans. If one team won 90% of the time, and the others all won 50% of the time, you'd have one ST. This is the case whether there's 10 players or 1000s.

I maintain that you are mistaken on this point. The number of players awarded ST status is dependent on the skill distribution, yes, but also on the number of players in the population. Think of it in the reverse way; suppose that there were 100,000 1v1 players instead of about 20,000. Would we see many more STs? Of course. You're right that if there was one player who won always won 50% of all matches, regardless of player skill, then they would not move up or down in league. But that's not a very useful hypothetical; in practice, player populations have diverse skill levels, and skill levels increase over time as players learn the game, so skill diversity within a player population emerges.

Quote:Here's an interesting thought: imagine that everyone was awesome at 2v2. Or that the only people who ever played were just the top 40 teams. You'd all probably be in gifted or clever league (except for the current STs, based on their W/L they'd still probably be STs). It's not about how many players there are, but how many are below you in skill (below you in skill so that you can beat them). The reason none of you became STs as quickly as the other teams is because you all played each other so evenly. ... This is what happened more or less with the old threshold, so many of you were even towards the top, that there weren't enough players below you for you to advance.

Again, not a very useful hypothetical, but you actually hit right on target here; you're right, players who are close together in skill would average about 50% win ratio, which means they would not increase in skill rating anymore. So, what happened was that there were a bunch of teams who were very, very good (myself, worldfamous, awpertunity/terence, burnodrod/mastercaster, sir3 and p1noyboy, etc.), and so we rose to the top of the ranking list. But because the threshold was so high, and we were roughly even in skill, we all played each other (due to matchmaking) and no one could get out ahead enough of the pack in order to reach the very limiting threshold. This was a bad system, as it did not award the very very good teams who were merely not quite as good as the top 2. If there were (many) more players in the population, this wouldn't have been such a big issue, but with only about 1500 something had to change. It's too bad that I was promoted this way, didn't feel very triumphant. I wish OML had planned the league system more appropriately, but I guess you can't fault them for not being able to see the future.

Quote:This is why I doubt that OML will find a threshold to give you the percentage you're after, it's like splitting an atom, you guys are too close together.

I agree that the top 10-15 teams are very close in skill, but beyond that it is more disparate. As for changing the threshold again, as I have said I'm not sold on the idea that it should be changed again; I created this thread to see what the community thinks. But I still don't see why OML couldn't merely pick a spot between the old threshold and new threshold and call it a day.