Erroneous league assignment

[Kamikaze28]

(07-26-2012 09:30 PM)ArtNJ Wrote:  Facts: Great Big War Game uses ELO, works great. Hero Academy League uses ELO, works great. Outwitters system -- still doesnt work great. ELO is *proven* to be easy and workable in a game like this, so I am still not sure (after having discussed this issue with you already) what supposed flaws you are referring to Kamikaze. The only thing we discussed and agreed on was that ELO does need some modest start up time to start meaningfully sorting folks -- but its not much, as Great Big War Game is currently showing.

Blizzard's unique system may work for Blizzard, but it appears highly doubtful that a 2 man shop can just copy it and not get burned, as OML has been burned (in my opinion).

I will not deny that ELO works in the way it was supposed to: it gauges skill relativistically and can be used for more or less fair match ups. It was designed to do that - for competitive chess players.
The flaws I've been referring to are not directed at the workings of the system, but rather at the implications regarding user experience. Seeing your rating influences your behavior just as behavior influences your rating: you start to worry and may even reduce your activity in favor of protecting your rating. Seeing the impending loss of rating in a game you are about to lose to a lower rated player may encourage stalling or other mean behavior.

One other thing (that just came to my mind) which is kind of a concern with the functionality of ELO: it was never designed with the possibility of having more than one game at a time. Imagine this scenario: you are highly rated (say 1800) and currently winning against an equally highly rated player - what's to stop you from purposefully losing some games in the meantime to increase the point loss for your opponent? You are competing for ranks after all and dropping him lower is beneficial to you. Knowing the formulas even enables you to calculate exactly how many games you need to lose to break even, so that you stay at your 1800 rating, but your opponent loses points as if he lost to a 1700-rated player.
Similarly, you can hold out on winning games to cushion an eventual loss against an equally rated player. In other words: you can trick the system.

Of course, you can always say that no-one would worry this much (I'd disagree), because we are playing Outwitters for fun. But why then do we need a rating system designed for chess championships?

Regarding the ramp-up time: I'd argue that any rating system needs that - and the way I remember our agreement was that this is not a difference between the current system and ELO, but a commonality.