Erroneous league assignment

GreatGonzales · (This post was last modified: 07-26-2012 01:08 AM by GreatGonzales.)

I was wondering if there is an official explanation of how league promotion and demotion work. Does anyone know the specifics?

I understand that there was some shift in league placement after some bugs were addressed, and this is what I attribute my demotion to gifted after being placed in masters and incurring basically no losses. Since being demoted to gifted, I have won something like 30 consecutive games, but I still have not been promoted.

This lack of skill recognition by the game really hurts my desire to put time into it. I hope the guys at OML are listening...

ArtNJ · 07-26-2012, 05:23 AM

Its too bad this is still slow. I thought Alex fixed it.

@OneAlexLeft, GreatGonzales is a tactical master, was #1 in the Hero Academy League for a long time, why would 30-0 after demotion not bump him up?

It really needs to be faster still, cant have folks like GG getting bored before they hit competition.

GG, check who you are being matched with. If its mostly high ranked Masters, that means your close to getting back to Masters.

GreatGonzales · 07-26-2012, 05:59 AM

Most of the people I get matched with are high ranked Gifted folks. I am in a good match with DanielleJune, who is a supertitan.. But no actually not a lot of people in Masters.

**Harti** · 07-26-2012, 06:05 AM

Probably you're losing too few (i.e. none) games for the rating algorithm to believe that you're good (and didn't just have weak opponents all the time).

Just a wild guess, definitely not intending to start a discussion about that here.

Glorishears · (This post was last modified: 07-26-2012 06:12 AM by Glorishears.)

The promotions - or at least the matchmaking adjustments - are definitely too slow. Here's my record:

4-0 in the first round of placement matches, which were then reset and I had to start over. Not a huge deal since 3 were forfeits.

4-1 in my second set of placements. Placed in Master.

5-0 as a Master, then demoted to Gifted in the rejiggerring

21-1 as Gifted before I started seeing any Masters in my matchups again

5-0 vs Master and high Gifted

Promoted to Master last night. No games completed yet that were started after the promotion.

I have the replay links for almost all of these games if anyone cares.

If you need to lose games to improve rating, the matchmaking is just busted.

Bluegodzill · 07-26-2012, 06:34 AM

I got masters at like 60 something wins I think? I have 113 wins now.

swimj · 07-26-2012, 06:40 AM

I was promoted to st on a game where I forfeit, then demoted back to masters in 3/4 days on a game I won against a st, then promoted back up to st on a win against a st 2/3 days later. I was finishing 3/4 games a day, I think. At least for me I think the system was improved considering how long it took for me at first to even get to gifted/masters, which means things are going in the right direction. There are still unacceptable quirks but I feel oml is doing their best on it.

GreatGonzales · 07-26-2012, 07:31 AM

I am very curious as to how the ranking system works. I'm wondering what the harm is in sharing the exact algorithm that they are using, and what their justification is for using anything beyond a straight ELO system. I can't think of a reason to use anything beyond straight ELO...can anyone else?

The only thing is the league system - so they have artificial skill thresholds that they decided from the outset and restricts calculations. The issue being that as the community grows, the highest ELO score will continue to grow for some time, well beyond after the point when everyone has played their original 5 placement matches. Thus, someone who reaches an ELO of 1350 let's say, might qualify for SuperTitan (everyone starts at 1200 FYI). But 3 months from now, 1350 is probably better suited for Masters, since the highest ELO will likely be 1800 or something (the highest ELO score is a function of the size of the population). But I think this is solvable by introducing a league above SuperTitan for those super high rated people. All that to say, I don't know why they need anything other than ELO, and perhaps some level of shifting standards for each league, in order to determine league promotions and demotions. But maybe there's something I haven't considered?

Anyway, just my two cents.

Kamikaze28 · 07-26-2012, 07:41 AM

(07-26-2012 07:31 AM)GreatGonzales Wrote: I am very curious as to how the ranking system works. I'm wondering what the harm is in sharing the exact algorithm that they are using, and what their justification is for using anything beyond a straight ELO system. I can't think of a reason to use anything beyond straight ELO...can anyone else?

The only thing is the league system - so they have artificial skill thresholds that they decided from the outset and restricts calculations. The issue being that as the community grows, the highest ELO score will continue to grow for some time, well beyond after the point when everyone has played their original 5 placement matches. Thus, someone who reaches an ELO of 1350 let's say, might qualify for SuperTitan (everyone starts at 1200 FYI). But 3 months from now, 1350 is probably better suited for Masters, since the highest ELO will likely be 1800 or something (the highest ELO score is a function of the size of the population). But I think this is solvable by introducing a league above SuperTitan for those super high rated people. All that to say, I don't know why they need anything other than ELO, and perhaps some level of shifting standards for each league, in order to determine league promotions and demotions. But maybe there's something I haven't considered?

Anyway, just my two cents.

Short answer: look here and here.

Slightly longer answer: Outwitters doesn't use ELO. Explaining the inner workings of the current system would take quite an amount of time which is better spent on fixing bugs and improving the system. Knowing how it works doesn't make any difference other than satiating your curiosity. Even if an official explanation with formulas and everything existed, very few people would be able to or interested in understanding it. The current system has been designed so that players worry less about the outcomes of their games and more about playing, enjoying and giving their best at all times.

Glorishears · 07-26-2012, 08:46 AM

I don't really care whether the underlying rating system is ELO or not. I (mostly) don't care, either, whether I have a label of "Master" or "Super Titan" or "Gifted". I do care that I get interesting match ups to play.

A 39-2 run, as much as it strokes my ego, is not interesting.

Quote:The current system has been designed so that players worry less about the outcomes of their games and more about playing, enjoying and giving their best at all times.

That may have been the intent of the current system, but for whatever reason, that is not what it is delivering, to me, to GreatGonzales, or, apparently, to many others. I have no way of knowing if many is 1% of of players or 10% or 0.1%, but I assume OML could look up the number of players with, say, > 20 games and > 90% win rate easily enough.

This is not a request to be magically promoted into Super Titan; having never played anyone in Super Titan, I have no idea if I'm as good as them, worse, way worse, whatever. It's just a request to have challenging opponents.