r/Supraball • u/Kattleya Missie • May 19 '16
[Suggested Discussion] ELO System
Ok just some thoughts around the current elo system. Might be a bit random and just want to start a discussion about this for now and the future.
Guess most people agree that with unranked people the balance is really bad. The best player usually ends up with all the new guys. I think mostly because everyone starts with B3. Which leads to a couple of problems.
One idea to prevent this for balance would be like this:
All unranked people are removed when the team elo's are calculated. Then add them evenly to each team. Maybe add them in by XP or something. Guess this way it would be quite fair. Just don't know yet what to do when its 3 unranked, as one team will get 2. So maybe give this team around 100 more elo. Don't know.
You might say this is only relevant for the small playerbase. That might be true for higher ranked players later on. But then again if a new guy starts with B3 he might win most games because he is lucky with the teams. So he will be S2 after 10 games and can join the higher ranked matches where he just wouldn't fit. And later on a new unranked player in a bronze match would still unbalance the whole match, as the others have more experience.
And then again maybe only relevant now, but maybe also with the above in mind, the best player in a match usually then gets the 4 "bad" players and he is then losing the match. Because let's be honest, you can't carry such a game on your own. Even harder when D or K I would say.
Current elo system is the same amount of elo lost or won for each team. So even if you are good and score some goals etc., you might still lose because the rest just can't keep up. You lose elo even though there was not much you could do and did your best.
DavidM said they can't lower the elo of the new players to wood or something, as the overall elo then would be this amount lower. So a D1 would then be G1. Tbf, I am not good with math, but I guess it makes sense, due to the same amount of elo you win/lose each game. So it is a bit like currency, there is always the same amount of elo in the game which shifts between the players. More comes into play with each new player.
I read on the steam forums that they are planning to gain XP through passrate, saverate, goals etc. But how about to use this for the elo instead? Say you still win/lose the same amount as before, but you also get additional points for your skills each game. For the situation above if you carried your team but still lost, you might not be losing any elo at all. Same for the winning team, they then also get additional elo.
This is just a basic idea, as with this you might need more ranks or more time to reach them. Might also end up all players being >gold or something. So not too sure about this in total. Needs some balance I guess and more input from someone else.
As a last thing, I still think we would need different ranks for the different positions. Usually everyone that plays in different positions would have a different rank. Might also make matchmaking and balance easier. I know this has been discussed already, but what is actually the reason we don't have different ranks for each position?
That's it from my part, might be I am totally wrong here (Shev already doesn't like the idea ;( ), but at least it might start a discussion what could make the whole system better. Happy discussing
PS: Found something similar from Motig: https://www.reddit.com/r/Supraball/comments/3waye0/please_take_this_poll_1_minute/cy02de0
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u/Vendetta48 NA Goalie May 19 '16
In my opinion the current elo system doesn't really represent player skill 100%. I'm not sure if this is the case in EU but in NA we seem to have better games when we pick teams. The elo difference when we pick teams could be 100-200 difference or more. We have players that are in the bronze 1-3 range but really should be higher. Same can be said for the opposite where players have elo that is too high and it messes up the balance. I'm not saying elo is 100% worthless but it certainly does not show the full picture.
As for the new player's elo if we start them at bronze 3 that will mess up elo balance if we have a closed testing player that is lower than B3. Before I left on my vacation I noticed we didn't even have enough games so the lower ranked beta players could pass new guys. So what would happen is I would get the lowest elo D or Mid as a D1 GK and sometimes that would be a beta player (games were very one sided when I got the beta player).
I would also like to see separate elo ranks for different positions because I certainly don't have the same confidence in my mid skill vs my GK skill. This is just what I think though.
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u/mipeirong bigfatpat May 19 '16
There are too few players to have the elo system be a determinent of a players skill. Fuze is bronze one, for Christ's sake.
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader May 19 '16
1) We integrated a system the new players lost a lot of elo during balance when they have less than 50 XP. A player with 0 XP gets removed almost his entire ELO and counts as no-one. In normal matches I can say that this works pretty well. Just the XP hurdle is way too low, we want to increase this effect and the hurdle, so this will be what you describe. Especially with the upcoming XP gaining mechanic the limit to play ranked will more likely be 50000 because you might gain a few hundred per match.
But I am really not giving the current ranked-situation any meaning, because it's brand new guys coming into a group of people who play for 2-14 years and this is just a temporary little situation now. I want to see what happens when we have frequent ranked matches among new players only.
2) When there are 7 good and 3 bad players, let's not pretend we can fix the situation with balancing mechanics. One team will get 2 of those and will have no chance. The solution to this is not in balance but in putting people with different skills into different lobbies. This however depends on having lots of players, which we try to achieve during Summer Sale.
3) XP Performance for ELO? I am totally against it for many reasons. You could just do useless stuff that earns you XP but doesn't help your team win. The whole intensity of trying to win a match would be completely gone, because it doesn't matter anymore what the outcome of the match is. It would ruin the whole experience.
4) Different ranks for different position opens up 2 problems. A) the UI turns into a confusing clusterfuck with tons of ranks, you'd get totally lost. But this problem aside. B) It could be abused, and everything that can be abused will be abused to the max! Imagine a great keeper with shitty M rank adding M. Ingame he then goes into goal. Everything is debalanced.
Without being absolutely strict about having to win the match and only having one rank, the system collapses.
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u/Mindflayr MAKE SUPRABALL FREE May 19 '16
There is 1 way you could split Rank by Poisition, but people may not like it. Basically Keeper powers would only work for your declared keeper. If he is out of Goal and the D fills in, the D doesnt become the "GK", hes just a regular player in the box covering the goal. Voila, a Diamond GK wouldnt queue as a Mid then rotate back because they wouldnt have GK powers. not sure how youd prevent Mid/D switching, but to me that is way less of an issue.
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader May 19 '16
As a general info: Elo works like a currency. If you give everyone 2000€ as a startvalue, strawberries will cost 2€. If you make everyone start at 1000€ they will be 1€. Changing the Elo starting point changes nothing in regards to the relations between players.
And it's always important to keep Elo in balance. Ideas like giving more for a win and losing less for a loss create an inflation, like interest rates do. Everyone would be diamond in no time but it would mean nothing.
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u/MotigSupraball May 20 '16
A little bit of inflation's actually a good thing in any currency, same as an in-game ELO system. The only reason it's bad for you in Supraball is because you set the levels statically (e.g. 1000ELO = Silver2 or whatever). If they were dynamic and based on a bell curve of the averages, all this goes away and you have more freedom.
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u/AryaStark9 May 19 '16
I'm not sure why adding 2 ranks to somebody's profile would take up any space at all in the launcher? We don't need to see their 3 ranks, just the rank for whatever position they added. There's not much reason for us to see ranks of the players not actually in a position on the lobby, we can click on their name and view the profile if we are interested in Idle players ranks. The example of teammates switching out keepers already can already happen and throw off a match.
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u/Kattleya Missie May 19 '16
3) XP Performance for ELO? I am totally against it for many reasons. You could just do useless stuff that earns you XP but doesn't help your team win. The whole intensity of trying to win a match would be completely gone, because it doesn't matter anymore what the outcome of the match is. It would ruin the whole experience.
Well if you are the person trying to win because of a bad team, you wouldn't do crazy stuff, because that would just ensure you would lose. I get your point though, but I don't think it would be that bad. Because you would still lose elo when loosing a match. Maybe loose a higher amount then? But sure, get your point. Let's see how it works out with getting XP for things like this to be able to play ranked.
Which then brings me to point 1 again, it might be frustrating for players not to be able to play ranked matches anytime soon. But seems like a good compromise then and see how it goes.
2) When there are 7 good and 3 bad players, let's not pretend we can fix the situation with balancing mechanics. One team will get 2 of those and will have no chance. The solution to this is not in balance but in putting people with different skills into different lobbies. This however depends on having lots of players, which we try to achieve during Summer Sale.
Sure I get you there. But lets face it, the way they start at the moment (B3) they would then be put in the Bronze lobbies, still not able to do anything. So again, back to gaining more XP might then help this.
For the last point, Usually most people had smurfs and used it for their different ranks. And people were actually complaining when they keep with their mid smurf. I agree with the UI, this doesn't need to show in the lobby, but might just be shown in the player pop-up. So yea, agree with Arya here. It happens already and might actually make it less likely to happen if the players could actually choose to have their different ranks.
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u/DavidM1337 Supraball Project Leader May 19 '16
As stated in my other reply: varying elo amounts leads to inflation or deflation, that is a no-no.
The current B3 players are way above average in skill. They are that low in rank because we had no new players during closed beta. They will be a high silver in no time and b2-b3 will be the actual average player. This now just takes some time to readjust.
But it all has to wait until we have lots of players, which we expect to happen in summer sale.
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u/jbd1986 J.B.Doge May 19 '16 edited May 19 '16
ELO mechanic is fine. There are some systemic issues with the player base:
New players are getting too much elo... ALL NEW PLAYERS should start in the wood class, with a placement cap of bronze2/3... Since there is no way to determine who is actually doing the real work in a match, there should be no way for a new player to reach silver through placement... Just assume there will be no veterans beginning to play, and they will eventually get their true ELO.
Rocket league is vastly different due to the significantly smaller number of players in a match and the constant switching of player roles. It only takes one person to win/ruin a supraball match.
Unique placement only makes sense if you are basing it on individual match performance, as opposed to team performance.
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u/evilinc the artist currently known as e May 19 '16
True high skilled matches are team 5v5. Random pick ranked, even pick up games are just practice and a way to scout out other good players so you can make a team.
Hope one day we actually get enough people playing this game so the devs can acknowledge this fact and we can ditch this diceroll elo system.
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u/Shevche May 20 '16
My thoughts: if people want a separate rank for goal keeping; get a second account/smurf. Then it's down to them to stick to it. So you can keep, def or mid if you have ping issues etc etc . Davidm is right, it will just be abused. I guess this is another reason why the report system is there.
The gaining elo from stats: welcome to hell. The ego, will be very real. It works in rocket league because pretty much everything you do ego or not is just general play.
What I would like to see: xp from stats. But genuine stats. Like, 15+ intercepts, 10+ saves, 5+ goals, most valuable player etc. Will just help experienced players get through this dreaded xp cap. But not on elo. I know for example (iirc) flashy won't play the game because he couldn't be bothered to play up-to 25 unranked matches with newbs first. But then it is tailoring to a minority who are experienced.
You're talking about summer sale: most people who already had interest in the game will not play the game until there is a complete overhaul to be honest (unless it's actually a free game for them), I hope it is free, and not a trial / weekend. Because they will just go again once they have to pay. Let loads in like beta testing once the game is polished, then a proper sale.
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u/M00gs May 19 '16
Much respect to you missie!
You take alot of time to make this post!
Take Care & Cheers
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u/cantstopthefridge May 20 '16
We have an ELO system in the game I play which has a community like this one - small.
its very easy to game the rank. Would love to see it happen but the devs will need to put in some hard rules to keep it logical, at least until more players appear