Derfel
Ronin Warlock
Did I Do That?
Troublemaker
Posts: 283
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Post by Derfel on Oct 23, 2007 22:07:11 GMT -5
Partly based on feeling, partly based on a quick glance at the "age" poll that was posted earlier. I will say that my "feeling" was based on the total number of Warlocks included on the inactive list, including those that joined, played one game and then left.
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Post by Slartucker on Oct 23, 2007 23:01:16 GMT -5
E -- if the "compulsory sorry" email address, which made me chuckle, is outdated, that would explain it.
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Post by ExDeath on Oct 24, 2007 1:34:01 GMT -5
Eh, it's recent, but hotmail tends to be bad at picking which e-mails to block and which to allow. Plus there's so much spam even in what it does allow, I barely have time to sift through it.
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Post by xade on Oct 24, 2007 2:07:42 GMT -5
*pats gmail filter* awww, I love gmail. It's filter rarely lets me down...
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morzas
Ronin Warlock
Posts: 30
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Post by morzas on Oct 24, 2007 11:07:50 GMT -5
"ELO decay" would at least force innovation, would it not? Perhaps. It would also force high-rated players to stay in the game when they don't want to, which seems like a very bad thing. If they don't want to be in the game, then they shouldn't care about rating.
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Post by ExDeath on Oct 24, 2007 11:30:09 GMT -5
Perhaps. It would also force high-rated players to stay in the game when they don't want to, which seems like a very bad thing. If they don't want to be in the game, then they shouldn't care about rating. Won't they care when they come back? If anything, it's unfair to their opponents, who end up losing more Elo than they should/gaining less than they should once the inactive player comes back at a lower rating. It defeats the purpose of the system.
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Post by Slartucker on Oct 24, 2007 11:30:32 GMT -5
It would cause a major glut of ELO upsets, though. A lot of top players have had a habit of coming and going. (Arguably, this is related and not just correlated to their being top players; coming and going allows you to avoid stagnation and bring in insight from other activities.) Taliesin's taken an extended sabbatical and returned twice, myself thrice, Yaron twice, ExDeath twice I think, Tchichi at least three or four times, Zuzgwang once. And of course Justix encountered this exact situation once already. The only 1900+ players I can think of who haven't had a long absence are Toyo and Rycchus. And lots of 1800+ players have come and gone as well. How many people here would be comfortable playing rated games against a 1500 Taliesin?
I think it's worth taking a step back and asking: What is the purpose of a rating?
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Post by Rycchus on Oct 24, 2007 12:49:35 GMT -5
I had an absence of 3 months or so when I was inhibited by the Great Firewall of China. Longest I've been away though. This is exactly what I was saying several pages ago. The major flaw in the decay plan (ignoring the fairness/unfairness for the moment) is the Masters coming back and kicking everyone's asses. I seriously disagree with players (especially high up players) having low-ELO alts for exactly the same reason - their displayed ELO will not accurately reflect their real playing ability and people who play them will be unfairly penalised (or not given enough credit) for doing so. Perhaps if you're worried about people "sitting on their scores", they can Decay if they log in without playing games for a couple of months, or something. Edit: Or, hey, why doesn't one of you lot (Slarty, ExDeath, Taliesin) create a new alias and go round playing everyone who's promoting ELO-decay and see if they change their minds?
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Post by nawglan on Oct 24, 2007 13:45:25 GMT -5
Even if a past master did come back at 1500, how long would it take for their ELO to reflect their skill? Wouldn't take long for them to get to 1700, little longer past that due to stagnation of players above that ELO rating.
Honestly, I think that the ELO rating system has done more to stagnate play than anything else.
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Post by Rycchus on Oct 24, 2007 14:55:42 GMT -5
Yeah, if they were playing players about 200 ELO above themselves then they would take about 10 games or so to get up to 1500. How many 1700+ players do you really think would want to sacrifice 20 ELO per game to finance the re-rise of a master? Look at the fuss DeathEx and Spacca kicked up. This fuss isn't likely to be diminished simply because there are more of them at it.
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taliesin
Ronin Warlock
Grand Master
Posts: 156
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Post by taliesin on Oct 24, 2007 20:03:15 GMT -5
Honestly, I think that the ELO rating system has done more to stagnate play than anything else. This seems an absurd position by any measure. What do you mean by "stagnate play"? If you mean that tactical innovation has been affected, you're going to have to explain how. From my perspective, the greatest strides forward in that regard have occurred subsequent to the ELO system and largely because it forced the top players to confront each other more often. If you mean that players play each other less... no, not at all. Don't you remember the pre-ELO days? I do. Friendlies were pretty meaningless. People mostly played ladder, or Very Friendly. ELO gave them a reason to play one another seriously, for points, outside ladder matches. It was a bonus. Top players were always cagey about ladder matches. A lot rode on them. It's stressful fighting to be on top. Friendlies can get almost as stressful when you're fighting for high ELO, but they do provide another avenue to strive for the top spot. The "Golden Age", where the Masters battled tooth and nail for both the top of the ladder and the ELO charts was largely possible because ELO mattered and there were two kinds of fights going on at once. It was the least "stagnant" period in Warlocks history. It would have been a lot less interesting if being out of the running on the Ladder put you out of the running period. What I suspect you mean is "the top two Warlocks aren't playing ELO matches! I blame the ELO system!" In fact, at least one of them is accepting Ladder matches, which is all you'd have had in the pre-ELO days. Both have accepted Very Friendlies in the fairly recent past. People aren't challenging because, as has frequently been the case in Warlocks history, few people are in a high enough position to do so and the match would be tough enough for those who are high enough that they'd like to feel fully ready first. This isn't new. This has been the case with the top of the ladder for a long time. Stagnant? Not at all. Tense at the top? Absolutely.
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Post by Slartucker on Oct 24, 2007 22:14:05 GMT -5
Taliesin put it quite well. The implementation of Elo coincides neatly with the rise of real strategy in Warlocks.
I began playing in the period after that one, the Winter, when the LADDER was stagnant. Tchichi at an unreachable 24, a small group of players around 10-15 led by Larry. Elo was my chief measuring-stick in that formative era as I learned and grew. I used it to track my progress, as I shot up quickly to 1800, then to 1890, then fell back to 1750, then slowly grew to 1900 and then to 2000. I don't know how interested I'd have been, during those dark months with no strategic community, if not for Elo.
I don't think I've heard anyone complain who has an Elo above 1800; correct me if I'm wrong. Frankly, I never accepted Friendlies from players much lower than that anyway. The .9 surrender factor in RB's implementation of Elo results in a stilted weighting that is very noticeable with an Elo difference upwards of 250. I've always asked for VFs instead at such a gap. Even RavenBlack states something similar -- nay, more extreme -- in his profile.
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Post by nawglan on Oct 25, 2007 8:28:18 GMT -5
hey, I was just posting my feelings to the game. What I do see is that the higher ELO players refuse to play us inferior players due to fear of us getting lucky. Yes, I consider myself inferior to those that are 1750+. And, apart from Very Friendly matches (which the 1750+ players do NOT take seriously, do NOT play to the fullness of their ability, etc.) I have very few players with which to better myself. The players 1750+ typically do not post open matches, and typically only accept matches if they are guaranteed of a victory.
Is your ELO rating so precious to you that you will refuse to play other players? Is your ELO rating so precious that the fear of losing 20 points means you will not play any future matches? Lack of movement in the ELO system sucks for everybody. Even the lower tier players like myself.
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taliesin
Ronin Warlock
Grand Master
Posts: 156
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Post by taliesin on Oct 25, 2007 9:32:21 GMT -5
You're talking about something that isn't ELO's fault.
Before ELO, people played VFs as much as they do now, and with as much concentration as they do now, and they played Ladder seriously, but not many people took Friendlies that seriously.
Now, sure, a high-ELO player isn't going to play a serious game against someone they stand to gain nothing off, much as a high-Ladder player wouldn't want to play Ladder if they stood only to lose points and had no prospect of gaining them. This isn't some new problem brought by ELO.
And yes, the players 1750+ often don't post open matches. This isn't because they're afraid of you, or people of similar ELO to you, but because they don't want to face yet another random newbie opening with C/>. I haven't seen an epidemic of people only accepting matches when they're guaranteed victory, though. In fact, I see people playing known alts like Sasuke in ELO games, even though they're obviously desperately underrated; I see people playing returning players like Justix, and losing ELO to them, or very quick-rising players like awall - if everyone's treating their ELO as something so precious, how could they be making such awful, foolish mistakes?
And there's no real lack of ELO movement. Toyotami's gone from 1900s to 2025 to low 1900s again in the last month or two. Rycchus has shot up to 1911 recently from low 1800s. Freesoul shot up past 1900, and fell again. Spacca's ELO has been gradually climbing over a while. Looking lower down, jes has been everywhere from mid-1600s to the 1800s, and Derfel's gone from low 1600s to 1700s to mid 1600s again. The only really notably constant ELOs high on the chart are ExDeath's and Slarty's, and we've discussed them already.
I'm utterly failing to see the symptoms you're complaining about. Could you explain them in greater detail for me?
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Post by toyotami on Oct 25, 2007 10:00:11 GMT -5
I think i agree with Nawglan...
As one of the only 2000 plus warlocks to play consistently against a wide range of warlocks i can honestly say...your ELO takes a beating.
My 2025 was achieved with 20 odd straight wins.
from then on it took about 1 loss in 6 games against opponents ranging from ELO 1700-190 to fall 100 odd points. It's a pain but at the top of my game i strung together 20 wins. It felt great.
Exdeath can beat every warlock almost all the time. When that loss comes (and it hasnt for a long time) he would prefer it to be from a source that sapped 10 ELO rather than 20 (10 ELO when you are that high is like 5 tough wins)...forgive my unmathematical generalization.
It comes down to which warlock are you? Are you a perfectionist, feather touch rapier style killer or a bloodthirsty barbarian.
Me...with my death count...d**n...i'm covered in blood.
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