Implementing Elo Rating for Team Games and Individual Matches

IMPORTANT EDIT: LEAVE NEW PLAYERS UNRATED UNTIL RANK 6 )Just trust me on this one) You can't really use all the game features before rank 6, since lacks upgrades. + New players would be discouraged, however, anyone who has stayed long enough to reach rang 6 would find the ratings useful and encouraging.


(Reposting simpler version, team and 1vs1 oriented because I was requested to do so by quite a few non-Empire SRB players.)

If both players have the same rating the probability of winning for each player is 0.5 (50/50). As the difference in rating changes, the expected win/loss probability approaches (but never reaches for convenience) zero and one for the less skilled and the more skilled player respectively.

The rating is calculated with this formula:

http://www.chess-mind.com/en/elo-system




For Team games:

Since people prefer to work in teams regardless of the risks they take, I think it is best to separate team ratings from individual game ratings.

>Register a team (Different from coalition)
>Separate teams in 2vs2, 3vs3 and, if you want 4vs4 teams.
>Have Coalition ratings, individual rating average and performance rating (the latter has the flaw of not including everyone in but rather who has ever played in a CW)

The Free for all system of the original thread has been discarded for this much simpler, team performance based rating

I suggest teams start at 1200 instead of the usual 1450 to prevent inflation.

Farewell

Why elo system again?

Now that we have a nice new system to rate the coalitions it would just make sense to use the exact same system to rate 2on2 team games.
That should be close enough to rate 'individual performance' and everything else fits and is easy to understand.

Nice new cln system where ULAP is higher than BiteMe etc

This would be most awesome. An individual ELO score for each player which changes according to his performance in 1vs1 games. It can't be that hard to implement, just whenever you set a game on 2-players a additional box appears which you click to enable 'ranked-game'. If you do so, after the game Afterwind calculates the new score. It doesn't have to effect neither duels nor earned SP and you don't have to play rated games at all. Just don't select the option in the beginning of a game.

To crown it all, ranked team-games. You create a team with one or two friends (like a cln) and play games to increase your team-ELO-score.

Kirjutas VRIL, 24.02.2012 at 13:56

Why elo system again?

Now that we have a nice new system to rate the coalitions it would just make sense to use the exact same system to rate 2on2 team games.
That should be close enough to rate 'individual performance' and everything else fits and is easy to understand.

I don't see any problem with the understanding of ELO. It is well known, it works for chess and will work for 1vs1 and team-games. The formula is easy to implement and it fits into the standard, since the most top-games use it as well.

100% support. Would make the game so much more interesting.

I don't get the formula. Can someone tell me what it means? I never learned how to read those.

You don't need the formula. Just look at the results and it will make sense.

As for starting at 1200... is it possible to set it at 1000? That was always jarring to me because 1200 is a butt-ugly number in every single way possible. It would look jarring to someone who didn't know what ELO is. So how about that eh?

Kirjutas Deray YG, 24.02.2012 at 14:55

I don't get the formula. Can someone tell me what it means? I never learned how to read those.

I will just explain every variable and its effect:


K is the game importance. It depends on the player's current rating. It's set lower for higher ratings and since it's a coefficient it increases the earned points for two lower rated players facing each other.

S is the score. You can either win (S=1), lose (S=0) or the game is a draw, which won't happen in AW though. If you win you will earn points, if you lose you will lose some, this is caused by this addend since the following subtrahend is always higher than zero.

D is the score difference and F is set to 400. The bigger the difference between player's scores, the easier is it to gain or lose points. If the score difference is bigger than 400, 400 is used instead of the real difference.

Also this form is probably easier to understand: Earned points=K*(S-1/(1+10^(PlayerB-PlayerA)/400))

To make it short: If you play against a player with a higher score you get more/win less points as if you beat somebody with a lower score.
You won't fall below a certain score even if you lose every game and the good players earn very little points for their wins, so the score won't rise infinitely.

Kirjutas YOBA, 24.02.2012 at 15:20

You don't need the formula. Just look at the results and it will make sense.

As for starting at 1200... is it possible to set it at 1000? That was always jarring to me because 1200 is a butt-ugly number in every single way possible. It would look jarring to someone who didn't know what ELO is. So how about that eh?

It's possible but you have to adjust some other factors as well.

I support it, ELO is 5/5.

Kirjutas Guest, 24.02.2012 at 14:46

just whenever you set a game on 2-players a additional box appears which you click to enable 'ranked-game'. If you do so, after the game Afterwind calculates the new score. It doesn't have to effect neither duels nor earned SP and you don't have to play rated games at all. Just don't select the option in the beginning of a game.

This, it would be a good addition to competitive players, and casual players wouldn't be forced to play it. It would work very well, I believe.
Also, I would like to see 1v1 ELO first, so that we see how does it work etc. and if it proves good than team ELO games would enrich it even more.

Thx cow

Kirjutas Caulerpa, 24.02.2012 at 16:40

Kirjutas Guest, 24.02.2012 at 14:46

just whenever you set a game on 2-players a additional box appears which you click to enable 'ranked-game'. If you do so, after the game Afterwind calculates the new score. It doesn't have to effect neither duels nor earned SP and you don't have to play rated games at all. Just don't select the option in the beginning of a game.

This, it would be a good addition to competitive players, and casual players wouldn't be forced to play it. It would work very well, I believe.
Also, I would like to see 1v1 ELO first, so that we see how does it work etc. and if it proves good than team ELO games would enrich it even more.

YES ^^

Good idea! The stastistics at the moment have a rating based (mostly) on playtime, not on skill. This will add a more competition to the game. However, it can't be used in normal public games, but you can add it in all teamgames (also the 1v1 games). This will give you a choice of playing with or without it (just added to teamgames only). It will give a better view of a players skill. Also, i would like to add that leaving a game should count as a loss.

Kirjutas Hugosch, 25.02.2012 at 18:19

[...] However, it can't be used in normal public games, but you can add it in all teamgames (also the 1v1 games). This will give you a choice of playing with or without it (just added to teamgames only). It will give a better view of a players skill. Also, i would like to add that leaving a game should count as a loss.

I like your idea. Though I think it should only be implemented for 1vs1 first, as already suggested, since this is probably easier.

I support this completely and it needs to be a top priority.

I do see an issue arising with lack of activity for ELO rated games. It seems to me like it will be treated just like the duel feature already in place, as in it will be pretty much ignored due to people refusing to play one another. In my opinion, all 1vs1s should be ELO rated and you should have to check a box to have them NOT rated. This may make the idea of having ranked games more standard. (You should still receive a notification before you start the game that it is in fact a ranked game)

Yes, both parties have to agree on ranked match to start the game.

I agree with idea too, making ranked games would be great improvement of the game.

I really like the Elo Rating and rated 1v1 system because it can really put a big boost on people playing this game and after they will want to get premium giving AW a lot more funds!!!!!

I support this. Elo is 5/5.

Yeah, implementing this would improve the game vastly. been getting pretty boring lately, please do something to spice it up

This.

How exactly is this different from the duel system that we have now? Is this basically the same thing, just that the score coefficient will be calculated not based on the current SP, but on the SP earned from all the previous duels? And that score will start from 1000 (or 1200). Because for us it would be so much easier to just update the current duel system.

Kirjutas Amok, 01.03.2012 at 11:50

How exactly is this different from the duel system that we have now? Is this basically the same thing, just that the score coefficient will be calculated not based on the current SP, but on the SP earned from all the previous duels? And that score will start from 1000 (or 1200). Because for us it would be so much easier to just update the current duel system.

because duels are just duels, the elo system is your ranking against every other player in game.

Kirjutas nonames, 01.03.2012 at 12:59

Kirjutas Amok, 01.03.2012 at 11:50

How exactly is this different from the duel system that we have now? Is this basically the same thing, just that the score coefficient will be calculated not based on the current SP, but on the SP earned from all the previous duels? And that score will start from 1000 (or 1200). Because for us it would be so much easier to just update the current duel system.

because duels are just duels, the elo system is your ranking against every other player in game.

Exactly what Arb said, Amok.
Elo is kind of an overall ranking which reflects your skills relating to the remaining community, while the current duel-system is just depending on one's rank (SP) instead of comparing player's real skill (Elo-number).
I can see how Elo is more work to implement, but since the most online players are already familiar with it I'm sure that it would be a significant improvement.

As an important side note: In the most popular multiplayer games the enemy players/teams do not know who they will fight when they sign it. Their enemies' rankings will be close to their own in most cases though. This is used to prevent farming and players refusing matches (ofc it is still possible in some ways (signing in at the same time).
This is what I would like to see for AW most, but since I know about Afterwind as an side project and I'm not a programmer myself I don't know if this is actually viable in a suitable amount of time. But even the simpler version of Elo, as suggested in the upper part of this thread, is vastly superior to the current duel-system.

Kirjutas Amok, 01.03.2012 at 11:50

How exactly is this different from the duel system that we have now? Is this basically the same thing, just that the score coefficient will be calculated not based on the current SP, but on the SP earned from all the previous duels? And that score will start from 1000 (or 1200). Because for us it would be so much easier to just update the current duel system.

Because it's artificially inflated

SP is accumulative and based on how much you have gathered on previous games. For example, a rank 8 with no duels ever played would lose around 300 SP to a rank 4.

The way duels are played in 1vs1 games is also a problem, since they can be cheated on by attacking first turn and can't be arranged before the start of the game.

It is possible to change the duel system, however, it is better to leave it like this since it shows how well one has done against certain opponent. Meanwhile rating is a player's overall performance. This would protect a player that (fictional examples here) would be very good 1vs1 player, but will lose against certain Blitzkrieg player, despite that person's performance being overall worse than his. Of course, he would lose more rating points vs this player, but his overall rating balances with time and tends to oscillate around an interval of 70 (chess player here).

Another concern is that we actually want to register teams different from coalition (i.e. Lucius Caluerpa 2vs2 team, SuperiorCacaocow, Himmler, Sixstars 3vs3) and have a rating according to each team's performance. These type of ratings are the most reliable considering the amount of random factors affecting a game and a player in a 1vs1 match, a whole team's performance is the best clue of ability.

By giving this possibility to teams we also diminish any unnecessary competitiveness.

Related things:

- Possibility to disable first turn attacks.

- Player's rating in profile.

- Current teams (max 2) and each team's ratings.

This might also diminish the cln rivalry for a less stressing competition

I support this idea 100%. At this point, for many high ranks, there is no motivational system/upgrades/competition except maybe for those who play it for fun and for fun only which is fine also. However, the grand majority of high ranks prefer competition, point systems, personal ratings and achievements for instance. The ELO rating system would be a perfect addition to afterwind's oldest and most loyal members of the community. It would certainly give them a reason to stay for long times coming.

About the current duel system. It is not as in depth as ELO. The duel system only evaluates one's performance in one game while the elo gives an overall rating through all games. It dictates one's overall performance in comparison to others all at once. Instead of player 1 beating player 2 in a duel yet player 1 lost to player 3 who lost to player 2 for example (try to keep up)

I totally support this idea.