In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation
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I don't want to throw anyone under the bus so I won't give any names, but I have heard from multiple (other) people that they don't want to play tournaments, because of the impact on their global rating it has. This is especially true for players who are not 2k+ and rating is actually super relevant for them to even get into games. If you think rating doesn't matter, then I guess you might want to try playing all welcome games? Or perhaps you'd like to give the random unbalanced setting a shot?
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As swkoll said its easier for us if they are ranked, I dont mind either way as long as people accurate tell us their scores.
If there could be a Win/loss/draw visible even when unranked it would be perfect.
This is a matter being discussed to be covered in the upcoming FAF Official Tournaments rules -
@blodir said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
@ftxcommando said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
Also you gain more rating with less players because the system has more confidence you are the result of the victory. It’s the same reason uncertainty levels out at a different level in ladder vs a pure dual gap player when you compare sigmas.
Wasn’t nexus like 2500 or so and grimplex like 2200-2300? That means in a BO5 the expected result would be either 3-2 or 4-1 in favor of Nexus since a 250 mu discrepancy is a 75% win chance. Since grimplex won his BO3 2-1, you’d expect the deviations to close quickly.
Likewise if you hosted teamgames with that rating difference and the expected losers won, you would see a comparative swap in rating. There is nothing wrong with that, that’s just how trueskill works.
Perhaps you missed the part of the post where I mentioned that on ladder with a similar points difference it's only +15 for a win (rather than +30)? Why the difference between ladder and custom 1v1?
It’s what I said. If your last 300 games are purely 5v5+, then you maintain a high sigma value. This is a result of FAF adjusting tau values after complaints about rating taking forever to adjust (and IMO was a good change and one I have tried to advocate other communities like BAR to do). Ladder has a lower sigma value in general because it’s a pure 1v1 environment so the system is more absolute about how settled a person’s rating is.
Sigma = ur general uncertainty
Tau = the level of “stabilized uncertainty” you want people to be at once the system is “confident” of their placement. It basically controls how volatile rating jumps are. -
@blodir said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
I don't want to throw anyone under the bus so I won't give any names, but I have heard from multiple (other) people that they don't want to play tournaments, because of the impact on their global rating it has. This is especially true for players who are not 2k+ and rating is actually super relevant for them to even get into games. If you think rating doesn't matter, then I guess you might want to try playing all welcome games? Or perhaps you'd like to give the random unbalanced setting a shot?
You can literally entirely reverse this logic. Anybody that is currently 1600 or higher in skill level can immediately become 2200 by farming all welcome games if they care that much about getting into lobbies.
People should take the games as learning experiences, when mid tier players try to actually get better and learn and lose rating from it they don’t get kicked much at all unless it’s an intentionally smaller game and better players joined. In which case, their rating is kinda irrelevant since in those high rated lobbies, everyone knows who can hold their rating and who can’t already.
The way I always operated with tournies is that default is ranked, if both players want to play unranked then by all means. But we got four groups:
- The guys that want to unrank because they enjoy being low ranked in global even though they got decent ladder/2v2/whatever
- The guys that want to unrank because they want to be 2600 even though they are 2200 in ladder/2v2/whatever
- The guys that want to rank because they want to lose global rating and have more chill games
- The guys that want to rank because they see it as a way to get into the lobbies you describe/prestige/whatever.
Why is group B the most important?
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@ftxcommando said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
@blodir said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
I don't want to throw anyone under the bus so I won't give any names, but I have heard from multiple (other) people that they don't want to play tournaments, because of the impact on their global rating it has. This is especially true for players who are not 2k+ and rating is actually super relevant for them to even get into games. If you think rating doesn't matter, then I guess you might want to try playing all welcome games? Or perhaps you'd like to give the random unbalanced setting a shot?
You can literally entirely reverse this logic. Anybody that is currently 1600 or higher in skill level can immediately become 2200 by farming all welcome games if they care that much about getting into lobbies.
People should take the games as learning experiences, when mid tier players try to actually get better and learn and lose rating from it they don’t get kicked much at all unless it’s an intentionally smaller game and better players joined. In which case, their rating is kinda irrelevant since in those high rated lobbies, everyone knows who can hold their rating and who can’t already.
The way I always operated with tournies is that default is ranked, if both players want to play unranked then by all means. But we got four groups:
- The guys that want to unrank because they enjoy being low ranked in global even though they got decent ladder/2v2/whatever
- The guys that want to unrank because they want to be 2600 even though they are 2200 in ladder/2v2/whatever
- The guys that want to rank because they want to lose global rating and have more chill games
- The guys that want to rank because they see it as a way to get into the lobbies you describe/prestige/whatever.
Why is group B the most important?
I described the reasons in the original post. Global is used for teamgames (including balancing them), not 1v1. While 1v1 and teamgames are related, they are not at all the same. We have no shortage of great teamgames players who aren't as experienced in 1v1 and do not perform at their rating level in 1v1. There are 45 1800+ players online right now, out of these players only swkoll, harzer, blast, dro, pepsi, banani and shen have a comparable 1v1 rating to their global rating (within about 150 rating points). That's 7/45. And yes, I've been in the remaining group of 38 teamgamer champions so far in 2022 too. Seriously, it's ok to be a teamgame player. It's ok to be a gapper or astro enjoyer too.
--> any reason that has to do with "I want to raise/lower my rating through tournaments" is the very definition of rating manipulation. Seeing as their tournament performance doesn't reflect their performance in the games that global rating is used for. This response also goes for maudlin's reply. I get that there's a problem with returning players, but trying to "fix" rating through manipulation is not the way.
I don't know what exactly is the best way to fix the system (no small amount due to not having read the paper on trueskill), so I can only talk about the problems, not really on how to fix them. That being said, it seems like there's an assumption in the system that 1v1 and teamgames are comparable ie. 1v1 performance gives a good description of teamgame performance, which might be true for shooter games (idk I don't play them), but it is not true for supcom.
Just to give you an example, can you imagine Foley (2400 global, 1500 ladder) playing a series of 1v1 matches vs a 2k ladder player. Then you get that newly birthed 2400 ladder guy in a teamgame air spot and he gets brutally dominated by now 2k rated Foley. Maybe you feel like it's justified that finally the ladder champions get the recognition they deserve or whatever, but in reality nobody's experience is improved.
I mean I'm sorry to say this guys, but I'd take Foley in a 5v5 mapgen any day over you guys (swkoll 2.2k ladder, noc 1.8k ladder, ftx, srry idk your rating), so I'm really glad he hasn't got any bright ideas about playing any 1v1 tournys recently.
As for making TD job harder (or any replay viewer for that matter), I think this is the only solid argument. The only real fix is that there should be win/loss/draw indicator. However:
- there's no problem in terms of verifying results. Even if someone falsified results they would be found out and permabanned from tournys for wasting whatever few minutes it took for the TD to 10x through replays in case of conflict in player statements
- the issue of seeing which game in a series was a win/loss doesn't matter for TDing, only for replay viewing and maybe for casting if the casters have downtime and want to look back. This is a legit issue for sure though
- I would argue that the legit part of the issue is outweighed by the downsides of 1. people being disincentivized to play tournaments and 2. general experience of people playing custom games
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That’s how it always goes. I will absurdly dominate Foley in normal teamgames. Foley will absurdly dominate me in sentons. Which one of us wins the 1v1 tourney? Who knows? Which one of these three deserves to be unranked? There is no rational reason for any, really.
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@ftxcommando said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
That’s how it always goes. I will absurdly dominate Foley in normal teamgames. Foley will absurdly dominate me in sentons. Which one of us wins the 1v1 tourney? Who knows? Which one of these three deserves to be unranked? There is no rational reason for any, really.
I don't want to make this about you vs Foley so I won't say any more, but I definitely do not agree with your assesment.
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@blodir said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
I don't want to throw anyone under the bus so I won't give any names, but I have heard from multiple (other) people that they don't want to play tournaments, because of the impact on their global rating it has. This is especially true for players who are not 2k+ and rating is actually super relevant for them to even get into games.
Rating for players under 2k is not exactly super relevant to get into games. 90%+ of high lvl teamgames ppl know eachother and if they are competent enough to play.
If it is a very high rated 2k+ ish lobby rating isnt the main thing to look at to balance it but skill is since once again everyone knows eachother.
Aside from that if youre under 2k u tend to fight people in tourneys that are equally or higher rated than you which means even if u get 4-0d youd only lose 50 rating or so.
Due to rng in teamgames its extremely common to balance from like -150 to 150 rating compared to ur average, so a drop of 50 rating is extremely common.
All in all it seems like an extremely niche thing that isnt really that harmfull that only very few ppl care about (since ive never heard about it) which imo more of an issue in their minds than a real issue.
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Kinda sounds to me like 1v1 tourneys should use 1v1 ladder rating for entrance barriers and as rating system ingame, without global ever being involved in any way in 1v1 tourneys.
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@katharsas
When hosting 1v1 Tournaments we do use ladder rating as the entrance barrier.
The issue is we have to host all the matches for these tournies as custom matches which means they affect global rating not ladder rating. -
@blodir said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
--> any reason that has to do with "I want to raise/lower my rating through tournaments" is the very definition of rating manipulation. Seeing as their tournament performance doesn't reflect their performance in the games that global rating is used for. This response also goes for maudlin's reply. I get that there's a problem with returning players, but trying to "fix" rating through manipulation is not the way.
I don't know what exactly is the best way to fix the system (no small amount due to not having read the paper on trueskill), so I can only talk about the problems, not really on how to fix them. That being said, it seems like there's an assumption in the system that 1v1 and teamgames are comparable ie. 1v1 performance gives a good description of teamgame performance, which might be true for shooter games (idk I don't play them), but it is not true for supcom.
This is the fulcrum of it. You have mistake “the point of global rating” with “what I use global rating for.”
At no point in time was global defined as teamgame rating. At no point in time was global defined as map gen rating. At no point in time was global defined as 5v5 rating. That’s the way you use it.
Someone can theoretically only use global to play custom 1v1 games, then a global that only has 1v1 data is accurate. Someone can occasionally play 1v1 games, then a global where it occasionally accounts for 1v1 games is accurate. Someone joins your 5v5 map gen with 1v1 tourney rating, the game will now be inaccurate. You join with your 5v5 map gen rating, the tourney game will now be inaccurate. The only solution is making a rating for every FAF defined “skill zone” which only accommodates half a dozen high rated dudes at best while drastically increasing and prolonging one of the worst parts of FAF for everyone else (being an unknown entity in the rating environment).
Then you may argue that 1v1 weighs more than 5v5, but of course it does. I have won games where I’ve done literally nothing just because my team outclassed my enemy. That cannot happen in 1v1. And if you actually hold factors equal, a 1v1 is likely going to result in something like double the point swing that a teamgame would in the logic of the system. The bigger issue is you cannot hide a 2600 with 1600s against 1800s and a 2200 in a 1v1. It’s easy to hit 95% balance quality or whatever even if you’re 500 rating (read: smth like a 95% win probability) higher than the next best player.
Arguing the 1v1 rating is inaccurate but the 5v5 rating is accurate is also strange when there is also the rationale that the hard part of global is actually rising in rating. Keeping a rating is much easier. Precisely because of the dynamic I said above, it’s just a less extreme version of what Sid is currently doing.
The convo reminds me of the problems Chess has with massive rating discrepancies in their Elo system that FIDE tries to resolve. They first made an addition that caps any rating discrepancy as though there was a 400 rating discrepancy in order to not make it a waste of time for high rated players to play anyone less (this results in .8 points per win). They recently passed a new rule that only lets you utilize this rule once per tournament and beyond that, the games are counted as the original Elo calculation intends, which is essentially a <.01 point gain. That was to stop people artificially increasing Elo against way worse players due to the original rule.
Rather that fuck with 1v1, one can make the entirely different argument to unrank high rating discrepancy teamgames (sorta similar to the situation FIDE found itself in) since 1v1 is closer to an accurate metric of skill in general and the logic of teamgame rating calculations is just derived from the 1v1 system. All rating systems tend to suck when dealing with ridiculous rating range discrepancy, hard for a person to actually win every game except 1 in 300 games against somebody 800ish rating less, particularly due to how humans aren’t programs that stop learning.
Because I feel like some dude is going to point out that I contradict myself by saying that this task of consistently beating 800 rating worse players is hard but gaining rating in teamgames against them is easy, I will reiterate that the problem is you can make a teamgame where the odds of beating them is 50/50 or 60/40 rather than the .3/99.7 of a 1v1.
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Like really isn’t the obvious perspective here to look at where rating problems come from?
No one is going “ok time to manipulate my rating by crushing Swkoll’s invitational EZClap” they are saying “ok time to go host my all welcome game and beat everyone with a min 10 strat rush because they aren’t even tech 2 yet while I also abuse high uncertainty players and general low levels of mu to gain 15 points a game.” Or “time to lose 200 points a game by accidentally dying in theta or winter duel against players with 1k rating.”
Why would you fix the inherently problematic part of the rating implementation by removing the most properly working area in an attempt to legitimize the former?
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No one is going “ok time to manipulate my rating by crushing Swkoll’s invitational EZClap”
Playing these tournaments is the only way I gain rating, I usually gain like 100 rating in these tournies and then slowly lose that rating in teamgames until the next tourney. Unfortunately, this time I accidentally unrated all the games I hosted, so I didn't get that boost
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This is the fulcrum of it. You have mistake “the point of global rating” with “what I use global rating for.”
At no point in time was global defined as teamgame rating. At no point in time was global defined as map gen rating. At no point in time was global defined as 5v5 rating. That’s the way you use it.
This is really dishonest. You know as well as everyone else that everyone uses global for teamgames (not just mapgen like me of course, but astro seton gap and whatever of course...). It's not just the way I use it, it's the way you use it too, as well as just about everyone else. So you start from this premise that "hey theoretically you could think of global as a representation of your 1v1 performance", but literally nobody does and you know it as well as anyone else. Ladder and tournys are used for 1v1 instead. And no matter how many tournys are rated, or how much u shout at gappers to play 1v1, that isn't going to change.
Your next point is something I've already responded to. 1v1 performance simply does not reflect teamgame performance. Playing lots of 5v5 mapgens will get you the best representation of your 5v5 mapgen skill. Playing lots of Setons will get you the best representation of your Setons skill. That's just how it is. This 1v1 argument is starting to get reminiscent of League of Legends players complaining about their teams being bad and being stuck in "Elo hell". "Ahh I'm such a good 1v1 player, but my teams suck they are just bringing me down every time!". Or the reverse "That guy is such a bad 1v1 player, but his team always carries him!". If you're playing opti, chances are the teams are fair when aggregated over a large number of games.
Btw you are clearly targeting me with these "hide a 2600 with 1600s" example etc. but it's pretty silly since I go out of my way to play the highest "integrity" games possible. Like 90% of my games are 1. random teams (opti) 2. random map (mapgen) 3. 1800+ (with very few exceptions), which is the highest rating range that is generally available. How could my rating possibly be more representative of my mapgen teamgame performance? Certainly would not be improved if I ranked the unrusting 1v1 games that I've played recently.
And while we are on the personal anecdotes, need I remind you that I've been on both sides of this? There have been times where my ladder rating has been higher than my global, and there have been times where I've gained outrageous amounts of points from 1v1 tournaments (and times where I've lost about 300 points in an FFA tournament for that matter). Yes I'm talking about this issue because it's relevant to me, but no, I'm not "just" some high rated teamgamer crying because I want to keep my rating high. I just want to keep my rating tied to my 300 mapgen games or w.e instead of completely randomizing it ocassionally with 1v1 tournys.
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Your rationale justifies a position of giving players the freedom to unrank games if both players desire it. It does not meet the bar of enforcing it regardless of the whims of the other player.
I don’t use global for 1v1s because I dislike 1v1 gameplay. I use global for 2v2s. I still gain essentially double the points per game in 2v2 that I do in big teamgames. If I had to deal with a dude forcing me to unrank my games because he wants to keep his points, I’d just intentionally screw around and make RAS SACUs instead of playing the game. That includes a tourney. If you’re scared of losing points to me then your rating is inaccurate and mine is inaccurate; I consider it disrespectful to unrank in that context so I will disrespect you in kind with my gameplay.
And I know you also wanted to unrank 2v2s in the tourney I hosted, so evidently this problem of yours does extend to that game mode where I do in fact use global in a different way than you. And there is zero rational argument for why your way is better than my way. In fact the preponderance of evidence on how TrueSkill was intended to operate would favor my interpretation since I rarely play 2v2 games with extreme rating discrepancy. Just as tournies rarely have extreme rating discrepancy.
I’m not targeting you because I think your rating is fake. I’m using you as an example because it’s the easiest way to convey my point. Even people that try to play legit and within “the rules” of TrueSkill will still face problems at the highest tier. If you want to play 5v5s and you’re 2600, you simply must have games with like 600-800 rating discrepancy. It’s a problem of a low population game at the end of its bell curve. But my point is that this issue is not solved by eliminating a more robust game environment.
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@lord_asmodeus said in In the current system, rating 1v1 games is borderline rating manipulation:
@katharsas
When hosting 1v1 Tournaments we do use ladder rating as the entrance barrier.
The issue is we have to host all the matches for these tournies as custom matches which means they affect global rating not ladder rating.Maybe there would be a way to give 1v1 tournament organizers the ability to count those custom games as if they were ladder games. But i don't know how hard that would be to implement.
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How are you supposed to do that without forcing TDs to host every single game themselves, which drastically slows down an already slow tournament process? The only other option is letting people host and use whatever rating they want to use in custom games, which then regresses to making every single rating as terrible and inaccurate as current global rating.
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Brutus has a half-finished tournament software that was supposed to automate exactly that iirc
