@clyf said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:
At no point did I say that any metric other than win/lose was used in the TrueSkill calculation.
Yes, but you suggest that this is a metric that shows how good you are / how much you contributed to the win, which is false as there are parts to the game that are not reflected in that score. (like killing an enemy about to kill your teammate, which in turn generates more kills)
@clyf said in How exactly do we expect low rated players to play the game?:
To refine the entire point: TrueSkill assumes that the relationship between individual performance and composite term performance is mathematically linear, while empirical evidence in FAF suggests that it is not.
As soon as teamplay is involved the performance of the team is no longer simply the sum of the individuals, otherwise it wouldn't ever make a difference if you play with a friend vs. you playing with random people on your team.
But assuming a linear relationship is fine as it evens out with enough games, unless someone intentionally plays with higher rated players and takes the spot with the least influence on the game, but that's a problem of custom games in general. Sometimes your spot makes the difference sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you are even the high rated player in a lobby.
The rating system makes a statement about the statistical distribution of wins/draws/losses over time. So a game can feel absolutely unwinabble if you play 1k/2k vs 1.5/1.5, but that is just part of the randomness involved and you get that feeling because suddenly your own contribution is lower than you expect since a lot hinges on the fact if the worse player has a good day or not.