@blackyps said in Please show rating changes in replay vault:

This might seem inelegant, but it's highly unusual that you get consistently matched with people of significantly higher rating than yourself.

I'm just giving an example. "consistently matched with people of significantly higher rating than yourself" is a bit exaggerated. But in my last 20 1v1 matches, there are only 4 games (20%) that my opponents had higher rating than me (opponents are Aranei, Maximbes, Ternencebroad and Mielus), and there are 16 games (80%) that my opponents had lower rating than me. And it is obviously lower in average.

@magge It really helped! Thank you very much!

@blackyps said in Please show rating changes in replay vault:

This might seem inelegant, but it's highly unusual that you get consistently matched with people of significantly higher rating than yourself.

I'm just giving an example. "consistently matched with people of significantly higher rating than yourself" is a bit exaggerated. But in my last 20 1v1 matches, there are only 4 games (20%) that my opponents had higher rating than me (opponents are Aranei, Maximbes, Ternencebroad and Mielus), and there are 16 games (80%) that my opponents had lower rating than me. And it is obviously lower in average.

@blackyps said in Please show rating changes in replay vault:

Then you would also be two divsions higher, for example from Gold III to Gold I to reflect this indeed meaningful change in your rating

Yes, but I don't know how much each game contributes to this result. I don't know whether it's mainly because "last month I usually lost to lower rating players because of a certain mistake, which greatly lowered my rating, but now I don't make this mistake.", or "I was not able to defeat higher rating players, but now I am able to do that, which has significant contribution to my rating", or I have made general progress so I have higher win rate against different players, or other reasons. The details are all hidden, so it's harder for me to analyze the reason.

@blackyps said in Please show rating changes in replay vault:

Yes. In your case, being always matched with higher rated opponents, you would slowly lose score until you drop down one division. You would then get 2+/-1 for each win/loss, stabilizing you. You would maybe float around the edge of these two divisions because you will lose this bonus once you are promoted again and the cycle begins from the top.

Thank you for your answer. I will talk about two problems here.

The first problem is that even with the mechanism of "get 2+/-1 for each win/loss", our league system can not become a good tool to track our progress. True Skill rating is much better. This mechanism only gives a rough compensation, but doesn't fix the inaccuracy. When I win a game, my score and rating both increase, but I can only see my score. The rating change is invisible, but it does have an effect. When my rating reaches the range of next division, I will get 2 points for one victory, which is its effect, but it's delayed. If I reach higher divisions after some games, it's difficult for me to know how much each game contributes to this result, because rating changes are hidden. Therefore, hiding rating changes does not make the problem simpler, on the contrary, it only makes the problem more complex.

The second problem is that, one reason for hiding rating changes is because some people have questions about them, so you decide to display a simple thing instead of ratings, right? However, the division system heavily relies on the rating system. Players may ask questions like "Why did I win 2 points instead of 1 point last game?". Therefore, we won't actually solve any problem, but introduce more problems because we introduce more concepts and mechanisms.

@blackyps

You said "You gaining 12 points after a win doesn't mean that your skill improved by 12 points." I agree with this. But if we review more games in a longer period, it will be meaningful. For example, if I was 900 one month ago and 1100 now, I can know that I made progress, and I can also know the main reason from rating changes. Maybe last month I usually lost to lower rating players because of a certain mistake, which greatly lowered my rating, but now I don't make this mistake. Maybe I was not able to defeat higher rating players, but now I am able to do that, which has significant contribution to my rating. This example shows that rating changes are meaningful.

Let me talk about an example unrelated to this game. When I was in high school, after each math exam, the teacher would tell us the average score of the whole class for each question. In this way, each of us can know whether he is doing better or worse than the average for each question. Perhaps a certain question is very simple, and we should not make mistakes. Perhaps a certain question is difficult, so doing half of it correctly is good. Based on the comparison with the average score, I can know which questions I did well and which ones I didn't do well, so that I can pay more attention to those questions that I didn't do well. This example tells us that providing us with more information can help us make better progress. Playing games on FAF is also like this.

@blackyps

Let me reply to your ideas one by one.

First, +1 for victory, -1 for defeat and 0 for draw is inaccurate. For example, in 1v1 ladder, if I am always matched to opponents rated 200 higher than me, and I get +15 for victory and -5 for defeat, I only need a 25% win rate to hold my rating. This makes a lot of sense because the rating system thinks my probability of winning is only 25%. If I win 2 games and lose 6 games, my rating won't change because my performance meets the expectation. However, if I get +1 for victory and -1 for defeat, I will lose 4 scores, which is inaccurate.

You may argue that we won't be always matched to opponents with lower ratings or higher ratings, but in fact this usually happens. Sometimes I only meet lower rating players one day, and only meet higher rating players another day, because there are few people (sometimes only 1 or 2 around my rating) playing 1v1. So the +1/-1 score is inaccurate and unstable, but the True Skill rating doesn't have this kind of inaccuracy and instability, just like the example above. Therefore, the True Skill rating is much better for us to evaluate our performance and track our progress. Please don't hide it.

What's more, this problem won't be solved even if we consider longer periods of time. If you open https://faforever.com/leaderboards , you will see there are players that have played thousands of games but their win rates are not very close to 50%. Let's take StormLantern for an example: He has played 5065 games but his win rate is only 42.8%, which means the average points he won from each victory is about 1.336 times the average points he lost from each defeat, so we can infer that he met opponents with higher ratings more often. If we uses +1/-1 score, his skill will be underestimate. This is not only inaccuracy, but also incorrectness.

By the way, I don't understand your sentence "You will then get extra points for each win until you are promoted to the division you are supposed to be in". Do you mean I will get two or more points for each victory if my rating is higher than my division? I think this is only a rough compensating and doesn't fix the inaccuracy. If my guess about the meaning of your sentence is correct, I can provide more explanations.

This reply is long enough so I post it. I will reply to your other ideas later.

@ftxcommando

1. Do you think "a tool for matchmaking" and "a great leaderboard tool" are two different things? If so, why not show both of them for each replay? It's very useful, not redundant.
2. Do you think "a great leaderboard tool" has lower requirements for accuracy? Is it expected to be fun instead of accurate? In fact, I don't mind it. Fun is great, but we need a value to evaluate and track our progress. I want to know how much progress I have made compared to myself seven days ago, and how much contribution does each game have on the evaluation results. Therefore, showing ratings and rating changes is really essential.
3. In addition, there is another example to show that it is useful. When I review my replays, I usually pay more attention to the games that I lost to players with ratings much lower than me. However, if we only show divisions and hide ratings, I won't know that. If a replay shows that I lost to a player in the same division, what can I know? Maybe I was at the top of the division and he was at the bottom of the same division, or it could be completely the opposite. In short, we can't know how much is the gap between two players if we are only told they are in the same division or adjacent divisions.
4. Therefore, showing rating changes is always beneficial because we can know more information. The rating system has been used for many years, and it is far more than just a matching system. If we hide its details and make it only a matching system, making it not available for tracking our progress or knowing whether a game loss is expected or so on, that will be a completely wrong decision and retrogress

I strongly deprecate hiding rating changes. I don't mind the league system. I even like it. But please don't hide rating. They are not in conflict with each other.
There are some reasons:

1. Showing ratings and rating changes makes me easier to track and review my progress. For example, if one night someone plays several games and reviews his games before sleeping, he can easily know his rating before each game and how many points he won or lost.
2. Trueskill rating system is accurate and well defined, and it has been used for a long time. However, is our league system accurate? Do you have any relevant papers? What I see is, in each division, each player's score is an integer ranging from 0 to 10, so its precision is worse than ratings, because ratings can have more different values. What's more, when we win a game or lose a game, does this system take our opponents' ratings into account? If not, it will become inaccurate if I am always matched with players with lower ratings (or higher ratings) for several games.
3. Hiding details never solves any problems. If someone has questions about rating changes so we hide rating changes, is the problem solved? No! Therefore, I can't understand why you hide rating changes and show division at the same time. They are not in conflict with each other. We can show both of them.

@magge It really helped! Thank you very much!

It crashes again...

game_20577655.log

@magge Here is my new log. Please take a look. Thank you!

game_20577400.log