The new ELO-based ranking system

[MrRoboto]

Or, if you are @Adam514 , just ignore ELO and farm each and every one of us, enjoying a 90% winrate over 165 games

[axis-dominion]

What’s all the argument about anyway? :)

Hope you all are having a great holiday season. I do miss this community.

So this is cool, thanks for putting this together:

According to this, I still have the most wins by a significant margin, even after sitting out for an entire year now lol

BTW I am 2-0 against the 2nd ranked player. Adam, however, has always been better than me I will admit that. I think he has beaten me at least 2 out of every 3 games, maybe more idk I’d have to look back.

[gamerman01]

No argument, just discussion among very analytical people about how to do year by year playoffs

What a pleasant surprise -
Where ya been?!

You did see there are sheets for each version?

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@AndrewAAGamer oysteilo beat me twice, once as Allies and once as Axis, by convincing beatdowns. I gave up in one game when Egypt and my UK forces got so thoroughly crushed on I2 that there was no coming back.

I was so relieved when you knocked him out of the tournament since I wasn’t looking forward to a third beat down.

[axis-dominion]

@gamerman01 got busy working for a startup, then when that didn’t go as planned i joined another one… also, i have been playing a lot of Twilight Imperium 4th ed (TI4), and that’s quite a game! here’s a pic yesterday’s game with a group of friends (I was the pink faction):

[JDOW]

@axis-dominion said in Proposal for a new, ELO-based, ranking system:

BTW I am 2-0 against the 2nd ranked player. Adam, however, has always been better than me I will admit that. I think he has beaten me at least 2 out of every 3 games, maybe more idk I’d have to look back.

Well, I made the mistake not playing you earlier when it was easy to beat you because you regularly blundered ;-)

Then, you stopped blundering and became super strong, and this is when I started playing you. I am still traumatized by our play-off match in which a surprise Neutral Crush entirely wrecked my (I believe at this point decent) position within a single turn :-(

So yes, getting your scalp at least once is a reason for me to return to the league^^

I am btw 2:1 vs Adam :D (Probably one win not recorded because it may have taken place in a Tournament and may not have counted for the league)

[gamerman01]

Ummmmm…
It’s just a fact that if @JDOW and @axis-dominion returned, the league would be at full strength on top maybe like never before (according to the life-time ELOs)

[oysteilo]

just to get this straight.

are we just continuing on the old results or is everyone starting at 1500 elo on jan 1.2024?
My understaning was to start everyone at 1500

[Martin]

My understanding is that the ELO system is a life long rating and should take into account all games ever played. It will continue based no the hundreds of game results that were just input.

[MrRoboto]

@Martin said in Proposal for a new, ELO-based, ranking system:

My understanding is that the ELO system is a life long rating and should take into account all games ever played. It will continue based no the hundreds of game results that were just input.

This.

The system works best when you have around 15-20 games or more. It would only weaken the accuracy if we started on 1-1-2024 instead of all games ever.

As of today, 4519 games have been counted - a little bit more than “hundreds” ;-)

[oysteilo]

OK

But, honestly this has not been comunicated clearly. you are now making scores based on revised conditions that was not know when games were started. It is a fundamental change and if I played someones “m*m” 10 years ago it should not count now.

I understand the desire to make it accurate but if fundamental changes are made date zero must be clearly communicated. It should be 01.01.2024, not a random date in 2014 or whatever

[Martin]

“now making scores based on revised conditions that was not know when games were started.” --> What difference would it make? No-one would have played differently - everyone plays to win.

[MrRoboto]

@oysteilo said in Proposal for a new, ELO-based, ranking system:

if I played someones “m*m” 10 years ago it should not count now.

That game 10 years ago has zero to none impact on your current rating, unless of course you have only played 3-4 games since then.

I understand your argument and our change to the ELO system wouldn’t hold up in court. If we want to go 100% by “the” rules (we make them ourselves…) it would be cleaner to set a certain start date.

However, we are not a large organisation like FIFA or the IOC where millions and billions of $ are at stake. We can make decisions far more flexible, that serve our community better, without worrying that someone takes us to the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) in Lausanne just because we didn’t close every legal loophole.

On a side note: It doesn’t start at a random date in 2014, it starts with the very first game when this league has been established. As far as I know every (or at least most) big league has some kind of lifetime ranking, for example the premier league:

Our all-time ELO has little to no impact on everyday matches. You can treat it as a funny little statistics page, similar to the all-time tables of other sports.

It only comes into play for playoff seedings. And if you worry about that: It would be a lot less accurate if we started 1-1-2024. It would only lead to 1-2 years of inaccurate rankings before it would be reliable.

I’m interested in what exactly bothers you that all games are counted. What is the downside?

[oysteilo]

@MrRoboto

1. I dont understand how much the game i lost/won 5 years ago count. I dont understand the importsnce of number of gsmes i play every year.
2. If I played 10 games last year or 3 or 35 games how does that count?
3. Compared to: In the last 3 years i played 4 gsmes a year and won all against a 1500 opponent. How does this compare to 12 wins this year against all 1500 opponent?

[oysteilo]

I feel you fail to explain this clearly, maybe it is obvious to you, its not to me

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

@oysteilo If you are consistently defeating 1500-ELO opponents, you will move up to the 1800s. Impossible to move above that range unless you are consistently beating better players. Doesn’t matter how many games you played or which year, you have to beat good players to get a great ranking. Just beating up mediocre players time after time won’t get you much above where you are now.

To get up to the 1900+ range, you need to be beating players like AndrewAAGamer. Beat him a few times in a row and your ELO will jump up quickly, regardless of year. The bigger the upset, the more your score will jump. Lose to him a few times, and there is very little penalty as he is currently 300 points above you and you are expected to lose.

[gamerman01]

Really appreciate the questions/concerns

This is not all aimed at you, oysteilo, but putting a summary out there for everyone wondering about the big change.

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The league has had annual playoffs for many years. The tradition has always been to record all regular season results by year. The year used to end on October 31, not that many years ago. We had a 14 month year once to get it to December 31.

Annual playoffs are a very high priority for the league, to name a league champion every year.

Reliable ratings for players are a very high priority for the league - so that you know what skill level you’re getting when you challenge someone to a game that takes many hours over many months of time.

We’ve always had a start-over of records each league year. Was November 1, now has been January 1.
It was just logical when doing a simple standings spreadsheet. In 2012 and before it was just a list of how many wins and losses each player had, ordered by Winning %

The ELO system spreadsheet that MrRoboto has created makes it feasible to accumulate data over the years and since there is a database, can be presented in some different ways.

The # of games played within a (calendar or league) year is still very important because it continues to be a league rule that a minimum is required to participate in the playoffs. This is already tracked in the new spreadsheets.

The sensitivity set for the first three to six games has been set at a sufficiently high level that a new player to the league will have a fair shot at a fair spot in the playoffs based on 1 year’s performance. The minimum # of games of 3-6 helps ensure this. Obviously with only 3 games played, the player’s skill may not be accurately assessed, but this has always been true.
It’s the nature of our game. And we like to include new comers into the playoff action without too much obstacle, but also not too easily.
Daaras is our latest example. 3 games PTV finished just in December, all 3 against a single player, and he gets to participate in the playoffs. Nothing new here. Would be the same if he did it a year from now.

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To @oysteilo your questions

1. If you’ve played like 20-30 games since 5 years ago, the games you won/lost 5 years ago have very little bearing.
2. This depends a LOT on how many you played THIS year. The more you played this year, the less previous years will make a difference
3. You will have the same ELO number at the end, either way. So your playoff spot would be the same (if you ignore the timing differences for your opponents, and their ELO’s would be different in your scenario) at the end of the current year.
   However, you would have been able to participate in year 1 as a player who’d won 4 times against a 1500, and in year 2 as a player who’d won 8 time against a 1500 - that is the difference.

Running out of time to write. With the database, year-by-year data could be reported (wins/losses by player, sides taken).
The year by year cutoff concept doesn’t have to completely die. We can talk about what we want to see.

I strongly favor playoff seeding that looks back farther then January 1 of the current year, especially for players who just met or barely exceeded the minimum # of games.
In other words, I’d like to just go by current ELO (would be lifetime) at 12/31, and check minimum # of games have been played. The last 3, 6, 15 whatever games you have played have a lot more weight on your ELO. The one 80 games ago in 2014 is a nice statistic in your win-loss record and percent, but almost nothing, maybe 1 point, in your current ELO.

ELOs still tracked by version, plus overall, so potentially 4 different ratings per player.

[gamerman01]

I need to say -
I know it is 1/2/2024 and the 2024 league rules were just posted a couple days ago.

No one should feel ambushed by changes - the 2024 playoff rules can be changed. I just rolled the rules out on time this year, and it wasn’t long ago I entered all the data back to 2012, so there hasn’t been time for the protests/questions.

The 2024 playoffs being set by life-time ELO at 12/31/24 is open for discussion and I can always edit the rule. (It’s not set in stone)
Those playoffs are a year away.

Oysteilo’s questions are so helpful - you can’t really debate the change knowledgeably until you have some examples… until you see what the numbers do and what impact it would have on potential playoff participants. And this is what he’s getting at, and what we need to show you in order for you to be satisfied that you understand how it works

[axis-dominion]

Maybe we make our first game back against each other, both of us rusty and all? haha

@JDOW said in Proposal for a new, ELO-based, ranking system:

@axis-dominion said in Proposal for a new, ELO-based, ranking system:

BTW I am 2-0 against the 2nd ranked player. Adam, however, has always been better than me I will admit that. I think he has beaten me at least 2 out of every 3 games, maybe more idk I’d have to look back.

Well, I made the mistake not playing you earlier when it was easy to beat you because you regularly blundered ;-)

Then, you stopped blundering and became super strong, and this is when I started playing you. I am still traumatized by our play-off match in which a surprise Neutral Crush entirely wrecked my (I believe at this point decent) position within a single turn :-(

So yes, getting your scalp at least once is a reason for me to return to the league^^

I am btw 2:1 vs Adam :D (Probably one win not recorded because it may have taken place in a Tournament and may not have counted for the league)

[oysteilo]

I just want to reword my question. But first of all its fine to leave things the way they are.

I think what I would like to understand better is how much games count. You say games i played 15 games ago dont really count anymore. But do they count 5%, 10% or 0.001%. For the skilled people here it should be possible to put a number on this,. If at all possible give a number on all the last 10 to 15 games. My blunder 10 games ago cost me 100 in rating, how much do i suffer from this after 10 games cimpared to not having played the blunder game? It is this kind of questions I have. Give numbers on this or explain how i can figure it out myself!