May I present to you: The might of our top players!
Yes, you see that correctly: Every single time a top player chose Axis in BM4, he has won! I couldn’t believe it at first, but I double checked…
For context here are the absolute numbers:
Axis wins:
Total: 44 out of 52
OOB: 19 out of 22
BM4: 15 out of 15
PtV: 10 out of 15
Allies wins:
Total: 32 out of 40
OOB: 11 out of 15
BM4: 12 out of 15
PtV: 9 out of 10
Now as I said, these rankings constantly shift, whenever I make the tiniest adjustments within the sheet, because of the circular references.
I don’t change any rules, I don’t change any inputs, but this leads to different outcomes. with THESE rankings I just posted, you can see there are zero M players in BM4 and only 3 Tier E players (who have not played each other).
These Tier E players are 14-0. 8 of those games as axis, 6 as Allies.
With this data, the current graph is the following:
This probably explains the inflation of points.
However, this is the least of the flaws the current system has. While I do appreciate that the current system is a vast improvement over what was in place before (a simple Win%, nothing else), I still have numerous issues with it.
No definite points after a result.
Imagine the following scenario:
Player A (Tier 1) wins against Player B (Tier 1).
You could score Player B first. He lost against a Tier 1, so receives 2 points, is at 2.0 PPG and is therefore dropped to Tier 3. Player A now receives 4 points for winning against Tier 3, is at 4.0 PPG and stays Tier 1.
Or you could score Player A first. He won against a Tier 1, so receives 6 points, is at 6.0 PPG and climbs to Tier M. Player B now lost against a Tier M so receives 4 points, is at 4.0 PPG and stays at Tier 1.
If you score winners first, you have points inflation.
End of year standing actually reflects yearly average
Your end of year PPG is actually a yearly average and not a reflection of your skill at the end of the year. Have you improved over the course of the year? Hard to tell, your skill might be Tier M at the end, but you still score at Tier 1.
Not predictable
If I play against a certain player, I don’t know how much that game is worth until the 31st of December. My opponent can climb or fall Tier until the end of year and will retroactively change my PPG. That will even happen without my interaction with said player! I might stop play in June and my PPG might severely change until the end of year, which is very unintuitive. And I don’t think it makes a lot of sense.
Discourages playing weaker opponents
Everyone who has played Tier 3 or Tier 2 has lowered the PPG, even with a win! We are talking about 50+ games this year alone.
As long as your PPG is higher than 4.0 (This is only Tier1, the MIDDLE of the pack, not elite players!), EVERY win against Tier 3 players is hurting you!
As long as your PPG is higher than 5.0 (Still not the highest Tier, only Tier E at this point), even winning against Tier 2 is detrimental.
And when your PPG is higher than 6.0 (All Tier M, but even some Tier E players!), you shouldn’t even play against the middle Tier, Tier 1. Even a win would hurt your PPG.
Losing can help
Every Tier 3, Every Tier 2 and even half of Tier 1 can easily improve my just losing to a Tier M.
Sorry, but this makes no sense
Results against new players depend on a single moderator
Currently, new players are not ranked consistently. As an example: @jkeller r is 0-1 but placed at Tier M. So @AndrewAAGAmer received 8 points for that win.
On the other hand, @Gorshak is 2-0 against two top players, @666 and @GeneralDisarray but still placed at Tier 1. So their losses against him gave both of them only 2 points, DRASTICALLY lowering their PPG.
Circular referencing
A players Tier affects the points opponents get. These points affect the opponents PPG and thus the tier of the opponents. This Tier affects the points the original player gets and thus the Tier. But this Tier originally affected the points the opponents get.
This goes back to issue 1, but the problem is more widespread and generalized than the example in 1).
You can reach dozens of different rankings of every single player here, with the exact same game results, depending on the order of calculations and the order of reporting.
There are a few minor things that theoretically could also get fixed, but those 7 points are major flaws with a PPG based system.
I have created an improvement, which is ELO based (a system used in games like Chess, World of Warcraft or League of Legends). That fixes all of the issues above and the spreadsheet is already finished too, fully automatic even.
I’m just waiting for feedback from @gamerman01 before I share it with all of you
Thanks for the words, gamerman.
Especially the last post: The fact that you take your position seriously and will do your very best to ensure the integrity of the league is invaluable. I think most if not all here are very grateful for what you do here.
I do understand that it feels like a coup to you, I can absolutely empasize with you! That’s actually the reason why I did not express interest in comoderator. In no way do I want you to feel threatened by me, that’s certainly not my intention!
There’s always tension when change is proposed. There is a reason why conservatives all around the world usually are the biggest group - as long as the current system is not totally broken that is.
Humans tend to be reluctant with change, when it’s working more or less.
And I do acknowledge that the current ranking system is doing fine. Otherwise it wouldn’t have sticked around all these years.
However, some of the concerns have been raised years ago. I can remember a discussion about winning against low Tier being bad for PPG a couple of years ago already. The idea of ELO has been swirling around the forums for years too.
While I did take part in that discussion and voiced my concern back then, I never fully went forward and took matters in my own hand, partly because I didn’t feel I’m in a position to go up against gamerman. It feels intimidating to challenge a dictators system, after all ;-) (using your word, not mine!)
So far, I have seen only people voting for an ELO system or people who are open for it, but none has spoken against it.
I am interested in more criticism, so that we arrive at the best possible outcome. Jkellers feedback for example convinced me that lifelong rating is more useful!
The most important thing at the end: I don’t want this to be a MrRoboto vs Gamerman thing. On the contrary, I want this system to be as simple and optimal as possible and with him continuing to lead all of us. I can gladly take care of managing / maintaining the rankings but I’m totally fine with just setting it up and gamerman then being in charge.
I was being unclear with what I meant with 10% decay.
I meant 10% of the difference between current ELO and 1500.
So a 2000 player would lose 10%, aka 50. And then he is 1950, so the next 10% would bring him down to 1905 and then 1865…
But yeah, I agree - that’s still too harsh.
I’m inclined to go with AndrewAAGamer…
No decay for the overall lifetime ranking.
And for the yearly playoffs we only count results from the current year anyway, so decay is not really necessary in the first place.
@oysteilo said in Proposal for a new, ELO-based, ranking system:
intereasting ideas… from the new elo spreadsheet my overall rating is 1673, my OOb is1546 and BM is 1552
How can my overall ranking be higher than then any of the two individual game version rankings?
Here are your results.
First your wins:
And here your losses
Your 3 BM4-wins have netted you 98+55+42 = 195 overall-rating and only 165 BM4-specific Rating.
Your 4 OOB-wins have netted you 80+53+4+6 = 143 overall-rating but 210 OOB-specific rating
Your single BM4-loss has cost you 64 overall-rating and 57 BM4-specific rating.
Your 3 OOB-losses have cost you 101 overall-rating and 164 OOB-specific rating.
Gamerman already gave the explanation: You defeated people in a version that they are weaker in.
AetV had 1654 overall rating before, but only 1515 BM4-rating.
ArthurBomberHarris had 1631 overall rating before, but 1570 OOB-Rating before
and so on and so on.
But: I noticed something else. Mr_stucifer has entered the 2022 data for me and he abbreviated Aequitas et veritas as AetV. This is a problem obviously since my sheet thinks those are 2 different players.
I will have to look over the data myself to check for similar errors (spelling for example).
The data for jkeller was all there and correct, just not visible. I simply forgot to list his name in the BM4-Sheet. So the data was calculated and everything was correct, but you couldn’t see it. Fixed that.
Actually, I just added a new sheet, you SHOULD all be able to edit it.
That way we don’t have duplicate data in case more than 1 person is adding in data at the same time.
There are only 6 cells per result to enter:
Type (BM4, OOB or PtV)
Date
Axis
Allies
Winner
Bid
Thanks for the input @farmboy
Axis-Dominion is already #2 so when you say you expect him to move up, I’m a bit scared ;-)
JDOW has only 1 recorded game since February 2021 (where the data stops right now), I’m also curious to see where he stands when we add earlier data.
The file is read only, besides the “Results” sheet, where all of you can filter for names, but also for sides (axis or allies), for winners and losers or for type (oob, bm4 or ptv).
If you want to contribute by adding more data, mr_stucifer has created a new spreadsheet and shared it with me, for example
The system becomes stable with more games played, but still flexible enough to allow for adjustments when a player improves.
If your skill stays the same, you will oscillate around your “correct” ELO-Rating, gaining some points, losing some but always hover within a certain corridor around your skill level.
Your chance of breaking out of that corridor is when you actually improve your skill.
This is different than PPG, which becomes a lot more stable with many games.
If you play 50 games and you have, for example, a PPG of 4, that means you have 200 points.
Even a win against the best player around would increase that total to 208 points, but your PPG increases only to 4.08.
With the new system it doesn’t matter if you play 30, 50 or 100 games. After a certain threshold is reached (when the system “Found” your correct place), your elo rating will not “solidify” more. It might only become more accurate in finding the correct spot.
That’s why the K-factor is so important: We want to reach that threshold as fast as possible. I think after around 15-20 games every player is where he/she should be. That’s a lot for a single year, but not for multiple years.
@gamerman01 said in Proposal for a new, ELO-based, ranking system:
It’s hard to get it right with a new player.
Dawg just defeated donutgold and with ELO, got a lot of points. No matter what donutgold goes on to do, Dawg has the points
Right now, games against complete newcomers might be over- or underrated.
These are just momentary snapshots though. Yes, dawg received a lot of points for winning against a player who was probably overrated at 1500. But it won’t take long before he is back to his old rating.
Same would happen if you lose against a 1500 newcomer, who is actually a top gamer in disguise. At that exact moment, you’ll unfairly lose too many points, but the system will bring you back to where you belong reasonably fast.
HOWEVER:
I realize this is an issue on some people’s mind. And there is a simple solution for that. As I said, we can always tweak the math to serve our needs. I just didn’t implement a failsafe against this, because personally I didn’t deem it necessary - but I might be wrong and gamerman has vastly more experience with this community and he seems to think this could be an issue.
I can easily tweak the formula so that games against newcomers give only 50% of the usual points. Or 30%. Or whatever.
What value do you think makes sense?
For how long should a newcomer have that “newcomer” status for opponents?
And some clarification on the ranking itself.
Here is the current one for Balanced Mod:
You can see the legend on the right hand side. This should explain every colour, besides white.
White means a player is active but has not yet completed the necessary amount of games to qualify for the yearly playoffs.
Maybe I’ll add an explanation for white or just colour code it differently. It’s important to me that everyone should understand it without needing an explanation. So I might have to improve the UI here.
The rank in the very first column is relevant for the playoffs!
So if you check out the sheet you’ll see that Sovietishcat occupies the last (8th) spot, with @elche missing it at #9.
However, @Sovietishcat will drop out when some of the white lines above him complete 6 games this year, which seems very likely: @Pejon_88 , @GeneralDisarray , @Booper and @BombsAway all have 5 already (although they could also drop below Sovietishcat)
How do you like it this way?
That way everyone can see the lifetime-ranking and also the playoff-spot
@barnee First of all thanks.
It’s certainly a fresh look and having options is always great!
One thing I noticed: Sicily seems connected to mainland Italy.
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/40073/mrroboto-allies-22-vs-simon33-axis-bm/427
MrRoboto (Allies+22) wins over Simon33 Axis in BM4
I have to claim it due to inactivity. A real shame, since this game is in turn 42 (!) and had momentum going in both ways throughout the game.
I had landings in Normandy pushed back into the Atlantic two or three times, I claimed the whole Balcans and lost it again, I liberated Scandinavia, St. Petersburg and parts of Northern Russia before the German Hordes reconquered all of it.
With 80 more income than the Axis I’m very positive I would have won the game anyways, but still: Claiming because of inactivity doesn’t feel very good.
I will address everything tomorrow. Today my whole family comes over for christmas.
Speaking of christmas:
Merry christmas to everyone celebrating it! And happy holidays to everyone else.
Good point, @Arthur-Bomber-Harris , I also support a single tournament tree instead of having different brackets. But maybe I don’t see the merits of having multiple brackets, perhaps @gamerman01 or someone else can enlighten me.
This is only relevant if you don’t manage 6 completed games in 2024 without that result. Otherwise it makes absolutely no difference.
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/40343/ll-pacifiersboard-x-vs-mrroboto-l-18-bm/104?page=5
pacifiersboard wins with his axis against my allies+18 in BM4.
Tried LL again after a long time, but it didn’t really suit me.
Congratulations