Loading...
  OR  Zero-K Name:    Password:   

FFA games influencing team game balance

33 posts, 1254 views
Post comment
Filter:    Player:  
Page of 2 (33 records)
sort
4 years ago
Currently FFA game results influence balancing of teams in team games. FFA games are vastly different in playstyle compared to team games, one requiring practically no ability to cooperate with your team and the other being almost completely reliant on it. It is not logical to alter team compositions based on performance in FFA games, where vastly different goals and skills are at play.

From my understanding, FFA offers minimal risk in regards to losing rank compared to gaining it, since loses result in very minor rank loss and victories in comparatively massive gain. Making it a very popular way to increase ones rank without actually playing at a higher level, resulting in sudden high ranked players surprisingly underperforming in team games when faced with having to cooperate with their teams towards victory.

A solution would be a separate FFA ladder and a team vs team ladder, which would lead to more balanced team games. FFA players would see their proper ranks for FFA, having a general idea of how good which player actually is in that environment, fostering competitive behavior.
+2 / -1

4 years ago
FFA is one of the most difficult modes, where you manage a huge territory, there are all variations of events, all types of units, strategies are involved and your micro and macro level should be significant, in order to just survive in ffa game, it will take even more efforts to win.
Speaking about the fact that a ffa player is not able to play a team game, you are mistaken, moreover, the skills of such a person are higher than that of a person who plays only team games.
The victory in ffa over the strongest players is an incredible euphoria, the most pleasant victory in the zk, which is possible, more pleasant only if you defeat SErankGodde 1 on 1, But if you defeat SErankGodde in ffa my goodness what will happen with you.
This will not happen in a team game, never, only may be in a tournament.


in general, you underestimate the ffa player's skills =/
+3 / -1
Note that I have not said which mode is "most difficult" or other such nebulous terms, I have said that team games and FFA games are vastly different in amount of cooperation required. I am saying that you winning a FFA game should have no effect on your ranking in team games, because of the inherently different requirements for these games.

I understand that you're a predominantly FFA player that has grinded a ton of rank in such games, I'm not saying that it's not a worthy achievement or less difficult than playing team games. I'm saying that such games are not representative of team games where you have to cooperate with your team towards victory. Of course exceptional players can succeed at learning both of these tasks, but that does not change the fact that they are completely different abilities.

Nobody in their right mind would suggest that the 1v1 ladder be merged with team ladder, because yet again they are vastly different games. Similarly, FFA is vastly different to 1v1 and team games. I also understand that the main developers, veteran players and even most moderators are FFA regulars, so I do not expect the slightest bit of enthusiasm about such an idea as it is so ingrained in current status quo. I am however hopeful that at least some rational reasoning can be seen in further arguments.

I would also like to note that you yourself advocated for such separation in https://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/25060?postID=207267#207267
+1 / -1
quote:
From my understanding, FFA offers minimal risk in regards to losing rank compared to gaining it, since loses result in very minor rank loss and victories in comparatively massive gain. Making it a very popular way to increase ones rank without actually playing at a higher level, resulting in sudden high ranked players surprisingly underperforming in team games when faced with having to cooperate with their teams towards victory.

This assumes you have the same 50% average win chance in an FFA, which is obviously false. Or if it is true and you win 50% of games you play with more than two sides in them, then you deserve the gains.

quote:
I'm saying that such games are not representative of team games where you have to cooperate with your team towards victory.

Aside from coordination argument, FFA as a game mode requires possibly more of the understanding of how a ZK game is played in its totality than either teams or 1v1. This understanding is extremely transferable to teams.
+2 / -1
4 years ago
I did not make any assumption about any "50% average win chance". Please do not assume what I have not written. A victory in a FFA will net you a much larger reward than the loss from a defeat, which logically means you only need to win a small fraction of your FFA games to consistently rise in rank. Rank which is then used to balance team games.

Again, I made no claim which game mode requires more skill or is more difficult. Game mode difficulty is in no way an argument for merged ladders of vastly different game modes. I am not taking away your achievements in FFA games or saying they are somehow inferior, I am saying the are different from team games and should be separately ranked as such.
+0 / -1
quote:
I did not make any assumption about any "50% average win chance". Please do not assume what I have not written. A victory in a FFA will net you a much larger reward than the loss from a defeat, which logically means you only need to win a small fraction of your FFA games to consistently rise in rank. Rank which is then used to balance team games.

This in turn seems to assume that the reward is not not proportional to the amount of games you will lose.

However, if you want me to stop assuming your predicates, then i only have to conclude that your logic is flawed on its own merits.

Here's an example. If you play 10 games with 50% win rate, and your rewards are equal to your losses, you will lose 5 games, win 5 games, and this will cancel out.

If you play 10 games with a 10% win rate, and rewards are 9x bigger than losses, you will win one game for 9x points and lose 9 games each losing you 1x points, which will cancel out the same as it does in the 50% case.

If you play 10 games with a 10% win rate, but you only get "fair" 1x rewards and 1x losses, you will lose 8x points despite performing at your (expected) winrate.

quote:
Again, I made no claim which game mode requires more skill or is more difficult. Game mode difficulty is in no way an argument for merged ladders of vastly different game modes. I am not taking away your achievements in FFA games or saying they are somehow inferior, I am saying the are different from team games and should be separately ranked as such.

I am not talking about difficulty or achievements. I am talking about transferability of skill. Please do not assume what I have not written.
+1 / -1
4 years ago
I will not debate semantics about who assumed what with you further, as to me it feels as you're posting in bad faith in that regard.

In FFA games, any and all rank gains and losses are completely irrelevant to the mode itself. The mode does not require any balancing between players to function, it introduces no mechanical penalties for good players or bonuses for bad players. If there was no ranking system at all, FFA games wouldn't change at all as the ranks for FFA are only for record keeping rather than maintaining "fair" games.

In contrast, team games absolutely rely on balanced player teams to properly function. Which requires a ranking system in place. In a team game, with higher rank you are much more likely to be placed on a team with less experienced players beside you. All these players very directly impact each other in terms of shared income, reclaiming/feeding the enemy and cooperating in attacks or strategies.
+1 / -1
That sounds like a claim that the accuracy of team balancing will improve by throwing out the FFA data.

It would be an interesting claim - as it is quite verifiable/falsifiable - if it were supported by anything more substantial than your rhetorical posturing and mass downvotes.

I'll leave you to it.
+1 / -1
4 years ago
How much do FFA results realistically affect team games though? Looking through the replays, there are only a few FFA games a day, and there are even days when no games take place. Every game can only have one winner, so whatever effect there is should logically be minuscule to the point of being unnoticeable?

Granted, FFA is extremely reliant on various non-skill based factors unlike 1v1/teams, but anyone who can consistently win those games should have no trouble keeping up with the above average team player.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
unknownrankTinySpider I understand your point that FFA definitely is not comparable to team games, especially as it is in my opinion way too random. But there needs to be some kind of rating system, because you can play team FFA (e.g. 3v3v3). This is probably why the team WHR rating is used in FFA even though it is not a normal team game.
+0 / -0
Assuming perfect balance, FFA actually doesn't count nearly as much for team rating as I'd like it to. The "weight" of each game in your rating history is inversely proportional to the number of players in that game. This means, that big FFAs which are very hard to win count only very little towards team rating. Additionally, FFAs are modeled as team games of the winner against the losers. This doesn't take into the account the fact that the win chance is split among many more than just two teams.

So, besides FFA wins being a more reliable indicator of skill than teams (solo performance), FFAs are already weighted much less than they probably should be. Keep in mind that FFA losses on the other hand are one of the least informative game results, as you are expected to lose.

As for the transferability of the FFA <-> Teams skill set, you'd need much more data per player for a split rating to be effective. The 1v1 <-> Teams split already only exists so that players can play team games without affecting their competitive rating.
+3 / -1
4 years ago
too long too long doesn't make sense XD
+0 / -0
unknownrankTinySpider you say that the ffa player loses a little rating. It wasn’t always like that. I lost 125 elo once in 5 games, 2550 -> 2425, 2550 then it was top 6-7 position. 2550 i got playing only team games. When I finally won in ffa i got back 27 elo. Where are my remaining 100 elo unknownrankTinySpider?
I remind you that these 100 elo are an indicator of my skill in a team game. You know, if I continued to play ffa, then my elo would drop it below, to about 2200, maybe 2100
If I came to a team game with 2100, I would get a balance with a weaker opponent, because my real elo 2500

EErankAdminAnarchid already wrote to you why this happens.

In fact, I for the fact that there would be a separate ffa rating, Just to make ffa more popular
+0 / -0

4 years ago
Does ffa deserve a elo form of rateing? Elo is for 1v1 chess, it works in 1v1 videogames the same and it sorta kinda works for team games. Ffa is another step removed from what elo was designed for. Just steal teams and 1v1 whr for any balancing purpose(frequently just teams of a single player each, so it's not like there's any choice in the matter) and call to have some kind of ladder not based on elo. Whoever is the best at ffa, probably not the best to have everyone know you are#1 on the ladder for your own safety, forever complains about teaming enough as it is. Bracket people in a large list of frequently ffa players and wins.
+2 / -0
It seems to me quite likely that there exist many players of more-or-less equal skill as teamgame players who have widely disparate FFA skill. I would have to run the numbers to know whether these two players would have significantly different casual rating in practice, or whether making the FFA games not affect casual elo would improve their ratings' accuracy.

[Spoiler]
+1 / -0


4 years ago
I agree somewhat with unknownrankTinySpider.
My Casual ranking seems heavily inflated compared to my actual performance in lobsterpots (most of the time I just waste metal).

CHrankAdminDeinFreund & EErankAdminAnarchid: When you exclude non-lobsterpot ("lobsterpot" meaning team games with >8 players with no special rules) games, how much more accurate does the WHR prediction become for lobsterpot games?

quote:
Additionally, FFAs are modeled as team games of the winner against the losers. This doesn't take into the account the fact that the win chance is split among many more than just two teams.

This seems wrong. Imagine 4 equally skilled players with lots of Casual experience play 100 FFA games, winning 1 quarter of these games each. According to this their "ELO"s would all collectively go down because they are losing 75% of games that they should have a 50% chance of winning.

Am I missing somethng?
+0 / -0

4 years ago
We want FFA ELO!
+2 / -0

4 years ago
The more games you exclude the less accurate the rating becomes. This is true pretty much always for zero k.

The players would stay at equal rating because a FFA victory "counts" proportionally to the number of players more than a defeat.
+1 / -1


4 years ago
quote:
The more games you exclude the less accurate the rating becomes. This is true pretty much always for zero k.

Would it be easy for you to run a test seeing how much less (or more) accurate the lobsterpot predictions become when you only have lobsterpot games?
+1 / -0
4 years ago
quote:
The more games you exclude the less accurate the rating becomes. This is true pretty much always for zero k.

If that were the case, then logically you should merge 1v1s into the ranking too which would according to you result in more accurate team games ratings. This is obviously not true but I hope you can begin to see your doublethink.
+0 / -0
Page of 2 (33 records)