We have a FAQ here. FAQ means Frequently Asked Questions. Odds are your Question is Frequently Asked.
For those of us who are interested in this sort of thing, the last few weeks have been tense, as ForGG keeps threatening to overtake Life on the Aligulac rating list, unleashing what we have dubbed the ForGGeddon. He came within three points of managing, too, but thanks to TLO and MarineKing, it was not to be. Polt now rears his ugly (not really) head. Will we see the Poltocalypse instead?
For now, anyway.
Life 1883 (-30: WCS KR, GSTL)
ForGG 1865 (-8: WCS EU)
Polt 1859 (+30: ZOTAC, WCS AM, Gigabyte Quals)
Leenock 1832 (-5: WCS KR)
LucifroN 1815 (+39: LVP, gNations, EIZO)
Flash 1793 (+19: WCS KR, Proleague)
PartinG 1792 (-14: WCS KR, Proleague)
Bomber 1787 (-12: GSTL)
viOLet 1763 (+20: WCS AM, GSTL)
Symbol 1745 (+18: WCS KR, GSTL)
The foreigner list:
LucifroN 1815 (+39: LVP, gNations, EIZO)
Sen 1684 (-27: TeSL, WCS AM)
Happy 1654 (+60: EnerJ, Russia vs. Ukraine, Yegalisk MC, EIZO, WCS EU)
VortiX 1653 (-36: LVP, WCS EU)
Kas 1644 (+26: WCS EU, Roccat, Russia vs. Ukraine, Yegalisk MC, Gigabyte Quals, EIZO)
Welmu 1630 (+75: EMS, WCS EU Quals, SC2.fi, M-House Quals)
Snute 1594 (-17: ATC, Proleague)
Scarlett 1584 (+28: ATC, WCS AM, gNations)
Jim 1577 (+47: WCS AM)
Stephano 1575 (-31: WCS EU, EIZO, Gigabyte Quals)
(Russian flag is bugged. Извините!)
Much has been written about whether the heterogeneous SCII scene ruins the ratings. I have some things to show you relating this.
First of all, here is a chart showing how many points Koreans "steal" from foreigners per game they play. As you can see graph tends strongly to the positive side, which indicates (as expected) that Koreans as a whole are underrated. When this graph stabilizes somewhere around zero (over time, of course it will always fluctuate), we can say that the ratings have caught up.
At least it seems that Koreans steal fewer points now than they used to, indicating that the rating error isn't as large any more as it was before. If we accept that the red line is a good fit (which it isn't, but whatever), it predicts that we will achieve balance sometime in the second half of 2014.
So yeah, patience is a virtue y'all.
This is another chart showing some of the difficulty I'm trying to bridge by tweaking parameters. This is the familiar predictive power plot, showing different scenes (note that this is from my experiments, and doesn't show the true situation using the actual parameters in production on aligulac.com). The tendency is always that predictions in Korea are weaker than elsewhere. Why is this? Beats me! I've tried weighing KR vs. KR games heavier, but this paradoxically has the opposite effect, and makes the problem worse.
Many of you have probably noticed that international predictions tend to be much more reliable than Korean ones. Well, here you see why (well not really, but at least you have it confirmed). There are vastly more international games in the database, and so the parameters have mostly been optimized with those games in mind. This is something I'm trying to fix, but it's not easy.
Thirdly, just because a player is rated ahead of someone else, doesn't necessarily mean he is better (or that you should think he is). I've written a small new feature for this which can calculate p-values comparing two players directly: http://aligulac.com/compare/
If the p-values are larger than, say, 0.05, then you're not really statistically justified in claiming one to be better than the other.
As a rule of thumb, there should be a rating difference of 250 points (overall) or 450 (matchup ratings) before you can go blowing your horns about.
So for example, just because the ratings have Lucifron > Innovation, this is with p=0.35. This is not significant.
So yeah... let the discussion commence. And don't forget to PM me if you're interested in actually doing something.
Shout outs this week for Kaelaris and Nicolai Czempin for their show during the WCS EU Premier Ro16 Group A broadcast!
Fun fact: NAKSEO (formerly Monster) is the highest rated player who is not in any of the WCS (either premier or challenger) in the current season. jjakji is the second highest rated player, while fraer is the highest rated foreigner with no WCS participation.
Well most important difference between Korean tournament games and rest of the world is amount of preparation/time put into each game. Korean teams put a lot of power into developing new strategies vs specyfic oponnents on specyfic maps, find their weaknesess, the preparation time is very long and often involves a lot of players. This is in oposition to foreign tournaments which tend to be shorter and involve a lot games in small amount of time, leaving little room for prepartions and studing oponnents (excluding WCS obviously). So perhaps You can take that into account somehow. Like for GSL is raw player strange + preparation strenght, and preparation is function of coach (their experience), strenght of the players on the team, amount of them available for practice (if for example only one player from team is still playing gsl that means whole team can be devoted to help him).
On May 16 2013 23:22 JustPassingBy wrote: How many times has it happened until now, that a foreigner like Lucifron manage to pierce into the Top 10 worldwide? :o
It actually gets harder the longer we wait. Previously it was much more common. Since February 2012 the only ones to do it were Lucifron, Vortix, Sen, Stephano and Nerchio.
On May 16 2013 23:23 blackbrrd wrote: There are no labels of what is what on the predicted vs actual chart, making it kinda hard to read for me.
On May 17 2013 00:13 Big-t wrote: Why is TLO not on the list and who is jim?
Jim is the best player from China that won the last G League and some other chinese things and is apparently at the top of the Korean ladder. He coasted into qualifying for WCS AM and will be playing against Oz in the Challenger division today. TLO is #12 on the foreigner only list behind Nerchio at 11. He's been on the rise in HoTS and will probably make the top 10 soon if he keeps winning.
On May 17 2013 00:13 Big-t wrote: Why is TLO not on the list and who is jim?
TLO isn't there because he's not playing well enough to be there. But hey, the fact that you don't know who Jim is says a lot about your understanding of who is good in the SC2 scene... FYI Jim is better than TLO
On May 17 2013 00:13 Big-t wrote: Why is TLO not on the list and who is jim?
TLO isn't there because he's not playing well enough to be there. But hey, the fact that you don't know who Jim is says a lot about your understanding of who is good in the SC2 scene... FYI Jim is better than TLO
On May 17 2013 00:13 Big-t wrote: Why is TLO not on the list and who is jim?
TLO isn't there because he's not playing well enough to be there. But hey, the fact that you don't know who Jim is says a lot about your understanding of who is good in the SC2 scene... FYI Jim is better than TLO
Be honest, you only knew of Jim a week ago.
Nope, I've heard of him and watched some of his games even as far back as 2011, but nice assumption.
On May 17 2013 00:13 Big-t wrote: Why is TLO not on the list and who is jim?
TLO isn't there because he's not playing well enough to be there. But hey, the fact that you don't know who Jim is says a lot about your understanding of who is good in the SC2 scene... FYI Jim is better than TLO
Jim is better than TLO overall with significance p ≈ 0.349. Jim is better than TLO versus Protoss with significance p ≈ 0.329. Jim is better than TLO versus Terran with significance p ≈ 0.473. Jim is better than TLO versus Zerg with significance p ≈ 0.352.
Low p-values denote higher significance. Usually you ought to require at least p < 0.05 before making claims.
On May 17 2013 00:13 Big-t wrote: Why is TLO not on the list and who is jim?
TLO isn't there because he's not playing well enough to be there. But hey, the fact that you don't know who Jim is says a lot about your understanding of who is good in the SC2 scene... FYI Jim is better than TLO
Jim is better than TLO overall with significance p ≈ 0.349. Jim is better than TLO versus Protoss with significance p ≈ 0.329. Jim is better than TLO versus Terran with significance p ≈ 0.473. Jim is better than TLO versus Zerg with significance p ≈ 0.352.
Low p-values denote higher significance. Usually you ought to require at least p < 0.05 before making claims.
I applaud the effort and hope this improves in the future. For now though it has pretty huge gaps, the most obvious one the fact that Bogus, probably the best player in the world and surely Top 3, is not even in the Top 10.
On May 17 2013 03:02 THM wrote: I applaud the effort and hope this improves in the future. For now though it has pretty huge gaps, the most obvious one the fact that Bogus, probably the best player in the world and surely Top 3, is not even in the Top 10.
Actually, we have mainly seen the strength of his TvZ. There is a rather large gap in the rating of his vZ and his vT and vP which needs to be diminished before he hits top 3. I am not disagreeing with you, I too think he is a top 3 player for sure. :-) He just needs to keep playing as he does and then he surely will hit top 3
On May 17 2013 04:27 Hitch-22 wrote: How can you put Zotac equivalent with WCS on the pts system for Polt lol and how are WCS Kr equivalent to WCS EU and AM t.t
On May 17 2013 04:27 Hitch-22 wrote: How can you put Zotac equivalent with WCS on the pts system for Polt lol and how are WCS Kr equivalent to WCS EU and AM t.t
It doesn't make any difference in the Korea vs Foreignerbattle. It would just mean, that the Koreans would be more volatile and I don't see why that would be a good thing. Weighting online vs liveevents makes more sense maybe, because onlineeents aren't as indicative of skill, so less points should be awarded. But it probably wouldn't change the list too much.
On May 17 2013 04:27 Hitch-22 wrote: How can you put Zotac equivalent with WCS on the pts system for Polt lol and how are WCS Kr equivalent to WCS EU and AM t.t
I hope you realize that opponent skill level is taken into consideration. WCS KR, EU and AM are certainly not equivalent, because different people play there.
That is to say, you get fewer points for beating up on newbs. But it doesn't matter if you beat up a newb in the GSL or in a ZOTAC cup.
On May 17 2013 05:03 j4vz wrote: Ive never seen anything good from Lucifron, even if he took out mvp 2-0 today..
I mean I feel like he is way overrated, everytime i watch him, im not impressed
Some of the greatest Starcraft players of all time have been boring but insanely solid. With the results Luci is putting out, he's dispelling the doubt in his abilities. Unimpressive or not, he wins more often than not and that's what counts.
On May 17 2013 05:03 j4vz wrote: Ive never seen anything good from Lucifron, even if he took out mvp 2-0 today..
I mean I feel like he is way overrated, everytime i watch him, im not impressed
He is surely a little overrated in this list. But even if you mix the foreigner and korean pool mathematically, you can't really kick him out of the top20. I have him at rank 11 for example.
Hi, I'm not sure if it's a bug or if it's me misunderstanding the feature, but if you look at Flash, his ranking for vT are different for his general section and career high section, even though they are the same points.
6th is the correct number, as far as I can tell by sorting the current ranking list by vT.
On May 17 2013 05:03 j4vz wrote: Ive never seen anything good from Lucifron, even if he took out mvp 2-0 today..
I mean I feel like he is way overrated, everytime i watch him, im not impressed
He is surely a little overrated in this list. But even if you mix the foreigner and korean pool mathematically, you can't really kick him out of the top20. I have him at rank 11 for example.
11th best player in the world??? Filter aligulac for HoTS, vs Koreans only for Lucifron and stare at a completely underwhelming 48% game wins. There a lot more than 11 GSL/Proleague players who have a higher win rate than that against even stronger opponents...
In the interest of aligulac, I say the community votes for a criminally overrated/underrated player each, and host a BO9 showmatch. I would say Lucifron vs Zest - rating 1935 (best against P in the world) vs 1129
Even if Zest loses 5-3, there'd be a points transfer from Luci->Zest
On May 17 2013 05:03 j4vz wrote: Ive never seen anything good from Lucifron, even if he took out mvp 2-0 today..
I mean I feel like he is way overrated, everytime i watch him, im not impressed
He is surely a little overrated in this list. But even if you mix the foreigner and korean pool mathematically, you can't really kick him out of the top20. I have him at rank 11 for example.
11th best player in the world??? Filter aligulac for HoTS, vs Koreans only for Lucifron and stare at a completely underwhelming 48% game wins. There a lot more than 11 GSL/Proleague players who have a higher win rate than that against even stronger opponents...
In the interest of aligulac, I say the community votes for a criminally overrated/underrated player each, and host a BO9 showmatch. I would say Lucifron vs Zest - rating 1935 (best against P in the world) vs 1129
Even if Zest loses 5-3, there'd be a points transfer from Luci->Zest
On May 17 2013 05:44 edwahn wrote: Hi, I'm not sure if it's a bug or if it's me misunderstanding the feature, but if you look at Flash, his ranking for vT are different for his general section and career high section, even though they are the same points.
6th is the correct number, as far as I can tell by sorting the current ranking list by vT.
General 1793 ± 123 (#6) May 29, 2013 vP 1784 ± 202 (#8) May 29, 2013 vT 1834 ± 209 (#6) May 29, 2013 vZ 1762 ± 198 (#13) May 29, 2013
edit: bolded relevant sections
When he originally reached it, he was the 6th best vT'er in the list. His vT hasn't changed, but someone elses has, so his vT is now only #7. Hope that made sense. Try finding the ranking of the new list, sort for vT and it should be clear.
Edit: Guess it was a bug after all. I thought I was smart for a second :-(
On May 17 2013 05:44 edwahn wrote: Hi, I'm not sure if it's a bug or if it's me misunderstanding the feature, but if you look at Flash, his ranking for vT are different for his general section and career high section, even though they are the same points.
Thanks. Fixed it. Not exactly sure what was wrong, but I fixed it.
On May 17 2013 17:17 gingerfluffmuff wrote: I guess we have to just wait for the MLG Spring championship. I feel the foreigner korean point transfer graph is gonna get bend hard upwards :D.
On May 17 2013 05:03 j4vz wrote: Ive never seen anything good from Lucifron, even if he took out mvp 2-0 today..
I mean I feel like he is way overrated, everytime i watch him, im not impressed
He is surely a little overrated in this list. But even if you mix the foreigner and korean pool mathematically, you can't really kick him out of the top20. I have him at rank 11 for example.
11th best player in the world??? Filter aligulac for HoTS, vs Koreans only for Lucifron and stare at a completely underwhelming 48% game wins. There a lot more than 11 GSL/Proleague players who have a higher win rate than that against even stronger opponents...
In the interest of aligulac, I say the community votes for a criminally overrated/underrated player each, and host a BO9 showmatch. I would say Lucifron vs Zest - rating 1935 (best against P in the world) vs 1129
Even if Zest loses 5-3, there'd be a points transfer from Luci->Zest
Recent results are much more important then some 3 year old statistics. And Luci has a ridiculus winrate in the last 20 games or so. I definately think that he has Code S quality at the moment.
On May 17 2013 05:03 j4vz wrote: Ive never seen anything good from Lucifron, even if he took out mvp 2-0 today..
I mean I feel like he is way overrated, everytime i watch him, im not impressed
He is surely a little overrated in this list. But even if you mix the foreigner and korean pool mathematically, you can't really kick him out of the top20. I have him at rank 11 for example.
11th best player in the world??? Filter aligulac for HoTS, vs Koreans only for Lucifron and stare at a completely underwhelming 48% game wins. There a lot more than 11 GSL/Proleague players who have a higher win rate than that against even stronger opponents...
In the interest of aligulac, I say the community votes for a criminally overrated/underrated player each, and host a BO9 showmatch. I would say Lucifron vs Zest - rating 1935 (best against P in the world) vs 1129
Even if Zest loses 5-3, there'd be a points transfer from Luci->Zest
Recent results are much more important then some 3 year old statistics. And Luci has a ridiculus winrate in the last 20 games or so. I definately think that he has Code S quality at the moment.
Yep, I agree him being code S quality, but just not top 11 code S
On May 17 2013 05:03 j4vz wrote: Ive never seen anything good from Lucifron, even if he took out mvp 2-0 today..
I mean I feel like he is way overrated, everytime i watch him, im not impressed
He is surely a little overrated in this list. But even if you mix the foreigner and korean pool mathematically, you can't really kick him out of the top20. I have him at rank 11 for example.
11th best player in the world??? Filter aligulac for HoTS, vs Koreans only for Lucifron and stare at a completely underwhelming 48% game wins. There a lot more than 11 GSL/Proleague players who have a higher win rate than that against even stronger opponents...
In the interest of aligulac, I say the community votes for a criminally overrated/underrated player each, and host a BO9 showmatch. I would say Lucifron vs Zest - rating 1935 (best against P in the world) vs 1129
Even if Zest loses 5-3, there'd be a points transfer from Luci->Zest
Recent results are much more important then some 3 year old statistics. And Luci has a ridiculus winrate in the last 20 games or so. I definately think that he has Code S quality at the moment.
Yep, I agree him being code S quality, but just not top 11 code S
If he gets to WCS season finals and gets spanked, he'll drop in points. If not, then I guess he belongs where he is
On May 17 2013 05:03 j4vz wrote: Ive never seen anything good from Lucifron, even if he took out mvp 2-0 today..
I mean I feel like he is way overrated, everytime i watch him, im not impressed
He is surely a little overrated in this list. But even if you mix the foreigner and korean pool mathematically, you can't really kick him out of the top20. I have him at rank 11 for example.
11th best player in the world??? Filter aligulac for HoTS, vs Koreans only for Lucifron and stare at a completely underwhelming 48% game wins. There a lot more than 11 GSL/Proleague players who have a higher win rate than that against even stronger opponents...
In the interest of aligulac, I say the community votes for a criminally overrated/underrated player each, and host a BO9 showmatch. I would say Lucifron vs Zest - rating 1935 (best against P in the world) vs 1129
Even if Zest loses 5-3, there'd be a points transfer from Luci->Zest
Recent results are much more important then some 3 year old statistics. And Luci has a ridiculus winrate in the last 20 games or so. I definately think that he has Code S quality at the moment.
Yep, I agree him being code S quality, but just not top 11 code S
If he gets to WCS season finals and gets spanked, he'll drop in points. If not, then I guess he belongs where he is
Really don't understand how both this and the TL ratings work anymore, life still being #1 is at least forgivable (although in reality he's probably top 5 right now), but TL has some random foreigner I've never even heard of in the top spot. My list would go:
1. Bogus --- | | --- 2. Soulkey 3. Life 4. SOS 5. Flash/Parting
On May 18 2013 21:44 shadymmj wrote: Really don't understand how both this and the TL ratings work anymore, life still being #1 is at least forgivable (although in reality he's probably top 5 right now), but TL has some random foreigner I've never even heard of in the top spot. My list would go:
1. Bogus --- | | --- 2. Soulkey 3. Life 4. SOS 5. Flash/Parting
Most likely that is because your list is mainly based on GSL and SPL and nothing else. Your list is just the best of the last 2 GSL's. Completely ignoring any other match played. While I do not necessarily disagree, yours is based off your own subjective analysis while ours is based on a focus to improve the prediction power of the sites underlying statistical model. You basically accept Bogus as the best in the world even though his vT isn't nearly as good as his other match-ups. (Losing to a player like Turn). While he might have been cheesed out or w/e (I don't watch much SPL) it was still a loss which affected his overall rating in the ranking.
Innovation is skyrocketing our rankings and is in general rising really fast. He will get top 5 soon enough.
I guess if forGG beats Lucifron he will be the best player in the world.
You guys are doing an amazing work in gathering results but your ranking is just not right. 2 main issues :
1 : Stephano finishes first of his group in WCS EU Ro16 and loses 2 online tournaments he probably didnt care about and loses 30 points while Kas wins an online showmatch, an online qualifier and loses in WCS EU but WIN 30 points. I mean, Im not telling "stephano is so good he should be ranked higher than Kas" Im just saying that IF, in the same week, a player do one very big offline results and throw off 2 minors online tournaments, the calculus should prioritize the big offline event.
The thing is, sc2 is not a traditional sport, lets say a player like MC compete in a Zotac. He just doesnt care to win at all it would be 0.001 percent of the money he already won.Its only for practice. If you give credit to online tournaments I hope you give credit to ladder too (just to be consistent, ofc its also a bad idea).
The second one is more subjective : 2 : ForGG is placed 2nd, almost first, but he never won against any of the other members of the top 10. He had a few big wins but again, online, and if I remember correctly he was already ranked really high after these win (bo1 against Taeja and HerO). I feel like he gained all theses points by all killing semi-professional EU teams in the ATC qualifiers. Same issue with Welmu he is 5th EU but on top tier tournament (DH, WCS EU) hes more like 30th...
I understand that high p values.. etc. etc. but why making a ranking if it says nothing at all ? Soon the WCS ranking will be clearly established and actually will be way more accurate than this one.
That being said, its good to attempt what your doing and I hope you can improve !
On May 19 2013 20:12 v_lm wrote: I guess if forGG beats Lucifron he will be the best player in the world.
You guys are doing an amazing work in gathering results but your ranking is just not right. 2 main issues :
1 : Stephano finishes first of his group in WCS EU Ro16 and loses 2 online tournaments he probably didnt care about and loses 30 points while Kas wins an online showmatch, an online qualifier and loses in WCS EU but WIN 30 points.
2 : ForGG is placed 2nd, almost first, but he never won against any of the other members of the top 10. He had a few big wins but again, online, and if I remember correctly he was already ranked really high after these win (bo1 against Taeja and HerO). I feel like he gained all theses points by all killing semi-professional EU teams in the ATC qualifiers.
I understand that high p values.. etc. etc. but why making a ranking if it says nothing at all ? Soon the WCS ranking will be clearly established and actually will be way more accurate than this one.
That being said, its good to attempt what your doing and I hope you can improve !
Stephano's Ro16 performance isn't in this list. It is part of the next list. http://aligulac.com/players/10-Stephano/period/84/ Losing to Kas and Krass and BabyK and Arthur wasn't expected by Stephano, lowering his rating. We can't speculate in whether or not he "cared" about the match. The ranking measures performance. Period.
The ForGG issue is something we have known for quite some time. While we are still discussing what can be done, the best thing to stabilize the ratings is for him to lose some TvT, since his TvT is what is giving him such a high average. Who knows if LucifroN can beat him once they meet in WCS.
"The ranking measures performance. Period" Does tennis ranking take into account showmatchs ? Or the result of some pratice match ?
We can go further into it, since tennis ranking is based on results and not performance, but sc2 is not a traditional sport because : + Show Spoiler +
you can actually play from home and therefore in tournaments with cashprize spreading on a 1 to 10 000 scale..
.
"We can't speculate in whether or not he "cared" about the match." No but you can estimate more accurately his weekly level by selecting the WCS EU results over the online ones.
If we are trying to find the best player in the world i think most online tournaments should be irrelevant and results should have no impact to the rankings.Only top-tier competition matters(Premier and Major tournaments from liquipedia).
A seperate ranking for only offline events would perhaps be cool, but i have faith that in one or two years this ranking will be very good. It's already decent, at least better than the TLPD ranking (imo!).
An "at stake" factor imo is no good idea, that's way too subjective as some people rate some tournaments higher than others.
On May 19 2013 20:49 v_lm wrote: I agree. Or at least implementing a "at stake" factor.
Indeed, it would be nice if each match/game had a weight, related to the amount of money on the line for it. Sure, sometimes it's pride and glory, rather than money, but still money is a good measurable factor.
The thing is, some pro's participate in "smaller" tournaments with wilder strategies - that is, they experiment more there and don't mind losing as much. Surely, we cannot factor their losses in such tournaments equally as their results in bigger ones, where they put everything they have in.
On May 19 2013 20:49 v_lm wrote: I agree. Or at least implementing a "at stake" factor.
Indeed, it would be nice if each match/game had a weight, related to the amount of money on the line for it. Sure, sometimes it's pride and glory, rather than money, but still money is a good measurable factor.
It's really not. Here's the thing, if you introduce a weighing system, it will be arbitrary at least to some extent, and it will produce "unfair" situations. For example, if you weigh by prize pool, do you seriously think a LAN like Assembly or The Gathering or ONOG or even some DreamHacks and IEMs are as hard overall as ProLeague or the Code A Qualifiers?
BB has long been considering a weighing system, the only thing is that no matter how fair it may seem, none is completely fair. To me, the best idea would be to weigh the tournament based on the average rating of the participating players. But even then, what if you end up with a very stacked Code S where upsets happen and many favourites fall to objectively lesser players, and the champion has an absurdly easy path to victory? (July 2011 comes to mind ) That would inflate his rating more than a bit...
On May 19 2013 20:37 v_lm wrote: "The ranking measures performance. Period" Does tennis ranking take into account showmatchs ? Or the result of some pratice match ?
We can go further into it, since tennis ranking is based on results and not performance, but sc2 is not a traditional sport because : + Show Spoiler +
you can actually play from home and therefore in tournaments with cashprize spreading on a 1 to 10 000 scale..
.
"We can't speculate in whether or not he "cared" about the match." No but you can estimate more accurately his weekly level by selecting the WCS EU results over the online ones.
TheBB is working on a system which takes the online/offline part of matches into consideration. However our ranking is merely a snapshot of the point distribution trying to maximize prediction power. So the ranking in itself is not the primary objective of the site. The prediction power is.
Right now the system also creates unfair situations when giving games of western tournaments the same value as korean tournaments. When two koreans go vs each other on some of the western team leagues, and the game is played on the US, Koreans living in Europe/US have a significant advantage. Think of things like lag or being used to lag and possibly even motivation based on the fact that the korean living in EU/US doesn't play in GSL/PL/GSTL and will thus give more in these insignificant online things). I believe this may result in things like ForGG and Polt being ranked higher than they would be, thus making Aligulac show inaccurate standings in terms of player skill.
On May 19 2013 21:41 a_flayer wrote: Right now the system also creates unfair situations when giving games of western tournaments the same value as korean tournaments. When two koreans go vs each other on some of the western team leagues, and the game is played on the US, Koreans living in Europe/US have a significant advantage. Think of things like lag or being used to lag and possibly even motivation based on the fact that the korean living in EU/US doesn't play in GSL/PL/GSTL and will thus give more in these insignificant online things). I believe this may result in things like ForGG and Polt being ranked higher than they would be, thus making Aligulac show inaccurate standings in terms of player skill.
ForGG is not a very good player.
Polt doesn't play any team leagues and ForGG is in Europe, EU against KR on US is pretty equal in terms of lag for both players.
To prevent farming maybe you could implement something like elo that once the rating difference is too high, player simply does not gain any rating from winning that match. I suppose that would put Forgg way aside, since he's farmed insignificant Europeans for quite a while!
Also some kind of weight factor for the matches/tournaments might help as well, as suggested before.
On May 19 2013 21:41 a_flayer wrote: Right now the system also creates unfair situations when giving games of western tournaments the same value as korean tournaments. When two koreans go vs each other on some of the western team leagues, and the game is played on the US, Koreans living in Europe/US have a significant advantage. Think of things like lag or being used to lag and possibly even motivation based on the fact that the korean living in EU/US doesn't play in GSL/PL/GSTL and will thus give more in these insignificant online things). I believe this may result in things like ForGG and Polt being ranked higher than they would be, thus making Aligulac show inaccurate standings in terms of player skill.
ForGG is not a very good player.
Why does Lucifron say that ForGG is the best player in europe right now, taking MVP and MC into account as well?
On May 19 2013 21:41 a_flayer wrote: Right now the system also creates unfair situations when giving games of western tournaments the same value as korean tournaments. When two koreans go vs each other on some of the western team leagues, and the game is played on the US, Koreans living in Europe/US have a significant advantage. Think of things like lag or being used to lag and possibly even motivation based on the fact that the korean living in EU/US doesn't play in GSL/PL/GSTL and will thus give more in these insignificant online things). I believe this may result in things like ForGG and Polt being ranked higher than they would be, thus making Aligulac show inaccurate standings in terms of player skill.
ForGG is not a very good player.
Why does Lucifron say that ForGG is the best player in europe right now, taking MVP and MC into account as well?
You're trying to use logic to argue with an irrational anti-fan. :/
On May 19 2013 21:46 Abominous wrote: To prevent farming maybe you could implement something like elo that once the rating difference is too high, player simply does not gain any rating from winning that match. I suppose that would put Forgg way aside, since he's farmed insignificant Europeans for quite a while!
Also some kind of weight factor for the matches/tournaments might help as well, as suggested before.
The amount of points a player gains from a victory does take the rating of the other player into account.
Stephano's 2-1 vs Thorzain still meant Stephano lost a few points because he was so much higher rated vT than T'zains vZ.
Maybe we should make a FAQ of all the ideas to improve the rating, and why they wouldn't work. It's not like the suggestions made in this thread are bad. They're not bad at all. It's just that we (for the most part) thought of them already, and it's usually not quite as simple as it first sounds.
For instance, tying the rating to a prize pool is an entirely reasonable idea. The higher the prize pool, the better the players, and the more serious they will be about winning, right? Well, yes. Kinda. But then you have to take into account the existence of qualifiers, which have no prize pool at all. Or the concept of tournaments that offer only a small prize pool plus the participation in a larger tournament (Code A). Or the fact that WCS Korea will be weighted exactly like WCS NA, which surely isn't right? And suddenly the idea seems a whole lot more complicated than you initially thought.
On May 19 2013 21:54 Conti wrote: Maybe we should make a FAQ of all the ideas to improve the rating, and why they wouldn't work. It's not like the suggestions made in this thread are bad. They're not bad at all. It's just that we (for the most part) thought of them already, and it's usually not quite as simple as it first sounds.
I have a feeling that a more comprehensive FAQ would solve nothing...
On May 19 2013 20:49 v_lm wrote: I agree. Or at least implementing a "at stake" factor.
Indeed, it would be nice if each match/game had a weight, related to the amount of money on the line for it. Sure, sometimes it's pride and glory, rather than money, but still money is a good measurable factor.
It's really not. Here's the thing, if you introduce a weighing system, it will be arbitrary at least to some extent, and it will produce "unfair" situations. For example, if you weigh by prize pool, do you seriously think a LAN like Assembly or The Gathering or ONOG or even some DreamHacks and IEMs are as hard overall as ProLeague or the Code A Qualifiers?
BB has long been considering a weighing system, the only thing is that no matter how fair it may seem, none is completely fair. To me, the best idea would be to weigh the tournament based on the average rating of the participating players. But even then, what if you end up with a very stacked Code S where upsets happen and many favourites fall to objectively lesser players, and the champion has an absurdly easy path to victory? (July 2011 comes to mind ) That would inflate his rating more than a bit...
So it's tricky...
Proleague and Code A introduce two important problems with calculating "money on the line" (which is the real problem):
1. Proleague (and other Team Leagues): the players may be motivated by team rewards that aren't public. So there's still probably some value for "money on the line", but we don't have access to it. 2. Code A (and other initial stages of tournaments) may not have much "money on the line" for the match itself, but winning it unlocks potential access to a lot more "money on the line". What factor to put in front of such possibility-for-money is questionable. So again, there is some monetary reason behind the importance of the match, but we can't calculate it with objective precision.
What about an "at stake" factor proportional/correlated to the offline/online part AND the mean ELO at a certain round ? That way winning in "stacked" tournaments counts more than winning in random tournaments. EDIT : Ok it has already been said, however I don't think it would be an issue
ex : July 2011 AMONG Nestea's results the GSL Ro8 counts more than other results HE might have shown (however I dont know if he participated in a lot of other tournament at that time) but this inflates not that much his ELO cause it remains results against (mostly) non top tier player. Byun however who 2-0ed Polt the former GSL champion gains a lot more points for his win in the Ro8 than Nestea.
Other example : Let's say Dimaga wins vs Happy in WCS EU. The level is quite stacked but Happy is quite an easy opponent + Show Spoiler +
(at least aligulac easy )
compared to, say, Lucifron and ForGG. Dimaga doesn t get more points by winning Happy because the global level is high, he gets the same "raw" amount of points (based on Happy's ELO) but multiplied by an amount correlated to the mean ELO of all the player of the Ro8 while his loss vs the same Happy in Russia vs Ukraine is multiplied by an amount correlated to the mean ELO of the russian and ukrainian players.
On May 19 2013 22:25 v_lm wrote: What about an "at stake" factor proportional/correlated to the offline/online part AND the mean ELO at a certain round ? That way winning in "stacked" tournaments counts more than winning in random tournaments. EDIT : Ok it has already been said, however I don't think it would be an issue
ex : July 2011 AMONG Nestea's results the GSL Ro8 counts more than other results HE might have shown (however I dont know if he participated in a lot of other tournament at that time) but this inflates not that much his ELO cause it remains results against (mostly) non top tier player. Byun however who 2-0ed Polt the former GSL champion gains a lot more points for his win in the Ro8 than Nestea.
Other example : Let's say Dimaga wins vs Happy in WCS EU. The level is quite stacked but Happy is quite an easy opponent + Show Spoiler +
(at least aligulac easy )
compared to, say, Lucifron and ForGG. Dimaga doesn t get more points by winning Happy because the global level is high, he gets the same "raw" amount of points (based on Happy's ELO) but multiplied by an amount correlated to the mean ELO of all the player of the Ro8 while his loss vs the same Happy in Russia vs Ukraine is multiplied by an amount correlated to the mean ELO of the russian and ukrainian players.
Your idea would mean that Happy would lose more points for losing to DIMAGA in WCS EU also. So did Happy play worse in WCS EU because the overall mean skill was higher? Or did he play better but still lost and shouldn't be punished so hard?
People forget, or doesn't know, that it goes both ways. Losing in GSL Code S isn't really that bad because the competition is so fierce. So we want to reward the winner a lot, but also not punish the loser too much?
You can argue a lot about data analysis and the like (this goes for everyone, not just the creators of the ranking system), but at the end of the day I think the long discontinued TL power rank was by far the most accurate method of all. Sure, it was 100% subjective, but I was hard pressed to disagree with any of the rankings from 2008 to 2011.
On May 19 2013 23:53 shadymmj wrote: You can argue a lot about data analysis and the like (this goes for everyone, not just the creators of the ranking system), but at the end of the day I think the long discontinued TL power rank was by far the most accurate method of all. Sure, it was 100% subjective, but I was hard pressed to disagree with any of the rankings from 2008 to 2011.
In BW there were much fewer tournaments and games (at least that is my understanding of the scene). Which made it a bit easier to follow and rank players. Everything was Kespa, and you only needed to follow one scene (The Korean) to have an idea of the skill-levels of the players. Not that I disagree though. But the scene has changed a lot.
On May 19 2013 20:16 Arceus wrote: a bit off topic but why TL writers stop doing the Power Ranking, now that we have regular SPL and GSL going on.
There is too much to do and not enough people to do it right now, even with 3 or 4 additional dedicated writers. I wasn't around when Power Ranks stopped, but I'm guessing lack of resources was the main reason.
Any power rank that has player like ForGG as second best player in the world doesn't do much to convience me about it's credibility. I mean, just look at this history, against any decent player, he loses.
On May 20 2013 00:51 Odoakar wrote: Any power rank that has player like ForGG as second best player in the world doesn't do much to convience me about it's credibility. I mean, just look at this history, against any decent player, he loses.
Your idea would mean that Happy would lose more points for losing to DIMAGA in WCS EU also. So did Happy play worse in WCS EU because the overall mean skill was higher? Or did he play better but still lost and shouldn't be punished so hard?
People forget, or doesn't know, that it goes both ways. Losing in GSL Code S isn't really that bad because the competition is so fierce. So we want to reward the winner a lot, but also not punish the loser too much?
Yeah, that's my point, and it's not about rewarding anybody, it is about to give more credit to performance done in big tournaments. I'm OK with Happy losing points overall if he's lets say 3-3 with Dimaga but lost 2/1 a series from WCS EU (lets say its a BO3 for the sake of argument) and won 2/1 in UKR vs RUS showmatch. You aren't ? Thank you for answering and discussing my feedback by the way.
On May 19 2013 20:16 Arceus wrote: a bit off topic but why TL writers stop doing the Power Ranking, now that we have regular SPL and GSL going on.
There is too much to do and not enough people to do it right now, even with 3 or 4 additional dedicated writers. I wasn't around when Power Ranks stopped, but I'm guessing lack of resources was the main reason.
On May 19 2013 23:53 shadymmj wrote: You can argue a lot about data analysis and the like (this goes for everyone, not just the creators of the ranking system), but at the end of the day I think the long discontinued TL power rank was by far the most accurate method of all. Sure, it was 100% subjective, but I was hard pressed to disagree with any of the rankings from 2008 to 2011.
In BW there were much fewer tournaments and games (at least that is my understanding of the scene). Which made it a bit easier to follow and rank players. Everything was Kespa, and you only needed to follow one scene (The Korean) to have an idea of the skill-levels of the players. Not that I disagree though. But the scene has changed a lot.
Still a lot of us would pick and prod at DJEtter's picks when it got released and anyone else who did it for that matter. There was still a lot of debate even with so few tournaments like OSL, MSL, Survivor/Challenge qualifiers, PL, GOMClassic, etc.
On May 20 2013 00:51 Odoakar wrote: Any power rank that has player like ForGG as second best player in the world doesn't do much to convience me about it's credibility. I mean, just look at this history, against any decent player, he loses.
I never quite understand these, as ForGG has essentially never accomplished anything in SC2 (that I am aware of O.O). He is always so highly regarded as the favorite then goes out in such early/mid rounds.
Your idea would mean that Happy would lose more points for losing to DIMAGA in WCS EU also. So did Happy play worse in WCS EU because the overall mean skill was higher? Or did he play better but still lost and shouldn't be punished so hard?
People forget, or doesn't know, that it goes both ways. Losing in GSL Code S isn't really that bad because the competition is so fierce. So we want to reward the winner a lot, but also not punish the loser too much?
Yeah, that's my point, and it's not about rewarding anybody, it is about to give more credit to performance done in big tournaments. I'm OK with Happy losing points overall if he's lets say 3-3 with Dimaga but lost 2/1 a series from WCS EU (lets say its a BO3 for the sake of argument) and won 2/1 in UKR vs RUS showmatch. You aren't ? Thank you for answering and discussing my feedback by the way.
Not sure if I am. On one side, winning in a high pressure tournament is harder (at least we assume so). But if winning is harder, losing is also more "forgiveable", because it was a harder tournament. I do understand you idea though. And of course we wan to discuss feedback, we are always trying to make the rating better
TheBB wrote a new part in the FAQ for this
Games in regular online tournaments shouldn't count as much as Code S. Well, first we have to realize that games are weighted, in a sense, by opponent skill. You get more points for beating a higher rated opponent than a lower, and you lose more points by losing to a lower rated opponent than a higher. In addition it is worth considering that simply weighing games higher will not automatically increase the rating of those playing. The winners will gain more points, true, but the losers will also lose more. The mean rating of the players playing will not change.
So aside from this, how should this weighing work?
Even stronger weighing by opponent? The "weighing" is a result of a Bayesian inversion formula depending on the underlying probability model chosen. It's not something that can just be changed, that is, there's no parameter encoding this. It's a much deeper mathematical concept.
Weighing by mean rating of opponent in a round? Well, why should this be any better than weighing by the actual opponents faced, which is what we already do?
Weighing by prize pool? The theory goes that strong players are likely to "try harder" if the prize is higher. There is some merit to this idea, but there are also problems. Some tournaments offer prizes in equipment, and not money. Some offer qualification to a higher tier. For example, there is no monetary prize in the GSL Up and Down groups, but nobody would question the incentive to win there. In addition, there are internal team incentives which are not generally public knowledge. And, additionally, if a player knowingly plays weaker in some games, should that not be reflected in the ratings?
Weighing by tournament? These arguments usually involve some classification of events into tiers of importance with coefficients associated with each level. This approach runs into the complexity problem. With five levels (say), the model becomes far more complicated for what is not shown (yet, anyway) to be reasonable benefit.
Weighing by online and offline? Yes, this is a legitimate idea and probably the one closest to being implemented. We have working experimental code with this feature already.
On May 20 2013 14:51 UberNuB wrote: I never quite understand these, as ForGG has essentially never accomplished anything in SC2 (that I am aware of O.O).
Not including more minor LANs or online tournaments, which he crushes on a fairly regular basis.
On May 20 2013 14:51 UberNuB wrote: He is always so highly regarded as the favorite then goes out in such early/mid rounds.
You mean just like Bomber? (and MarineKing, as of late)
On May 19 2013 21:46 Abominous wrote: To prevent farming maybe you could implement something like elo that once the rating difference is too high, player simply does not gain any rating from winning that match.
What about ProLeague?
There are a lot of players in there with a fairly low rating (think 900-1200 range) that are still subjectively considered much better than foreigners, say, in the 1200-1500 range. And yet ProLeague is arguably the hardest or 2nd hardest tournament in the world, depending on your perspective. All ratings aside, it's fairly obvious that said A/B-teamers would make short work of most foreigners if pitted against them, just like top foreigners make short work of the mid and lower tier foreigners. But instead they get to face FlaSh/Bogus/HerO/sHy/Soulkey, and not low/mid-tier foreigners, which is why this misleading discrepancy exists. Do you think FlaSh beating 3 of these aforementioned Kespa B-teamers is worth less points than, for example's sake, Happy beating 3 mid-tier foreigners who are in the 1200-1500 rating range?
And weighing matches is a much more cumbersome solution than if we were to have more tournaments, and more cross-region tournaments. >_<
Weighing by online and offline? Yes, this is a legitimate idea and probably the one closest to being implemented. We have working experimental code with this feature already
On May 19 2013 21:41 a_flayer wrote: Right now the system also creates unfair situations when giving games of western tournaments the same value as korean tournaments. When two koreans go vs each other on some of the western team leagues, and the game is played on the US, Koreans living in Europe/US have a significant advantage. Think of things like lag or being used to lag and possibly even motivation based on the fact that the korean living in EU/US doesn't play in GSL/PL/GSTL and will thus give more in these insignificant online things). I believe this may result in things like ForGG and Polt being ranked higher than they would be, thus making Aligulac show inaccurate standings in terms of player skill.
ForGG is not a very good player.
Why does Lucifron say that ForGG is the best player in europe right now, taking MVP and MC into account as well?
You're trying to use logic to argue with an irrational anti-fan. :/
He makes the rest of us anti fans look bad :p
Or maybe you all focus on my single last line and completely ignore the fact that ForGG will always be more motivated to do well in these rather meaningless small online tournaments where Koreans playing in GSL/SPL will simply put in less effort when they face him because their focus is on GSL/SPL. I watched the games ForGG played in his WCS group and I was not impressed. Sloppy multitasking, micro and macro. Badly executed attacks. The list goes on. He lost vs TLO, for crying out loud.
The way this thing comes up with its value for players simply does not create a flawless overview of "top" players. I don't see how this can be disputed. Although I suppose nobody is claiming that it does (I hope). Still, it bothers me to see people flocking around something like this and someone should throw in some counterweight.
On May 19 2013 21:41 a_flayer wrote: Right now the system also creates unfair situations when giving games of western tournaments the same value as korean tournaments. When two koreans go vs each other on some of the western team leagues, and the game is played on the US, Koreans living in Europe/US have a significant advantage. Think of things like lag or being used to lag and possibly even motivation based on the fact that the korean living in EU/US doesn't play in GSL/PL/GSTL and will thus give more in these insignificant online things). I believe this may result in things like ForGG and Polt being ranked higher than they would be, thus making Aligulac show inaccurate standings in terms of player skill.
ForGG is not a very good player.
Why does Lucifron say that ForGG is the best player in europe right now, taking MVP and MC into account as well?
You're trying to use logic to argue with an irrational anti-fan. :/
He makes the rest of us anti fans look bad :p
Or maybe you all focus on my single last line and completely ignore the fact that ForGG will always be more motivated to do well in these rather meaningless small online tournaments where Koreans playing in GSL/SPL will simply put in less effort when they face him because their focus is on GSL/SPL. I watched the games ForGG played in his WCS group and I was not impressed. Sloppy multitasking, micro and macro. Badly executed attacks. The list goes on. He lost vs TLO, for crying out loud.
The way this thing comes up with its value for players simply does not create a flawless overview of "top" players. I don't see how this can be disputed. Although I suppose nobody is claiming that it does (I hope). Still, it bothers me to see people flocking around something like this and someone should throw in some counterweight.
I'm not quite sure why ForGG is motivated to do well in rather meaningless online tourneys, do you actually think pro players gives a shit about this rating?
Our rating has had a huge shock, with both HotS and Kespa transition, it will take at least half a year before enough points have been transferred to the entire new "Kespa scene" before it is somewhat accurate. Which I have explained in prior threads http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=408365¤tpage=3#44 Yet we still do these write ups to keep showing the results we can show and the uses for the site. Some enjoy it, some don't.
Also, when you just state "ForGG is not a very good player" without any real justification, I think it makes you sound like a hater. Whether or not he is rated too high with us, he is in WCS EU Ro8 and has delivered pretty good results.
After reading lot of comment in the Aligulac threads and speacilly the developers answers, I'm convinced that the surelly huuuge effort on the rating, is being slowly ruined with pure pride.
(Innovation is the best by far comment) "Most likely that is because your list is mainly based on GSL and SPL and nothing else. Your list is just the best of the last 2 GSL's"
Really? What else a Sc2 pro need to be the best? Raping in GSL and teamkillling in SPL should be enough. Enough for sure to be top 10. This rating is clearly and sadly flawed. It need to be adjusted, but to adjust something, devs first need to realize/admit that something is wrong.
I am shocked at how many people are saying the system is flawed because x player is clearly better than y. While many of these arguments may be true, this is not the effect of the system being wrong; it's simply this way because there is not enough inter-mingling between discrete scenes.
If the devs made any true mistakes, it's the assumption that putting everyone in a single environment would work out fine due to points transfers from inter-scene events.
I personally think (and I may be mathmatically wrong!) that there aren't enough international events to transfer points fast enough to adjust for inflation for scenes like EU where there are so many games/players.
Actually, what does Aligulac think about this? Is the occasional dreamhack/MLG/season finals enough to appropriately transfer points? The post regarding points transfer from Koreans to foreigners being on a general decline seemed to be optimistic about this, but I'm just not sure that this is true mainly due to Kespa players not being able to compete in most international leagues. Sure, they'll leech some off the eSF players who attend, but I feel like it would be somewhat diluted by this point.
On May 22 2013 10:15 Belha wrote: After reading lot of comment in the Aligulac threads and speacilly the developers answers, I'm convinced that the surelly huuuge effort on the rating, is being slowly ruined with pure pride.
(Innovation is the best by far comment) "Most likely that is because your list is mainly based on GSL and SPL and nothing else. Your list is just the best of the last 2 GSL's"
Really? What else a Sc2 pro need to be the best? Raping in GSL and teamkillling in SPL should be enough. Enough for sure to be top 10. This rating is clearly and sadly flawed. It need to be adjusted, but to adjust something, devs first need to realize/admit that something is wrong.
Let's be clear here : There is only 2 dev posting here, namely Conti and TheBB (I don't put myself in that category since I never got the time to push my commits). The remaining "staff" member posting here is Grovbolle who does most of the PR stuff for TheBB.
The rest of us are neither developers nor any kind of official representation for the website. We are, contrary to your beliefs, entitled to our opinions and to the relative liberty to say it here or elsewhere. Using our opinions to discredit the work of others is not a good way to propose criticism.
That being said, if you do have a proposition, a suggestion or any kind of advice that you could gave us, we are more than happy to listen.
On May 22 2013 10:15 Belha wrote: After reading lot of comment in the Aligulac threads and speacilly the developers answers, I'm convinced that the surelly huuuge effort on the rating, is being slowly ruined with pure pride.
(Innovation is the best by far comment) "Most likely that is because your list is mainly based on GSL and SPL and nothing else. Your list is just the best of the last 2 GSL's"
Really? What else a Sc2 pro need to be the best? Raping in GSL and teamkillling in SPL should be enough. Enough for sure to be top 10. This rating is clearly and sadly flawed. It need to be adjusted, but to adjust something, devs first need to realize/admit that something is wrong.
If you read what I post, I agree multiple times that INnoVation most likely is the best player in the world. If I had to bet on someone to win GSL, I would choose him. I guess I phrased myself pretty bad with the bolded part, what I meant was that we have mainly seen the strength of INnoVation's TvZ, while we haven't seen him convincingly winning a lot in the other two match-up, as soon as he actually plays and beats good T's and P's, his rating will adjust. Also, and this is a very general thing, the entirety of the Kespa players are underrated, and will be so for at least half a year or more until there has been an adequate transfer of points from both EU, NA and ESF to the "kespa pool" which is mainly distributed among Kespa teams through SPL.
Gateway players/teams are players and teams that play in multiple pools and thus helps this transfer by "stealing" points from one pool to another: Axiom/Acer -> Points transfer through Acer Teamstory Cup, GSTL and GSL. Also WCS AM (When there were weaker overrated AM players) EG-TL -> ATC, SPL, Other teamleagues. Flash, Rain, PartinG, Soulkey, INnoVation basically any Kespa pro who plays GSL and wins points there and then loses them again in the "kespa pool".
I am pondering doing a larger more graphical write-up on this to explain it better, but for now, we are proud of what we have done, but we can all agree that the current rating does not adequately display the true skill of most (Kespa) players. We are still in a transition period until we have had more points transfer. The biggest reason for this being so slow is that Kespa players only plays proleague (no point transfer from other pools unless beating EG-TL, only distribution) and GSL (some points transferred).
I hope that made it a bit clearer, and I am sorry if I have come off as somewhat defensive. Criticism is always appreciated, as long as it is presented in a constructive manner, but expect at least 6 months before the pools of points are somewhat adequately distributed.
Also: INnoVation is currently number 7, he was 11th when this thread was originally posted. If not for the somewhat inflated rating of ForGG, Polt and LucifroN he would be number 4. I think that is reasonable, especially considering that anyone within 250 points of eachother cannot be considered significantly weaker than the other.
On May 22 2013 10:39 edwahn wrote: I am shocked at how many people are saying the system is flawed because x player is clearly better than y. While many of these arguments may be true, this is not the effect of the system being wrong; it's simply this way because there is not enough inter-mingling between discrete scenes.
If the devs made any true mistakes, it's the assumption that putting everyone in a single environment would work out fine due to points transfers from inter-scene events.
I personally think (and I may be mathmatically wrong!) that there aren't enough international events to transfer points fast enough to adjust for inflation for scenes like EU where there are so many games/players.
Actually, what does Aligulac think about this? Is the occasional dreamhack/MLG/season finals enough to appropriately transfer points? The post regarding points transfer from Koreans to foreigners being on a general decline seemed to be optimistic about this, but I'm just not sure that this is true mainly due to Kespa players not being able to compete in most international leagues. Sure, they'll leech some off the eSF players who attend, but I feel like it would be somewhat diluted by this point.
It is an issue that there are a lot more "semi-pros" that enter and leave the EU/AM scene once they have lost some points. In KR we only get results from GSL, OSL, SPL and the occasional Code A qualifier. So there is close to no inflation. Again, something I ponder doing a write-up on as soon as my exams are done.
On May 22 2013 10:15 Belha wrote: After reading lot of comment in the Aligulac threads and speacilly the developers answers, I'm convinced that the surelly huuuge effort on the rating, is being slowly ruined with pure pride.
(Innovation is the best by far comment) "Most likely that is because your list is mainly based on GSL and SPL and nothing else. Your list is just the best of the last 2 GSL's"
Really? What else a Sc2 pro need to be the best? Raping in GSL and teamkillling in SPL should be enough. Enough for sure to be top 10. This rating is clearly and sadly flawed. It need to be adjusted, but to adjust something, devs first need to realize/admit that something is wrong.
The other guys have accurate answers to your issues, but I'd like to try summarizing them a bit.
First of all, hell yes I'm proud as fuck.
Secondly, Otolia is right. The only people in this thread who are regular developers are me and Conti, and Conti doesn't even work with the ratings. That's just me. So a lot of what you take as developer comments are from other people associated with the project who have a decent but not perfect understanding of it.
Third. I disagree. Primarily because of scene heterogeneity the number of people who are able to "rape" in GSL and "kill" in SPL are few indeed. There are many more players who can do one but not both. There is a not insignificant list of players who have "raped" in the GSL only to fall out very quickly. Seed and Jjakji come to mind. Were they ever the best?
I can assure you that "raping" in the GSL and "killing" in the SPL will make Innovation #1 on Aligulac. He just has to be at it for a bit longer than he has. In fact he's only been "raping" in this season. Last season he famously failed to rape Symbol in the Ro16. This season he's only made it one round further so far. The evidence here is flimsy. In SPL, prior to his last all-kill Innovation had a three game loss streak (and another allkill before that).
All in all he has a winrate of slightly less than 2/3 over this period, which means he's more or less steadily performing at 300 or so points higher than his opponents. If he keeps it up his rating should reflect that in a few months time.
I claim that you and a lot of other people place undue importance on a select few events and extreme performances.
(And, anyway, he is top 10 right now.)
Fourth. Devs (which by previous argument, means me) do admit that something is wrong. Never have I said otherwise. But if you think the value in this tool lies solely in a list then you are vastly mistaken. Yes, I would love it if the rating list were an accurate representation of who is the very best, but to call it flawed would be to ignore all the other things it's good at. So long as you aren't comparing across scenes, it should be just fine.
Hate to be so blunt, but what is the point of this ranking? It is so far from reality that it seems to be completely useless. Most people here could make up a ranking off the top of their heads that would have more predictive power than this. Is this just an exercise in statistical masturbation?
On May 22 2013 10:15 Belha wrote: After reading lot of comment in the Aligulac threads and speacilly the developers answers, I'm convinced that the surelly huuuge effort on the rating, is being slowly ruined with pure pride.
(Innovation is the best by far comment) "Most likely that is because your list is mainly based on GSL and SPL and nothing else. Your list is just the best of the last 2 GSL's"
Really? What else a Sc2 pro need to be the best? Raping in GSL and teamkillling in SPL should be enough. Enough for sure to be top 10. This rating is clearly and sadly flawed. It need to be adjusted, but to adjust something, devs first need to realize/admit that something is wrong.
I claim that you and a lot of other people place undue importance on a select few events and extreme performances.
And that is one of the main problems of the system. You don't place enough importance on certain events and give too much importance to lesser tournaments. I think developer pride is indeed one of the main reasons why the system is slow to improve or unwilling to improve.
The system as it stands is an inaccurate rating system. However, since it's one of the few or only statistical system out there, not counting tl's elo which is also flawed people give more value and credit to the system than it deserves. There's just a lack of system rankings out there, so people flock to one of the only ones out there even if it's flawed.
On May 24 2013 14:55 iamho wrote: Hate to be so blunt, but what is the point of this ranking? It is so far from reality that it seems to be completely useless. Most people here could make up a ranking off the top of their heads that would have more predictive power than this. Is this just an exercise in statistical masturbation?
Yet it would be #2 in liquibets on single competitions. So most people = 1-2 persons.
On May 24 2013 14:55 iamho wrote: Hate to be so blunt, but what is the point of this ranking? It is so far from reality that it seems to be completely useless. Most people here could make up a ranking off the top of their heads that would have more predictive power than this. Is this just an exercise in statistical masturbation?
Yet it would be #2 in liquibets on single competitions. So most people = 1-2 persons.
People have always gotten top 10 in Liquibet by voting purely on ELO, I fail to see how this is any more impressive. I would be more impressed to see an FPL team constructed with this ranking do well, since people actually take that seriously.
On May 22 2013 10:15 Belha wrote: After reading lot of comment in the Aligulac threads and speacilly the developers answers, I'm convinced that the surelly huuuge effort on the rating, is being slowly ruined with pure pride.
(Innovation is the best by far comment) "Most likely that is because your list is mainly based on GSL and SPL and nothing else. Your list is just the best of the last 2 GSL's"
Really? What else a Sc2 pro need to be the best? Raping in GSL and teamkillling in SPL should be enough. Enough for sure to be top 10. This rating is clearly and sadly flawed. It need to be adjusted, but to adjust something, devs first need to realize/admit that something is wrong.
I claim that you and a lot of other people place undue importance on a select few events and extreme performances.
And that is one of the main problems of the system. You don't place enough importance on certain events and give too much importance to lesser tournaments. I think developer pride is indeed one of the main reasons why the system is slow to improve or unwilling to improve.
The system as it stands is an inaccurate rating system. However, since it's one of the few or only statistical system out there, not counting tl's elo which is also flawed people give more value and credit to the system than it deserves. There's just a lack of system rankings out there, so people flock to one of the only ones out there even if it's flawed.
lol what.
I'm sorry, but that is just funny...it's developer pride...lol...really?
I'm laughing too hard to post how ridiculous that is
On May 24 2013 14:55 iamho wrote: Hate to be so blunt, but what is the point of this ranking? It is so far from reality that it seems to be completely useless. Most people here could make up a ranking off the top of their heads that would have more predictive power than this. Is this just an exercise in statistical masturbation?
Yet it would be #2 in liquibets on single competitions. So most people = 1-2 persons.
People have always gotten top 10 in Liquibet by voting purely on ELO, I fail to see how this is any more impressive. I would be more impressed to see an FPL team constructed with this ranking do well, since people actually take that seriously.
I would speculate that the devs would probably consider "equally impressive to ELO, the most respected ranking algorithm in the history of mankind" to be something of a compliment.
On May 22 2013 10:15 Belha wrote: After reading lot of comment in the Aligulac threads and speacilly the developers answers, I'm convinced that the surelly huuuge effort on the rating, is being slowly ruined with pure pride.
(Innovation is the best by far comment) "Most likely that is because your list is mainly based on GSL and SPL and nothing else. Your list is just the best of the last 2 GSL's"
Really? What else a Sc2 pro need to be the best? Raping in GSL and teamkillling in SPL should be enough. Enough for sure to be top 10. This rating is clearly and sadly flawed. It need to be adjusted, but to adjust something, devs first need to realize/admit that something is wrong.
I claim that you and a lot of other people place undue importance on a select few events and extreme performances.
I think developer pride is indeed one of the main reasons why the system is slow to improve or unwilling to improve.
Less like developer pride and more like developer trying-to-finish-my-dissertation-so-I-don't-have-time-for-this-shit.
All you naysayers are free to submit pull requests by the way. Let me know and I'll hook you up with a full DB dump.
On May 24 2013 14:55 iamho wrote: Hate to be so blunt, but what is the point of this ranking? It is so far from reality that it seems to be completely useless. Most people here could make up a ranking off the top of their heads that would have more predictive power than this. Is this just an exercise in statistical masturbation?
Yet it would be #2 in liquibets on single competitions. So most people = 1-2 persons.
People have always gotten top 10 in Liquibet by voting purely on ELO, I fail to see how this is any more impressive. I would be more impressed to see an FPL team constructed with this ranking do well, since people actually take that seriously.
I would speculate that the devs would probably consider "equally impressive to ELO, the most respected ranking algorithm in the history of mankind" to be something of a compliment.
EPT
Life 1883 (-30: WCS KR, GSTL)
ForGG 1865 (-8: WCS EU)
PartinG 1792 (-14: WCS KR, Proleague)
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