Change ELO Distribution In Ranked

[Benn3]

Seriously, ELO distribution is horrible in Ranked. You either get some from winning, or lose some from losing. It's barely at all focused on in-game performance. Constantly I'm losing due to teammates who don't know what they're doing or gamethrowers, so I get stuck in a lower level. You should gain more ELO depending on how well you play the game, such as:

- Shooting evils as a Vigilante
- Executing evils as the Jailor
- Protecting people from attacks as a TP
- Voting and lynching(pressing guilty) members of the opposing faction
- Winning the game with as many faction members alive as possible
- Making a Mafia Killing target themselves as a Transporter

etc.

There can be many more factors than this, these are just the examples I could come up with off the top of my head, but you should see what I mean. This will also prevent bad players from being able to just rank up by grinding games, and letting their teammates do all the work. It's very frustrating to get into a game where for example, some revealed Mayor tries to vote you despite you being confirmed, or an Escort role-blocks confirmed Townies, and then gets confused on why people think they're a Consort. ELO distribution based on in-game performance would help prevent these types of players from making you constantly lose ELO and not be able to rank up.

[wozearly]

The Elo system is entirely and solely based on the concept of win = +points, lose = -points.

The first of two main problems with trying to attach "credit" for certain actions is that it risks incentivising individuals to act in a way that, counterintuitively, may be detrimental to the team. And the second is that not all roles are equally suited for "crediting" in this way.

As an example of the first point, take a Vigi who gains points for shooting and killing a Mafia member, loses points for shooting and killing a Town member, and gains and loses no points if the person they shot survives. And a Jailor who gets points for executing evils and loses points for executing Townies.

The Vigi and Jailor now have a perverse incentive in certain situations; say that Town has narrowed down its list of potential last Mafioso suspects to one of three - two unproven Vigi claims and a Transporter claim who may be a Hypnotist-turned-Mafioso. Jailor is still in play and has executions. Any other Townie in play is confirmed beyond reasonable doubt, all other evils are dead.

Someone leading the Town would likely propose a low-risk solution for a Town win; Vigi claims shoot each other, Jailor jails and executes the Transporter. Whatever happens the Mafioso dies and Town wins. But Vigis and Jailor may not like it. If the Trans claim is Mafioso, both Vigis will lose ELO for their "bad" decision but the Jailor will gain ELO. Alternatively, if one of the Vigis is Mafioso then the Vigi will gain ELO while the Jailor loses ELO for their "bad decision".

As it's basically a 50/50 chance of ELO loss, you'd expect Jailor and Vigi to object. Jailor would be happier with a more complex approach of jailing the most likely suspect without executing, then executing the following night if there are no Mafia kills (so the Jailor gets max ELO and not the Vigi or all Town via voting, natch). Vigis would prefer to shoot based on their own scumreading and gut instinct than be instructed to lose ELO if they're pretty sure the Trans is a fake. Expect a series of unhelpful arguments as each defends their own ELO risk.

There are many other variants of this (Doc refusing to sit on Jailor because no-one will attack a Jailor known to be guarded, so they have better ELO opportunities by trying to heal others, even if that is detrimental to the team, etc.)

For the other problem, take a role like Transporter. How would you determine what was or wasn't a successful transport for ELO purposes. Or a Medium? It gets even worse on the evils side. How do you credit a Blackmailer? Or whether a Witch controlled the "right"people.

Annoying though it is to be stuck with poorer players from time to time, TOS is a team game and Town benefits from all of its players recognising that, in most cases, they're entirely sacrificable provided it takes down or identifies at least one Mafia member in return.

[Benn3]

The Elo system is entirely and solely based on the concept of win = +points, lose = -points.

The first of two main problems with trying to attach "credit" for certain actions is that it risks incentivising individuals to act in a way that, counterintuitively, may be detrimental to the team. And the second is that not all roles are equally suited for "crediting" in this way.

As an example of the first point, take a Vigi who gains points for shooting and killing a Mafia member, loses points for shooting and killing a Town member, and gains and loses no points if the person they shot survives. And a Jailor who gets points for executing evils and loses points for executing Townies.

The Vigi and Jailor now have a perverse incentive in certain situations; say that Town has narrowed down its list of potential last Mafioso suspects to one of three - two unproven Vigi claims and a Transporter claim who may be a Hypnotist-turned-Mafioso. Jailor is still in play and has executions. Any other Townie in play is confirmed beyond reasonable doubt, all other evils are dead.

Someone leading the Town would likely propose a low-risk solution for a Town win; Vigi claims shoot each other, Jailor jails and executes the Transporter. Whatever happens the Mafioso dies and Town wins. But Vigis and Jailor may not like it. If the Trans claim is Mafioso, both Vigis will lose ELO for their "bad" decision but the Jailor will gain ELO. Alternatively, if one of the Vigis is Mafioso then the Vigi will gain ELO while the Jailor loses ELO for their "bad decision".

As it's basically a 50/50 chance of ELO loss, you'd expect Jailor and Vigi to object. Jailor would be happier with a more complex approach of jailing the most likely suspect without executing, then executing the following night if there are no Mafia kills (so the Jailor gets max ELO and not the Vigi or all Town via voting, natch). Vigis would prefer to shoot based on their own scumreading and gut instinct than be instructed to lose ELO if they're pretty sure the Trans is a fake. Expect a series of unhelpful arguments as each defends their own ELO risk.

There are many other variants of this (Doc refusing to sit on Jailor because no-one will attack a Jailor known to be guarded, so they have better ELO opportunities by trying to heal others, even if that is detrimental to the team, etc.)

For the other problem, take a role like Transporter. How would you determine what was or wasn't a successful transport for ELO purposes. Or a Medium? It gets even worse on the evils side. How do you credit a Blackmailer? Or whether a Witch controlled the "right"people.

Annoying though it is to be stuck with poorer players from time to time, TOS is a team game and Town benefits from all of its players recognising that, in most cases, they're entirely sacrificable provided it takes down or identifies at least one Mafia member in return.

Actually, you bring up a lot of good points here. Although a lot of them could be fixed by just making it so you don't lose ELO over, shooting a Town member for example, but then there's the scenario you brought up where only the Jailor or Vigilante will gain more ELO than the other. The only true way for ELO to be correctly distributed is to have moderators look over every game, which is DEFINITELY not going to happen and it should not, for obvious reasons. Fr though it's really annoying when you get put with players who don't know what they're doing only for you to lose because of them, no matter what you do. I wish there was some way to prevent this.

[kyuss420]

yea, devs arent gonna code an AI to watch every match and allocate ELO on how much someone contributed to the win. Or whether their genius play worked or not -which is another problem, if you make an optimal play, say with 20% chance of failure and 80% chance of success, if you hit the 20% you will lose ELO, even tho it was the most optimal move at the time. (which is the vig/jailor/trans scenario above)

Also, dieing n1/n2 is going to give you very little ELO, unless medium/ret exists, making it better to leave and start a new match, if you die early, than wait around to see if theres a medium or not.

Then if they were going to do it for town, they would have to do it for evils, so GF/mafioso would likely gain more ELO than deceptive/support roles. Unless the AI understands the chat and can allocate ELO for sheeping people, causing mislynches, having a good claim and will, backing up other maf claims etc.

Then if they were going to do it for night actions, they may as well do it for voting as well, so mislynching reduces ELO, splitting votes reduces ELO (unless youre evil, then you gain ELO)

As for '' it's really annoying when you get put with players who don't know what they're doing only for you to lose because of them, no matter what you do. I wish there was some way to prevent this.'' - there is. Rank up.

The easiest way to rank up, is to start the season when it starts, that way you dont get stuck with low ELO players half way through the season, and you level up at the same time as other players in your league, so shorter seasons would be the best way to overcome the problem, so any one who missed the first few weeks, isnt stuck in ELO hell for the rest of the season...

[James2]

[b]Seriously, ELO distribution is horrible in Ranked. You either get some from winning, or lose some from losing.

That is precisely how elo is supposed to work. The goal of the game is to win, not to keep townies alive, transport mafia into themselves, etc.

[Joacgroso]

[b]Seriously, ELO distribution is horrible in Ranked. You either get some from winning, or lose some from losing.

That is precisely how elo is supposed to work. The goal of the game is to win, not to keep townies alive, transport mafia into themselves, etc.

One could argue that then elo isn't the best scoring system for this game (after all, it was created for chess) and that ToS should use a better one. Then again, this game doesn't have that many players, so even if we had a fairer algorythm we would still have a huge skill gap between players in every game. There are higher priorities.

The sad thing is that this game is inherently unfair, so it's hard to make a fair scoring system. I do believe elo gain/loss should be reduced for people who died n1/n2. Just because the game can't be perfectly fair it doesn't mean we can't try.

[Superalex11]

The elo system is designed to give two opponents in a game theoretically equal chances of winning. In a case like chess, it is an obvious and strong choice, as chess is strictly skill-based, and each opponent is their own person. This ensures that elo not only reflects the likelihood of whichever outcome of the game, but also the actual skill level of the two players.

But in cases where teams are involved, elo only maintains its ability (broadly) to predict the outcome of a given game with short-term confidence if each team also maintains its unity across games (i.e. it's the same players on a given team every time). This is because the score weighting, even in team games, can only apply to two opponents, and so in a team elo system the teams must receive their own elo score. Of course, in most cases teams are not unified across games, so teams receive an estimated elo based on their constituents. This is where the trouble really lies, because it forces a divergence in goals of equalizing teams' influences on outcome versus equalizing players' influences on outcome.

In other words, in team-based elo systems, we can only pick one of the following as a goal, not both:
1) to have games where each team is equally likely to win; or
2) to have games where all players are equally likely to influence the outcome of the game. Now, analyzing long term will still yield the second goal on average if the first goal is prioritized, and the first goal is much more approachable for devs, so that's generally what is done (and is done here in ToS). But, as evident, it's still insufficient.

In ToS this gets even harder because we have more than two teams in a given game, as well as team odds imbalanced by the nature of the game mechanics. Honestly, these factors alone negate the possiblity of a standard elo system entirely, and fortunately the devs have seen this enough to make (at least the most necessary) revisions. I'm sure they can be improved further, but I think it's clear by this point that focusing so strongly on the first goal (team-oriented elo balancing) is not going to be my suggestion.

So then, without winding further, I will make my suggestion clear: I think that if BMG wants to improve the elo/ranking system of ToS, they need to decrease the influence team outcome has on elo change, and increase the influence a player's potential influence on the game has on elo change. I think that sounds a bit funny, so I'll restate: I believe the amount of potential a player has to move closer/further to a win/loss should be a bigger factor in their elo gain/loss. This is distinct from any concrete influence, because it's meant to focus on what elo is meant to represent: skill.

If a player has high influencing ability in a game, but still loses, then it's relatively likely that that player failed to use their high influence to their advantage, and so they should be punished strongly. Conversely, if a player has low influencing ability in a game, but still wins, then it's relatively unlikely that the player did much to deserve that win. Again, if elo is meant to represent skill, then realization of skill (or lack thereof) should influence elo.

Now, without taking this to specific examples, I do think it is useful to keep the game's meta uninfluenced by elo outcomes, and so very strict, largely impactful, and specific factors are probably not the best option. For example, while voting guilty on an evil as a townie is probably a good thing, and probably represents a higher skill level than otherwise, I don't believe that such action should be necessarily favored with elo.

Lastly, some specific responses and clarifications:

You should gain more ELO depending on how well you play the game, such as:

- Shooting evils as a Vigilante
- Executing evils as the Jailor
- Protecting people from attacks as a TP
- Voting and lynching(pressing guilty) members of the opposing faction
- Winning the game with as many faction members alive as possible
- Making a Mafia Killing target themselves as a Transporter

I agree with all of these, but mostly very weakly. As above, I think these are probably too specific and would end up influencing the meta. Maybe that could be a net good, but I'm against it.
Regarding the 5th point though, I actually strongly agree. First, because game outcome should not be restricted to just win/loss/draw, and second, because it actually fits thematically with the idea of the game (is one lookout left alive really just as much of a victory *thematically* as 6 townies?).

devs arent gonna code an AI to watch every match and allocate ELO on how much someone contributed to the win.

This isn't a programming problem as much as it is a game design problem. Almost all of the most important elo change modifiers I can think of (which are appropriate) would be determined before players finished loading in.

Or whether their genius play worked or not -which is another problem, if you make an optimal play, say with 20% chance of failure and 80% chance of success, if you hit the 20% you will lose ELO, even tho it was the most optimal move at the time.

Except this example is already the case, and by allowing realized skill to influence elo outcomes it actually becomes less of a problem.

As for the rest of your babbling, kyuss, it seems like you're just gut-reacting against this because... I'm not sure actually. None of the rest of your comment really makes sense or is applicable. To any others reading this, I'd recommend ignoring kyuss, as he has a history of making stupid incoherent posts like this.

I do believe elo gain/loss should be reduced for people who died n1/n2.

I think this type of example falls most in-line with my abstract proposition, and most clearly displays its value. Even assuming there is a medium, a player who dies n1 will have nowhere near the same capacity to influence the outcome of the game as someone who lives through the end. Thus I do not believe such player should be rewarded as strongly for their victory, or punished as strongly for their defeat.

[James2]

[b]Seriously, ELO distribution is horrible in Ranked. You either get some from winning, or lose some from losing.

That is precisely how elo is supposed to work. The goal of the game is to win, not to keep townies alive, transport mafia into themselves, etc.

One could argue that then elo isn't the best scoring system for this game (after all, it was created for chess) and that ToS should use a better one. Then again, this game doesn't have that many players, so even if we had a fairer algorythm we would still have a huge skill gap between players in every game. There are higher priorities.

The sad thing is that this game is inherently unfair, so it's hard to make a fair scoring system. I do believe elo gain/loss should be reduced for people who died n1/n2. Just because the game can't be perfectly fair it doesn't mean we can't try.

The goal of the game is to win, not to survive the first two nights (or die within the first two nights). There are cases where a person can benefit their team by risking early death (or benefit a probably losing team by not risking early death), so that should not be a factor.

The only real problem with elo is that it's inflationary; the average player can increase their elo over time. There are several proposed solutions to that problem, but the OP does not address it.

[Joacgroso]

The goal of the game is to win, not to survive the first two nights (or die within the first two nights). There are cases where a person can benefit their team by risking early death (or benefit a probably losing team by not risking early death), so that should not be a factor.

There may be cases where that happens, but I feel like reducing the elo impact if you die early will do more good than harm, even if it's not perfect. We can give exceptions to ambushers or bodyguards if they die guarding, and maybe veterans too. How often do you think plays would be punished by this feature compared to the amount of times the feature would actually help?

[Superalex11]

The goal of the game is to win, not to survive the first two nights (or die within the first two nights).

Do you believe the average player who dies n1/n2 and wins has earned their win through enough of their own skill/effort? Do you believe the average player who dies n1/n2 and loses has deserved their loss by failing to perform as well as their opponents?
If your answers to the above two are yes, then we're at a fundamental point of disagreement. If your answers are no, then I fail to see the point of your statement here.
Is it because you believe what basically amounts to luck should be this impactful towards elo (again, where elo is meant to be representative of skill)?
Or do you not believe elo should be (or, in general, is) representative of skill?

[kyuss420]

As for the rest of your babbling, kyuss, it seems like you're just gut-reacting against this because... I'm not sure actually. None of the rest of your comment really makes sense or is applicable. To any others reading this, I'd recommend ignoring kyuss, as he has a history of making stupid incoherent posts like this.

idk what you mean by incoherrent babbling, As I stated, starting late in the season gives you bad team mates, which in turn costs you more wins. Which is very relevant to the point that the OP was making, and which is why he was complaining about ELO distribution to start with - because he is stuck in bronze/silver where he gets bad team mates every match and more often than not, loses because of bad plays that werent his fault. Nothing Superalex said, addressed this point what so ever, he just rambled on about a fairer system for players who are already matching against players of their own league.

As Superalex always likes to over complicate everything with random math formulas, maybe he can determine a way to get a masters player from bronze to masters with the masters player only matching with bronze ELO players in his team for the first 50-100 matches of the season.

Its quite simple really, at the start of the season theres more players of equal skill in placement games and the lower end of the ELO scale, as they havent levelled up yet. 2 months in, the amount of smarter players in the lower end of the ELO rankings is greatly reduced, so chances of having low skill team mates are extremely high, if you start late. No change in the ELO system is going to solve that. (or is superalex such a whiz he can do it???)

So I stand by what I said. The easiest way to solve the OPs problem, is shorter seasons, maybe 1 to 2 months, so that people who missed the start of the season, have a chance to play with players of equal skill, than to constantly get matched with players of lower skill.

[Joacgroso]

Yes, that also makes sense, though it would imply removing seasonal prizes since there's no way BMG will make a new exclusive cosmetic every 2 months. Not like I care much about it, anyway. But I still think we can make the elo system a bit more fair, even if perfection is far from possible.

[James2]

The goal of the game is to win, not to survive the first two nights (or die within the first two nights). There are cases where a person can benefit their team by risking early death (or benefit a probably losing team by not risking early death), so that should not be a factor.

There may be cases where that happens, but I feel like reducing the elo impact if you die early will do more good than harm, even if it's not perfect. We can give exceptions to ambushers or bodyguards if they die guarding, and maybe veterans too. How often do you think plays would be punished by this feature compared to the amount of times the feature would actually help?

The goal of the game is to win, not to survive the first two nights (or die within the first two nights).

Do you believe the average player who dies n1/n2 and wins has earned their win through enough of their own skill/effort? Do you believe the average player who dies n1/n2 and loses has deserved their loss by failing to perform as well as their opponents?
If your answers to the above two are yes, then we're at a fundamental point of disagreement. If your answers are no, then I fail to see the point of your statement here.
Is it because you believe what basically amounts to luck should be this impactful towards elo (again, where elo is meant to be representative of skill)?
Or do you not believe elo should be (or, in general, is) representative of skill?

Noise is not a problem in ranking systems. There are some cases where a person can help their team while dead, and in those cases good players will tend to gain elo and bad players will tend to lose it. That the majority of n1 deaths don't have such opportunities doesn't matter, as players in such cases will gain elo as often as they lose it. No algorithm can detect all cases where a person who dies early can help their team, and even if it could it'd create perverse incentives (by encouraging players to get themselves killed in "potentially influential" ways, or discouraging them from risking such deaths for probably losing teams).

[Joacgroso]

Dead players can barely interact with the living. Especially if they aren't town. When they do, it's usually to tell the medium what they did the night they died, which is merit for the medium for existing, not for the dead player. And people can't really predict the outcome of the game by night 1, though I guess they can by night 2. Still, if people gamethrow we can always suspend them. We shouldn't refuse to improve the system because people might gamethrow.

This feature will do a lot more good than harm, I think. Even if unfair elo changes "balance themselves out", reducing player frustration will only make the game better. Also, not everyone plays ranked that often. People can be (un)lucky and not play often enough for the games to balance the elo out.

[James2]

We shouldn't refuse to improve the system because people might gamethrow.

Actively rewarding people for gamethrowing isn't improving the system. In fact "throwing" to improve one's elo isn't really the same type of behavior as throwing out of frustration or to troll. The former is presently impossible, and should stay that way.

Not to mention that many of the wrongly incentivized behaviors would be too ambiguous to be punishable gamethrowing, even if throwing was effectively punished.

This feature will do a lot more good than harm, I think. Even if unfair elo changes "balance themselves out", reducing player frustration will only make the game better. Also, not everyone plays ranked that often. People can be (un)lucky and not play often enough for the games to balance the elo out.

Having one's win chances affected by teammates is inherent in a team game and therefore isn't unfair. If people get frustrated because they don't understand expected value the solution is to educate them, not to change the game.

If people only play a few ranked games then they aren't the people ranked should be balanced around.

[Joacgroso]

I mean, we already have achievements, roles and gamemodes that reward gamethrowing. And in much more blatant ways than this. Just because people may exploit a mechanic in very specific scenarios it doesn't mean the feature won't help in more cases. I honestly don't understand why you care so much about those rare scenarios.

If you really think people can predict the outcome of the game by night 2, then we can compromise and only reduce elo changes if you die n1, since there's no way the game is decided by then.

And just because something is inherent to something else it doesn't mean it's automatically fair, especially in a game where you can't pick your teammates or prepare with them before the game. And I do think the game should be improved for everyone, not only for those who plays dozens of games every day. We're not speaking about balance, we're speaking about a fairer scoring system.

[James2]

I mean, we already have achievements, roles and gamemodes that reward gamethrowing. And in much more blatant ways than this. Just because people may exploit a mechanic in very specific scenarios it doesn't mean the feature won't help in more cases. I honestly don't understand why you care so much about those rare scenarios.

If you really think people can predict the outcome of the game by night 2, then we can compromise and only reduce elo changes if you die n1, since there's no way the game is decided by then.

And just because something is inherent to something else it doesn't mean it's automatically fair, especially in a game where you can't pick your teammates or prepare with them before the game. And I do think the game should be improved for everyone, not only for those who plays dozens of games every day. We're not speaking about balance, we're speaking about a fairer scoring system.

Achievements at least are one time occurrences, and in any case they shouldn't be in ranked. If you're referring to vampires I agree that role (and how the rules apply to it) is very problematic. In any case vampires also don't exist in ranked, and for good reason.

While games aren't decided by n1, one can often get some idead of how good the town is on d1. E.g. if there's a tp lo call, that indicates the town is better than average (especially if the call is from the jailor), so townies would (under your system) be improperly disincentivized from risking n1 death. In the opposite case, townies are improperly encouraged to risk n1 death. These improper incentives would be systematic rather than rare.

That something is inherent in a type of game means it's fair by definition. I don't think it's possible for a ranking system to accurately measure skill after only a few games, especially in a team game. Besides, rank matters less to a person who seldom plays ranked.

[Joacgroso]

I don't know, I understand what you say but I fail to see how it is so important. It's not like townies can do much to get themselves killed n1. Mafia is aware of vet baits. And even if everyone does this, only one player can get away with it, without really affecting the outcome of the game.

And again, you can't predict how the game is going to end by night 1. If we assume everyone is so obssesed with elo that they are willing not to play the game just to optimize their net elo gain, then we can also assume we are talking about high elo players, who always follow the meta anyway. So you can't really tell how bad the town is going to be.

I guess we have to agree to disagree in the fairness subject. I still think this game is inherently unfair. And I still think this feature will eliminate more frustration than what it can possibly create.

[Superalex11]

Noise is not a problem in ranking systems. There are some cases where a person can help their team while dead, and in those cases good players will tend to gain elo and bad players will tend to lose it. That the majority of n1 deaths don't have such opportunities doesn't matter, as players in such cases will gain elo as often as they lose it. No algorithm can detect all cases where a person who dies early can help their team, and even if it could it'd create perverse incentives (by encouraging players to get themselves killed in "potentially influential" ways, or discouraging them from risking such deaths for probably losing teams).

So, you didn't answer my questions, which makes me think you realize your reasoning is broken, so you're intentionally avoiding the mental confrontation. What you did say also points to this conclusion that you're simply not following the points presented. The goal of the proponents in this thread is to change the ranking system such that players' elo is more reflective of their skill, and less of simply whether they win or not.
It does not matter if, in the long term, all noise balances out and we get an expected 0-elo change from true elo. What matters is the frustration that comes when one gets undeserved reward or penalty. Would a literal coin-toss post-game be an appropriate ranking system? After all, with 50/50 odds, long-term all noise will balance out, and the game will be equalized in term of elo (Hint: the answer is no).

Also, regarding your comment about perverse incentives (specific to early deaths, at least), there is no case where a player would make an effort to die very early in order to avoid changing their elo by much. It would be similar to expecting a player to attempt to draw. Even if it might be technically in one's best interest in very rare and specific cases, people play this game to play the game, not to minimize elo loss in uncomfortable situations by not playing the game. One of the largest reasons people push for a medium rework is not to rebalance it into something stronger, but to give the medium something to do other than drudgingly copy paste dead chat. Agency is the issue, not power.

We shouldn't refuse to improve the system because people might gamethrow.

Actively rewarding people for gamethrowing isn't improving the system. In fact "throwing" to improve one's elo isn't really the same type of behavior as throwing out of frustration or to troll. The former is presently impossible, and should stay that way.

...what cases do you think would be created by these changes? A mafioso running into a vet n4 because his other teammates are already dead and he'd rather lose 10 elo instead of 12? Anything of this nature would either end up being too rare, or too meaningless to matter. And as Joacgroso is saying, even if we take you at your word and assume you're 100% correct in the pervasiveness of throwing this would create, it's still a net good.

Thinking a bit more, it also becomes evident that if the devs don't just slap this idea together with tape, it wouldn't be too much work to find a balancing point in specific elo change modifiers for these cases. Take the mafioso->vet example I gave: If on n4 the mafioso believes he has some high probability of losing anyway, thus believing he's better off to die earlier and lose less elo, the true, mathematically expected difference in elo loss could be calculated from the expected probability of the mafioso actually losing even if he doesn't suicide into the vet. Again, this isn't trivial, but if the devs wanted to, they 100% could.

Having one's win chances affected by teammates is inherent in a team game and therefore isn't unfair. If people get frustrated because they don't understand expected value the solution is to educate them, not to change the game.

If people only play a few ranked games then they aren't the people ranked should be balanced around.

That something is inherent in a type of game means it's fair by definition. I don't think it's possible for a ranking system to accurately measure skill after only a few games, especially in a team game. Besides, rank matters less to a person who seldom plays ranked.

See above for the coin-toss analogy. Fairness goes beyond winning or losing.

[cob709]

just award players elo based on how well or poorly they played

[James2]

I don't know, I understand what you say but I fail to see how it is so important. It's not like townies can do much to get themselves killed n1. Mafia is aware of vet baits. And even if everyone does this, only one player can get away with it, without really affecting the outcome of the game.

Townies' propensity to visit potential veterans, for BGs to visit people likely to be attacked, to fake vet bait, etc. can be affected by a reward (or penalty) for dying n1.

And again, you can't predict how the game is going to end by night 1. If we assume everyone is so obssesed with elo that they are willing not to play the game just to optimize their net elo gain, then we can also assume we are talking about high elo players, who always follow the meta anyway. So you can't really tell how bad the town is going to be.

Not all players who want to increase their elo have the skill to rise to high elo (or the time to grind there). In any case, the existence of rewards and penalties can also affect gameplay in subtle ways, even for those who aren't obsessed with elo or willing to overtly "throw".

So, you didn't answer my questions, which makes me think you realize your reasoning is broken, so you're intentionally avoiding the mental confrontation. What you did say also points to this conclusion that you're simply not following the points presented.

To answer your earlier questions, the average player in a given game isn't individually decisive in the game's outcome. Regardless of the night they die on. Being affected by the actions of one's teammates is an inherent part of team games. Thus it's entirely proper that the skill of one's teammates influences whether one gains or loses elo in a given game.

The goal of the proponents in this thread is to change the ranking system such that players' elo is more reflective of their skill, and less of simply whether they win or not.

Skill is an ethereal quality that can't be objectively measured. The closest one can get to directly measuring it is by wins and losses.

It does not matter if, in the long term, all noise balances out and we get an expected 0-elo change from true elo.

Accurately representing a player's ability to win games ("skill") is literally the most important feature of a rating system.

What matters is the frustration that comes when one gets undeserved reward or penalty. Would a literal coin-toss post-game be an appropriate ranking system? After all, with 50/50 odds, long-term all noise will balance out, and the game will be equalized in term of elo (Hint: the answer is no).

A coin-toss would be pointless and therefore bad, but it'd be a lower order injury to the game than basing elo on in-game actions other than wins and losses. The former would make elo less efficient (as a function of time), while the latter would make it cease to measure skill at all.

Also, regarding your comment about perverse incentives (specific to early deaths, at least), there is no case where a player would make an effort to die very early in order to avoid changing their elo by much. It would be similar to expecting a player to attempt to draw. Even if it might be technically in one's best interest in very rare and specific cases, people play this game to play the game, not to minimize elo loss in uncomfortable situations by not playing the game.

People playing for draws is a real issue in certain cases e.g. solo mafia vs veteran. But those cases at least arise only rarely. Allowing players to "draw" the first night of any game by dying would affect d1/n1 play in every game.

One of the largest reasons people push for a medium rework is not to rebalance it into something more stronger, but to give the medium something to do other than drudgingly copy paste dead chat. Agency is the issue, not power.

Agency is not a reasonable consideration, and medium should not be changed. One aspect of being skilled at mafia is being able to play as any role, even if not particularly glamorous. Besides, any role can have an outsized influence during the day, if the player has the requisite will power.

...what cases do you think would be created by these changes? A mafioso running into a vet n4 because his other teammates are already dead and he'd rather lose 10 elo instead of 12? Anything of this nature would either end up being too rare, or too meaningless to matter. And as Joacgroso is saying, even if we take you at your word and assume you're 100% correct in the pervasiveness of throwing this would create, it's still a net good.

Thinking a bit more, it also becomes evident that if the devs don't just slap this idea together with tape, it wouldn't be too much work to find a balancing point in specific elo change modifiers for these cases. Take the mafioso->vet example I gave: If on n4 the mafioso believes he has some high probability of losing anyway, thus believing he's better off to die earlier and lose less elo, the true, mathematically expected difference in elo loss could be calculated from the expected probability of the mafioso actually losing even if he doesn't suicide into the vet. Again, this isn't trivial, but if the devs wanted to, they 100% could.

Any game where a townie expects (based on d1 chat and/or recognizing other players) that town is more likely (than average) to win, the townie would have more of an incentive to keep themselves alive than if they were only motivated by winning. This could lead to townies being excessively averse to visiting potential veterans, BGs being averse to protecting people likely to be attacked, townies being more likely to false vet bait (or be silent if at an elo where mafia is likely to attack vet baits), etc. And the converse would apply when a townie thought town was less likely than average to win. Mafia would have similar perverse incentives, and to a greater extent since they know which players are on their team and can freely talk with their teammates n1.

Even if the time-of-death based difference in elo gains/losses was mild (such that players would be unlikely to overtly throw), the changed incentives would still subtly affect behavior in the ways described above.

[Superalex11]

So, you didn't answer my questions, which makes me think you realize your reasoning is broken, so you're intentionally avoiding the mental confrontation. What you did say also points to this conclusion that you're simply not following the points presented.

To answer your earlier questions, the average player in a given game isn't individually decisive in the game's outcome. Regardless of the night they die on. Being affected by the actions of one's teammates is an inherent part of team games. Thus it's entirely proper that the skill of one's teammates influences whether one gains or loses elo in a given game.

1) Obviously the average player isn't going to be decisive in the outcome on their own. What I asked was whether you believe, in the examples presented, a player has had the opporunity to make enough of a difference to warrant their elo change.
2) Elo is meant to represent one's own skill level, not that of one's teammates. It is not entirely proper that the skill of one's teammate should influence a numerical representation of one's own skill - it's a barely acceptable externality at best.

The goal of the proponents in this thread is to change the ranking system such that players' elo is more reflective of their skill, and less of simply whether they win or not.

Skill is an ethereal quality that can't be objectively measured. The closest one can get to directly measuring it is by wins and losses.

1) To the extent that the concept of skill is too abstracted to be meaningfully represented quantitatively, just about anything to do with game design is as well. This is a meaningless remark. Representations such as elo scores, while not perfectly representative of every possible aspect of skill, are absolutely extant objective measurements of skill.
2) The closest one can get to measuring skill is entirely dependent on the type of skill. Going by wins and losses is not the most accurate - it is the easiest, and often most efficient (in terms of dev work, not mathematical convergence).

It does not matter if, in the long term, all noise balances out and we get an expected 0-elo change from true elo.

Accurately representing a player's ability to win games ("skill") is literally the most important feature of a rating system.

Again, you're just missing the point, and I don't know why. I agree that accurately representing a player's ability to win games (*though this is not necessarily equivalent to skill) should be the primary goal of a rating system. However, what you seem to keep missing is that simply going by wins and losses, and pointing to the infinite long-term result of an expected 0-elo change, you're ignoring more useful methods of identifying skill.

What matters is the frustration that comes when one gets undeserved reward or penalty. Would a literal coin-toss post-game be an appropriate ranking system? After all, with 50/50 odds, long-term all noise will balance out, and the game will be equalized in term of elo (Hint: the answer is no).

A coin-toss would be pointless and therefore bad, but it'd be a lower order injury to the game than basing elo on in-game actions other than wins and losses. The former would make elo less efficient (as a function of time), while the latter would make it cease to measure skill at all.

And you manage to miss the point... again...
The reason using a coin-toss to determine elo change is bad is because it has zero correlation to skill. The reason the propositions in this thread are broadly good is because they have high correlation to skill. The current system, just going off of wins (parameterized by faction), is weakly correlated to skill.
Now, weak correlations do give identical long-term results as high-correlations (this is how casinos make money), but if we're looking to improve the system, obviously higher is better. The higher the correlation of elo change factors to skill, the quicker elo converges on a player's actual skill level.
As a final remark on this comment, I have no idea what you're talking about at the end there, almost to a point where it looks like a typo. What makes you think in-game actions have no capacity to measure skill?

Allowing players to "draw" the first night of any game by dying would affect d1/n1 play in every game.

As in my last post, what scenarios are you even considering when you write things like this? Who is attempting draws as early as n1??? Who is even within their ability to attempt to draw that early? I want you to provide specifics here, because I literally cannot come up with any examples. I don't mean what you posted further, I mean specifically regarding attempts to die n1 (which would also need to be successful enough to qualify as a problem for this design space) in order to move one's expected elo change closer to 0. If you're thinking along the lines of running into a vet bait, you're forgetting that if this were to happen, d1 vet baits would become rare to a point where, as I said in my last post, your claimed problems would become too rare or ineffectual to matter.

any role can have an outsized influence during the day, if the player has the requisite will power.

This is the strongest argument you've presented so far. Yes, daytime events will be much more difficult to gauge skill from, and so would almost certainly be excluded from whatever additions would come from suggestions in this thread. That said though, failure to represent skill in some ways does not preclude us from attempting to represent skill in others. So just as your others, this is functionally moot.

...what cases do you think would be created by these changes? A mafioso running into a vet n4 because his other teammates are already dead and he'd rather lose 10 elo instead of 12? Anything of this nature would either end up being too rare, or too meaningless to matter. And as Joacgroso is saying, even if we take you at your word and assume you're 100% correct in the pervasiveness of throwing this would create, it's still a net good.

Any game where a townie expects (based on d1 chat and/or recognizing other players) that town is more likely (than average) to win, the townie would have more of an incentive to keep themselves alive than if they were only motivated by winning. This could lead to townies being excessively averse to visiting potential veterans, BGs being averse to protecting people likely to be attacked, townies being more likely to false vet bait (or be silent if at an elo where mafia is likely to attack vet baits), etc. And the converse would apply when a townie thought town was less likely than average to win. Mafia would have similar perverse incentives, and to a greater extent since they know which players are on their team and can freely talk with their teammates n1.

Even if the time-of-death based difference in elo gains/losses was mild (such that players would be unlikely to overtly throw), the changed incentives would still subtly affect behavior in the ways described above.

You're describing implementation problems of specific scenarios you claim would exist (essentially strawmanning), not problems with the theory of the proposition. Responses to examples in order:
- Townies being averse to visiting vets should be promoted...
- Bgs dying defending would obviously not be penalized as much as otherwise; on the surface I'd imagine they'd actually be rewarded, thus having even more incentive than now to die defending
- Townies attempting to confuse mafia into not attacking them should be promoted...
- In the opposite townie case, townies would still be averse to visiting vets...
- In the opposite townie case, given we expect bgs to be rewarded for dying defending, there is again no reason a bg would choose to do nothing at night rather than defend a valuable target
- Mafia cases have already been covered above in this post

With most of these and others similar, tailored adjustments would be trivial to implement. Even in the worst case where some particular example is shown to be a legitimate problem, such example could be tailored to by removing the factor involved.
You even continue on to mention the option of adjusting these modifiers, yet you dismiss it under the notion that the incentives would still be too large. To this, I again point back to the point of these changes being a net good. Sure, maybe we'd start seeing 14 vet baits d1 (though I'd bet we still wouldn't, people aren't so mechanical). Even if we do, I think it would be worth it if it means halving the convergence time of one's elo to its true value, in addition to significantly less frustration for players across the board.

[James2]

1) To the extent that the concept of skill is too abstracted to be meaningfully represented quantitatively, just about anything to do with game design is as well. This is a meaningless remark. Representations such as elo scores, while not perfectly representative of every possible aspect of skill, are absolutely extant objective measurements of skill.
2) The closest one can get to measuring skill is entirely dependent on the type of skill. Going by wins and losses is not the most accurate - it is the easiest, and often most efficient (in terms of dev work, not mathematical convergence).


Again, you're just missing the point, and I don't know why. I agree that accurately representing a player's ability to win games (*though this is not necessarily equivalent to skill) should be the primary goal of a rating system. However, what you seem to keep missing is that simply going by wins and losses, and pointing to the infinite long-term result of an expected 0-elo change, you're ignoring more useful methods of identifying skill.

A coin-toss would be pointless and therefore bad, but it'd be a lower order injury to the game than basing elo on in-game actions other than wins and losses. The former would make elo less efficient (as a function of time), while the latter would make it cease to measure skill at all.
And you manage to miss the point... again...
The reason using a coin-toss to determine elo change is bad is because it has zero correlation to skill. The reason the propositions in this thread are broadly good is because they have high correlation to skill. The current system, just going off of wins (parameterized by faction), is weakly correlated to skill.
Now, weak correlations do give identical long-term results as high-correlations (this is how casinos make money), but if we're looking to improve the system, obviously higher is better. The higher the correlation of elo change factors to skill, the quicker elo converges on a player's actual skill level.
As a final remark on this comment, I have no idea what you're talking about at the end there, almost to a point where it looks like a typo. What makes you think in-game actions have no capacity to measure skill?

Campbell's/Goodhart's Law tells us that any metric used to guide social or economic policy will cease to be useful once it's implemented, as people will act with a mind toward the metric, rather than whatever good thing the metric is supposed to be measuring. Which will destroy the original correlation between the metric and the good thing. The only exception is a metric that precisely measures the good thing in question (in this case, the ability to win games, which is the only useful definition of "skill" that I can see).

Any other metric used to reward players will be corrupted, even if it seems highly consonant with playing to win. For example:

- Townies being averse to visiting vets should be promoted...

Townies should not be encouraged to avoid veterans. Townies should be encouraged to win. A townie whose goal was to avoid veterans would never visit anyone. The correct approach is to optimize one's aversion to veterans according to what will help win the game. Specially rewarding players for avoiding veterans would make them more averse than they ought to be (just as rewarding them for dying would make them less averse than they should be).

- Bgs dying defending would obviously not be penalized as much as otherwise; on the surface I'd imagine they'd actually be rewarded, thus having even more incentive than now to die defending

BGs should not be encouraged to die defending. BGs should be encouraged to win. There are cases (e.g. a target who is mistaken about who the mafia are and can't be persuaded) when dying defending would be harmful to the town. Admittedly this specific example is less of an issue (since it's dependent on a rare scenario and isn't systematic like vet-fear), but it still goes to show that no metric can equal actually winning.

- Townies attempting to confuse mafia into not attacking them should be promoted...

Townies should not be encouraged to avoid being attacked. Townies should be encouraged to win. Mafia are almost always going to attack some townie or another, so it's positively harmful to the town for its less valuable members (those whose roles are unimportant and who aren't good at scumhunting or leading) to scare mafia away from themselves.

- In the opposite townie case, townies would still be averse to visiting vets...

Yet less than they should be.

With most of these and others similar, tailored adjustments would be trivial to implement. Even in the worst case where some particular example is shown to be a legitimate problem, such example could be tailored to by removing the factor involved.

The two systematic perverse incentives mentioned above cannot be removed without excluding the vast majority of n1 kills.

You even continue on to mention the option of adjusting these modifiers, yet you dismiss it under the notion that the incentives would still be too large. To this, I again point back to the point of these changes being a net good. Sure, maybe we'd start seeing 14 vet baits d1 (though I'd bet we still wouldn't, people aren't so mechanical). Even if we do, I think it would be worth it if it means halving the convergence time of one's elo to its true value, in addition to significantly less frustration for players across the board.

Accuracy is more important than speed. And the best way to measure a players' skill in a team game is to reward or penalize them as a team.

[kyuss420]

- Townies being averse to visiting vets should be promoted...
- Bgs dying defending would obviously not be penalized as much as otherwise; on the surface I'd imagine they'd actually be rewarded, thus having even more incentive than now to die defending
- Townies attempting to confuse mafia into not attacking them should be promoted...
- In the opposite townie case, townies would still be averse to visiting vets...
- In the opposite townie case, given we expect bgs to be rewarded for dying defending, there is again no reason a bg would choose to do nothing at night rather than defend a valuable target
- Mafia cases have already been covered above in this post

- would this include if the vet claims jailor day1? Or a TI checking on a vet that claimed vigi?
- true
- so a sheriff, trying not to get killed, would get promoted if he caused the mafia to attack a TK or TP instead? Would they get promoted if they confused the mafia into killing them, instead of a more important role? Or lose ELO for getting themselves targeted?
- what if the BG self vests and stops maf from killing them? Or a BG that doesnt die because theres a doc healing them? triple ELO if he kills multiple maf?

- what about in coven ranked, where a coven buses themselves to take the heat off of a more important coven member? gain or lose?
- Who gets the ELO in coven - CL for controlling a visiting townie to medusa? or the medusa for clicking the gaze button? Does the townie lose ELO for visiting medusa even tho they were controlled? Do they get more ELO for controlling a TP over a sheriff?
- does crusader lose ELO if he kills a townie visiting his target? Or does the visitor he killed lose ELO for visiting the crusaders target?
- do townies lose ELO if they break a trap?
- what about plagued townies? do they lose ELO for spreading the plague? Or does PB gain ELO for spreading the plague so fast?

[alex1234321]

I haven't read the whole debate, but I generally agree with the posters who have suggested that this could lead to distorted incentives. One other issue that I can think of is Elo inflation, which is arguably the biggest problem with the current system. The average Elo of all players should always be 1200 (or some other predetermined constant). Depending on the implementation, this may not be feasible in a pure winloss system due to Neutrals without encouraging scum to deny NE the win. However, knowing the average winrate of these roles and modifying the system accordingly could mostly fix this problem.

With an action-based system, it would be even harder to prevent Elo inflation/deflation, especially as the meta changes. BMG could do a large-scale study of how often each action occurs, but this would become harder to do accurately as more actions are incorporated into the system. For example, if the average TP gets 0.5 saves per game and the Elo system rewards players with +4 points for a TP save, all TPs could be given -2 Elo at the start of the game to prevent inflation. But if players move away from the Jailor meta and now TPs save 0.75 players on average each game, there would be Elo inflation. The small playerbase makes it even harder to generate enough data to keep up with meta changes.