ENT Gaming

Island Defense has become more competitive recently in terms of leaving rules: viewtopic.php?t=128008 / http://wiki.entgaming.net/index.php?tit ... ming:Rules

I see no reason why ELO/stats shouldn't be re-added to the ID bot. Especially since !draw/!ff is planned to be added to the game eventually: viewtopic.php?f=279&t=129745

I wasn't around when ELO was removed, so I can't comment much on that. I think it would be a good addition to the game at the moment and make the map more in-line with other competitive maps such as Dota/LTD/CF. The game has a decent number of reoccurring players and adding stats encourages better play in my opinion.

I would love to hear community feedback on this topic as I would only recommend ELO implementation if the community supported it. I think ELO helps add some depth/goal to the game overall and seems to fit current rules. I imagine many of the better players would like to see this as well and could motivate older players to rejoin the community. I'd also like to hear concerns so please post them in order to allow staff to make a well-informed decision on the suggestion.

!support

Personally, I would like to see it come back.

same

The old Island Defense elo system was poorly managed. During the first few weeks of the ENT bot (after the switch from BGN) you would gain a lot more elo than normal, it was fixed later to reward/remove less elo and at that point a lot of people already had around 2k elo on their accounts, naturally you would expect elo to be reset after a situation like that but it wasn't. Given that, the elo ranks were inaccurate.

The elo system was removed around Q1 of 2017 if I recall correctly in an attempt to remove titan anxiety in pubs, but it didn't help.

I support the return of the elo system with elo resets every 3 months. It's not really fun to hoard elo, but racing elo after a ladder reset would be a lot of fun and give incentive for people to return to show everyone who is boss.

Personally I'm against ELO, but I'm also not the most active player in the world right now, and if the current playerbase wants ELO then they should get it. That being said, I'm just going to post some food for thought.

Cons:
viewtopic.php?f=101&t=93208&hilit=island+defense+elo
This is the topic that eventually lead to the poll that got ELO removed. It's long, but it talks about the problems that ELO brings in a 10v1 map and points out that it would need to be specifically tailored for ID.

It's also worth noting that ID has always been a scene where skilled people can "fuck around" and enjoy themselves without being blamed for the loss of a game. This is doable because of the nature of the map.
When ELO was around, all the fucking around happened exclusively on alt accounts because people wanted to have fun, but they didn't want to risk losing ELO. I've seen good player alts be reported for game ruin because they got blamed for the builders losing ELO.

You also run the risk of the quality of games worsening, which is the opposite of the desired effect. I've talked before about just how much power builders have, and with the resources and options available to them, a team of 10 builders that know what they're doing and are playing exclusively to win, will always win. Pick 2-entrance lumber bases, make full-deny lumber bases, staying inside lumber bases/walls until titan is visible, wall off the mound, wall off nukeable spots, have workers mid for wotw counter/generally blocking titan. If all 10 builders follow that, then it will not be possible for titan to feed or get a minion. The map is essentially built around the assumption that at some point, a builder is going to fuck up.

More titans would potentially "abuse" overpowered items or skills in order to pubstomp for easy ELO, or just to take it from someone else. This was the case before ELO was removed; 4 very experienced titan players would basically take turns alting in pubs in order to snipe high ELO players, something that lessened the quality of the games significantly.

It should also be said that whether ELO gets implemented again or not, now is really not the right time considering how unstable and buggy the map currently is.

Pros:
It could potentially attract more players and give newer players an incentive to learn, which would only help the community., and there would be a higher incentive for experienced players to teach new players, albeit for "selfish" reasons.

More people could potentially be drawn to the idea of playing titan, something that the map has lacked for several years. This would require a specfic ELO system created just for ID though, as the previous ELO system heavily punished titan players.

If the ELO was reset at a certain interval it would create a competitive scene between active players.

ELO in this game had always been sort of a meme, because of how poorly it was handled originally with BGN. That, and the fact that it was super easy to carry pub games, or just roll your way through them as the titan player (Looking at you, Fossurious.)

All in all, I'd like to see it return one day, but I don't think now is the right time. It would be better if we waited until the map got fixed a bit and things settled down with all of the new rule updates that seem to be happening, and the Blizzard patches.

I would be for this if there are two separate bots. One for ELO one for non-ELO, but the game isn’t balanced enough yet to assume that ELO would work perfectly, we need another’s month or two before it’s ready.

My personal opinion is that it shouldn't be implemented UNTIL Dragon puts in the basing update. My original point from the beginning of time still stands, whether this happens frequently or not, builders can game the system by base stacking (not that it doesn't already happen, literally just played against one base, 5 builders). In these scenarios it is almost impossible to win; your only chance is banking on the fact one of the builders mess up, which does not happen often.

An alternative, reverse scenario can also be applied. Other players have voiced the same opinion, but experienced Titans / pubstompers can "cherry pick" lobbies (e.g. Titan only when they know there are a lot of new players and/or less skilled players in the same lobby). Easy methods like these defeat the purpose of "ELO" (an algorithm used to determine LEVEL OF SKILL). Although this one is a lesser flaw because the algorithm can be tuned for a case like this, I don't think re-implementing ELO is the right time as of now.

IAmDragon wrote:I would be for this if there are two separate bots. One for ELO one for non-ELO, but the game isn’t balanced enough yet to assume that ELO would work perfectly, we need another’s month or two before it’s ready.

This would be great if we had a big enough playerbase to sustain two simultaneous lobbies but as it stands, we only have enough players to two fill games at the same time, during PEAK hours, on average. If we diverge the bots into two lobbies, half will want to play for ELO, half will play for non-ELO, which means lobbies won't ever start. Just a potential flaw in that regard, good idea nonetheless.

IAmDragon wrote:...but the game isn’t balanced enough yet to assume that ELO would work perfectly, we need another’s month or two before it’s ready.

Seconded. I am in !support for ELO being re-implemented after the next version rolls out to fix a lot of major balance issues and bugs.

I'm in the mindset that ELO is just a number that's fun to play around with. It's like reaching a high ranking in solo queue for a moba: doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it's an incentive to play better and more often for some people.

The points/arguments that lead to the removal of ID elo havent changed it wont be implemented again.

Denied.