**PLEASE Consider this for people hiding true ELO**

[LickWilmerding]

It is becoming common place for people to start new accounts over and over to hide their true ELO. This is nothing new, it ruined Warcraft III over time so that rankings meant nothing.

Please consider creating a New Account game whereby someone with a new account can only play in those games until they have 10 or 15 games played to establish some kind of telling sign of their game skill. This will also discourage making new accounts. As such when someone enters a game as 1000 elo, are they really 2100 or 800? Usually very good and looking to play easier games.

[CumInMyAssPlz]

Lol? How did that ruin wc3? Stats always were and always have been a giant bag of bullshit (ask any pro ladder player, let alone DotA or other custom maps). ELO didn't even exist until wc3 stats were LONG "ruined" (edit: yes, ELO has existed for decades in other gaming applications, but you know what I mean--the point is that ELO didn't start becoming well-known or "a thing" outside ladder games until long into wc3's lifetime. And ironically, by the time ELO started becoming a buzzword in custom maps and custom map communities, it had long-outlived its respect by serious gamers everywhere--it's extremely "outdated" [read: it was an okay idea 30 years ago but far better methods have been innovated] and a terrible system; so in addition to stats being stupid due to so many ways of screwing with them, ELO is just plain bad in the first place. Concern with ELO and concern with making ELO more legit is not only a losing battle, but it's a battle that was long ago lost and will never be won.)

And as for "it becoming commonplace", it's always been commonplace. You act as if wc3 isn't a 10-year old game--there's really nothing new here, and although I'm sure you could find some true "new" players, chances are 99 out of 100 of them either used to play, have been on and off for years, or have been constantly for years. So it's not like alias-stat-skewing is new behavior by any means. If you refer specifically to ENT players or ENT as a community, I can't speak to that, but I'd be extremely surprised to discover that no one around here has done this till recently.'

Plenty of people have kept the exact same logins year after years precisely because they don't give 2 shits about it; just as many create new ones because they do; and some just make new ones on a whim because they thought of a cooler (or funnier) name, or because they got tired of being associated with the persona linked to one account, and are attempting to re-invent themselves so they don't get treated the same way.

I've already made 2 on ENT, not because of ELO, but because my first one was made off the top of my head as a random word I thought of, and I remembered this old one later. The 2nd one isn't any better ELO thanks to stacked team games, terrible teammates, fountain farming "pros", and skewed averages due to crashes/disconnects (counts as +1 game to divide by zeroes when absolutely no playing occurred, just like back in school and you get a zero on an assignment, brings your grade down immensely).

Is this really such an important issue? At this point, as far as I can tell, no one is really fooled anymore. It's easy to tell who is who by ingame (or forums) behavior, and there are even ways to tell which accounts are linked to the same IP.

Only someone who already gives any respect for ELO or stats in pub games would be concerned about lowered respectability for those stats. And if you're playing IH games, well I obviously don't how how that works here, but unless the rules are a joke, there should be much less trouble in league games with regards to people "playing the system". If the concern is that the ability to skew ELOs results in league games, I'll refrain from commenting since I don't know shit about ENT and I'm clueless about how accurate or respectable these stats are. But again, unless something is going very wrong, it shouldn't be that fucked up anyway.

Anyway, nothing personal and I don't mean to go totally hostile on you. I just don't understand your proposal for New Account Games (sounds like a total waste of time from a dev standpoint, as well as a waste of a bot slot), or why you think that would help solve or fix anything. If you're expecting people to fill New Account Only games, then obviously the only people playing them would be the very people you seem to want to avoid--the people who repeatedly make new accounts in order to exploit or abuse the system. Playing 15 games in a row with only people who suck and make new accounts over and over to hide how badly they suck? That sounds like a giant shitfest to me--pub games are bad enough as it is.

[Burn]

^I didn't read above post as it was too long, but to reply to OP:

Stats are fine atm, but I have some ideas to make it better.

Since the coding to work out elo gains and losses should always be changing (there is no "best" elo system), that means you should be resetting stats every single 6 months. This is what LoL is doing, and it is working very well. Maybe also include a max. elo rating which also resets every 6 months would be a nice addition.

-Burn

[LickWilmerding]

I read up to "Lol?" and then skipped the rest. I am only interested in having conversations. Anyone who starts with that is not.

I used to play Warcraft III. When ppl were interested in stats or true competition they would play a main account. There was a place for low level people to find games, there was a place for high level people to find games. Once the high level petered out they starting making new accounts over and over and wiping the floor with low level people who then starting leaving after finding they had no place to play a game with people of comparable skill.

Often in sports there is A,B,C,D level and people self identify. If an A player goes to the D league to get easier competition, they are kicked out. It is considered disgraceful and rarely happens. Here it happens all the time behind the veil of anonymity.

Maybe there is no fix. But I like DOTA. I like ENT. I can see after some months....3....6, that there will be very little games. Call me prescient but if there is no change, I see that happening. Those who cannot find a competitive game will have left. I am in that crowd for sure. I just played two games in a row that were immediately 4v5 when the two people with new accounts on the other team were creaming everyone. It didn't bother me as much in WC3 because I was always top of the ladder but it did bother me. It was bullshit and I hated seeing it and it drove everyone away. It is every game now in DOTA. Maybe it is what it is and cannot be stopped. That is fine but I wanted to give it a try.

[CumInMyAssPlz]

That's fair enough. I didn't mean to only troll you (otherwise I wouldn't have typed up such a long response), but I can understand your offense taken and refusal to read.

It seems like your issue is with "smurfing", which really has no solution other than regularly resetting stats. Keep in mind that it is the internet, after all, so it's impossible to achieve any truly sort of legitimate "stat tracking" as is the case in real life sports.

I don't want to say "look bro it is what it is, deal with it", but it seems like you're raging about it and don't have anything to offer in terms of a real fix; not to be a troll but your proposal of new account games doesn't make much sense, which you probably would have realized if you tried picturing it in practice. Again--not to be a dick, but take it from someone who suffers greatly from speaking before thinking: carefully consider whether or not a proposal has merit if you think it really does. In my current rants about votekick and fountain farming, for instance, I may well be wrong, but I try hard to think about the ramifications and potential downsides to those suggestions before investing my time and "rep" into them.

Do some research on Elo and you'll likely find that it--as well as any other stat-tracking method--is highly imperfect; likewise, think about the history of this game and you'll find that it's an age-old issue which hasn't yet actually killed the game or prevented thousands of people from continuing to play it, enjoy it, and take it seriously.

Again, I didn't mean to troll you; the "Lol" may have been out of order but before your last post, I did kind of assume you were just trolling/raging and your grandiose claim of smurfing "ruining" wc3 made me chuckle. Sure, you're right--but only you have the power to remain positive about it and continue trying. If you've already given up and already are divining the downfall of the clan/community, then you're only adding to the problem, not helping anything.

I guess really what I'm trying to say is that you're playing the wrong game, and you're taking it too seriously in the first place, if you think that smurfing can ever be prevented, or if you think that stats shouldn't be taken with a giant grain of salt.

The legitimacy or lack thereof of ELO here may be debatable, but "imho" what isn't debatable, is that it's far from useless and the situation is far from merely hopeless doom and gloom. Dealing with internet bullshit is just part and parcel of playing internet games. If that ends up killing ENT, then that's a shame, because resetting stats could go a long way toward combating the rage of people who are (rightfully) raging about smurfing fucking them over.

[VirusHunter]

TLDR
actually i read all of OP half of second post and burns post. didnt read last one.
look, who cares about stats. sometimes i care but most of the time i dont. 90% of the time when i join a game i just stay where i land. i'll type scores command and see im about to lose 20 elo because i know that at least 3 of them on the other team are smurfing because they dont want to risk their "true" elo. but really. who cares. its a number every knows is meaningless.
just enjoy what you can of dota and if u cant enjoy it then dont play it. sorry if someone ruined your dota experience but heh im sure you can find out something better to do with your life.

[CumInMyAssPlz]

meh, nevermind

[Palsgraf]

This suggestion has already been discussed several times before at length. Please see the discussion here and here.

As you can tell, I am for this suggestion.

[nabo.]

U gotta play with wat u got.

U have a classic game with no team matching system and little number of players still playing this game. I see lesser ppl logging on and bots filling slower as time goes by. If there is a way to only allow 1-3 acc per person, tats nice, but probably means work for uakfb n im not sure if bots will b ok, etcetc technical stuff.

Ur suggestion seems ok, but there is a problem...as i said not many ppl play this game. So considering our small ent population, separating players (<15 or >15 games) is not such a good idea. Even if we have a good matching system...there arent enough ppl to match with+against.

I understand why ur suggeting this, but u gotta deal with ur losses another way: get better.