Elo is provided by the guys at QLRanks, a completely independent project from QL, which in this universe means will never be integrated into the game. In an ideal world, or in any other of the local multiverse cluster, matchmaking and ladders/leaderboards would be calculated by Elo 2.0 integrated directly into the game, but removed entirely from the UI and hidden completely hidden from players, along with their K/D and W/L ratios.
Only THEN would players focus on playing their A-game instead of mentally giving up after seeing their opponents Elo, not even bothering to play at all, or just plain cherrypicking weaker opponents, when in reality the matchmaking would have provided an opponent both worthy and worthwhile.
Only THEN will Quake once again be able to start reconquering the abdicated throne of the fundamental e-sports arena shooter, and only THEN will the term "Quaker" re-cast it's connections to draw parallels with ultimate test of ability and raw skill, and only THEN will we, as Quakers that we were born, once again be able to raise our banner with pride at casual conversations about gaming with mates on a friday nite.
Only THEN will sync and sponge truly deserve the coke and donuts the so lust after, day after day, night after night, year after year.
Implementing an irc like in extraQL, then making it so that it automatically logs you with your steam id which is associated to your qlranks page and elo rating. Then you type !a duel and the bot makes you wait for 2-3 mins and matches you with a player closest to your skill level out of those who added. 3rd party matchmaking like this shouldn't be to hard to develop
Welcome to QL. Showing player's K/D and W/L ratios in 2009 in the profiles already killed QL with an avalanche of statwhores, winjoiners and tierslummers, scarring away new players when it mattered the most. This was especially visible in CTF and CA. QLRanks for duel, despite it's excellence on paper and their overwhelming dedication and positive intentions, just ended up being the final tumor.
Other games just show average ranks or tiers, which is entirely different but works together with a solid matchmaking system. The difference being that the exact numbers used to calculate these ranks are hidden. Elo on the other hand is an exact number which is public, which whether you like it or not, brings out the OCD in everyone and makes people behave differently. It was designed by chess players, for chess players, for playing chess, and even then it only took into account official matches. In QL (which we've already established is not chess with guns) it becomes an entirely different beast, where suddenly every individual Elo point becomes more precious than gold.
Same goes for #tdmpickup rating. It's fine for calculating skill and despite many people complaining I personally think it does an awesome job of making balanced teams, but making it visible to players is just unnecessary, when an average "rank" or "tier" would be more than sufficient. Your average #tdmpickup conversation is basically this:
It's basically the industry standard for some years now. What does QL have? 4 completely useless "tiers" which still baffle the world's leading cryptographers to this day. If sync even had half a clue he would have "got on this" along with proper matchmaking and leaderboards ages ago instead of thinking loadouts were even a remote possibility.
He quite literally does not have a clue.
Edited by quake is potat at 11:36 BST, 24 September 2015
elo would make perfect sense if it could be only used in matchmaking. You queue up for a game and bam, you get an opponent with roughly matching elo.
If you just play games with random people you joined a server with elo is not updated.
Also if the game costed at least 1 buck there likely would be fewer fags registering fake accounts every other week just to reach their sad 1700 duel elo and punch some newbies in the process.
Clearly there would have to be limit of what's acceptable. And yes, with current miniscule playerbase this is not as feasible.
Just wanted to state that elo is no inherently bad, it just did not work out because players pick ranked games as they wish in effect totally skewing the result.
That is because it's much easier to determine skills in SC2 than it is in QL. It's also much easier to win in SC2 than it is in QL for many reasons especially the snowball effect. Certain builds are automatic wins vs. other builds. Is there any moment in QL where you can NEVER win against your opponent anymore? Outside of time limits the answer is no. QL and SC2 are dramatically different games. What determines your league the most in SC2 is how many actions you can spam per minute and how good you are at scouting. What determines your skill in QL is your ability to time multiple items, your ability to aim, your ability to persevere against different styles and situations. QL is and will always be a more genuine PvP deathmatch experience. The inability to shoot at air units or at cloaked units is not relevant and are only two of several cheesy ways to lose in SC2.
How about you never get minus ELO for winning? If you won a match against lower opponents then you should get zero ELO period. If ELO is supposed to represent your skills in Quake how could a victory lower your skill (ELO)? It does not deter stacking or slumming. Manginas who alias don't care about any of that and when winning against a 2300 ELO player who is aliased gives minus ELO its existence only hurts honest players in the end. The day aliasing disappears ELO might actually mean something in QL. I'm pretty certain I've been in hundreds of matches where aliased players are sporting 1600 ELO and get the better team via ELO shuffle. If I wanted to handicap I'd set one for myself this shit is stupid. The weak and ultimately stupid aliasers have brought the entire system down by flooding it with duplication and useless information. I want QL to offer a feature that masks a players identity and skill rating in online play. Every match they are in is unranked and recorded on their profile page next to quits as Anonymous: ### which shows how matches they've been in masked. Maybe when every single fucking person sees 5 out of 10 players in a sever named XXXXXXXX they'll band together and slaughter these tiny testicle testosterone challenged manginas who lack the fortitude and integrity to play on one account. I have seen so many people afraid to lose in my life. How anyone could care about ELO outside of duel at this point in time is ridiculous.
Edited by Retribution at 22:33 BST, 22 September 2015
Win or lose I only care about playing fair matches. ELO shuffle is great but when some people aren't their actual ELO it fails horribly making it much worse than the skill rating based shuffle. I just don't want to be in games where the odds are heavily in my favor or heavily against me and that is unfortunately what happens when people play on a low ranked account. The only thing you can do is check every player you don't recognize and maybe not play with them. What that means in a game with small playerbase is maybe you won't play at all. If you ask them why they do it some respond "its just a game who cares xD" when the real answer is "I'm favored to win every match I'm in and that's what I think is fun either uninstall the game to escape or get used to it :)"
good point, very true!... the bot has an "account age" parameter to kick accounts that are newer than XX days.
Thats a two edged sword thugh as you are preventing newcomers from playing wich is always bad.
Even having a "newcomers" server and an "oldies" server its useless because smurfs will play with newbies not gaining sufficient elo to assing their skill correctly when they reach XX days old, and you are paying a price that is dividing the playerbase even more....
Well... i guess smurfing its just another way for the community to kill itself
Edited by Crotazzo at 21:38 BST, 23 September 2015