Hey guys!
The project aoe-elo.com is online. We already have 80+ tournaments and 4000+ games in the database.
What it is
It's basically a Elo ranking (like Voobly) of all players of major tournaments, based only on tournament games. Motivation:
We are currently working on:
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Original Post:
One of the most asked questions is probably "who are the top 10 players atm". The voobly ELO is good in general, but contains double accounts, is very fluctuating and for experts is not really precise enough (viper is not #1 for example).
So I wanted to write a website for the ELO only from tournament games (which are unrated in voobly).I am not certain where I take the data from (maybe automatically from this forum or idk). The script for the ELO calculation I could write.
Would you in general be interested in such a ranking? And what features would you like? I thought about something like:
The project aoe-elo.com is online. We already have 80+ tournaments and 4000+ games in the database.
What it is
It's basically a Elo ranking (like Voobly) of all players of major tournaments, based only on tournament games. Motivation:
- A meaningful and up-to-date ranking of pro players
- A database of all major tournaments and all games
- Graphs and Stats! For example Elo development over a player's whole career.
- Interactivity: Scroll back in time, compare player legacies, ...
- No choice of opponents, like on Voobly
- No smurfing, no noob bashing
- Only important games (tournament games are not rated on Voobly!)
- No aliases or second accounts
We are currently working on:
- Customizing the ladder options (included tournaments, time frame, ...)
- Better explanation of the algorithm
- API for fetching data
Adding Vobbly rating as comparisonTournament labels in Elo development graphsManually sortable tablesElo decay on inactivityCompare players page
We are thinking about how to do this. Some people suggested to implement something like in Tennis or other sports. The problem is the high amount of games needed for the ranking to be meaningful. These games all have to be manually inserted, as for example Challonge Brackets have no information of the exact players that played the games. The required data for a meaningful estimation is also quite a lot higher than for 1v1 games.
Suggested by multiple people.
One problem with this is that introduces a subjective bias to the ranking. Who decides which tournament is important?
Also, weighting different stages is difficult. To give the winner more points, we have to take them away from the loser, this is the principle of Elo. If we weight a finale more than a semi-finale, the losing player of the finale could be even punished for reaching the finale, because he might lose more points than he would have by losing the semi-finale.
Elo is really only about the statistically expected result. Sometimes this can be misleading.
Example: If the Elo is just right for two players Adam and Berta, it should not change much after a series. If Adam has a higher Elo than Berta, the win probability could be for example 66% for Adam. If Adam now wins the series with 2:1 (66% of games for A., 33% games for Berta), the Elo change would be: (win, +4), (win, +4), (lose, -8) = 0
So it does not change, meaning that it was a correct estimate for the skill difference.
One problem with this is that introduces a subjective bias to the ranking. Who decides which tournament is important?
Also, weighting different stages is difficult. To give the winner more points, we have to take them away from the loser, this is the principle of Elo. If we weight a finale more than a semi-finale, the losing player of the finale could be even punished for reaching the finale, because he might lose more points than he would have by losing the semi-finale.
Elo is really only about the statistically expected result. Sometimes this can be misleading.
Example: If the Elo is just right for two players Adam and Berta, it should not change much after a series. If Adam has a higher Elo than Berta, the win probability could be for example 66% for Adam. If Adam now wins the series with 2:1 (66% of games for A., 33% games for Berta), the Elo change would be: (win, +4), (win, +4), (lose, -8) = 0
So it does not change, meaning that it was a correct estimate for the skill difference.
Currently a series of 3:4 is rated as 7 individual games, each of which is evaluated separately using the Elo system, just as in Voobly or HD. Some people suggested weighting a 4:0 not double than a 2:0. It is correct that games within a series are correlated (if a player "has a bad day" etc.). However it is difficult to find a transparent algorithm which takes this into account. I will start by a detailed description of the current algorithm and am open to suggestions. Pure Elo has the advantage that it is understood by most visitors immediately.
Suggested by @linetyReborn
Currently, players with a lot of games start with 2000 Elo, more unknown players with 1900. This initial value is only an estimage for the Elo of the player at the beginning of his career. Using a lower value (1900) for more unknown players has the purpose of not buff the players too much who win against them (for examle in early tournament stages).
It is true that this is never the ideal estimate, it only gets better after more games. But other methods are difficult: Subjectively rating players manually is never fair. And taking "future success" into account (like letting Viper start at a high rating, as he will win a lot of tournaments later in his career, as we know) also kind of destroys the image of the early stages of the career or a player.
The idea behind Tournament Elo is that we collect enough data so that also the earlier stages of the career are reflected. This way, the Elo evolves with the "true" skill.
Currently, players with a lot of games start with 2000 Elo, more unknown players with 1900. This initial value is only an estimage for the Elo of the player at the beginning of his career. Using a lower value (1900) for more unknown players has the purpose of not buff the players too much who win against them (for examle in early tournament stages).
It is true that this is never the ideal estimate, it only gets better after more games. But other methods are difficult: Subjectively rating players manually is never fair. And taking "future success" into account (like letting Viper start at a high rating, as he will win a lot of tournaments later in his career, as we know) also kind of destroys the image of the early stages of the career or a player.
The idea behind Tournament Elo is that we collect enough data so that also the earlier stages of the career are reflected. This way, the Elo evolves with the "true" skill.

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Original Post:
One of the most asked questions is probably "who are the top 10 players atm". The voobly ELO is good in general, but contains double accounts, is very fluctuating and for experts is not really precise enough (viper is not #1 for example).
So I wanted to write a website for the ELO only from tournament games (which are unrated in voobly).
Would you in general be interested in such a ranking? And what features would you like? I thought about something like:
- List of about 50 relevant players (only games among these are relevant)
- Time-sorted list of all recent tounament games
- Separated top ELO list for RM 1v1/ TG / DM
- Interface for manually adding tournament games
- ...?
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