Rejected Elo Gaps in DOU Ladder

Mrs. Uni

Mrs. Uni

I’ve recently started climbing on the Doubles OU ladder, and there’s one problem I believe needs attention: Elo gaps.


After crossing the 1500 mark, I’ve consistently been matched with players far above my rating — not just 100 or 200 points, but often 300–400 points higher. For example, in this match: http://bit.ly/41uRWNe, I faced an opponent nearly 400 Elo above me — a gold badge holder, no less.


You might say, “That’s fine, you only lost 4 Elo.” But that’s exactly where the problem starts — not for me, ironically, but for my opponent.


That’s hardly worth the risk for the higher-rated player, and it means both sides lose something:


  • For them: risking a huge Elo drop for minimal gain.
  • For me: facing a much stronger opponent makes me more likely to lose, which impacts my win–loss record and morale, even if the Elo loss is small.

When these matchups happen repeatedly, GXE and win–loss ratio — the key stats for evaluating skill — stop being accurate reflections of ability.

I would suggest having a hard limit on 200 elo gaps. Higher than this and it gets miserable for both of the players.



View attachment gotta-love-skill-based-matchmaking-v0-at8e3r8xjsve1.webp
 
Win-loss ratio is not a key stat for evaluating skill, at least in our (the people who would be modifying rating and latter systems) minds. This helps explain why you are able to reset it at will.

If you play 1000 games at 50/50 WL split in low ladder, versus 50 straight wins -> play 1000 games at 50/50 WL split in high ladder, skill would be very different but WL ratio would be very similar. WL has evaluative issues even without ladder gaps. This is why we use different systems for ranking (Elo) and suspects (COIL).

GXE is more meaningful, but, aside from not being directly relevant for any explicit purpose like ratings or suspects, I do not think it becomes biased. GXE understands that losses against amazing players, even repeated losses, only have so much bearing on your chance to beat an average player.

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In general, a key feature of the PS ladder is that, the longer you're waiting for a match, the less restrictive Elo matching becomes. With a limit on gaps, players with high gap wouldn't be routed into lower-gap matches, they just wouldn't get matches (until one appears, which would likely take quite a while, if we're to the point of waiting that high-gap matchmaking is enabled). If the alternative is gap matches or no matches, I don't see "no matches" as beneficial.

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Gap matches can be inconvenient for the higher player – I've been there – but if they win these matches as often as their Elo rating suggests, they won't lose rating. If they lose more often than expected, downgrading their rating is appropriate - the rating system is working as intended.
 
No worries at all. We're all new once.

If someone you know is annoyed by this situation, if they cancel a search after a couple minutes, they can avoid these wider range matchmaking.
 
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