Aldaron
geriatric
We should have them. Stats are very important and they determine our tiers; does it really matter what scrub7086 used dillydallying with Light Ball Pikachu and Frenzy Plant Venusaur at the bottom of the ladder?
No...it really doesn't. I'm not asking for a ridiculous weighted formula that totally cuts off any significance from lower rated people, but we definitely need something that emphasizes what people who play more at higher levels use. The most obvious example of this that I can think of was some stat taken 2 years ago that had Celebi at #1 one usage (I believe it was the official server's weighted usage points / total usages, meaning it was used by high rank people but not low rank people). If any of you remember, mid 2007 Celebi was barely used (reaching in 60s in usage), but as 2007 ended and 2008 came about, more and more good players were using Celebi and it ended up a standard on most teams.
I know people claim "cre is bullshit so weighted stats are bullshit" but honestly I don't get this. Yes, CRE isn't an end all declaration of someone's skill. Still, I don't think anyone is going to argue that there is a high correlation between high CRE and good playing. If anything, at the least you can say having a higher CRE means it is more likely for you to be a good player than someone with a low CRE (don't bring the "what if loki uses a new alt" argument, that's obviously nonsense and I don't even want to acknowledge it). Regarding deviation and "significance of playing," we already have some minimum deviation required to reach leaderboard, so if necessary we can just require that (not sure if it will be).
This is especially important because what should be determining our tiers is what is used most often to win. We are a competitive community; that which wins should hold priority over that which doesn't. There is a very high correlation between having a high CRE and winning (I know the relationship is causal with ladder, but I'm referring to other competitive venues such as tournaments and tour).
Weighted stats won't necessarily end the issue and give us a perfect sample...in fact they obviously won't. But they'll get us closer to stats that represent what the "real metagame" is, namely the metagame that good people are playing when playing to win.
So...quick summary:
~We should have weighted stats because there is a high correlation between high CRE and winning (not only on ladder)
~We care about the metagame played by those winning
~"CRE is bullshit" doesn't apply due to a simple correlation analysis
~We care minimally (I really want to say we don't care at all but :X) about scrub7086 using Light Ball Pikachu and Frenzy Plant Venusaur at the bottom of the ladder with a 35 deviation and 756 CRE.
~Having weighted stats would help us prevent people from "gaming" the system. Right now, if someone wanted to, he could easily move borderline UU Pokemon to OU simply by getting in a bunch of battles and quitting. You could say "we'd stop this" but if someone wanted to do this with a team of borderline uu pokemon + 5 level 1 exploders, you couldn't stop him. It would take about ~30 seconds a battle assuming we stop the instant quitter, and he could still get about 200 usages a day and 6000 usages in a month, which is more than enough.
~There is one potential flaw and that is the "IPL with sunkern" dilemma. A really bad Pokemon will have boosted stats if played on a team with 5 really good Pokemon and that team wins. I think this will be a non issue mostly due to the sheer volume of battles that occur monthly. "IPL with sunkern" would essentially have to win like 5000 battles with sunkern on his team. A loser can do it because even with 6,7,8,9000 usages, it won't mean much at the bottom of ladder. A winner doing it will frankly be quite the feat. Sure, he can continue winning, but winning a legitimate battles takes so much longer than losing purposely and there are enough battles on the server to make this mostly a non issue.
No...it really doesn't. I'm not asking for a ridiculous weighted formula that totally cuts off any significance from lower rated people, but we definitely need something that emphasizes what people who play more at higher levels use. The most obvious example of this that I can think of was some stat taken 2 years ago that had Celebi at #1 one usage (I believe it was the official server's weighted usage points / total usages, meaning it was used by high rank people but not low rank people). If any of you remember, mid 2007 Celebi was barely used (reaching in 60s in usage), but as 2007 ended and 2008 came about, more and more good players were using Celebi and it ended up a standard on most teams.
I know people claim "cre is bullshit so weighted stats are bullshit" but honestly I don't get this. Yes, CRE isn't an end all declaration of someone's skill. Still, I don't think anyone is going to argue that there is a high correlation between high CRE and good playing. If anything, at the least you can say having a higher CRE means it is more likely for you to be a good player than someone with a low CRE (don't bring the "what if loki uses a new alt" argument, that's obviously nonsense and I don't even want to acknowledge it). Regarding deviation and "significance of playing," we already have some minimum deviation required to reach leaderboard, so if necessary we can just require that (not sure if it will be).
This is especially important because what should be determining our tiers is what is used most often to win. We are a competitive community; that which wins should hold priority over that which doesn't. There is a very high correlation between having a high CRE and winning (I know the relationship is causal with ladder, but I'm referring to other competitive venues such as tournaments and tour).
Weighted stats won't necessarily end the issue and give us a perfect sample...in fact they obviously won't. But they'll get us closer to stats that represent what the "real metagame" is, namely the metagame that good people are playing when playing to win.
So...quick summary:
~We should have weighted stats because there is a high correlation between high CRE and winning (not only on ladder)
~We care about the metagame played by those winning
~"CRE is bullshit" doesn't apply due to a simple correlation analysis
~We care minimally (I really want to say we don't care at all but :X) about scrub7086 using Light Ball Pikachu and Frenzy Plant Venusaur at the bottom of the ladder with a 35 deviation and 756 CRE.
~Having weighted stats would help us prevent people from "gaming" the system. Right now, if someone wanted to, he could easily move borderline UU Pokemon to OU simply by getting in a bunch of battles and quitting. You could say "we'd stop this" but if someone wanted to do this with a team of borderline uu pokemon + 5 level 1 exploders, you couldn't stop him. It would take about ~30 seconds a battle assuming we stop the instant quitter, and he could still get about 200 usages a day and 6000 usages in a month, which is more than enough.
~There is one potential flaw and that is the "IPL with sunkern" dilemma. A really bad Pokemon will have boosted stats if played on a team with 5 really good Pokemon and that team wins. I think this will be a non issue mostly due to the sheer volume of battles that occur monthly. "IPL with sunkern" would essentially have to win like 5000 battles with sunkern on his team. A loser can do it because even with 6,7,8,9000 usages, it won't mean much at the bottom of ladder. A winner doing it will frankly be quite the feat. Sure, he can continue winning, but winning a legitimate battles takes so much longer than losing purposely and there are enough battles on the server to make this mostly a non issue.