RDaneel
Joined: Feb 24, 2023
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  Posted:
Jan 31, 2024 - 19:05 |
 
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There have been several debates in the past about the win rate or the coach rating and their significance related to the quality (how good is) of a coach. I don't want to create a new thread on the subject but to point out something I am quite convinced of after watching several matches of the competitive division.
There are some purists of the game who think that playing only in the black box is the best way to show how good a coach is, and the main benchmark is their win rate. (when i mean ONLY i mean ONLY in pure box activation. No Trophy)
I still think that Coach Rating (with the current Glicko system) is the best method (provide the refresh decay rate is on weekly frequency). But like all methods it can be distorted, but the win rate can also have a strong distortion. As well if you don't cherry-pick. Pure in the Box. And I will explain (in my humble opinion) why.
As an example I give below ten matches played by coach A (they are real matches but the coaches' names are blurred for privacy) against coach B: coach A is always the same where Bs change.
Coach A play only in Box (no tournament, no trophy only pure box activation) only some teams (rigorously Tiers 1 or Ters2) so these teams have many game played (more than 150). Coach B's play teams more "youngers" not necessary Tiers1.
The CTV of the teams are similar (so no big TV gap as Box try to pair similar team even if expecially if you played more than 15 games you risk whatever pairing but here we speak of teams of CTV 1600-1700 so mid... high)
I noted the coach rating and the win rate
10 games are few but I can give you a statistic of 100 and the results appears pretty the same, but i did not want to put a 10 x 2000 picture in the post 
Here some points which need to be highlighted
- playing with a team that has more than 100 games history allows to develop stat freaks. At similar CTV (Box tends to associate teams with similar TV) if your team have players with Stat freak (+MA +MA... whatever) this increase the win rate more often with respect a team with similar TV but without stat freak players (for the simple reason that if you have for example a gutter MA9 blodge sprint sidestep two heads you score the 1TTD more easily). Of course this require the statfreak players are carefully protected but this is not a big deal
- coach ranking HAS influence and how: good coaches can also win against good coaches if they play less skilled teams but in general if you are low rates and play with "medium number of games" in the Box (20-30) at medium TV (1500-1760) there is high probability to meet stat freak teams at these TV and it's a losing game very likely.
- Trophy This is the tournament par excellence in this division and which includes the best coaches on the fumbbl market in my opinion - well apart from monumental wankers like me
Don't believe? simply look here https://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=coaches&order=&type=blackbox&r=0
and count how many of top 20 coaches play in Trohpy and how many not.
Now: Remember : TROPHY has a 15-game protection system; This means that if you play the trophy you will NEVER be associated with a team with more than 15 games played in Box. This on the one hand protects those who play the Trophy, on the other hand it limits the number of "very very good" coaches who plays in the "simple" box .
This means, on average, that those who mono-active in Box without ever participating in a competitive tournament, without ever participating in a Trophy are less likely to find very good coaches with very high win rates from those who instead participate in the major competitive tournaments on this site. In sum: monoactivating the Box stat freak team is a nice "trick" to increase artificially your win rate (a sort of automatic "cherry picking"  )
In short, this fantasy, or legend, that only coaches who play the Box are good coaches and that their value is measured by the win rate is fantasy to me.
The coach rating perhaps is a better KPI - an index of quality that surpasses the win rate under certain conditions. Because if you make cherry picks and you only play with noobs and you are a coach with CR of 1800 you can lose points if you tie.
At the end who cares who is the best.
Who cares on win rate and coach rating.
But SOME really cares and and when you get told in the chat room "poor stupid: learn from me - i am the best - I am so good because I have a longer win rate than your" .... well you just get a laugh don't you?
So let's dismount false myths
for those who want to improve their win rate in the Box some suggestions ( coaches better than me will add more)
1. TRY NOT activate teams in Box with more than 15 games if you see "certain single-activator coaches" around (or try to activate at least one team that has a CTV >1600 that contains at least a couple of stat freaks). better to sign them up for some tournament (there are plenty of Minor, Brawl , which doesn't necessarily mean meeting stat freaked teams): develop them and then when you have them well developed over 50 games then activate in the box.
2. NEVER activate Tiers 6 teams (according to TrophY classification https://fumbbl.com/p/boxtrophy --> Rules ) in the Box UNLESS you are sure you have a major minmax or lots of inducement (then if you are masochistic and like goblin jam go ahead)
At least till redraft will be not implemented this are some rules maybe to have more fun (and more fair pairing)
I like this image from an old italian advertise for lottery ticket titled
"ti piace vincere facile eh?"
" do you like to win easy eh"?
sums up well the meaning of this post of mine |
_________________
To judge a man, one must at least know the secret of his thoughts, his misfortunes, his emotions, Balzac |
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Sp00keh
Joined: Dec 06, 2011
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Jan 31, 2024 - 19:24 |
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Uhh..
Winrate reflects your winrate
Coach Rating reflects your progress gaining / losing CR during your matches
It's not more than that
Both things can be maximised, by types of teams you play
If this was chess, everyone would be attempting to maximise both things, by trying hard, and glicko would be the ideal tool to judge coaching skill
But BB allows different styles of play, different rosters, and coaches can find other perfectly good things to focus on instead.
Eg trophy runs, or wanting to play bad rosters, wanting to try out different skill selections / compositions on their teams, all kinds of things
These are non-optimal from a CR point of view, but they're perfectly valid things to do
If you look at the current Box rankings https://fumbbl.com/FUMBBL.php?page=coaches&order=&type=blackbox&r=0, the top pages include people who're in a tryhard era and therefore at the highest CR they can achieve
It'll also show people who're playing bad rosters, or non optimal teams in some way, so will be lower than they'd be otherwise
If playing optimally was the only way, then CR would be very closely representative of coach skill
But, not everyone wants to be tryhard all the time, and BB is diverse enough to find fun in lots of different ways of playing
I think this is why very good coaches often say things like "CR doesn't matter" - it's because fun is more important, and CR shouldn't be a shackle that prevents you from trying fun stuff |
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MerryZ
Joined: Nov 28, 2005
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Feb 01, 2024 - 10:32 |
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Ive heard from reliable source that CR doesnt matter anymore, win percentage is more important to farm. |
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Kaptain Awasoam, Dicer of All Men and Women and Children and Puppies. |
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DoctorMidnight
Joined: Jul 07, 2022
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Feb 01, 2024 - 12:45 |
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"Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas....." |
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CR is a joke. |
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Sp00keh
Joined: Dec 06, 2011
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Feb 01, 2024 - 14:52 |
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Here's a real situation as an example. I know it's not really on topic, only somewhat related
I (tragically) care about my CR,.. at least some amount more than I should...
I'm fairly high ranked but I don't think I'm actually that good at the game. I mainly play strong bashy rosters at low tv in box, which helps farm points so I'm rated higher than I probably should* be.
*A better way to look at that is if everyone who was more skilled at the game than me was playing to actively maximise their CR, they'd overtake me on the position list. My own CR wouldn't necessarily drop, there'd just be more people with higher CRs
However, I also want to play other teams more, eg elves, but I know it will tank my CR
So now I have a choice to make. If I play elves more, my CR will go down (which I'm mostly fine with) my winrate will go down (losing games does put me in a bad mood) and I might get better at the elf playstyle
Or, don't play elves and I stay where I am
I've achieved what I wanted to with CR, I've done my vain tryhard phase and briefly pushed to legend so I don't care so much about CR.
The answer is obvious- I should embrace change, embrace losing some games as elves, and branch out.
Having concerns about keeping my CR high is just a shackle that holds me back from fully exploring the game. CR is just a number, and it has a negative influcence in this situation |
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Sp00keh
Joined: Dec 06, 2011
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Feb 01, 2024 - 15:09 |
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I guess to be more on topic, you discuss CR and win% as KPIs
They're only accurate KPIs if coaches are attempting to maximise them
If coaches have other objectives, which they definitely do, then those metrics drift a lot
If some top-class coach is playing only Ogres, their stats will be worse than they could be. Their CR & win% won't reflect their potential maximum
"Measure what is important, don’t make important what you can measure."
In other words, although we can measure winrate, (and we don't have anything else more accurate) it's not really that important. |
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ArrestedDevelopment
Joined: Sep 14, 2015
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Feb 01, 2024 - 18:00 |
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From my perspective it seems this proposal at the bottom (which is mostly an advocation of playing to the scheduler rather than your ability) really detracts from the message above. However, I'm not really sure either ideal is that big a deal.
It's important for your development to play with differing levels of adversity - this can be managed by team selection, or even just the circumstances in which you play. But it's not entirely useful to self-select for only ever playing games in which the deck is stacked in your favour, and doing this in the box is just as detrimental as doing so in the game finder. Avoiding tough games is fundamentally fooling yourself.
I will be honest, the better one gets, the less one cares about the rankings and ratings. They have their uses and are not irrelevant, but for the most part - anyone of reasonable ability or experience knows who is good (or great) simply by watching their play, or even by reputation alone.
It's also fairly good for your game to have a self-reflective understanding of your hierarchy in the gamespace in any match. Your tactics should be different in a matchup you are very much underdog, and being able to assess that and adapt is something you need in your locker.
There's a complicated topic underneath all of this which is "online matchmaking" in general, but that is another discussion. |
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RDaneel
Joined: Feb 24, 2023
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Feb 01, 2024 - 22:41 |
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| Sp00keh wrote: |
However, I also want to play other teams more, eg elves, but I know it will tank my CR
So now I have a choice to make. If I play elves more, my CR will go down (which I'm mostly fine with) my winrate will go down (losing games does put me in a bad mood) and I might get better at the elf playstyle
Or, don't play elves and I stay where I am
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Welll I have seen some famous coaches founding a nice little trick to have very good win rate even in the box with elves. Just make yourself a Wood Elf or Elven Union team with a stat freak blodge MA9 side step sprint Nerves of Steel and like 15-16 players and 8-12 sacrificable linos.
TV (at steady state) should be always in the range of 1550-1650.
Then during your Offensive drive you make a withdraw defence, from turn 4-5 you stall in the middle or on the side of the field (if you have the tree as WE is quite easy), offer sacrificable linos to your opponent foaming with rage and then score in turn 8 (this require some ability but the strategy is always the same, sufficient to develop 3 different strategies if you play vs Agile teams, half Agile or Bash - paradoxally the most challenging is if you play vs elf) but well.. is not Quantum Mechanics, ultimately becomes a mechanical algorithm. Requires only exercise and little imagination
Then your defensive drive is super simple: make your opponent scoring by running to the other side of the field (you can do one blitz per turn with the MA9 but stay away from bash) : if your opponent is so naif to try to search you, you have possibility to try a rush in turn 7 and steal the ball otherwise let him score preserving the team, with a minimum of 7-8 players for the last drive.
And then on turn 8 of the second half make the 1TTD (your opponent will do his best to avoid but with a well developed stat freak 1 simple chainpush sometime is sufficient) In the worst case you draw.
you will lose many linos per game but who cares of linos...
of course it works 90% against mid-low experienced coaches, rookies, but against very experienced coaches you very often draw and can also lose (but for the above mentioned if you mono-active in Box always at this TV you will meet a Megastar or Legend every 10 games so be quiet your CR will not tank believe me)
Drawback of this way to play is that is very boring.
You need 20-30 games to to grow your team to perfection.
Then you need to play at very strict TV range (1500- 1650) and this means sometime in the Box you risk to wait 30 minutes... 45 minutes without any association (especially if there are many Trophy team activated which are protected by the 15 games limit protection).
And then you MUST play ALWAYS in this way. Strictly. like a sort of computer algorthm ( I suspect coaches using this techniques spent hours in study this approach anyway). But results will satisfy you.
That is why I do not do practice because it requires a lot of time to develop a team and because it is boring.
I enjoy (well... used to enjoy) watching those who practice it for confirmation of my theory. To date I have seen many dozens of games since I have been here (I like to watch many replay also beyond spectating because time constraints) and movie's end in 70%-80% of the cases is always the same.
| Sp00keh wrote: |
"Measure what is important, don’t make important what you can measure."
In other words, although we can measure winrate, (and we don't have anything else more accurate) it's not really that important.
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yes I agree if you play an amateur league. But when you play a competitive league for some people ranking is important (and they make it count).
What's more, Coach Rating in general takes us: a coach who is in the top 20 of this site will most likely win against a coach who is a half-wit like me and is 113th
| ArrestedDevelopment wrote: |
It's important for your development to play with differing levels of adversity
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Avoiding tough games is fundamentally fooling yourself..
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How true is what you say! That's why in my opinion the ability (the skill, the level of quality) on this site is not only measured in a win rate or a coach ranking but also to see this win rate where it comes from. If you take part for example in a Trophy with a 4-team squad and you have to choose 1-2 teams that aren't very strong and at the end of the competition out of 60 games played you have a win rate of 70%, you are really strong!
If you monoactivate a minmax team of 200 games with a couple of stat freaks in Box or make cherry picks only with Undead minmax in gamefinder your win rate is worth much less in my opinion. And I am not sure you will enjoy a lot.
Really good coaches are able to play with different races, from tiers 6 yo tiers 1, at different TVs (from low to medium to very high) play tournaments play leagues, NAF resurrection leagues, do gamefinder and of course box.
In sum, if you play in different formats, outside your comfort zone, and you also have a 70% win rate, well hats off to you. Cheers. Grats. Champagne. |
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To judge a man, one must at least know the secret of his thoughts, his misfortunes, his emotions, Balzac |
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The_Murker
Joined: Jan 30, 2011
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Feb 02, 2024 - 01:35 |
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I was at the gym once, using the bench, and a boy with a bit of muscle and really big forehead came up to me and told me he could bench-press more than I could. His shirt was on inside out, and I'm pretty sure it was his mom on the other side of the gym, keeping a close eye on him.
I did not ask him how much he could bench. I didn't really feel like talking to him. He probably wanted me to know he was good at bench press, or he just wanted somebody to tell him he was strong. I didn't want to, so I told him he could have the bench, and I did something else.
Ten minutes later he was giving some poor teenager tips on how to bench press properly. My guess is the teenager didn't ask.. but it's a public gym.. what ya gonna do? Hopefully the teen didn't get deterred from working out.
On FUMBBL, and the internet in general, you can't always tell when someone's shirt is on inside out. When some people get good at drumming, they will bang that same drum that same way for their entire life, because it feels good. Eventually they will want someone to tell them they are good at drumming, and maybe they are. What they don't want is for someone to tell them they aren't all that great. You can try.. but that's a point of view that they just can't agree with, so it's ultimately pointless.
I catch myself talking to them sometimes.. then I remember to check for the shirt tag flapping around on the back of their neck. Drummers gonna drum.
As an aside.. learning to run away with elves is an interesting set of skills to learn and practice, IMO, and takes dozens or hundreds of games to feel comfortable with. Every time you do it is slightly different, and it is certainly no more repetitive then smashing things with orks at low to mid-TV. I enjoyed it for a time, and eventually felt comfortable with it.. even if I wasn't great at it. Having your CLAWPOMB Chaos opponent call your team 'cowards' and actually mean it was the ultimate win back in 2013. |
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Join the wait-list. Watch the action. Leave the Empire. Come to Bretonnia! |
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Jan-Erik
Joined: Apr 17, 2011
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| Posted:
Feb 02, 2024 - 10:35 |
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I don't really understand this discussion. |
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MerryZ
Joined: Nov 28, 2005
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| Posted:
Feb 02, 2024 - 10:41 |
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| Jan-Erik wrote: | | I don't really understand this discussion. |
Its abut gitting gut. |
_________________
Kaptain Awasoam, Dicer of All Men and Women and Children and Puppies. |
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