Posted on 30 December 2016 - 07:44 PM

I'm a bit late to the party here, but I just felt like writing this after seeing a bunch of posts about ELO vs MMR, whether it be comparing their pros and cons, or converting points, etc, and I just wanted to talk about it a little bit, and tell people my opinions about ELO and MMR.

If I were to pick one, I would pick MMR. I just prefer it, and I like the system of queueing to fight people close to rank/skill range, and having promotion/demotion matches.
I also don't mind people comparing and converting ELO and MMR, in fact, I do it myself, but I don't think that there's an accurate way to compare ELO and MMR based on the skill you have. I feel that MMR is based more on Skill, and ELO on consistency. These are my feelings about it, feel free to call me stupid or some shit, but I just want to talk about it a little (a lot).

Why ELO and MMR can't really be converted to each other:

1. Consistency:

I wrote about this before, and lost all my progress, so I really just want to summarize what I originally wrote.

We have players A and B. Player A is under the ELO rating system, and player B is with the new MMR. They are both at the top of their ladders in rating, and are arguably best at their game, depending on who you ask ;)

Player A's Situation:

Player A would gain 1-2 elo when winning, and lose 31 if they lose the match. This means that it would take ~>20 matches to gain back their elo.

Player B's Situation:

Player B would gain around 14 points every time they win a match, and would lose 214 points if they lose. This means it would take around 15-17 matches to regain their points.

It seems like a small difference, but if you're going for the highest rating you can get, it can make all the difference.


2. The Queueing System

One of the things that changed between s12 and now is the queueing system. The one we have as of now prioritizes people similar to your rating, and the range of players you can queue gets bigger after a certain amount of time. With ELO, you can queue anyone within ~700 points from your own rating. This means that you can queue higher ranked players, with low risk and high reward, or lower ranked players, vice versa, at any given time. This makes it harder to consistently win matches, especially if you're a below-average player.

For top players, it's especially different. With the old queueing system, since you can ONLY queue someone within ~700 elo, it means that you will constantly fight top-tier (or close) players to keep your rating going higher. In the new system, you can queue lower ranked players almost constantly if you're lucky enough, grinding the same amount of points as you get from people higher up, if the ladder is less-played, and the top players don't have as high of a rating.



Alright, I think that's what I have to say about each rating system, and why they can't really be converted to show your skill to what ELO/MMR you would've had if you 'converted' it.

Not trying to hate on anyone who's doing their best converting it, I'm just showing exactly WHY we can't exactly convert it in terms of skill = points.

My opinion?
ELO = Consistency
MMR = Skill