With standard Elo you start at 1600 and you gain 16 points if you win the first game …
With this Elo system you start at 1000 and seem to gain and lose a lot more points right off the bat.
If I understand Elo this must mean the K value is different? Or is it different to the standard elo altogether?
TL;DR: How is the ranked system calculated for AoE2 DE? (And if it’s Elo, how is this particular system calculated?) Thanks!
I too have questions. Not sure if this was because I played ranked on beta, but here is the point distribution for my first ranked match in DE after release (win).
540 point gain?
I’d love to know how it works.
Voobly had a link with an actual Voobly ratings calculator and you could input two ratings and see what the score of each player would be if they won or lost … and you could get an idea of how it worked.
Would be good to have something like that for this system. Or at least some epxlanation of how the ratings are calculated. It doesn’t seem like standard Elo.
I’d too like to know the details behind this different system.
What is the starting ELO?
Well I can say that much. The starting ELO is 1000.
Normally ELO starts at something like 1600, 1500 , 1400 or 1200 at the lowest.
Usually like 1600.
I’ve never seen an ELO start at 1000 before. But in AoE2 DE it’s 1000
And players seem to lose and gain more points per game than usual.
I’d love to actually know all the details with the K factor and everything, haha.
Considering that starting score is just a variable, it doesn’t really matter what value it is set to. 1600 is a textbook example, but might as well be 1337, if devs were cheeky enough to do so. 
I second the request for more details about the algorithm. I’d personally love to see a blog post or a vlog where developers walk us trough how exactly the DE’s ELO algorithm actually works.
Hopefully that would demystify the algorithm for many people and help community to find out if the ELO algoirthm is behaving exactly as intended and when it is reasonable to suspect that the ELO algorithm is actually bugged.
Very good point! Telling the community about the ELO system would also help with debugging it
And yeah, I know that the starting score is just a variable and doesn’t matter, technically.
But it does feel weird when you’re used to higher numbers. It means that a pro will have a lower score than 2300-2700 which is normally what the pros have.
And an intermediate player will have an even lower rating, etc.
It’s all relative so the actual number doesn’t matter it’s how they relate to each other, I know. It just might feel weird if you’re used to higher numbers.
Now the K factor … THAT matters. So I’d love to know what it is.
Pretty much believe that the Chess rating system isn’t in use anymore.
Then I’m even more curious about knowing how the ranked system works, in that case!
I am only speculating here as I don’t have the specific details.
It seems the game uses a higher K factor for your first ~10 games where it is possible to win up to 100 points for a single win at the edges in that timeframe. Examples taken from the beta where TaToH had +300 ELO from only 3 games played.
I presume this has been configured this way to allow newer players to quickly move their ELO so it is accurate after only a few games and not have to play 20+.
The top 50 pros could still reach ELOs of 2300-2700 here if the player base is large enough since scores tend to grow at the top end when more players join the ranking system. Though I admit its unlikely given the 600 point starting difference, my guess is it would top out at around 2k.
This makes a lot of sense. Many other games adjust MMR from a fresh ranking system in simmilar ways, with a big gain or loss in numbers for the start, then gradually adjusting to smaller and more precise gains/losses as the matches go.
If TaToH can get to almost 3k on HD with close to 0 competition and an even worse rating system then DE, I think it is very likely in a years time most ‘Pro’ players will be 2k2+.
Look at how high players are reaching already within the first 2 weeks, and as more and more players (and their points) enter the system they should keep on climbing.
Thanks guys. This is the kind of discussion I want … whether speculation or not.
But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be very ha;ppy if a dev entered and explained the new ranking system! Because I sure would!
@roboboroAoC (1) If you’re right that more players equals higher ratings and (2) The devs indeeded expected a lot more players on one platform than AoE2 has had for a while (3) Is it possible that the devs lowered the starting Elo in order to try and compensate for that?
I mean, I know it’s just an arbitrary number but with the higher playerbase if everybody started at 1600 with this many players maybe all the ratings would LOOK inflated later which might look weird to people. Is it possible that the Devs lowered the rating to make the top pros end up with their usual rating, and an intermediate end up with its usual rating, etc, to compensate for the higher playerbase?
Again, I know it’s just an arbitrary number but I think it’s also the case that people who have -played AoE for years expect certain numbers to represent certain skill levels so, maybe, for that reason, the devs are doing some sort of compensating or something? To account for that?
Or am I overthinking it and the devs just thought that 1000 sounds like a nice round number?
I hope they were thinking that ^.^
Just looking at the rating difference between hd to voobly is ~3-400, so instead of having the issue where a 1800 on hd is a 1450 on voobly they may have tried to get the numbers to be equal to voobly, once the ladder spreads out.
But 1000 is also a nice number so maybe we’re just being too generous 11
Agree on all points.
Including the possible generoisity on our part 11.
Would be cool if a dev could step in to explain the system, etc.
Yeah, idk im a bit down because I gain like 14 ranked points for a win and lose about 16, of course im only at a 50% winrate, but still idk it feels not really rewarding.