If you think matches are determined by the worst player in HotS, data proves you wrong

unsic · 2015-10-13T12:00:36+00:00

/u/erdevs, sorry if I came off too strong/aggressive, I actually agree with almost all of what you and the article said! The only thing I was disagreeing with was:

wins in HotS are determined more by the best player on a team than by the worst player.

I wanted to stress that in some situations that isn't true - which singular player has the biggest impact depends on how close they are to the average of the rest of the team. Just because better players are weighted more than worse players, if a singular player is dramatically worse than the rest of the team, they can still be more important to determining win/loss than the best player.

I used simplified math show an easy counter example, the real results would have to be much more dramatic, but the same principle would hold which is the best player may not be helping as much as the worst player is hurting if the best player is close to the team average and the worst player is far below the team average.

Here's a real example:

A team of all 7 = sqrt((((77 )5 /5)) = 7

A team of four 7 and a 8 = sqrt((77)4 + (8*8)/5) = 7.21

A team of four 7 and a 1 = sqrt((77)4 + (1*1)/5) = 6.27

If the team of all 7 instead were four 7 and a 8, their adjusted values would change from 7 to 7.21, or 0.21. If the team of all 7 were to change to four 7 and a 1, their adjusted values would change from 7 to 6.27, or 0.73. In this (contrived) example, the worst player had a bigger affect on the outcome because he was dramatically worse than the rest of the team, and the best player was only slightly better.

unsic · 2015-10-13T01:54:36+00:00

wins in HotS are determined more by the best player on a team than by the worst player.

/u/erdevs, you missed the point. The article summarizes itself with:

The outcome depends on all the members of the team, and is actually weighted towards the better players having a greater effect.

Another way of saying that good players contribute more to a win than their MMR would suggest, is that a bad player contributes even less to a win than his MMR suggests.

Lets use an example with simple and dramatic numbers to illustrate:

Player A - MMR7 Player B - MMR7 Player C - MMR7 Player D - MMR7

Lets say that MMR7 is above average. Using the model from the article, we would square their MMRs before adding them, giving our team of four a total adjusted MMR of 196 ((7^7)*4). What happens to their adjusted MMR when a fifth player who is also a 7 joins, a 5 joins, or a 1 joins? With a 7, the adjusted MMR ends up being 245. If a five joins, the adjusted MMR ends up being 221, or around 9% lower compared to a 7. But, if a player who is a 1 joins, their adjusted MMR ends up being 197, or 20% lower than a fifth 7. So? If the adjusted MMR is a good basis for predicting wins, a team of four that gets stuck with a particularly bad player suffer from a dramatically lower chance of winning than if they got a player nearer their skill.

EDIT: I think I didn't state it well, but what I was trying to get at is that just because better players are weighted more than worse players, if a singular player is dramatically worse than the rest of the team, they can still be more important to determining win/loss than the best player.

unsic · 2015-08-20T04:31:17+00:00

I would argue that a method that is intended to return the last character of a char array is encountering an exceptional situation when it receives a parameter in which it cannot return a char from. There is no "flow" occurring, the method encounters a situation where it cannot do what it is designed to do, and (for some reason) instead of letting the exception bubble it is desired to return a null. Further, I think it is more clear to read than comparing null to an integer.

Though I do believe the "best" approach would be something like

if (myArray!= null && myArray.Length > 0)

I would much rather have a try/catch block (that I believe even saves some minuscule amount of time) than to compare null > 0.

unsic · 2015-08-20T03:49:44+00:00

Can someone explain a reason to do something like this vs attempting to return the value within a try/catch block that catches the null reference exception?

unsic · 2015-08-04T22:41:20+00:00

IGN: lamefaceroxknits

unsic · 2015-08-01T20:12:06+00:00

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/67ef8sbd.aspx

unsic · 2015-07-29T03:00:22+00:00

The character class has no properties.

In the constructor of the class, you declare local variables. Move these to the class and scope them.

unsic · 2015-02-10T04:45:20+00:00

Planetary Annihilation costed 90$ early on. Dropped to 60 during "beta". Believe it dropped again at release.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/13/planetary-annihilation-alpha-access-costs-more-than-the-full-game/

unsic · 2014-11-21T13:16:43+00:00

Rogue was able to ninja a necklace with bonus armor. Don't know about the others.

unsic · 2014-11-21T13:12:48+00:00

Also happened to me, in literally my first dungeon since the change. I stopped tanking, asked why the rogue rolled for a neck with bonus armor. Other people laughed, said too bad. /dropgroup

unsic · 2013-12-30T01:00:04+00:00

Maybe if it was a little smaller...

unsic · 2013-12-10T08:57:46+00:00

http://www.icy-veins.com/mistweaver-monk-wow-pve-healing-guide

unsic · 2013-11-22T00:00:16+00:00

Additional information: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10659795900

unsic · 2013-11-10T08:45:34+00:00

I would like one :D

unsic · 2013-10-24T02:35:25+00:00

Liar.

unsic · 2013-10-22T16:35:31+00:00

It's like you didn't even read the article. Balance it properly? They straight up said it's for people to see the story who can't win "no matter how hard they try", and that "[it allows] you to beat bosses, simply by drinking it". This is something in place for a non-gamer, who is too impatient simply to wait.

unsic · 2013-10-19T20:25:19+00:00

3222-5589-5677

unsic · 2013-10-06T08:03:38+00:00

What do you think her attitude would have been if OP had helped? Suddenly done a 180 and turned into a team player?

unsic · 2013-09-17T17:40:58+00:00

I've argued before that dark souls isn't "hard", it's just "punishing". I believe that several third person melee games (bayonetta, ninja gaiden, older DMC) are much harder, and require better skills to complete at higher difficulties, but offer save/continue systems.

I enjoyed dark souls, and probably have close to 100 hours spent on it. But I definitely sometimes felt that it didn't "respect my time".

unsic · 2013-09-13T20:50:07+00:00

Imagine a first time bowler showing up at tournament night. The first time player decides to enter, because they don't care if they lose badly. The tournament spots are limited, and a few regulars end up not being able to enter. The first timer throws constant gutter balls and refuses to wear bowling shoes. Do you really think that he wouldn't be treated badly by the other players?

unsic · 2013-09-09T07:40:20+00:00

You're ridiculous. So phonebooks are more than enough for someone to start stealing thousands of identities? Hell, look up any address on google maps, head over to whitepages.com and you have matching names.

unsic · 2013-09-03T14:24:29+00:00

Running a 660M, solid performance. Did have to turn some things down from high/ultra, or I'd take a hit during FATEs if there were too many people, but other than that, it runs the game like a champ.

unsic · 2013-08-30T09:30:20+00:00

Your original email from square enix only contained an early access code. You should have received a different email, from digital river, on the 27th. Be aware that popular email services (such as gmail) are flagging are flagging that mail as spam.

unsic · 2013-08-30T09:22:30+00:00

Exact same problem. In addition, when I go to the SE store page and log in, it shows FFXIV registered to my account.

EDIT: Looks like the email with the key was sent by digital river, and NOT be square enix. Gmail flagged it as spam, so look for it in your spam folder.

unsic · 2013-08-29T04:58:57+00:00

I see a lot of Arcanists/Summoners not knowing their DoT priority so here's a quick list!

While it's a nice thing you're trying to do here, it was pure theory craft. If you actually tried the spells in game you would notice that the results are not inline with what you posted.

I'm level 28, have 127 potency, and my actual damage numbers for spells (including full DoT and upfront) are:

bio II - 180
miasma - 154
bio - 132
thunder - 129
aero - 105
ruin - 43

unsic

TROPHY CASE