More data on Perf Points

[Cap]

I brought in a bunch of new guys from my 1940s group the other night and auto-simmed their first fights. When I checked the Fighters List, they all had a ridiculous number of points. Tonight, I brought over just one new fighter and simmed him through three bouts. He won two and drew the third. He started with 0 and added 42.20, 33.39 and 1.02 for the draw. This seems normal. So, in the first instance, I introduced several new fighters and auto-simmed their bouts. In the second, I introduced one new fighter, and watched his first two bouts and auto-simmed the third. Does this seem familiar to anyone else's experience?

Cap

P.S. I still think that once Andreas fixes the Perf Points, they should be hidden. Sorry, I have trouble understanding the affection some have for stats of this kind. To me they take away from the illusion of my boxing universe.

[JCWeb]

I find that new guys start at one of three values: 200 (which is what they are supposed to), 0 or 1000. If you imported a bunch of guys and they started at 1000, of course they are going to have high ridiculously pp numbers because they started so high. That's why I manually reset everybody to 200 by entering in a phony win, save, delete the phony win, and then they are ready to go-- this was recommended by mh several months ago in the long thread on the 2.0.25 (now 0.27) patch pinned near the top of the general discussion folder. You go to the fighter statistics page and click the little arrow next to record -- takes about 20 mouse clicks per fighter to make the necessary changes.

[Cap]

I was aware of the records option on each fighter's Stats page a long time ago, JC. Thanks anyway. I've spent a couple more hours adjusting Perf Points, and I'm getting kinda fed up with that. That coupled with editing a few hundred more fighters' hometown, and physical stats is taking a lot of the fun out of this for me. It's just work. I've got another group of heavies now that I have to look up in Boxrec to gather the same type of data. This is why I dread any new options that may force me to edit all my fighters again.

Cap

[Non Compos Mentis]

How many points did the fighters have before their bouts were simmed? How many points did their opponent's have, before and after the bouts were simmed? How much is, in your words, a ridiculous number of points?

The system may be working as intended. Or buggy as hell. In an ELO based rating system, the number of points gained can be very large (100s of points) if the winner was not the higher rated fighter.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what exactly is going on here.

[Cap]

After just two bouts, the guys from my first sample above have seven or eight hundred points. Now, is this because they are fighting guys with similar ring experience? Still doesn't make sense. Why is the single fighter I added later given a total of 76 points after fighting the same sort of fighters? In his 3rd bout he fought a guy who is 0-2 and got a draw and 1.02 points (the opponent got 6 points). This sounds more reasonable. The chief variants appear to be the number of names added and the use of auto-scheduling in the first case scenario.

I only noticed all this when I decided it was time to add new blood to my current active group and transferred new fighters from my 1940s era group.

Let's clarify something important here. How many points should a newly created fighter have starting out? The last one I brought into the game had 0. My best guy, champion Gene Tunney has about 900 (off the top of my head) right now.

Cap

[JCWeb]

My understanding is that the default number for new fighters in the game under the ranking system added by the most recent patch is supposed to be 200. However, as noted above, I've seen newly-imported or newly-created fighters start with both 0 and 1000. These are the ones I make the manual adjustment on.

[Non Compos Mentis]

Originally Posted by JCWeb

My understanding is that the default number for new fighters in the game under the ranking system added by the most recent patch is supposed to be 200. However, as noted above, I've seen newly-imported or newly-created fighters start with both 0 and 1000. These are the ones I make the manual adjustment on.

Ah, I see the problem now. Older, active fighters that started with the default number of points (200) are fighting new fighters who most likely started with 1000 or 0 and this is throwing a wrench into things.

So it's not a matter of ELO not working correctly, but the fact that new fighter's introduced into the universe aren't starting with the default number of points.

Personally, I'd let the ELO handle it. Sure, the scores will seem inflated and won't make sense at first, but as the cream rises to the top they'll stabilize. It'll just stabilize at a higher score than if everyone started at 200 points.

[Cap]

So, if a new guy starts off with the correct standard 200 points and runs off a string of 20 wins, he'll end up with well over a thousand points. Seems like this won't correct itself until all of my older fighters are gone, because I think the original standard perf point at start must have been zero.

Cap

[Non Compos Mentis]

I think it will stabilize before your old guys retire.

You could think of Performance Points as Hype Points in terms of your new fighters. When they lose to better fighters who aren't as "overrated" as they are their performance points will take a major hit. Conversely, established fighters will enjoy a significant boost to their rating when they beat these upstarts.

It's not the total points a fighter has accumulated which matter. It's how those points compare to all the fighters in that division. Eventually, as they face each other, a more accurate picture will form where rank is concerned.

This in some ways (even if it's unintended) models the sport of boxing today, where there are many untested, overrated fighters ranked in many organizations. Then they face a tough trial horse, and if they lose, they lose a lot of credibility.

[Non Compos Mentis]

Originally Posted by Cap

So, if a new guy starts off with the correct standard 200 points and runs off a string of 20 wins, he'll end up with well over a thousand points. Seems like this won't correct itself until all of my older fighters are gone, because I think the original standard perf point at start must have been zero.

Cap

Oh and I forgot to mention that the number of points gained depends on the difference in points between the two fighters.

Unless you are scheduling based on performance points and only scheduling fighters within a certain point range of each other, you can't really know how many points a fighter will gain per fight on average.

In your example, you are assuming 40 - 50 points a win, right? Well, as they face opponent's with lower point totals, there are diminishing returns. In fact, if they face an opponent with an extremely low score, using the formula strictly could result in negative points with a win. (Which I actually don't mind. I've seen bouts where the commentators expressly stated that one fighter was only hurting themselves by taking this fight, even with a win)

So a fighter with 20 straight wins could have just over 750, while another could have 20 straight victories and have over 1500. It all depends on the points their opponents had when they faced them. The one with over 1500 faced (according to the perf points) stiffer competition than the one with 750. But, the one with 1500 points will find it harder and harder to gain points, especially if they're #1. The one with 750 could advance very quickly if they started winning against opponents with higher perf points than they have.

To sum up, the universe will eventually reach homeostasis without much interference from the user.

[Cap]

I may be reading all this wrong. I often do. I've been getting guys with 11-4 records showing up in the rankings ahead of guys with 23-5-0 records. Maybe I should just change things so only guys with 20 fights get ranked.

Cap

P.S. So a new face should start off with 200 points, not zero?

[Non Compos Mentis]

Originally Posted by Cap

I may be reading all this wrong. I often do. I've been getting guys with 11-4 records showing up in the rankings ahead of guys with 23-5-0 records. Maybe I should just change things so only guys with 20 fights get ranked.

Cap

P.S. So a new face should start off with 200 points, not zero?

Well I just did a test in a new universe. All the boxers which came default from the DB started with 0 perf points. Fighters I imported started with 0 perf points. Fighters I created using the New button on the fighters tab started with 1000 perf points. Fighters selected and had pressed the Reset Stats button had their perf points set to 1000, regardless of their original amount.

As for your 11-4 guy being ranked higher than your 23-5 guy, you have to see who they fought, and what their opponents perf points were at the time they fought them (which might not be possible). ELO doesn't take record into account, though those with a better record tend to have a better ELO score. ELO takes into account the quality of opposition that particular person has faced the moment they faced them. It does not factor in future performance. It's not retroactive.

Also, don't forget in the current implementation of ELO (unless I'm mistaken) that if a fighter who started with the higher perf points than their opponent and loses they will automatically have 1 point less than the fighter who beat them.

For example, fighter A has 1200 perf points and loses to fighter B with 800. Let's just say for simplicity sake fighter B is to gain 50 points for the win. Since fighter A had more perf points but lost, they will lose 351 points so their total will be 849, which is 1 less than what fighter B's total is after the bout. That can have a tremendous impact on your rankings, but that's intended.

So, the 11-4 guy could easily overtake your 23-5 guy if the 23-5 boxer lost to a fighter with less perf points.

However, based on my tests it is entirely possible your universe's rankings are skewed due to having differing starting perf points for different fighters depending on how they came into your universe. Getting a 1000 point boost for nothing can certainly throw off your rankings.

I do remember new fighters starting with 200 points, but that may have been an earlier version. Luckily (or not so luckily) for me, I've had to restart my universe (it wasn't far along anyway) with this newest patch, so I've had all my boxers start from 1000 perf points by just selecting them all at universe creation and resetting their stats from the side panel menu. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like you have this option, since you've invested a lot of time into your universe.

I hope this issue gets fixed, but until it does you'll have to decide how many points a new boxer is supposed to start with in your universe in order to ensure the end result isn't wacky. The number isn't important. What's important is that it applies to all new fighters who enter your universe.

Eventually, thought, I still believe your problems will iron themselves out as your established boxers face each other and your new fighters.

Good luck and I hope I explained things well, and correctly. It's entirely possible my information is out of date and only applies to version 2.0.15 or something, but I posted what I know based on what I've read here and what I know about ELO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system is a good link that goes into detail about the mechanics of ELO.

[mh2365]

Good test results ... here is what I do. First off I make sure no TC's are below -100 points. when they hit that mark I change their pp back to 100.

All my beginners I start out with 0 (having to manually adjust them). They will get between 20-40 points per win over TC's. So their pp# (even if undefeated) when they hit 15 fights and are ranked isn't outrageous. For example I have a fighter who is 18-0-2 and he is only ranked 8th.