- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Hey Jay
Just as an aside, I have been testing out a new account ( II Baaaaaaah II ) for a variety of reasons.
First, I wanted to see if my Team Slayer rank was truely far below where I felt my actual skill level was. I was/am almost positive about this, since I typically play customs with 45-50's and can hold my own, yet my TS rank has been 28 and impossible to move for 4 months or so (I figure my real overall true skill is in the 43-47 range based on customs, so my TS rank should not be too far off from that). As well, my TS rank was 12 below my LW's rank, which I feel I can level a further 5 levels even from here. That would be quite the disparity between LW's and TS ranks...something I feel would be innaccurate. My main account had played 700-800 games of Team Slayer when the game first came out, and I had played in a lot of mixed parties with the same people. Long story short, I played with crappy friends for a long time AND I sucked when I started and my skill has changed significantly since the game first came out.
Second, I wanted to see how playing in a mixed party/same people will affect progression and sigma after about 50-75 games, rather than right near the beginning when we know it has its major stalling effects. Obviously I am playing in a mixed party that wins 95% of games when I play with them.
As expected, here is what I found so far:
1) the ranking progress slowed once I started playing with the same people
2) when I switch it up and play with randoms, the ranking continues reasonably quickly. This confirms my sigma is staying reasonably high while I win with the mixed party/same people. I even wonder if it increases my sigma slightly because I think I am close to 100 games in that playlist, so my ranking ability should have stalled much mroe than it has.
3) the system "remembers" that you have played with certain people. Obviously this is not actually remembering, but something to do with higher sigma between all of the parties. After a good amount of games with randoms, I returned to the mixed party and my ranking would not move even with a reasonably large winning streak with them.
4) I surpassed my ranking from my original account in only a couple of days, even with the mixed party stalling. I probably could have surpassed it in less than 40-60 games total. I suspect I will be able to surpass my old account's TS rank by 15-17 levels when I am done.
Really shows the effects of low sigma. Neither you nor I have ever been an advocate of starting new accounts to circumvent sigma, but in my case it seems to be worthwhile. I'll let you know once it has stalled out and we can look at it more in depth.
[Edited on 04.06.2008 9:39 AM PDT]