Trickle-up placements

Contests
#1

I get this same feeling in every contest. The placement algorithm seems to favor those who submit early.

Here is my evidence from CodeBusters:

  • I submitted my current algorithm 15 hours ago,which was last night before going to bed. When I shut my laptop, I was ranked at around 300ish (in Silver) after the Last Battles screen showed 100% of my placement battles had been fought.

  • This morning, I woke up and was in the 250s! Wow! I guess the playing field didn’t improve much overnight?

  • I just checked again, and I am ranked 218th.

Now keep in mind that I have not submitted new code in over 15 hours. It seems very improbable to me that all of my competitors have been getting progressively worse over the past 15 hours. Whenever something like this happens, I’m always a bit hesitant to submit any code changes unless I’m 100% certain that they will result in a net improvement.

Just some food for thought.

  • danBhentschel
1 Like
#2

An other fact that may goes in this direction, I resubmitted the exact same code … and lost 100 places =D

2 Likes
#3

Over the course of the contest more and more people submit code.

Some of these new people submitting code aren’t as good as your code.

#4

The ranking system is useless because of the number of game player. You AI can’t be ranked correctly with only 100 games (more or less).

I remember we had a discussion with Maxime and they said they’ll rework the system for the next contest. I told them to add more games but it’s look like it’s clearly not the case since we have less games than Smash the code …

But ranking during the contest is not the main problem anyway. If they add +500 games to everyone at the end of the contest, it will be ok :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
#5

Yes and no. :slight_smile: I agree that the final ranking is the only one that will be remembered, but ranking during a contest can be used to gauge the effectiveness of strategies, and if it can fluctuate by 100s, then it’s hard to know just how good your changes are.

  • danBhentschel
2 Likes
#6

… then just have an error margin for “100 placements”… and work from there knowing that is the maximum amount your accuracy can really be figured out.

If you end up placing in 101st place (or anywhere up to 199th place) you could respond by acting salty… but anybody placed 500th and worse will look at you like you are the biggest douche ever.