Talk:Elo rating system/@comment-71.227.11.17-20110505200658

Sigh, I hate it when people say "ELO hell doesn't exist" or that it's "just an excuse that nubs use when they're not very good". This is coming from someone ranked in the 1600s and who has ACTUALLY taken a statistics class and what follows is the statistical truth. ELO hell exists in the sense that consistent leavers/AFKers WILL make up the majority of the lower tiers. This means that if you lose a bunch of games in a row, due to bad luck or whatever, and get placed into "ELO hell", you'll have a harder time getting out of it than normal because you'll have a higher chance of getting leavers/AFKers on your team. However, this means that the other team has an equally likely chance of getting just as many leavers/AFKers. Overall, this means that if you feel that you've been placed in ELO hell when you don't belong, you will probably need to play more games than normal to work your way back out, but it's NOT impossible to get out of, it will just take longer on average.

Saying it doesn't exist is like saying LOL doesn't have leavers/AFKers/constant freaking disconnects. Your skill level isn't the only variable to your win/loss ratio, your connection and leave-rate are also factors, and you even have to factor in the connection and leave-rate of your teammates. As long as your TRUE skill level isn't the ONLY factor to winning/losing a game, then statistical anomalies like ELO hell WILL and DO exist.

Please, I REALLY want to hear why tons of people think that ELO hell doesn't exist. I'm not on the low end that would need to whine about it. Just looking over the forums, I can't see any real good arguments for why it doesn't exist.