Showing posts with label evaluation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evaluation. Show all posts

04/04/2015

Firefox plug-in

I've been thinking for a while about how to make things a little easier within the X11 site, and I thought I'd have a punt at a plug-in, which I've finally gotten around to releasing. Note that this has been signed with AMO (and subsequently renamed), so existing users wishing to update may find that existing data is not retained.

Essentially, it records team and player details and allows calculation of a player's exact skill without having to move to a separate site. It stores calculated values and then displays them when you hover over a player's skill (almost) anywhere else on the site. It also records evaluation details, and gives a more precise value for a player's compatibility (in degrees left or right of the centre of the dial, -90 (left) to 90 (right)).

To use it, download the file from the link and run it in Firefox. Once that is done, it will work in the background picking up data from pages you view. I've opted against fetching data directly as the crew might not like it and it's a bit naughty if people have slow connections or data limits.

You'll want to visit pages in this order:
The lobby (which you are directed to when you log in anyway).
The squad page for each team - this loads player data.
The players bought page - this loads players' starting skill.
After that, you can go to the change reports page and, when you select a player, their skill should be calculated and stored.

The plug-in will also fetch details on evaluations (although you have to leave the page open for at least 3-4 seconds before you navigate anywhere else - sorry about that) and it should update the list on the market main screen with the player's evaluated compatibility and their estimated value (if they have one).

Next up, I'm looking to add reminders about CR training, warnings if PRs haven't been issued and notifications if players you declare an interest in are close to their deadline. I'm open to suggestions though about what would make people's lives easier.

If I get what I want to done on the FF plug in, I may look into Chrome but I will only really consider looking at those two browsers.

04/08/2014

The science of underevals

"Underevals", or players that gain skill bar on transfer, are starting to become a more popular method of farming players, particularly with the new threads in the forums created for the purpose of advertising players. In a previous post, I discussed what happens when a transfer takes place, but I'll build on that by discussing how you can use that to your advantage when selling players.

The basic premise

Players gain or lose skill on transfer, based on their average form, match experience and the amount the season has progressed. The way the skill increase / decrease is calculated is very similar to the way that it is at the change report, although there is one difference; at the change report, players get a random amount of between 0 and 0.2 as an additional gain (or loss) at the CR, but this is not applied on transfers.

Setting players up to become underevals

Building players up in order to sell them as underevals is a similar approach to training players normally - maintain form and ensure you give enough game time. The higher the form and the greater the match experience, the bigger the skill increase. Selling later in the season will also increase the skill gain a player makes. It's worth noting, however, that you don't necessarily need to get a huge skill increase - just enough so that the player gains a skill bar. You may find that, if you have a player that is high in their skill band, it's easier to try and sell them as an undereval than trying to attain a double jump with them, especially if you have lots of other players that need match experience.

When exactly to sell

There are a couple of things to consider when trying to sell underevals - whether you've earned enough of a skill increase for a visible jump on transfer, and whether there are teams actively looking for players. While selling four days before the deadline will give the maximum increase, you won't want to sell then if there aren't many leagues in silly season (which you can spot in the official leagues, but is mainly down to luck in private ones), and there's not much point keeping a player for extra weeks if you've already done enough for them to gain skill.

Calculating the DV a player needs to be an undereval

This calculator should help you work out what DV you will need to make a player an undereval given a point in the season. Note that I have written the calculator to be slightly pessimistic, in that they should return a DV that will guarantee an undereval, but you use it at your own risk.

of days / games

13/01/2014

Reliable agents

You're not meant to talk about them in the forums, but the three reliable agents (i.e. those that never overstate or understate a player's skill) are:

Kevin Kagge
Billy Wonka
Al Corleone

Admittedly, this information isn't as much help as it used to be given that evaluations are so cheap and compatibility is more significnat than before, but it still can help refine searches for players.

For example, you may wish to go through these three agents first if you're looking for an older player to fill in (as you know they'll be the same visible skill). Likewise, if you're hunting for understated players on the market, you'll want to avoid these three agents.