Same Experience, Different Ranks

"Overall, these results suggested that changes in MOBA gaming performance were shaped by both gaming experience and psychological factors." [1]

Experience is not everything—other individual factors that a teammate brings to the table also contribute to team performance. In this episode, we will examine some of these factors.

⚖️ Same Experience, Different Ranks

It should be evident to all of us that "people vary in the extent to which they can perform a particular skill, whether it be part of a sport, profession, or video game." [1] Many studies across different scientific disciplines have shown that experience is one of the most critical factors in performance. However, in the past few decades, researchers have also started investigating other attributes that contribute to skilled performance, including psychological traits.

This means that two players with the same level of experience—let’s say the same number of hours played in League of Legends—may end up with different Elo ranks. Psychological factors could explain at least part of these differences.

🕹️ They Went to an TI

"For the present study, MOBA players were tested on a series of cognitive and sociocognitive tasks and presented with a set of personality trait questionnaires." [1]

The researchers recruited 335 players at The International 6 (TI6) back in 2016. They collected cognitive data such as IQ, visual attention, and the ability to recognize others' emotional states, along with personality traits. Each participant's MMR was tracked over three months as an indicator of skilled performance. Additionally, the win-loss ratio was used as an independent measure of performance, and the total number of matches played (ranked and unranked) was recorded as a measure of experience.

📈 Performance and Experience Improvement Factors

"Overall, the results of the present study indicated that the rate at which MOBA player performance improved with experience varied by the social context of the game and individual differences in specific psychological measures." [1]

Let’s dive deeper into the results. Specifically, let’s have a look at which individual factors influenced how much performance improved with experience, shall we? For example, if performance increased proportionally with experience, that would indicate a linear progression (1:1). The study suggests that the rate of improvement depended on psychological factors and match type (solo or team queue).

1. Players' MMR (gaming performance) improved with the number of matches played. This is somewhat surprising. Yes, the more matches you play the more experience you get. However, we all know that we'll hit skill plateau at some point, meaning, it doesn't matter if you play one or 100 more matches, you won't get any better (rank up).
2. "the rate of improvement varied by social context, with a greater rate in solo compared to party matches." [1] This means that by playing solo queue, players ranked up faster (or at all) compared to when playing with pre-mates or friends. In an earlier episode, we have seen that playing with friends, compared to solo, improves your performance and should, hence, help you climb. However, if you queue as a team, you will be matched against other pre-mates, bringing your advantage back to the usual 50:50 coin toss. This is definitely something researchers should explore in the future to settle the discussion.
3. "... individuals who scored higher than the sample mean on these traits [neuroticism and IQ] tended to have greater MMR with additional experience..." [1] IQ is a common contributor of success across performance studies in gaming and esports. Neuroticism (a person's tendency to be impacted by negative emotions) was found to contribute to gaming performance before in other studies. The less negative emotions get to you the better you perform. In short: if you rage, you lose.
4. The impact of psychological traits (neuroticism, recognizing others' emotional state, and IQ) on the rate by which performance (MMR) improved was dependent on the match type (solo or team). For instance, how players scored on measures of neuroticism and reading emotional stages of others had a greater impact on MMR improvement when playing team matches compared to solo matches.

🤔 What can We Learn from It?

That's simple: 1) just have a high IQ to be better in gaming, 2) don't rage, and 3) other individual, psychological factors play a role in performance (MMR—gaining experience) and which of them depends on if you play solo or with pre-mates.

Hope you all have a great week. See you next Sunday,

Christian 🙂

References

[1] Bonny et al., 2020