Christopher Baek's Algorithm

Origin and purpose

Developed as a way to reduce animosity between Heroes of Newerth players due to low kill-to-death (KDR) players not being accepted in the community for their [low KDR] stats. Players with low KDR were often laughed at, regardless of their other stats (such as wards placed per game). KDR is not truly representative of a players skill level, and as such, Baek developed an algorithm to incorporate some other stat (in this case, wards placed per game), to better gauge a players skill level. Many players praised Baek for his algorithm^{[citation needed]}, as it allowed them to fit in to the community with ease.

Applications

The theory can be applied to various competitive games, such as Heroes of Newerth or Starcraft II, the former of which was the basis of the original algorithm. After version 0.1.16, Baek noticed that many new stats were being tracked by the Heroes of Newerth client. He decided to develop an algorithm to incorporate another factor (other than kill-to-death ratio), so that players would have a better way to gauge their worth to their team.^[1]

The specific application of the algorithm in HoN is as follows: a player may have any KDR, however, their wards-placed-per-game must match a certain amount based on their KDR.^[2] The following bar chart gives a visual representation of the algorithm.

Notes

1. ^ Baek 2011, Christopher Baek's algorithm
2. ^ Baek 2011, Christopher Baek's algorithm

Examples

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/player_stats.php?aid=3718007 An example of a player failing the algorithm [Heroes of Newerth] (0.6 wards versus 1.12 kill-to-death ratio).

External links

• http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/player_stats.php?aid=3718007, Professional Heroes of Newerth player stats page, Heroes of Newerth, 2011.
• http://www.geocities.jp/christopher_baek, "Archived version of Christopher Baek's algorithm, original document", Baek, Christopher, 2011