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I agree that the bonus pool system isn't appropriate. I don't really how it operates particularly, it just doesn't seem to fit what a ladder is. In WoW, it makes sense to have rest experience to help casual players keep up with other players who put more time in. Everyone's trying to get to level whatever and not everyone wants to put in a huge amount of time played in order to get there.
A ladder like the one in SC2 doesn't really seem to benefit from a rest experience system like the bonus pool. It's hard for me to understand what motivated Blizzard to put it in. Why not just have a winning streak bonus so that people whose rating is below their level of play can reach their appropriate level more quickly? What does a rest experience system do? I don't see how it can benefit casual players in the same way that a rest experience system benefits players in WoW.
If anything, giving casual players extra points is just gonna make it easier for casual players to end up getting matched with non-casual players. Then the casual players will lose more often. If anything it seems like the bonus pool system is a bad alternative to something like a win streak system for awarding rating
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It actually is a great system!
- First of all it helps casual gamers to be somewhat able to keep up with hardcore gamers.
- Also because everybody accumulates a bonus pool it effectively inflates the ranking system, which means that even if you do not improve your skill at all, you still will be able to steadily increase your points' count over time; and this is a great incentive for players to continue laddering! (an example: in iCCup you were stuck at a certain rank, say C+, and you simply were not good enough to gain a higher rank. In Bnet 2.0 you might get stuck at say rank 40 in you division with 1400 points in the beginning, but due to the inflation of points your ranking will certainly increase over time! If you do not improve you will be still rank 40 in your div, but your points will increase to say 1600, which will give you a feeling of accomplishment!
On May 20 2010 07:52 Boblion wrote:
I really don't understand why you have to wait to get your +44pts wins whereas a legit mass gamer or someone like me who doesn't play often but enjoy long sessions only get half once they have cleared the bonus. It gets really annoying when you have a ~ 30-15 and still are 80pts behind someone with 22-18 because of the bonus pool.
As far as I am aware there is no bonus pool ceiling in the beta, thus everybody (mass gamer or casual gamer) will accumulate the exact same amount of bonus points in the same time window. Also you always generate bonus points, mass gamers just use them so fast that they cannot accumulate. So mass gamers (or people like you) will get only a few bonus points every other game while casual gamers will get a massive bonus plus the few games they play, but in the end all of you will have gained the exact same amount of bonus points (if you have finished your placement matches at the same time)
Also the stats discrepancy you describe may derive from many different reasons. An example would be that the people with more wins have been matched against less favored opponents for some reason.
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On May 20 2010 08:37 TheYango wrote:
Laddering is about improving at the game. To that end, the entire rating system is just a facade to make stats-conscious people feel good about themselves, because it's not even used for the real matchmaking (purportedly, another hidden rating is used for that purpose).
I don't at all agree that laddering is for improving. Having practice partners to let you practice what you want to practice is far more productive than laddering to improve in most cases. The only thing the ladder offers over having good practice partners is more diversity (well, and it's far easier to just start up a ladder match than it is to find a good practice partner).
Of course with no real prizes the ladder isn't really about being competitive either. It's quite possible Blizz will have real prizes for top performers after release though.
It's mainly just there as a way to quickly find someone at about your level to play a game of SC against for fun.
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You are totally wrong about how the bonus pool system works. Everyone gets it at the exact same pace. You still get it while you are playing. Sometimes I have a long session and in the middle of it I will get 1 bonus pool point.
You can't compare records and ELO points. People with the exact same record would have different ELOs even without the bonus pool. That's because you get different amount of points depending on your opponent strength.
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the bonus system would benefit people like u...why complain...wtf
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United States47024 Posts
On May 20 2010 09:02 crate wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2010 08:37 TheYango wrote:
Laddering is about improving at the game. To that end, the entire rating system is just a facade to make stats-conscious people feel good about themselves, because it's not even used for the real matchmaking (purportedly, another hidden rating is used for that purpose). I don't at all agree that laddering is for improving. Having practice partners to let you practice what you want to practice is far more productive than laddering to improve in most cases. The only thing the ladder offers over having good practice partners is more diversity (well, and it's far easier to just start up a ladder match than it is to find a good practice partner). Of course with no real prizes the ladder isn't really about being competitive either. It's quite possible Blizz will have real prizes for top performers after release though. It's mainly just there as a way to quickly find someone at about your level to play a game of SC against for fun.
Fair enough. The point still stands that your displayed rating has absolutely nothing to do with the matchmaking system's ability to do this though.
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United States42536 Posts
On May 20 2010 08:21 Boblion wrote:
Now i don't really get it.
The maximum point i have got after a win was +44 ( didn't ladder for one week and i played vs a favoured opponent ).
But when my bonus pool is empty i get like something like +14.
So you are all saying that i also benefit from the bonus but why would i risk to lose 5-10 points for 14 when i can wait two days and get a +30-44 ?
When you start to get better competition i think it makes the ladder biased.
I mean let's say you have a 50% win ratio your expected point value after one match if you have an empty bonus pool is like 14-5 or 14-10 ~ 5-10 pts.
If your bonus pool is full it is at least twice. After clearing the bonus you have almost no incentive to play more.
If you play 20 games over 2 weeks at an average of 1-2 a day you'll accumulate X bonus points. If each Sunday you play 10 games you'll still have the same score with the same bonus points. The first guy will get a +1-2 bonus on each of his games while the second guy will get a +20ish bonus on the first game of each of his sessions. But pointswise they'll be exactly the same.
The only time it makes a huge difference is when someone starts in a lower league and ranks up. Because there you get a direct reduction from your points which means you "wasted" the bonus points getting leagued up. If you started in gold that'd explain the situation.
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I don't think you understand the bonus system.
It doesn't matter how long your sessions are or how often you play. As I understand it everyone gains bonus points at the same rate no matter how often you play.
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It seems like the bonus pool is primarily there to encourage players who are not improving compared to their peers. Their points still increase. It also encourages players who are at the top to keep playing because they are getting extra points from the bonus pool. I've seen it said that the purpose of the bonus pool is to let inactive players get an extra catch up boost in the face of points inflation, but it seems like the bonus pool itself is one of the main sources of inflation. Intuitively it feels like the bonus pool is a completely useless element, but it's hard to say without more trasparency about how the entire ladder works.
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Calgary25979 Posts
I only play about 3 games 2 times a week, so the bonus pool is amazing for me.
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EPT
