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So what exactly is the point of the bonus pool in your opinion? I really think it serves almost the opposite of what most players think it serves, and its really frustrating me lately...
On SEA server right now, i have 1466 points in diamond, and 797 bonus points. I'm having the problem that i'm getting 2-5 points (+x for the bonus) about 50% of my games and very rarely more than 12, this makes trying to climb up this ladder incredibly un-motivating and I don't particularly want to play the ridiculous amount of games it'd take to burn up my bonus pool just so my ladder rank accurately represents my true ranking on the server.
so what does this mean? The bonus pool actually favors the more active players than it does the less active ones... Assuming i can keep my points at 50-50 of what they are now and burn out my 800ish remaining points, i'd be at 2,300ish points, putting me somewhere between 1st and 3rd of my division, and somewhere in the top 5 in the top 200 ranking... Instead however, im sitting at like 40th in my division and obviously non-existent in the top 200. In order for me to get my accurate ranking, at the rate of 6 or so bonus points im getting on average per win, it'll take me about 133 wins to get there (plus whatever bonus pool accumulates between this time).
I'm not sure if everyone agrees that that's a pretty ridiculous amount of games to have to try and play just for your rank to accurately represent where you rate on the server, and with the new changes to the game coming in the next patch with stuff like the grand master league or whatever it is for the top 200 on the server, it actually pisses me off that it's near unattainable for me despite easily belonging there.
So I've really got to ask, again, what the hell is the point of the bonus pool exactly? My original belief is that it was there to HELP the less active players quickly jump up and catch up to the higher ranks where they belong (edit: quoting directly from blizzards FAQ
Q. What is the Bonus Pool and how are bonus points acquired?
A. The Bonus Pool is an accumulation of points that every player receives whether they're online and playing or not. They're essentially used as a means to help give a player a catch-up boost if they haven't played in a while. But as i explained it does, literally, the exact opposite. I know I'm probably a 1 in a 1,000,000 case where this really effects me hard so no one is likely to really give a shit, blizzard employee or otherwise, but i just felt like venting and showing that this problem is out there.
A possible fix would be not making bonus pool count towards the top 200. This way players can still climb the ladder and aim for #1 in their division blah blah blah, but the top 200 will still accurately represent the best players on the server, activity or otherwise.
for refrences i am TAmsiPinder.957 on SEA.
 
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Norway28621 Posts
hm, I pretty much haven't played a single ladder game without having bonus pool this season and I get anywhere between 14 and 42 points (with bonus points) per game. like 7+7 if I am slightly favoured, 9+9 - 12+12 if its evenly matched, 13+13 - 16+16 if he's slightly favoured and 20+20 + if he's favoured
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On November 23 2010 23:29 Liquid`Drone wrote:
hm, I pretty much haven't played a single ladder game without having bonus pool this season and I get anywhere between 14 and 42 points (with bonus points) per game. like 7+7 if I am slightly favoured, 9+9 - 12+12 if its evenly matched, 13+13 - 16+16 if he's slightly favoured and 20+20 + if he's favoured
The problem with this is there's like 5 people who are still playing on the server who are favored against me... And obviously i dont run into them much, so getting 6+6 points on avg per win was not an exaggeration. 
edit: which to point out, if i was sitting at 2.3k and had no bonus pool and was getting on avg 6 points per win i'd have no problem with at all, its the fact these people are like 500 points ahead of me and im getting 2+2 points from them that kinda makes me wonder what the point of even trying to ladder on SEA is....
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just take your approximate rank to be your current rank plus your bonus pool
then you can compare roughly to people who have no bonus pool
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On November 23 2010 23:36 palanq wrote:
just take your approximate rank to be your current rank plus your bonus pool
then you can compare roughly to people who have no bonus pool
yeah, i understand this, but i want to be able to get into the grandmaster league etc. when they release it, and grinding out the remaining 130 wins or whatever, some of which will be 2+2 points for a win, is really un-motivating and borderline depressing... I dono, maybe im making mountains out of molehills but it still pisses me off
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I think that assuming that you would automatically get to 2300 by burning through all of your bonus points is a bad idea and it is even worse to think of of the bonus pool as being bad if you actually are good enough to be at 2300. Say you lose a bunch while using up your bonus pool. You obviously lost points which means you aren't going to be as high once you use them up. On the opposite hand, say that you kick everyone's ass and you're unstoppable and you zoom up there to 2300 thanks to bonus pool. Why would that be a bad thing??? It is essentially allowing you to obtain the appropriate rating for yourself without playing as many games as others.
I really don't see how you can't see this as beneficial...
yeah, i understand this, but i want to be able to get into the grandmaster league etc. when they release it, and grinding out the remaining 130 wins or whatever, some of which will be 2+2 points for a win, is really un-motivating and borderline depressing...
Do you think it would somehow be fair for you to not have to grind out the games and prove you belong there when all of the other people did?
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well i have this exact problem too, well its worse for me. i have 900 bonus points and i have not seen anyone favoured vs me in the last 2 months, even vs yoon i was the slight favourite.
hopefully they just make the grandmaster league based on hidden MMR
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If the idea of a bonus pool is to reward the inactive by giving them a means to catch up it does the exact opposite. I have experienced exactly what Ftrunkz is going through recently as I have gone from being very busy to being fairly available to play and became unmotivated because grinding down the pool takes along time. On the SEA server I get a lot of even matches meaning its about 10points out of the pool for each game but to grind down the 900point diamond point I had would take ages and it is quite frustrating to get a minor reward for beating someone who by the ladders standing is meant to be far superior. I really don't understand why it can't be a pure ELO system I don't feel the current system is overly rewarding for the players who don't have lots of time to keep their bonus pool low.
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@sorcher ure missing the whole point of his post
nvm ill leave pinder to reply to that lol
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8748 Posts
well you've played only a little more than 10 ladder games per week this season. less than 2 games a day. i think blizzard assumes more activity than that from a top 200 player so using up bonus pool shouldnt be an issue.
generally you have to play a ton of games in any type of ladder to be competitive, unless you are just way better than everyone else, or you set your goals relatively low. ladders that don't require mass gaming are always nice for the guy who doesnt want to mass game and who is better than everyone else but that guy is always a minority
nonetheless i do get the feeling that there are too many bonus points. i just dont think it's an issue for people who want to make grand master league
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Hyrule19026 Posts
Isn't Top 200 based on MMR, not rating?
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On November 24 2010 00:01 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
well you've played only a little more than 10 ladder games per week this season. less than 2 games a day. i think blizzard assumes more activity than that from a top 200 player so using up bonus pool shouldnt be an issue.
generally you have to play a ton of games in any type of ladder to be competitive, unless you are just way better than everyone else, or you set your goals relatively low. ladders that don't require mass gaming are always nice for the guy who doesnt want to mass game and who is better than everyone else but that guy is always a minority
nonetheless i do get the feeling that there are too many bonus points. i just dont think it's an issue for people who want to make grand master league
Mmmm, it's kind of an even rarer scenario for people like me, nirvana, moonglade, and all the other top players from SEA, as we want the competitiveness of US/KR server for better practice, so we mostly play there, however for stuff like our blizzcon invites, and random blizzard run tournies, the SEA server will be where we have to play to achieve those....
Obviously on average we are playing much more than 2 games of sc2 a day, it just feels shit that, to put it harshly, im playing against a ton of lesser players just mindlessly grinding to try to get my rank high enough to qualify for these blizzard tournaments, but at the same time trying to grind out as much as possible on the US/KR server for better practice reasons and when grinding on SEA alrdy feels a bit like a chore more than decent practice/fun games, when i finish my 15 minute game and get a measily 2+2 points for it, it makes me want to go on teamliquid and rage about how retarded it is.... so I did! ^^
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8748 Posts
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8748 Posts
On November 24 2010 00:07 Ftrunkz wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2010 00:01 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
well you've played only a little more than 10 ladder games per week this season. less than 2 games a day. i think blizzard assumes more activity than that from a top 200 player so using up bonus pool shouldnt be an issue.
generally you have to play a ton of games in any type of ladder to be competitive, unless you are just way better than everyone else, or you set your goals relatively low. ladders that don't require mass gaming are always nice for the guy who doesnt want to mass game and who is better than everyone else but that guy is always a minority
nonetheless i do get the feeling that there are too many bonus points. i just dont think it's an issue for people who want to make grand master league Mmmm, it's kind of an even rarer scenario for people like me, nirvana, moonglade, and all the other top players from SEA, as we want the competitiveness of US/KR server for better practice, so we mostly play there, however for stuff like our blizzcon invites, and random blizzard run tournies, the SEA server will be where we have to play to achieve those.... Obviously on average we are playing much more than 2 games of sc2 a day, it just feels shit that, to put it harshly, im playing against a ton of lesser players just mindlessly grinding to try to get my rank high enough to qualify for these blizzard tournaments, but at the same time trying to grind out as much as possible on the US/KR server for better practice reasons and when grinding on SEA alrdy feels a bit like a chore more than decent practice/fun games, when i finish my 15 minute game and get a measily 2+2 points for it, it makes me want to go on teamliquid and rage about how retarded it is.... so I did! ^^
yeah that's an unfortunate situation. playing against people worse than you isnt a total waste of time though. losses still teach lessons and you can work on your mechanics just as well if you challenge yourself
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I agree, the bonus pool favours the active player to the less active one. But that is a good thing. If you want to justify your ladder position, you should play games to prove yourself. I don't think it's a good thing for a player to get a good streak and then sit on a particular rating for the entire season.
A lot of arguments can be made at the rate which the bonus pool accumulates. But that can be tweaked and adjusted. Currently, perhaps the consensus is that it is on the fast side.
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On November 24 2010 00:15 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2010 00:07 Ftrunkz wrote:On November 24 2010 00:01 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
well you've played only a little more than 10 ladder games per week this season. less than 2 games a day. i think blizzard assumes more activity than that from a top 200 player so using up bonus pool shouldnt be an issue.
generally you have to play a ton of games in any type of ladder to be competitive, unless you are just way better than everyone else, or you set your goals relatively low. ladders that don't require mass gaming are always nice for the guy who doesnt want to mass game and who is better than everyone else but that guy is always a minority
nonetheless i do get the feeling that there are too many bonus points. i just dont think it's an issue for people who want to make grand master league Mmmm, it's kind of an even rarer scenario for people like me, nirvana, moonglade, and all the other top players from SEA, as we want the competitiveness of US/KR server for better practice, so we mostly play there, however for stuff like our blizzcon invites, and random blizzard run tournies, the SEA server will be where we have to play to achieve those.... Obviously on average we are playing much more than 2 games of sc2 a day, it just feels shit that, to put it harshly, im playing against a ton of lesser players just mindlessly grinding to try to get my rank high enough to qualify for these blizzard tournaments, but at the same time trying to grind out as much as possible on the US/KR server for better practice reasons and when grinding on SEA alrdy feels a bit like a chore more than decent practice/fun games, when i finish my 15 minute game and get a measily 2+2 points for it, it makes me want to go on teamliquid and rage about how retarded it is.... so I did! ^^ yeah that's an unfortunate situation. playing against people worse than you isnt a total waste of time though. losses still teach lessons and you can work on your mechanics just as well if you challenge yourself
All true, but the top SEA players have customs/KR+NA server for learning and practice. The only reason to really ladder on SEA, as Pinder stated, was for Bliz events and the occasional SEA tourney that does qualifiers by ratings - making it a chore more than anything. Due to Pinder/Nirvana etc having extremely high MMR relative to the remainder of the server, the bonus pool just lets everyone else move faster as they cannot burn it as easily.
Nirvana has hundreds of points less than me but I'd probably be getting a good number of even matches for +20s while he's pushing along through +4s.
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Bonus pool was the worst addition ever.
Thanks to it you can only meassure people that actually have it on 0 most of the time, which is bad. I really think Blizzard overestimated the avg. Games played/day by the average user. It just feels stupid.
I don't play any ladder just customs for 3-4 Weeks?
Quality of my enemies does not change, but instead of 1400 points they now have 1700-1900 while im still sitting at my ~1400 which is groing at a steady rate up to the point were i just could have added the Bonuspool to my normal score thanks to the "glorious" 50% mms.
What's the use of it except making retards feel like they accomplish something?
I really have problems to understand which kind of moron designed this system and which retards thought this guy had the right idea... Just bring back the OLD(!) WC3 system (with some adjustments) and everything would be better.
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yea this is a stupid problem that happens to people with very high MMR and high bonus pool. Probably why the points peak in SEA is much lower than other regions because too few pros are active. And those who are active can't finish their pool.
I guess the only solution would be to start throwing away games until your MMR gets low enough to finish the bonus pool and from then maintain 50 percent winning percentage. Sounds stupid and not sure if it's gonna work but better than winning +2 per games and to have +12 bonus pool per day. Which means you have to win 6 games on a ladder that extremely uncompetitive for you
on another note: is it confirmed that grandmasters league will be done by top 200 ( ie points) and not MMR?
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I think the main issue is your MMR does not "decay", or at least does not "fall behind" as your rating does - as everyone else overtakes it. Still having the MMR of a top10 player while not being active for 2months is a silly system. So basically you're stuck with the MMR of a top10 player while the top200/actual rating points system is way ahead of you.
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Norway28621 Posts
yea ok, I can see how this issue is problematic for players on SEA. I don't think anyone on american or european server is too bothered by this though.
and while I certainly have my qualms about the ladder system, (plain old iccup was far superior I think), the matchmaking is absolutely awesome and using the matchmaking to constantly match you up against reasonably even opposition making even good players have a 60% winrate, is something I think rocks.
what they probably should have done instead of the bonus pool however (which sadly just works as a continuous ladderscore-inflator), is to give points based on a system of diminishing returns, making it possible to climb the ladder up to a certain point very fast if you are good, but still maintaining exclusivity as far as the top ranks go.
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On November 24 2010 01:13 Velr wrote:
Bonus pool was the worst addition ever.
Thanks to it you can only meassure people that actually have it on 0 most of the time, which is bad. I really think Blizzard overestimated the avg. Games played/day by the average user. It just feels stupid.
I don't play any ladder just customs for 3-4 Weeks?
Quality of my enemies does not change, but instead of 1400 points they now have 1700-1900 while im still sitting at my ~1400 which is groing at a steady rate up to the point were i just could have added the Bonuspool to my normal score thanks to the "glorious" 50% mms.
What's the use of it except making retards feel like they accomplish something?
I really have problems to understand which kind of moron designed this system and which retards thought this guy had the right idea... Just bring back the OLD(!) WC3 system (with some adjustments) and everything would be better. The "retards" are accomplished game designers.
The "moron" (or morons) which designed the new ladder made it better for the most of us players. Considering your choice of words I would not be surprised if Blizzard does take your opinion into consideration.
The point inflation is a good thing since it rewards laddering. The bonus pool can be considered as a penality for inactive players. But the XP decay in WC3 was not too well received just because is was implemented as a penality. So they changed the system to a bonus bool to get the same effect: The inactive player will be passed by the active player even if both players have the equal skill level. Since it is now labeled "bonus pool" it does no longer feel like a punishment while it actually punishes inactive players.
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On December 22 2010 18:02 [F_]aths wrote:
The "retards" are accomplished game designers.
This does not make them immune to fucking up. And if it does, then whoever designed Battle.net 2.0 certainly doesn't meet the criteria of "accomplished game designer".
My situation's different than the OP, but I do feel it could have been handled better. I'm not entirely sure what the problem is that's trying to be prevented by the bonus pool, but would a minimum game quota to maintain your rank be a solution?
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On December 22 2010 18:40 Kanil wrote:Show nested quote +On December 22 2010 18:02 [F_]aths wrote:
The "retards" are accomplished game designers. This does not make them immune to fucking up. And if it does, then whoever designed Battle.net 2.0 certainly doesn't meet the criteria of "accomplished game designer". My situation's different than the OP, but I do feel it could have been handled better. I'm not entirely sure what the problem is that's trying to be prevented by the bonus pool, but would a minimum game quota to maintain your rank be a solution? This could be a solution but would be perceived as a punishment.
At Blizzcon 2009 (I did not attend, just watched the stream) an employee told the story about WoW rested XP bonus. The original implementation had a malus after you played for a while. This caused the test player to feel punished for playing. Then Blizzard changed the system. They lowered the general XP but gave a bonus for beeing rested. The outcome was exactly the same but now it was perceived as a bonus.
XP decay makes you think "I am forced to play or I lose something". The bonus pool makes you think "If I not play, I am not gaining additional points but at least I don't lose my points for which I worked so hard". Since it is a relative comparison to other players, you still lose (rank, that is, not points) so the outcome is the same. But it does not feel like a real punishment.
The bonus pool also encourages casual gamers to play again. "Even if I don't get 50% win ratio because I am not accustomed to the latest strategies, I can get sone additional points." The current ladder is optimized for casual and even regular gamers. Pro gamers will get their own leagues.
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EPT
