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DISCLAIMER: It's a blog, and therefore, opinion. Please keep this in mind when replying.
The SC2 ladder is flawed. One of the biggest problems I have come across while playing is that after a game I have won and I was told that I was either cheating, or they've done what I've done and have failed, that when I try to help these people by providing advice from my experiences, they ignore me. They don't even acknowledge what I'm saying, or refute my points with a logical argument. They simply put me on ignore, and pretend that the game is flawed or random.
Why is this happening though? A lot of people say it's just because the influx of players we have, and that these people don't clearly understand Starcraft. While I see that point being valid, I don't think that makes up a majority of the players, and actually only applies to those who are truly new to Starcraft or RTS games in general.
The problem as I see it is the league and promotion system. When I use to play World of Warcraft (or any RPG game applies here), one of the best parts was leveling. There were a few reasons for this - One was because a shiny glow happened, and everyone around you could see you just level'd and gave you a virtual pat on the back (gratz!). Another is that you got a talent point to spend, therefore improving your character in some matter, and with that, you probably got new skills. It felt really damn good to level, and I would mindlessly do quests and kill mobs without any acknowledgement to the strategies I was using to kill mobs because I wanted to level.
In Starcraft 2, you don't have leveling. You have league promotions, or rank promotions instead. That feeling when you beat somebody, and that box appears saying you've been promoted is amazing. I remember going from Silver to gold, and from gold to platinum feeling like a total bad ass because this was obviously a result of me improving. The fact that I was doing the same 1 base all-in was totally irrelevant to me, because obviously the strategy was good, or else it wouldn't work.
This type of mindset though, is what lead me to want to quit the game, and had me rage quitting when I lost multiple times in a row. I didn't understand what I was doing wrong, and was growing more frustrated by the day. When people tried to help me, I BM'ed them, ignored, and pretended like their advice was bullshit - I had won with this strategy before, so obviously the game was flawed.
After playing my friends at Starcraft 2, and doing the same to them, they got pretty annoyed with me. One of my friends currently browses Teamliquid, and he can attest to this. I was a complete douche, and I would tell them that they were wrong about giving me advice all the time, and they were complete garbage at the game, and had no idea what they were talking about. They stopped playing against me because they didn't want to put up with my stupid crap after games.
After I stopped playing for awhile, I started thinking about how I was playing the game. I actually picked up and read the book The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. What I learned from this book is that I had been perceiving the game all wrong - I thought it was about winning, but what I came to realize is that I needed to think about improving. Even when i lose, there's always a win inside of that loss because I improved at something, or I thought of an idea that I hadn't thought of before.
So what does this very elaborate explanation of how I am becoming better at Starcraft 2 relate to why the Blizzard ladder doesn't work? The league and Rank system gives people this idea that when they're at the top of their ladder, or in a certain league they have achieved a certain amount of skill - This is false. Just because you win doesn't mean you're good, and just because you lose, doesn't mean you're bad. When people see that lovely promotion happen, they're encouraged to do the same shit they've been doing in previous games, and when it stops working, they get mad and assume the game is broken.
So how can this be fixed? For one, we have to eliminate leagues, and go to a rating system, much like iCCup. The advantage to this system is that
A: You choose the opponent you want to play. If you have trouble in ZvT, you can ask a terran player to play you multiple times over, ranked or unranked. But what if you just play the same person over and over? The iCCup system prevented people from gaining more points the more they played an individual.
B: Without leagues, people are going to stop trying to just win, and won't complain when they lose to someone who is C- when they're C+, or even D+. The rating system makes that definite line between who is good and who is not less obvious. When people lose to silver leaguers and they're in Gold or Plat, they start believing that the system is flawed. Instead, they'll see they just lost, and start asking why they lost (or I hope they will).
C: People will become friendlier when they realize they're not so different from the people who are not their exact rating. Who cares what a few rating points means when you know you're thousands of points behind the best. Even a couple hundred is still relative.
Honestly, the iCCup system is one that I just favor and know, and if there's actually something better than that, then we should use it. But the current system in place on Starcraft 2 is showing us why it doesn't work. People are more willing to BM those they are randomly paired against, and less willing to discuss how they can improve. Please Blizzard, fix this because I really do believe this is leading to the demise of the Starcraft 2 ladder.
Replies that I think make a good point:
On February 15 2012 08:08 Druuseph wrote:
I think the biggest issue comes from the fact that the ladder is not there to help you, it's there to keep you playing. By creating these treadmills that are the absolutely meaningless divisions and the bonus pool system Blizzard is actively trying to nudge people who would have otherwise quit by now to keep going for that next meaningless rank within the meaningless division.
Besides that though I disagree that the iCCup system was better. I think the random aspect of who you play is definitely a good gauge of skill and for all the faults the ladder has the appropriateness of your opponents is not one of them. The problem rather is that even when you understand the pointlessness of the numbers and divisions that you'd be lying if you said it didn't influence you when you see your number go from 24 to 50 on a bad day. I would love an option to hide your rank and points so that when you logged on all you saw was a league logo and that's it. I feel that it would be a big step to getting my mind in the right place for improving if that was not influencing me and would make the ladder the practice tool it is for pros. Blizzard is doing players that want to better themselves a disservice by essentially locking us in to a system most of us know is bullshit.
 
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It's not blizzard or the ladders fault that people are stupid. Saying you're good at the game just because you got to a high league by cheesing is like saying you're smart because you got a good IQ on a IQ test you cheated on.
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Russian Federation823 Posts
On February 15 2012 07:23 Tobberoth wrote:
It's not blizzard or the ladders fault that people are stupid. Saying you're good at the game just because you got to a high league by cheesing is like saying you're smart because you got a good IQ on a IQ test you cheated on.
Cheesing is not cheating.
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I believe you are actually correct, by hiding rankings and making them much more uncertain (did you know there's rank S bronze as well as rank F bronze?), people think the game is broken because that hard win was vs a lower league, while that neck and neck loss was to someone higher than them.
This leads to the perception that they should be the rank of the person higher and shouldn't have trouble winning and should definitely never lose to the person much lower. People think I troll because I have a diamond account that beats top 8 master, yet the system doesn't make me master yet, so everyone complains that I dont know what Im doing, and/or that I'm losing on purpose in some manner.
00:13:50 - me to ALL: lol who says ITs are good (I was trying to use IT attacks with my army instead of casting fungals)
00:20:03 - enemy to ALL: how am i at 22
00:20:08 - enemy to ALL: and you jus amove right through me
00:20:14 - me to ALL: what
00:20:18 - enemy to ALL: HOW
00:20:18 - enemy to ALL: ARE
00:20:20 - enemy to ALL: YOU
00:20:20 - enemy to ALL: AT
00:20:21 - enemy to ALL: !!
00:20:22 - enemy to ALL: 11
00:20:24 - enemy to ALL: AND AMOVE
00:20:29 - me to ALL: 11?
00:20:31 - me to ALL: I dont understand
00:20:33 - enemy to ALL: upgrades............................
00:20:36 - me to ALL: oh
00:20:54 - me to ALL: lings waste your dps
00:21:04 - enemy to ALL: you're not in master league, are you?
00:21:16 - me to ALL: nope
00:21:19 - enemy to ALL: okay
00:21:20 - enemy to ALL: i didnt think so
00:21:21 - enemy to ALL: lmao
00:21:26 - me to ALL: lol?
00:21:32 - enemy to ALL: you fucking suck thats what im saying
because apparently losing to an equal base zerg who's constantly army trading you when you're relying on mostly mech army is inconceivable. I try to explain to him that thor/tank vs ling isn't so good because tanks will splash thors and thors will overkill vs lings wasting all their DPS, and reducing the efficiency of a thor based army. OF course, there was more to it than that, fungaling hellion patches while using some buffer tank on them until they died so my lings could flood him. However he just said I knew nothing about the game or how to play, and its my race that got me the win.
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On February 15 2012 07:23 Tobberoth wrote:
It's not blizzard or the ladders fault that people are stupid. Saying you're good at the game just because you got to a high league by cheesing is like saying you're smart because you got a good IQ on a IQ test you cheated on.
I'm actually not going to disagree with this, because you're right. But at the same time ,I think the system Blizzard has put in place only promotes that type of attitude. People of course make the choice to be stupid, but at the same time... when they're in an environment that pretty much fosters that type of attitude, it's more likely going to happen.
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On February 15 2012 07:29 kusto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:23 Tobberoth wrote:
It's not blizzard or the ladders fault that people are stupid. Saying you're good at the game just because you got to a high league by cheesing is like saying you're smart because you got a good IQ on a IQ test you cheated on. Cheesing is not cheating.
But constantly winning by cheesing is not improving either. So his comparison holds some truth.
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On February 15 2012 07:29 kusto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:23 Tobberoth wrote:
It's not blizzard or the ladders fault that people are stupid. Saying you're good at the game just because you got to a high league by cheesing is like saying you're smart because you got a good IQ on a IQ test you cheated on. Cheesing is not cheating.
Not what I said either. The stupidity is the same though, you ignore the fact that you cheated and take your IQ result at face value. Same with someone who cheeses with 1 build to a high league, they take their league placement at face value, ignoring the fact that they don't actually know how to play.
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Cheesing keeps the game and other players honest. Did you have a problem with cheeses in bw? Do you consider 12 nexus and 14cc cheese? (and whatever the CC first build in SC2 is) Because they basically are. 6pool, bbs, etc... are the counter balance. You take a chance when you go 14cc, 12 nexus, etc... Just because you learned a common standard build online and practiced it doesn't mean you deserve to win. People who don't practice builds use other strategies to win and I think that's perfectly fine.
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I think the biggest issue comes from the fact that the ladder is not there to help you, it's there to keep you playing. By creating these treadmills that are the absolutely meaningless divisions and the bonus pool system Blizzard is actively trying to nudge people who would have otherwise quit by now to keep going for that next meaningless rank within the meaningless division.
Besides that though I disagree that the iCCup system was better. I think the random aspect of who you play is definitely a good gauge of skill and for all the faults the ladder has the appropriateness of your opponents is not one of them. The problem rather is that even when you understand the pointlessness of the numbers and divisions that you'd be lying if you said it didn't influence you when you see your number go from 24 to 50 on a bad day. I would love an option to hide your rank and points so that when you logged on all you saw was a league logo and that's it. I feel that it would be a big step to getting my mind in the right place for improving if that was not influencing me and would make the ladder the practice tool it is for pros. Blizzard is doing players that want to better themselves a disservice by essentially locking us in to a system most of us know is bullshit.
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On February 15 2012 08:01 I_are_n00b wrote:
Cheesing keeps the game and other players honest. Did you have a problem with cheeses in bw? Do you consider 12 nexus and 14cc cheese? (and whatever the CC first build in SC2 is) Because they basically are. 6pool, bbs, etc... are the counter balance. You take a chance when you go 14cc, 12 nexus, etc... Just because you learned a common standard build online and practiced it doesn't mean you deserve to win. People who don't practice builds use other strategies to win and I think that's perfectly fine.
Yes.
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On February 15 2012 08:08 Druuseph wrote:
I think the biggest issue comes from the fact that the ladder is not there to help you, it's there to keep you playing. By creating these treadmills that are the absolutely meaningless divisions and the bonus pool system Blizzard is actively trying to nudge people who would have otherwise quit by now to keep going for that next meaningless rank within the meaningless division.
Besides that though I disagree that the iCCup system was better. I think the random aspect of who you play is definitely a good gauge of skill and for all the faults the ladder has the appropriateness of your opponents is not one of them. The problem rather is that even when you understand the pointlessness of the numbers and divisions that you'd be lying if you said it didn't influence you when you see your number go from 24 to 50 on a bad day. I would love an option to hide your rank and points so that when you logged on all you saw was a league logo and that's it. I feel that it would be a big step to getting my mind in the right place for improving if that was not influencing me and would make the ladder the practice tool it is for pros. Blizzard is doing players that want to better themselves a disservice by essentially locking us in to a system most of us know is bullshit.
Actually, that would be a cool option. I would love to set an option for a season where I can see nothing. No points, no league placement... not even the league of my opponent. Just click find match, win or lose. Then after a bunch of matches, you can uncheck the option and see how you're doing. Would take so much stress and frustration out, you could be surprised to see yourself being promoted just by having played more.
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On February 15 2012 07:35 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:29 kusto wrote:On February 15 2012 07:23 Tobberoth wrote:
It's not blizzard or the ladders fault that people are stupid. Saying you're good at the game just because you got to a high league by cheesing is like saying you're smart because you got a good IQ on a IQ test you cheated on. Cheesing is not cheating. Not what I said either. The stupidity is the same though, you ignore the fact that you cheated and take your IQ result at face value. Same with someone who cheeses with 1 build to a high league, they take their league placement at face value, ignoring the fact that they don't actually know how to play.
Lol?
With that argument i also could say Protosses that mainly 2 base All-In (which there are plenty of) all have no skill.
People should just stop being whiny bitches and stop thinking someone insulted their mother just because they get owned by a cheese... Which most of the time isn't even a real cheese but just an aggressive opening that is fully capable to translate into a normal game with a bit of a disadvantage if 0 damage is done.
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On February 15 2012 08:24 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 07:35 Tobberoth wrote:On February 15 2012 07:29 kusto wrote:On February 15 2012 07:23 Tobberoth wrote:
It's not blizzard or the ladders fault that people are stupid. Saying you're good at the game just because you got to a high league by cheesing is like saying you're smart because you got a good IQ on a IQ test you cheated on. Cheesing is not cheating. Not what I said either. The stupidity is the same though, you ignore the fact that you cheated and take your IQ result at face value. Same with someone who cheeses with 1 build to a high league, they take their league placement at face value, ignoring the fact that they don't actually know how to play. Lol? With that argument i also could say Protosses that mainly 2 base All-In (which there are plenty of) all have no skill. People should just stop being whiny bitches and stop thinking someone insulted their mother just because they get owned by a cheese... Which most of the time isn't even a real cheese but just an aggressive opening that is fully capable to translate into a normal game with a bit of a disadvantage if 0 damage is done.
You're not understanding what he's saying. he's not saying that cheese is always bad - He's saying that players who think they're good based on the fact that they know only cheese, and continue to use cheese are only fooling themselves. Who knows though, some players might be able to gain an understanding of fundamentals from doing a certain cheese build to masters, but I think the majority don't really consider important questions when cheesing.
Also, this has nothing to do with being cheesed. I do cheese builds sometimes, and I may even be doing it every game for all i know, but that's not what I'm getting at. I don't want to play on a ladder ranking that gives me random opponents on random maps - rather, I would like to play on a ladder that allows me to pick my opponents and maps so I can work on improving in one area, or help someone improve in an area by doing a certain build they're not very good against.
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United States9922 Posts
personally, the only problem i have with the sc2 matchmaking system is that they don't have a pregame lobby. in bw, you could race pick. played pvt, tvz, and zvp? no problem. pop into a game, and if they go random you can leave. you dont have to risk a zvt with you being zerg.
i consider cheesing a bad thing. you don't improve. you only piss off other people who actually are trying to find standard games. they dont improve either because they dont learn how to stop something in a standard game that isnt in a cheesing game.
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I loved the iccup style. Its used in Street Fighter ladder as well.
I just like knowing exactly how many wins I need to get "promoted", often you will fluctuate between ranks. Getting demoted would be the worst thing ever in SC2 because you know you are in for the long haul back up, but in iccup if you get demoted, its just one win to get promoted again.
iccup ladder also rewards standard play a lot more. In SC2 you need a short burst of consistency to get promoted, only cheese is capable of doing this in the most efficient way. So for a person whos learning, they may never feel like they are getting better playing standard because while he is at the top of the ladder, he is simply not getting promoted. However on iccup you can just keep playing a macro game and eventually just keep rising steadily up the ranks.
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On February 15 2012 08:30 hoby2000 wrote:
I don't want to play on a ladder ranking that gives me random opponents on random maps - rather, I would like to play on a ladder that allows me to pick my opponents and maps so I can work on improving in one area, or help someone improve in an area by doing a certain build they're not very good against.
But can't you already do that albeit with some extra work? Sure, your league/division ranking are much more shallow than an iCCup rating but I have a hard time believing that you can't utilize it to find practice partners to allow you to iterate. Personally one of the things I like most with the ladder system is how effectively it limits meta-gaming by being Bo1 and how it disallows players to become too niche.
Now I do get your point with people being very hostile because the entire process is rather dehumanizing in that you have no context at all as to the individual you are playing but I think part of this is that there are too many artificial layers that Blizzard's put there. Every person on the ladder has a different motivation and while you want to get better maybe your opponent really cares about being rank 1 and doesn't see the loss as the learning experience you do. Unfortunately though there's nothing you can do about your opponents without ruining some of the positive parts of the ladder, I just wish Blizzard made it easier to help yourself by turning off some of the extraneous things like ranking to focus more on just playing the damn game.
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On February 15 2012 08:47 Druuseph wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2012 08:30 hoby2000 wrote:
I don't want to play on a ladder ranking that gives me random opponents on random maps - rather, I would like to play on a ladder that allows me to pick my opponents and maps so I can work on improving in one area, or help someone improve in an area by doing a certain build they're not very good against. But can't you already do that albeit with some extra work? Sure, your league/division ranking are much more shallow than an iCCup rating but I have a hard time believing that you can't utilize it to find practice partners to allow you to iterate. Personally one of the things I like most with the ladder system is how effectively it limits meta-gaming by being Bo1 and how it disallows players to become too niche. Now I do get your point with people being very hostile because the entire process is rather dehumanizing in that you have no context at all as to the individual you are playing but I think part of this is that there are too many artificial layers that Blizzard's put there. Every person on the ladder has a different motivation and while you want to get better maybe your opponent really cares about being rank 1 and doesn't see the loss as the learning experience you do. Unfortunately though there's nothing you can do about your opponents without ruining some of the positive parts of the ladder, I just wish Blizzard made it easier to help yourself by turning off some of the extraneous things like ranking to focus more on just playing the damn game.
Its so easy to just create a game and go D/D+ Fighting Spirit Zerg In, someone almost always immediately joins.
Finding practise partners is one thing, getting a few of the same race to spend hours with you on the same map on the same matchup with the same build is another.
You need to practise against a variety of players of the same race, not just one.
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It doesn't matter how they rank the players, the person who wins will always have a higher ranking - regardless of how they do it.
I enjoy moving up the ranks, seeing my number one ranking and expecting a promotion. That's a big part of the emotion attached to winning, and having just a badge I would lose the motivation to try my best to reach no. 1
For me I like the challenge. If I'm ranked 25th I can smash games just to see how high I can get. If you play enough games your ranking will most likely reflect your skill. Everybody on the ladder has to verse cheese, and occasionally does it themselves. It is unfortunately part of the game that is unchangable, so your ability to deal with it becomes a factor of your skill level.
I agree though with the emotions attached to losing and dropping in ranks. It makes you not want to play. But your responsible for the way you feel, not blizzard... The ones who move up just deal with cheese and reque time and time again..
It doesn't need changing IMO, it gives people incentive to improve and feel good about it. I'd rather be aware I'm getting better than just play a bunch of games and not know where I sit. While cheesers ranking may be inflated, everyone else on the ladder is also versing them, and obviously some are winning.
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On February 15 2012 09:10 run.at.me wrote:
It doesn't matter how they rank the players, the person who wins will always have a higher ranking - regardless of how they do it.
I enjoy moving up the ranks, seeing my number one ranking and expecting a promotion. That's a big part of the emotion attached to winning, and having just a badge I would lose the motivation to try my best to reach no. 1
For me I like the challenge. If I'm ranked 25th I can smash games just to see how high I can get. If you play enough games your ranking will most likely reflect your skill. Everybody on the ladder has to verse cheese, and occasionally does it themselves. It is unfortunately part of the game that is unchangable, so your ability to deal with it becomes a factor of your skill level.
I agree though with the emotions attached to losing and dropping in ranks. It makes you not want to play. But your responsible for the way you feel, not blizzard... The ones who move up just deal with cheese and reque time and time again..
It doesn't need changing IMO, it gives people incentive to improve and feel good about it. I'd rather be aware I'm getting better than just play a bunch of games and not know where I sit. While cheesers ranking may be inflated, everyone else on the ladder is also versing them, and obviously some are winning.
Ok, but you're not addressing the issue that I'm bringing up, and in fact, you're exemplifying the problem. You're not actually getting better when you move up in rank. The ladder system in place isn't actually showing that you're improving - It's simply showing that you're moving up in rank which has nothing to do with skill. Although most players better than those below them in rank, that doesn't mean that every player. Rank does not equal skill, and vice versa.
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Norway28492 Posts
even if not considering that iccup is for bw and bnet 2.0 ladder is for sc2, the iccup ladder system is far superior. it's so amazingly good- makes me sad to think of season 10-14 where games were constantly available at all ranks.
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EPT
