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Starcraft ladder has remained relatively unchanged for a long time now and as with many things that have existed for a long time, issues have become more and more apparent.
What is the purpose of ladder? In a society of robots, it would strictly be a number that represents your skill similar to Chess. While I cannot cite a particular source, it's likely that studies have shown that placing people's skill in reference to the best is discouraging and bad for player retention. Thus, systems where localized relative skill is shown have become more common. Localized and relative skill means that the ladder only directly compares you against people that are relatively close to your mmr. This approach helps increase player retention and makes people feel progress as they do better against their immediate opponents, and when someone gets 'too good' to compete with, they get bumped out of the comparison (promoted).
Say what you will about this approach, the truth is that Starcraft is made by a business and that business needs people to play their game. If the ladder is designed in a way that is discouraging people from playing, then it needs to be fixed. The majority of people that play Starcraft are terrible compared to GM/progamers and by hiding some information they can get a higher percentage of those people continuing to play. I support this approach because without a casual player base, the competitive scene will stagnate. It probably won't die for a long time, but without the influx of new players, the pro scene will not grow. Thus, efforts to increase retention at lower skill levels make a lot of sense.
That being said, Starcraft does not provide enough milestones for players. We scoff at people who claim to be 'top diamond/low master' because often it feels like those people just believe in their heads that they're low master but if they really were then the system would've promoted them already. Having only 6 (7 with gm) leagues to break up the entire skill base of a highly competitive game like Starcraft is insufficient. League of Legends built on Starcraft's league system by building divisions within each league. This would be the equivalent of every league except gm being split into 5 smaller leagues, bronze I-V, silver I-V and so forth. This creates more incremental goals and helps the 'carrot' effect. If you string out a goal ahead of a player just far enough that they have to make some effort to achieve it, but still close enough that they feel it's within reach they will be more likely to stretch for it. The issue right now is that there are not enough incremental goals and the jump from one league to another is too large. It's not hard to imagine the player that grinds for some number of seasons and finally gives up out of frustration because they feel like they've made little to no progress.
Transparency is another issue with the current ladder system. It's very hard to tell when you're going to be promoted. If there was some # that you had to reach to be promoted (unclear exactly how this would work with bonus pool) then people could see how close/far they were. By making each increment relatively small, the next tier will never feel too far away.
We can see this mindset taken even further in games in more recent times. Hearthstone provides 25 ranks before it gets to the equivalent 'gm' league and heroes of the storm provides 50 ranks. The point is that by providing smaller incremental 'skill achievements' in the form of an actual badge, the player base can get more frequent positive reinforcement which would hopefully help player retention.
All of this logic goes out the window for GM. GM players do not need positive reinforcement in the same way. They can be compared to the best players on the server because they are the best players on the server. Player retention for gm players is a bit different than other leagues. Most gm players play because they enjoy the game at a much deeper level than others, and one of the biggest reasons gm players quit (in my experience) is because their friends stop playing. As long as their friends play and are interested in the game, they will probably keep playing. The localized skill comparisons and incremental achievements would help in retaining the lower skilled players which will in turn help retain higher skilled players as they feel more value in their skill and have this activity to bond/socialize over.
That being said, the single biggest thing wrong with GM right now is that it's not actually the top 200 players on a server. It's not a rolling and re-evaulating league. If you get into GM, all you have to do is play games to stay there. This makes the entire gm a bit of a farce as players make it in early in the season and end up doing poorly and don't really belong there while other players are unable to make it in because the slots are full.
GM should be a cut throat league where only the strong remain. Bonus pool could still be used in GM to measure activity and be an automatic boot if a player is inactive for too long. Besides that, gm would be a rolling and constantly updated top 200 players in a server. Similar to hearthstone, it may make sense to allow more than the top 200 to enter GM, but then have a leaderboard like it is now that only shows the top 200. It's unclear exactly how transparency would work if you were going from masters to gm and back based in a constantly updated scheme.
This would give more meaning to GM and make it feel more legitimate while also encouraging additional competition at the highest level. The changes at lower leagues would help encourage lower skilled players to continue on by giving them more incremental goals of a transparent nature so they know how close they are to that next promotion. All in all, ladder at lower leagues would help player retention while still giving players a way to assess their skill while ladder at higher leagues would more accurately show who the best players on the server are at any given time.
 
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I agree with basically every single thing you say. I wish StarCraft devs would read this as well though...
About bonus pool in GM - why is this necessary? I think it sort of plays against the "top 200" idea. I'm sure the system doesn't need a bonus pool to know whether someone is inactive or not. Players who are on a GM level probably know that they need to stay active to remain in GM. However, bonus pool doesn't make sense to me. Luckily, most top GMs play a lot and normally don't have a bonus pool to speak of, but I really hate the idea because player ranked no. 15 in GM could be no. 15 just because he had some bonus pool to use.
Bonus pool is fine in lower leagues if you ask me, but I really don't understand why you'd use it in GM. It messes with the idea of ranking the top players. What do you think?
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Thanks for posting.
Another good blog post and I agree that the ladder is due for some changes. The ladder divisions have always been meaningless. I'm stuck with 99 people I don't care about, nearly 100% of whom I will never play or interact with in any way. So, the system that was created was crap from the beginning and is in need of a big change. And that's not to mention the absolute mess that is GM.
However, I'd go a more radical route from your suggestions.
I think you should belong to multiple divisions based on geography. You'd have a local division, which for Americans could be based on zip code. Then you have a regional division which would break the country up into a few different regions (for many countries, the region could be the whole country). And finally you'd have your worldwide (or server-wide) rank. Divisions would no longer be made of 100 people. Instead, they'd be built naturally based on the number of people in your area.
For example, I'm from a suburb of Chicago. I think it'd be pretty cool to have a division of other people only from my suburb. Wouldn't it be motivating to try to be the best person in your city? That seems like something to compete for. It would also encourage socialization ("all these people are local?"), which could eventually lead to local lans and tournaments. If necessary, Blizzard could combine a couple zip codes to make the local ladder slightly more competitive in low-density areas.
From here, we could then have a regional ladder that for me would include the Midwest (or maybe just Illinois). Maybe I wouldn't be so competitive at this level, so I stick to paying attention to the local ladder. For others, it would be nice to compete to be a regional champion. And if you're from a European country, it could mean being the country's champion.
And then we have a server-wide (or preferably world-wide) ladder where the best can battle. As for the worldwide ranking, I'd recommend giving everyone a percentile rather than seeing a ladder of people. If they're below the top 50%, then just say "less than 50%" (and they should focus on local rankings for incremental improvement). At 50% and higher, show the players their percentage. That gives them a resolution of 1% (or 50 different ticks), which will include many moves up and down as a player plays.
As a reward for making it into the top 1% (or 2%, 5%, 10%), then show them an actual ladder and give them a ranking on the worldwide ladder.
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I do agree on Starcraft in general being overly focused on the top level of competition, where the meat of the scene is nowhere near that level. It's a bit sad that there's this mindset of "I suck, I need to get better". While it's an admireable thought on the surface, in reality it makes for a culture where everyone is a noob calling out others for sucking. From Bronze to GM is such an ungodly climb, how does a functional person climb all the way up when he's being put down for being a scrub despite getting exponentially better at the game? It's a "not good enough" mindset instead of "I've already made it this far". It's already more stressful to play than most games, then if you win you get greeted with the notion of "yeah you need to be 4x better to be relevant", it just doesn't cater to player retention.
It's like how in football no matter what league you play your games feel relevant and you can celebrate winning a game or putting up a good fight. You don't get constantly reminded you're not Ronaldo since that comparison is out of place and non-sensical.
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On May 28 2015 03:15 RenSC2 wrote:
Thanks for posting.
Another good blog post and I agree that the ladder is due for some changes. The ladder divisions have always been meaningless. I'm stuck with 99 people I don't care about, nearly 100% of whom I will never play or interact with in any way. So, the system that was created was crap from the beginning and is in need of a big change. And that's not to mention the absolute mess that is GM.
However, I'd go a more radical route from your suggestions.
I think you should belong to multiple divisions based on geography. You'd have a local division, which for Americans could be based on zip code. Then you have a regional division which would break the country up into a few different regions (for many countries, the region could be the whole country). And finally you'd have your worldwide (or server-wide) rank. Divisions would no longer be made of 100 people. Instead, they'd be built naturally based on the number of people in your area.
For example, I'm from a suburb of Chicago. I think it'd be pretty cool to have a division of other people only from my suburb. Wouldn't it be motivating to try to be the best person in your city? That seems like something to compete for. It would also encourage socialization ("all these people are local?"), which could eventually lead to local lans and tournaments. If necessary, Blizzard could combine a couple zip codes to make the local ladder slightly more competitive in low-density areas.
From here, we could then have a regional ladder that for me would include the Midwest (or maybe just Illinois). Maybe I wouldn't be so competitive at this level, so I stick to paying attention to the local ladder. For others, it would be nice to compete to be a regional champion. And if you're from a European country, it could mean being the country's champion.
And then we have a server-wide (or preferably world-wide) ladder where the best can battle. As for the worldwide ranking, I'd recommend giving everyone a percentile rather than seeing a ladder of people. If they're below the top 50%, then just say "less than 50%" (and they should focus on local rankings for incremental improvement). At 50% and higher, show the players their percentage. That gives them a resolution of 1% (or 50 different ticks), which will include many moves up and down as a player plays.
As a reward for making it into the top 1% (or 2%, 5%, 10%), then show them an actual ladder and give them a ranking on the worldwide ladder.
I really like your idea! I would help communities grow locally. You might meet people and play with them more readily in team games as well. I d love to see this implemented!
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On May 28 2015 03:25 Saechiis wrote:
I do agree on Starcraft in general being overly focused on the top level of competition, where the meat of the scene is nowhere near that level. It's a bit sad that there's this mindset of "I suck, I need to get better". While it's an admireable thought on the surface, in reality it makes for a culture where everyone is a noob calling out others for sucking. From Bronze to GM is such an ungodly climb, how does a functional person climb all the way up when he's being put down for being a scrub despite getting exponentially better at the game? It's a "not good enough" mindset instead of "I've already made it this far". It's already more stressful to play than most games, then if you win you get greeted with the notion of "yeah you need to be 4x better to be relevant", it just doesn't cater to player retention.
It's like how in football no matter what league you play your games feel relevant and you can celebrate winning a game or putting up a good fight. You don't get constantly reminded you're not Ronaldo since that comparison is out of place and non-sensical.
This post sums up what is wrong with SC2, and why the game is rapidly losing its player base. To make matters worse, blizzard does not seem to understand this, and instead decided to make it even harder for normal people to feel even half competent at the game by putting too many spells and abilities in the game.
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you should label your Blog's more clear i think. Had i not read "qxc" as Creator, i would have thought this blog was about Broodwar. good post though, i feel your thoughts are accurate.
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I agree with the changes to GM, and I agree that change is needed with the rest of the ladder. The actual nature of that change is harder to divine, as creating a strong ladder system is very difficult considering the various different goals of that ladder (giving a measure of skill, encouraging play, matchmaking that looks like it makes sense based on the ladder etc).
Now Blizzard knows how to make a ladder much better than any of us do; they have a large amount of data from their games, and they definitely proved it when they made the Hearthstone ladder. While the community doesn't know its intricacies (e.g Hearthstone uses 100 ranks behind the scenes, not just the 25 visible ones), it definitely has been successful.
I'm really hoping that one of the reasons why Blizzard hasn't rolled out the LotV ladder is that they're planning heavy changes to it to improve the game. Ultimately in this field Blizzard has much more know-how than the community could ever provide, and it really depends on if they're going to use it.
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I support you completely in this.
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Imo the game should try to create bonds between players of the same division. Like, trying to make them play each other more often, or giving more importance to each encounter. Also, organizing automated tournaments within the division (when it'll be possible in LotV), and having a division chat channel. I think you would have a greater feeling of being part of a division if this was the case.
And if Blizzard can't currently find a game within your division it can always pair you up with some other guy, but if it were me, I would place players in divisions according to the time of the day they play most often, so that they have more chance to play each other reliably. Of course every few games you would probably have to force an encounter with someone outside of the division to see if you're to be demoted or promoted (maybe more frequently when you get to the top or the bottom of the division)
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I highly support alot of what's being mentioned in the thread, and I hope Blizzard pays attention and picks the viable ideas unless they have better ones. Tbh, I don't think they have better ones.
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Great post and ideas.
I love that you are looking to borrow from other games with successful models, we should do more of that in sc2.
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Agreed on GM.
Agreed on incremental goals.
Agreed on transparency.
If there was an easy way to compare yourself to ALL the diamond players on a server, that would be awesome! I'm in the middle third of skill because my MMR is such and such, I'm about to be in the top third! Yay! Even better if it was more of a recognizable increase like Division 1-IV. Now with bonus pool interactions with ladder divisions, and a high amount of incomparability between divisions, your position within a division means little and your league itself doesn't have a ton of meaning (Once promoted, always promoted.)
It's time for whatever team is in charge of ladders with Blizzard to reimagine a ladder that gives a server clear indicators of where they lie in current performance, and prettier small objectives beyond MMR numbers to strive for.
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Completely agree. Positive gratification is a powerful thing in video games, and I feel like this is done very well in games like LoL, Hearthstone etc.
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On May 28 2015 02:25 qxc wrote:
it's likely that studies have shown that [...]
Really? Which studies have shown that that is likely? 
When "FACT:" doesn't feel scientific enough, and "I think that" is too honest?
Anyway, I think the problem is that most people ("the casuals", which is not the typical active TL poster) don't really care much to be ranked at all on a server-wide scale. Achievements and sense of progress, yes. Ranked compared to rest of server: not really. They probably care whether they are better than their buddy, but that is a different question. While you know a lot of stuff about sc2, I am not sure you should be regarded as an expert on the casual non competetitive psyche. So let me give my view from within the casual player base, rather than above it.
This is done a bit too often, but anyway: let's compare to sc:bw!
A normal custom game in sc:bw wouldn't change any ranking or anything. It'd change your win/loss stats, but most casuals didn't care too much about that, as it wasn't very highlighted. While a 100-10 stat was something to brag about, people knew that it is about choosing your opponents as much as being good at the game.
People that wanted to compete on a ladder had to go through some extra hassle and get iccup or something, but that didn't put pressure on the casuals that probably didn't even know about iccup.
Sc2 on the other hand, ranks your when you go and play default games against other players, and throws your rank and league in your face over and over. It is also pretty accurate, and actually does measure your skill compared to other players pretty well. I think that alone is a big deterrent for most players, that get a too honest evaluation of their skill thrown at them without the player asking for it. It's pretty rude when you think about it socially. You come over to a friend to play some board game or something, and afterwards they tell you that you are in the bottom 20% of all players! I'm sure not encouraged to play with that friend again...
Splitting up the 5 leagues into 15 would do little to change that.
I think what should be done, is that the default PvP game mode should be "unranked", in the sense that it won't throw your rank into your face all the time. You can still get achievements for number of wins, and objective achievement independent of other players, such as chaining injects, spending quotient, APM, SPM, EAPM, average unspent, units built, nailing BOs and that kind of statistics. It'll still track your MMR to give you even games, but that's it.
Then there should be some pretty obscure setting that allows you to see your MMR somewhere, and why not your total ranking or quantile of the active players on the server, but it should be a very subtly displayed number somewhere, not rubbed into your face as it is now. People that care about ranks don't need more than a number in the corner, and people that don't care about ranks aren't insulted as blatantly by the game.
It's just basic social skills in the end... If you want new people to continue playing a game, don't tell them that they are crap unless they ask for an evaluation.
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Yep, Starcraft Ladder is lagging behind as usual. Blizzard has grown so large that teams no longer talk to each other.
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It would be nice if players have an option they can check or uncheck in the menu that acts as a switch between the current ranking system and a pure number ladder. Make it a choice for the player.
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I would agree on some part, but not so much on the comparison with chess.
It is true that both have similarities : they are strategy games and the ranking is based on an elo system.
But the community is really different and that makes chess more viable for casual/low competitive players. Let me explain myself.
For a low ranked competitive chess player, between 1500 and 2000 elo, small achievement come with raw numbers : I reach another hundred, or I'm above 1750 or this is the best elo I've ever had... but if you're 1600, you still know you're pretty bad. The thing is the mass of the players are around that sort of ranking so you know you're bad, it doesn't matter.
In my opinion, the reason behind this is that there are A LOT of competition available for all levels. Leagues for instance. In france you have divisions like in football (soccer) and you play against team roughly of the same caliber. I know that in SC2 there are team leagues. But it seems like no one cares about it. Yes some players play, but if you're not diamond at least, there is no league for you. And more important, no one talks about it. If you're on a team, you just win your team league and got promoted or even better win the prime division, well good for you but no one cares.
To my mind a consistent system of league and coverage of those leagues would help. Who would do it ? well TL could start paying a few dollars for posts...
To continue the comparison with chess, there is another big difference : TOURNAMENTS. In chess you would play a sunday tournament where you play all 7 or 9 games (fast games i.e. less than 20 min per person) or a all weekend tournament with longer games. With a Swiss system (french name of it don't know if it's the english one also) you would be paired with opponents that have the same number of wins. That way would don't feel bad for loosing first round. I understant that in SC2, it's more complicated because not time limited. But if you want competitive low level players (and that's actually what makes the community live) you have to find something like this. I played some tournaments, I was stressed and lost the first round against lesser players. Maybe after a round or two, I would have gotten calmer and played better. That's what people want.
As for individual ladder, the problem is different. I would love a division system that is only partially based on mmr, where to get promoted you need to finish the season at the top of the division, let say top ten. The ten at the bottom get demoted, that's the game, that's how every sport works and it never made someone quit playing basketball or football.
People don't play because they are afraid to be demoted, with this system if they don't play they will be. much better.
With more ladder seasons this could be possible (one a month for instance). MMR could still place you for the first league, with 25 games instead of 5 (that the number blizz claim they need to be sure of you mmr). And an overall mmr, hidden for those who want to compare with others.
Now if you talk about top 200 players, I don't care. They're good, good for them. Like in chess they're on another planet, with their competitions and all. I wouldn't worry about that. This story about the 200 not being the actual 200 is understandable but that's not what make a community live. If you're the best, but stuck in master because of this system, you would still qualify for WCS. That's what matters, no ?
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EPT
