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So Blizzard announced what I suspect to be true, about the ladder distribution. Most players are at the bottom and very few at the top. But the discrepancy is bigger than I thought. An enormous amount of players don't manage to get rank 15 in ladder, as the image below shows.
I actually feel a little better knowing that, I reached rank 11 with less than 100 matches in a month. While I though I was doing "average", I actually let 90% of players behind, playing "few games" compared to many people.
The question I ask is: why Blizzard makes such kind of ranking? When people see a rank from 25 to 1, will naturally think the rank 12 as the "middle", where an average player shoul be. Also, frustration about performance is a major reason for people abandoning a game.
They could have done a rank from 10 to 1, where higher ranks had "subranks", like 4.5 to 4.1, and 1.10 to 1.1. Or used a lot more "stars", I don't know, there must be a better way to display the ranking.
What also worries is: when players get a lot frustrated from not getting higher ranks they may abandon the game, shrinking the player database and bringing to bottom some players which were at the top, doing a snowball effect which may do something like what I think happened to starcraft 2.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2dFXFUN.png)
Link: http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/15955974
EDIT: now I'm a bit more convinced this simulation about arena distribution may be very close to real:
http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/hearthstone/457079-computer-simulation-to-understand-arena-results
I guess it's possible that Blizzard releases the Arena distribution either, so we may confirm.
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Not sure how accurate this is. Last season i got like rank 15, but only because i played very few games. Previous seasons i would get to high ranks and legend. Also, i doubt every single of the 2 million player base plays a single game the entire season. When i got to rank 15, i went 11-1, but because i didn't play ranked for the rest of the season, i didn't advance any higher. Still kinda cool though, to know that potentially I am in the top few % in the world, thanks for the information :D
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A little misleading.
You have to further break it down to people who actually try to climb the ladder that season and people who have access to all the legendaries. I would like to see the data from that pool of players.
I have all the cards and I can get to rank 5 in any season if I try, but I'm probably a middling player at best -- exactly as good as I think I am.
(The best I've gotten is rank 2. I can't get those last couple wins.)
Nice try, Blizzard.
edit: Almost by definition, if you have a 51%+ win rate, you can get to rank 5 if you play enough games. This is because of win streaks. If you take all the people who play many games a season and have all the cards, my guess is that the true 51st percentile is around rank 5. (I think.)
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On September 20 2014 21:40 Qwicker wrote:
Not sure how accurate this is. Last season i got like rank 15, but only because i played very few games. Previous seasons i would get to high ranks and legend. Also, i doubt every single of the 2 million player base plays a single game the entire season. When i got to rank 15, i went 11-1, but because i didn't play ranked for the rest of the season, i didn't advance any higher. Still kinda cool though, to know that potentially I am in the top few % in the world, thanks for the information :D
Yes, there are a lot of casual players in the rank, we do not have a separated rank to check your skills among the hardcore players.
But I think I'm more likely to be considered a casual player than a hardcore, so to me, and to many people, this information is pretty relevant.
On September 20 2014 21:40 Qwicker wrote:
i doubt every single of the 2 million player base plays a single game the entire season
I guess this chart counts only people with at least one ranked game in the season.
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If this is true that hearthstone is extremly casual game where players don't give a fuck about ladder system at all.
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On September 20 2014 22:06 Solmyr wrote:
If this is true that hearthstone is extremly casual game where players don't give a fuck about ladder system at all.
See I would go with this as I hardly give a shit about the game, liked it for about 1-2 weeks and got to rank 14 before I got bored and just did nothing but Arena with common cards the second my hero turned level 20.
I don't even play the game anymore, just enjoy watching Kirpp stream the game.
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the guys who can build potential legendary decks sit at 20 with their golden shaman and warlock bots..
blizzard: make a graph about the bot distribution please
oh wait, ban and wipe all the bot accounts instead.
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How many of those 75% in the bottom are people between 25 and 20, who have to litterally lose 100% of their games not to advance? It would be much more interesting if those accounts were excluded, as these also include people who are de facto inactive, who only bother with arena, who play once every two weeks and so on.
What is the proportion between 20(or 19)-15 and 15-10? That might be interesting.
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completely irrelevant. this basically just shows activity. anybody could get to a high rank if they play enough games and have a healthy brain. i would argue that anybody with a decent card pool could make it to legendary if they play enough, all you need is 51% winrate from rank 5 onwards.
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With a 51% win rate you need something like 750 games on average to reach Legend starting at rank 5, so not really feasible. And many people are not capable of keeping a 50%+ win rate at rank 15 let alone even reaching rank 5 and then winning more than half their games for 750 games in a row against much stronger opponents. If you go to more casual websites you'll see plenty of people who struggle in sub-10 ranks and who do have "healthy brains". It's generally the argument of frustrated players who can't reach Legend that the only thing that matters in Hearthstone is amount of games played.
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Well, ofc it's even harder now to climb since not all the people are spending money in this game. Before Naxxramas i got to rank 6 with the Dr.Draw basic only priest deck, with the exact same deck, i can't pass rank 16 atm, how's that? The belchers are incredibly annoying and this game is on it's way to become a pay2win game. That's why i did quit playing on ranked. I'd rather play 4-5 games / month in casual, just to relax myself than being salty on the ladder everytime i see belcher and KT.
/spit Blizzard.
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On September 21 2014 01:03 Cade)Flayer wrote:
With a 51% win rate you need something like 750 games on average to reach Legend starting at rank 5, so not really feasible. And many people are not capable of keeping a 50%+ win rate at rank 15 let alone even reaching rank 5 and then winning more than half their games for 750 games in a row against much stronger opponents. If you go to more casual websites you'll see plenty of people who struggle in sub-10 ranks and who do have "healthy brains". It's generally the argument of frustrated players who can't reach Legend that the only thing that matters in Hearthstone is amount of games played.
i was in legend last season and am in rank 2 right now (and was around those ranks in the few seasons before that). i don't mean to brag, just saying that inability to reach legendary is not a motivation for me to say what i said. in fact, i think the very fact that i DID reach legendary supports my point. i consider myself a decent, but not amazing HS player, and while i did invest quite a lot of time into getting legend last season, it's not like i stopped doing anything else. i'd say i played 2-3 hours a day on average. and yeah it's not feasible to play that much for many people; hence why i said in theory anybody could reach it if they played a sufficient amount of games. i also specified that you need to have a decent card pool (or i guess one competitive deck) to be able to do it, which i'm sure many of the more casual players don't have. they also by definition don't invest a lot of time into HS or they wouldn't be casual.
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This kind of backs up my [semi] crazy theory of of most people dont care about the esport aspect of the game
If we do have ~20 million accounts and only ~50k highest avg we have had outside of last years blizzcon tourny(and its blizzcon so it will always have more viewers)
Im guessing most of that 75% dont care about the competitive aspect of this game, because I feel people who do care about it and watch it are atleast past rank 15 from the general consensus that I have seen.
Just a theory and a trend I noticed, would be nice to see what ranks actually do watch HS
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This is a perfect example of using statistics in a misleading way to try and prove a point. Not saying the statistics themselves are inaccurate but you are pretty gullible if you bought the tagline, "you're better than you think".
You won't get a good sense of how skilled you really are unless you are able to see the rank distribution of players who have played a comparable number of hours as yourself.
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''You are NOT better than you think''
"You are Not your Legendaries''
''You are not your playing second with the coin and descent drops in your hand''
''You are not getting anything better just because you bought decks''
''You are Not your Twitch audience ''
''you are not your Aggro deck when we want Control to win ''
''you are not your Control deck when we want Aggro to win''
''You are not your Pretending you're having fun''
we are blizzard and here's our false statistic pat on back to ''comfort'' your torment !
''YOU Have to give Up ''
''YOU Have to give Up ''
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Dude if you are tormented by hearthstone why bothered coming here ?
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i bother to come and agree with the people that also wrote before me with a fight club twist whats your problem duderino ?
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On September 20 2014 21:54 MrSexington wrote:
edit: Almost by definition, if you have a 51%+ win rate, you can get to rank 5 if you play enough games. This is because of win streaks. If you take all the people who play many games a season and have all the cards, my guess is that the true 51st percentile is around rank 5. (I think.)
With 51% winrate, you'd eventually reach Legend- you can have less than 50% winrate and still hit rank 5. If you have, say, 45% winrate but you manage to get a lot of your wins in a row, the winstreak will make you win stars faster than you lose them, and you could eventually reach rank 5.
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On September 21 2014 04:06 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2014 21:54 MrSexington wrote:
edit: Almost by definition, if you have a 51%+ win rate, you can get to rank 5 if you play enough games. This is because of win streaks. If you take all the people who play many games a season and have all the cards, my guess is that the true 51st percentile is around rank 5. (I think.) With 51% winrate, you'd eventually reach Legend- you can have less than 50% winrate and still hit rank 5. If you have, say, 45% winrate but you manage to get a lot of your wins in a row, the winstreak will make you win stars faster than you lose them, and you could eventually reach rank 5.
Not all "51% winrates" are equal. 50% wins at rank 20-15 is way easier than 50% wins at rank 5-1.
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Time to break into the top 0,5% this month. *cracks neck as Eye of the Tiger music plays in the background*
In all seriousness, though, if only I had the mental stamina... I can't play my best for more, than 5 games. And one bad beat or something tilts me quite a lot.
Oh, and screw you, Blizzard. I'm not better than I think. I don't give a fuck about the others, I'm as bad as I think if I can't win.
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it took me 1-2 hours to get to rank 3 not sure this is a good representation
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On September 21 2014 04:06 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2014 21:54 MrSexington wrote:
edit: Almost by definition, if you have a 51%+ win rate, you can get to rank 5 if you play enough games. This is because of win streaks. If you take all the people who play many games a season and have all the cards, my guess is that the true 51st percentile is around rank 5. (I think.) With 51% winrate, you'd eventually reach Legend- you can have less than 50% winrate and still hit rank 5. If you have, say, 45% winrate but you manage to get a lot of your wins in a row, the winstreak will make you win stars faster than you lose them, and you could eventually reach rank 5.
Yeah, you're right.
You just need to be lucky enough to string your wins together at the right time.
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On September 21 2014 04:06 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2014 21:54 MrSexington wrote:
edit: Almost by definition, if you have a 51%+ win rate, you can get to rank 5 if you play enough games. This is because of win streaks. If you take all the people who play many games a season and have all the cards, my guess is that the true 51st percentile is around rank 5. (I think.) With 51% winrate, you'd eventually reach Legend- you can have less than 50% winrate and still hit rank 5. If you have, say, 45% winrate but you manage to get a lot of your wins in a row, the winstreak will make you win stars faster than you lose them, and you could eventually reach rank 5.
You get get legend with a win rate as low as <0.1% is you lose 10 thousand games then win 100 games in a row to get legend.
Unless you are talking about rolling averages which you can't model with your example, the above example works for every competitive game.
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On September 21 2014 08:18 Came Norrection wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2014 04:06 Zato-1 wrote:On September 20 2014 21:54 MrSexington wrote:
edit: Almost by definition, if you have a 51%+ win rate, you can get to rank 5 if you play enough games. This is because of win streaks. If you take all the people who play many games a season and have all the cards, my guess is that the true 51st percentile is around rank 5. (I think.) With 51% winrate, you'd eventually reach Legend- you can have less than 50% winrate and still hit rank 5. If you have, say, 45% winrate but you manage to get a lot of your wins in a row, the winstreak will make you win stars faster than you lose them, and you could eventually reach rank 5. You get get legend with a win rate as low as <0.1% is you lose 10 thousand games then win 100 games in a row to get legend. Unless you are talking about rolling averages which you can't model with your example, the above example works for every competitive game.
Welcome to the conversation, but you're late.
:D
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I feel all cocky now about getting legendary with a free deck, figured it was only like top 10% not top .5%
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It's better than top 0.5%. If you add up all the percentages in the graph it goes to 100.5% with everything rounded to 0.5 at most. I reckon Legendary is actually around 0.1% (between 3000-4000 thousand on all 3 servers each season out of a total 20 million+ accounts).
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Another big contributor to this lopsidedness is rank 20. A large number of players just farm wins at rank 20, and don't care to ladder as high as they can, so a lot more players are in the bottom ranks than if rank 20 farming wasn't possible.
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This just proves that statistics can be presented in a way that supports anything whether it is true or false.
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they're just trying to help people get over ladder anxiety and feel better about themselves. not much point in trying to read into it.
maybe they shoulda did this for sc2 a few years ago.
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I think this has a lot to do with casuals playing with nonsensical decks. Copying a pro-level deck can be the difference between rank 15 and rank 4, if not even greater.
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Last time I was logged into hs it was 10 weeks ago. So If i log in today I will be rank 23 I think.
Am I at this poll as a rank 23 player?
Ok I found that I'm not in the poll becouse you must play one game.
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On September 21 2014 11:12 NewSunshine wrote:
Another big contributor to this lopsidedness is rank 20. A large number of players just farm wins at rank 20, and don't care to ladder as high as they can, so a lot more players are in the bottom ranks than if rank 20 farming wasn't possible.
yeah another contributor is that a lot of people simply play a lot more arena as it's right now the only efficient way to get the cards they need/want.
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On September 21 2014 19:31 TAMinator wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2014 11:12 NewSunshine wrote:
Another big contributor to this lopsidedness is rank 20. A large number of players just farm wins at rank 20, and don't care to ladder as high as they can, so a lot more players are in the bottom ranks than if rank 20 farming wasn't possible. yeah another contributor is that a lot of people simply play a lot more arena as it's right now the only efficient way to get the cards they need/want.
The lack of rewards really deters a lot of people from playing ladder, I only played it to see if I could make legendary, now that I have I don't see any reason to do so outside of getting rank 20 for a new card back I'll never use. So Arena it is!
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I should expect this kind of reaction. Most players in this forum are competitive and just want to be compared to players as much competitive as they (or more). So you have to deny this sort of statistic, try to find arguments to prove this "revelation" do not changes your mindset of being a bad player, or average, or not so good. I understand that, and the arguments are valid.
What happens is that skill has not a preset universal ruler. If you want to be the best of the world, it's kind simple, just beat everyone else. But if you want to be "good", it may be more complicated to match this expectation with others with similar goal. For competitive players there is no point of comparing themselves with "casual" players. But there's also no clear definition about what makes a player a "casual" one. So there's always room to we think we're just bad, even when most of other players could think we are good.
An important point here is not about changing YOUR mind about how good you are, but to understand that this game is made of a massive amount of "casual" players (some plays once per week, some play 1h per day), and the game needs those people. For those people, to climb the ladder and have the "feeling" of being bad while actually they are being better than the average is harmful for the game (for example in a case where a "casual" reaches rank 15).
In the original post I inserted a question about why Blizzard made a ranking that behaves like this. No one seems to be interested in this question, people just want to deny the statistics. I think that was a misunderstood about the purpose of the topic.
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95% of the 75% have
1. only very basic cards yet
2. not played enough games to get higher
3. are inactive chars just level to lvl 20 for cardback (which is same like 2)
so ... its bullshit
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It's not bullshit. The vast majority of people who play this game are pretty bad by our standards. That's the truth. The figures are accurate.
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I don't think they are bad. I would call them not dedicated enough to make any progress further.
Maybe this is the problem with hs and this stats.
What is the point of playing this game?
Fun factor for diffrent personalities is diffrent thing. You can't just say I play for fun. But what is fun to you?
Getting new cards? Winning ? making new decks? Bming? Crushing people from your freinds list? Or helping them get better? Working hard and progressing in any way?
If hs needs the casuals as MarcoBrei says in his post we should understand what is the fun factor for casual player.
I know that people do not like to loose in real or games. And this is almost purly pvp game.
So for evry win there is someone that loose. If you are getting only frustration from loosing you will not last long or stay in a game. Maybe people should get something more from playing matches?
I think that gold system in this game could be reworked in some way. Or new type of budget ladder where you compete only with budget decks... .
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What also worries is: when players get a lot frustrated from not getting higher ranks they may abandon the game,
I am actually glad to get rid of such people, don't see a reason to be worried.
Good for them too, if the game becomes all about grinding for the purpose of having a different number next to your name, well, time to get some rest.
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I am in the level 16+ category because I have not played any ranked this month. With monthly resets I am sure that there are a lot of other people in a similar situation. Some months I get a few good ranked sessions in, other months I only play some arena.
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What is this the blizzard malnourished ego campaign ^___^ most decent gamers think they're nothing short of the best. Even those who are on the bad side hehe. I'm sure everyone here on TL is secretly harboring a colossal epeen.
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On September 20 2014 21:54 MrSexington wrote:
A little misleading.
You have to further break it down to people who actually try to climb the ladder that season and people who have access to all the legendaries. I would like to see the data from that pool of players.
I have all the cards and I can get to rank 5 in any season if I try, but I'm probably a middling player at best -- exactly as good as I think I am.
(The best I've gotten is rank 2. I can't get those last couple wins.)
Nice try, Blizzard.
edit: Almost by definition, if you have a 51%+ win rate, you can get to rank 5 if you play enough games. This is because of win streaks. If you take all the people who play many games a season and have all the cards, my guess is that the true 51st percentile is around rank 5. (I think.)
Statistics don't measure "what if". They show current state, and that's what it is. I'm sure if everyone just tried harder, just got coached, just had a healthy lifestyle, just had good motivation, just played more, just got more cards and just got a bit lucky then top 99% would be in legend. But it ain't.
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On September 22 2014 07:06 Kickboxer wrote:
What is this the blizzard malnourished ego campaign ^___^ most decent gamers think they're nothing short of the best. Even those who are on the bad side hehe. I'm sure everyone here on TL is secretly harboring a colossal epeen.
I'm currently sitting at a comfortable 68 ELU, subject to change at a moment's notice.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On September 22 2014 07:06 Kickboxer wrote:
What is this the blizzard malnourished ego campaign ^___^ most decent gamers think they're nothing short of the best. Even those who are on the bad side hehe. I'm sure everyone here on TL is secretly harboring a colossal epeen.
It's a problem Blizzard has always had with maintaining a stable community in a ladder-based game. It goes back at least as far as Warcraft 3 and possibly further.
In brief, the players who are below average get discouraged and quit playing. That means that the average of the remaining players is now higher, so some of the players who used to be average or above average are now below average. Then they get discouraged as well and quit, so the average gets even higher, which means even more players are below average...
Blizzard have realized that the only way to keep a stable long-term community is if the below-average players actually think that they are above average. Ladder systems make that difficult (if you're below average, then your ladder rank will make it pretty damn obvious) so Blizzard have taken to subtly tweaking their ladder systems to give players the illusion of progress even if they aren't actually improving. So for example in Starcraft 2 we had the loss part of the win-loss record being hidden, everybody's league scores steadily increasing throughout the season even if their relative ranking never changed, and the addition of a leveling system that was separate from ladder rank.
In Hearthstone we have gold, card packs (there's a reason why everyone doesn't start out with all the cards), 6 ranks on the ladder that you can only be promoted from and never demoted, rank decay at the end of the season so that everyone gets to climb at least a few ranks in the new season, and win streaks, meaning that you will gradually climb ranks even at a 50% win rate. We also get articles like this one.
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On September 22 2014 09:56 Chutoro wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2014 07:06 Kickboxer wrote:
What is this the blizzard malnourished ego campaign ^___^ most decent gamers think they're nothing short of the best. Even those who are on the bad side hehe. I'm sure everyone here on TL is secretly harboring a colossal epeen. It's a problem Blizzard has always had with maintaining a stable community in a ladder-based game. It goes back at least as far as Warcraft 3 and possibly further. In brief, the players who are below average get discouraged and quit playing. That means that the average of the remaining players is now higher, so some of the players who used to be average or above average are now below average. Then they get discouraged as well and quit, so the average gets even higher, which means even more players are below average... Blizzard have realized that the only way to keep a stable long-term community is if the below-average players actually think that they are above average. Ladder systems make that difficult (if you're below average, then your ladder rank will make it pretty damn obvious) so Blizzard have taken to subtly tweaking their ladder systems to give players the illusion of progress even if they aren't actually improving. So for example in Starcraft 2 we had the loss part of the win-loss record being hidden, everybody's league scores steadily increasing throughout the season even if their relative ranking never changed, and the addition of a leveling system that was separate from ladder rank. In Hearthstone we have gold, card packs (there's a reason why everyone doesn't start out with all the cards), 6 ranks on the ladder that you can only be promoted from and never demoted, rank decay at the end of the season so that everyone gets to climb at least a few ranks in the new season, and win streaks, meaning that you will gradually climb ranks even at a 50% win rate. We also get articles like this one.
You are correct in almost everything.
But an article like this is not just a way that Blizzard try to motivate low level players, it also reveals a very bad design of a ladder system, in terms of showing people where they are in the world. If you see a rank from 1 to 10, what you would think about the number 5? The average. Most people will think this way. Now, you get a rank in HS from 25 to 1. You would guess that at rank 15 you should be below most of the players, not above 75% !!!
So, even with winning streaks and other strategies, Blizzard still managed to screw up a lot with the ladder design, so they need to make an article like this one. But even that could not be enough, they may need to completely redesign the ladder.
Finally, I can't understand why people keep talking like low level players should "not care about this bullshit" or "just learn to be good". In a rank system will always be low level players, the game needs them, and their motivation should be a major concern for Blizzard. Also, in my opinion, the community could understand that and be more inclusive.
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Check your maths Blizzard, why does this add up to 100.5%! 
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On September 22 2014 12:14 DMKraft wrote:Check your maths Blizzard, why does this add up to 100.5%!
[Limit as HS player >> Legend] = 0
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On September 22 2014 01:04 Drake wrote:
95% of the 75% have
1. only very basic cards yet
2. not played enough games to get higher
3. are inactive chars just level to lvl 20 for cardback (which is same like 2)
so ... its bullshit
So should I be discounted too because I don't have any Mountain or Molten Giants, no Leeroy, no Sylvanas, no Ragnaros, no Cairne and no Bloodmage Thalnos? Does that take away from Legend players' accomplishments because they got to Legend beating players like me back in Ranks 3-5?
Sure, most players have fairly limited card collections, but that's part of the game, and you can get surprisingly far without a bunch of epic and legendary cards. Going up the ranks with such limitations takes some creativity and dedication- so I approve of Blizzard's overall message that "Not being in Legend doesn't mean you suck!"
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On September 22 2014 12:05 MarcoBrei wrote:
But an article like this is not just a way that Blizzard try to motivate low level players, it also reveals a very bad design of a ladder system, in terms of showing people where they are in the world. If you see a rank from 1 to 10, what you would think about the number 5? The average. Most people will think this way. Now, you get a rank in HS from 25 to 1. You would guess that at rank 15 you should be below most of the players, not above 75% !!!
...what? No. It cannot work that way.
This is the only way a straightforward non-artificially-stratified competitive ladder system where people start from the bottom is going to turn out. In fact Blizzard's system is kinder and will tend towards the middle point more than normal systems due to the win streak feature, the way you can't drop past 20 and the fact that you start with a bunch of stars based on previous position. It cannot be as you described because to progress people have to beat other people. Consequently at each stage you're going to lose a significant chunk of people as being not good enough to progress to the next stage and many of those people will stop playing.
As a result from rank 20 (because you can't lose ranks below 20 so that messes with results a bit) you're going to get this huge base early on continuously tapering off to hardly any players at the higher ranks.
The only way you consistently get "the average" as being in the middle is when you have an ELO system because everyone starts with a chunk of points they can lose or gain. In fact you can think of it as an ELO system with no "negative" ELO values. Lets take an ELO chart:
+ Show Spoiler +
(This is for MWO ELO, I chose it purely because it was the first distribution to come up in image search. What it is doesn't matter, its an example.)
If you look at the above ELO distribution you have most players in the middle somewhere tapering off in both directions until you reach the very, very good players and very, very bad players. The middle represents the starting point of everyone, assuming nobody leaving the system (which isn't necessarily true but that's besides the point for this example), it HAS to because everyone starts off with the same amount of ELO and can only gain or lose it in a zero-sum way.
However Blizzard's system is basically only the UPPER HALF of that distribution. You physically can't go below the "starting point". You can only go upwards. Consequently you'll still have that tapering, but you will lack the lower taper. And the base will be huge because stages will contain everyone who can't maintain a better than 50% winrate at that point; but the base in particular will also contain everyone losing every game and quitting.
Another way to think about it is to think about Arena wins. Constructed and Arena are very similar in this way, except in arena its more obvious because you have losses too, which gives you some of the lower part of the tapering effect.
Everyone knows by now that the average amount of wins in arena is around 2-3. Possible Arena scores are 0-3, 1-3, 2-3 and so on. Sixteen in total. By your logic of "the middle value should be average" then the average arena score should be around the 8th-9th value. Which means your logic dictates that the average arena run should be 7-3 or 8-3 which is patently impossible.
People aren't technically "knocked out" by the ladder, true. But people stop playing.
TL,DR: In order for the average to consistently be the middle value everyone would have to START at the middle value. Because people don't then it stratifies itself upwards with a proportion lost at each stage. With a huge amount of games and nobody ever stopping playing it will eventually tend towards the middle through sheer number of games with weaker players eventually hitting enough even poorer players to climb and bulk out the middle values. But this doesn't happen in reality.
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On September 22 2014 19:25 -Celestial- wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2014 12:05 MarcoBrei wrote:
But an article like this is not just a way that Blizzard try to motivate low level players, it also reveals a very bad design of a ladder system, in terms of showing people where they are in the world. If you see a rank from 1 to 10, what you would think about the number 5? The average. Most people will think this way. Now, you get a rank in HS from 25 to 1. You would guess that at rank 15 you should be below most of the players, not above 75% !!!
...what? No. It cannot work that way. This is the only way a straightforward non-artificially-stratified competitive ladder system where people start from the bottom is going to turn out. In fact Blizzard's system is kinder and will tend towards the middle point more than normal systems due to the win streak feature, the way you can't drop past 20 and the fact that you start with a bunch of stars based on previous position. It cannot be as you described because to progress people have to beat other people. Consequently at each stage you're going to lose a significant chunk of people as being not good enough to progress to the next stage and many of those people will stop playing. As a result from rank 20 (because you can't lose ranks below 20 so that messes with results a bit) you're going to get this huge base early on continuously tapering off to hardly any players at the higher ranks. The only way you consistently get "the average" as being in the middle is when you have an ELO system because everyone starts with a chunk of points they can lose or gain. In fact you can think of it as an ELO system with no "negative" ELO values. Lets take an ELO chart: + Show Spoiler +(This is for MWO ELO, I chose it purely because it was the first distribution to come up in image search. What it is doesn't matter, its an example.) If you look at the above ELO distribution you have most players in the middle somewhere tapering off in both directions until you reach the very, very good players and very, very bad players. The middle represents the starting point of everyone, assuming nobody leaving the system (which isn't necessarily true but that's besides the point for this example), it HAS to because everyone starts off with the same amount of ELO and can only gain or lose it in a zero-sum way. However Blizzard's system is basically only the UPPER HALF of that distribution. You physically can't go below the "starting point". You can only go upwards. Consequently you'll still have that tapering, but you will lack the lower taper. And the base will be huge because stages will contain everyone who can't maintain a better than 50% winrate at that point; but the base in particular will also contain everyone losing every game and quitting. Another way to think about it is to think about Arena wins. Constructed and Arena are very similar in this way, except in arena its more obvious because you have losses too, which gives you some of the lower part of the tapering effect. Everyone knows by now that the average amount of wins in arena is around 2-3. Possible Arena scores are 0-3, 1-3, 2-3 and so on. Sixteen in total. By your logic of "the middle value should be average" then the average arena score should be around the 8th-9th value. Which means your logic dictates that the average arena run should be 7-3 or 8-3 which is patently impossible. People aren't technically "knocked out" by the ladder, true. But people stop playing. TL,DR: In order for the average to consistently be the middle value everyone would have to START at the middle value. Because people don't then it stratifies itself upwards with a proportion lost at each stage. With a huge amount of games and nobody ever stopping playing it will eventually tend towards the middle through sheer number of games with weaker players eventually hitting enough even poorer players to climb and bulk out the middle values. But this doesn't happen in reality.
It's really that hard to understand what I'm saying? It's not "my logic", it's an assumption on how people see a distribution of players represented by numbers. If you give people a rank that goes from 10 to 1, what would they expect? You tell me.
Also you simply deny the data from Blizzard, about that there's nothing I can do.
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On September 22 2014 07:27 AsmodeusHS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2014 21:54 MrSexington wrote:
A little misleading.
You have to further break it down to people who actually try to climb the ladder that season and people who have access to all the legendaries. I would like to see the data from that pool of players.
I have all the cards and I can get to rank 5 in any season if I try, but I'm probably a middling player at best -- exactly as good as I think I am.
(The best I've gotten is rank 2. I can't get those last couple wins.)
Nice try, Blizzard.
edit: Almost by definition, if you have a 51%+ win rate, you can get to rank 5 if you play enough games. This is because of win streaks. If you take all the people who play many games a season and have all the cards, my guess is that the true 51st percentile is around rank 5. (I think.) Statistics don't measure "what if". They show current state, and that's what it is. I'm sure if everyone just tried harder, just got coached, just had a healthy lifestyle, just had good motivation, just played more, just got more cards and just got a bit lucky then top 99% would be in legend. But it ain't.
Are you really trying to argue that my restrictions are unreasonable in order to come to a meaningful conclusion for ladder statistics? (Are you really trying to argue that your restrictions are equally reasonable?) And yes, I'm saying that the way Blizzard is presenting their data is misleading; implying their data is more meaningful than it actually is.
Very funny. But nice try.
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On September 22 2014 21:50 MarcoBrei wrote:
It's really that hard to understand what I'm saying? It's not "my logic", it's an assumption on how people see a distribution of players represented by numbers. If you give people a rank that goes from 10 to 1, what would they expect? You tell me.
Also you simply deny the data from Blizzard, about that there's nothing I can do.
The logic that the presumed assumption(reaching a bit far eh?) of your uninitiated layperson, that Rank 5 is the average when the spectrum runs from 1-10, has no bearing on if it's "bad design". It's tantamount to saying that because someone doesn't know all the rules to Hearthstone right away, it must be a bad game. This isn't a chart in Mathematics, you're not dealing with measures of central tendency. It's a ladder where you start from the bottom - there's a reason it's called a ladder.
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On September 22 2014 21:50 MarcoBrei wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2014 19:25 -Celestial- wrote:On September 22 2014 12:05 MarcoBrei wrote:
But an article like this is not just a way that Blizzard try to motivate low level players, it also reveals a very bad design of a ladder system, in terms of showing people where they are in the world. If you see a rank from 1 to 10, what you would think about the number 5? The average. Most people will think this way. Now, you get a rank in HS from 25 to 1. You would guess that at rank 15 you should be below most of the players, not above 75% !!!
...what? No. It cannot work that way. This is the only way a straightforward non-artificially-stratified competitive ladder system where people start from the bottom is going to turn out. In fact Blizzard's system is kinder and will tend towards the middle point more than normal systems due to the win streak feature, the way you can't drop past 20 and the fact that you start with a bunch of stars based on previous position. It cannot be as you described because to progress people have to beat other people. Consequently at each stage you're going to lose a significant chunk of people as being not good enough to progress to the next stage and many of those people will stop playing. As a result from rank 20 (because you can't lose ranks below 20 so that messes with results a bit) you're going to get this huge base early on continuously tapering off to hardly any players at the higher ranks. The only way you consistently get "the average" as being in the middle is when you have an ELO system because everyone starts with a chunk of points they can lose or gain. In fact you can think of it as an ELO system with no "negative" ELO values. Lets take an ELO chart: + Show Spoiler +(This is for MWO ELO, I chose it purely because it was the first distribution to come up in image search. What it is doesn't matter, its an example.) If you look at the above ELO distribution you have most players in the middle somewhere tapering off in both directions until you reach the very, very good players and very, very bad players. The middle represents the starting point of everyone, assuming nobody leaving the system (which isn't necessarily true but that's besides the point for this example), it HAS to because everyone starts off with the same amount of ELO and can only gain or lose it in a zero-sum way. However Blizzard's system is basically only the UPPER HALF of that distribution. You physically can't go below the "starting point". You can only go upwards. Consequently you'll still have that tapering, but you will lack the lower taper. And the base will be huge because stages will contain everyone who can't maintain a better than 50% winrate at that point; but the base in particular will also contain everyone losing every game and quitting. Another way to think about it is to think about Arena wins. Constructed and Arena are very similar in this way, except in arena its more obvious because you have losses too, which gives you some of the lower part of the tapering effect. Everyone knows by now that the average amount of wins in arena is around 2-3. Possible Arena scores are 0-3, 1-3, 2-3 and so on. Sixteen in total. By your logic of "the middle value should be average" then the average arena score should be around the 8th-9th value. Which means your logic dictates that the average arena run should be 7-3 or 8-3 which is patently impossible. People aren't technically "knocked out" by the ladder, true. But people stop playing. TL,DR: In order for the average to consistently be the middle value everyone would have to START at the middle value. Because people don't then it stratifies itself upwards with a proportion lost at each stage. With a huge amount of games and nobody ever stopping playing it will eventually tend towards the middle through sheer number of games with weaker players eventually hitting enough even poorer players to climb and bulk out the middle values. But this doesn't happen in reality. It's really that hard to understand what I'm saying? It's not "my logic", it's an assumption on how people see a distribution of players represented by numbers. If you give people a rank that goes from 10 to 1, what would they expect? You tell me. Also you simply deny the data from Blizzard, about that there's nothing I can do.
I'm not sure where you're getting I'm "denying" the data from Blizzard given that its what I'm actually explaining above.
As for the rest of your comment here...NewSunshine pretty much said it already. It isn't a distribution based system, that's the whole point, its a ladder which will entail an entirely different type of player distribution in the short term. People not understanding what that means mathematically is on them, not Blizzard.
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I still find funny how useless is to to think of the rank as a skill-synonym: on a game where everyone copy&paste the decks of the few Skill ppl to rank up.
It literally has no meaning rolf, x10, x11, xInfinite legendary Players that never ever, made a deck that was good enough to shift the meta: is the same as going around saying how rich you are as a 10 years old kid.
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On September 24 2014 02:49 PushDown wrote:
I still find funny how useless is to to think of the rank as a skill-synonym: on a game where everyone copy&paste the decks of the few Skill ppl to rank up.
It literally has no meaning rolf, x10, x11, xInfinite legendary Players that never ever, made a deck that was good enough to shift the meta: is the same as going around saying how rich you are as a 10 years old kid.
Mate you make that same mistake as my mother. If you can only compete with Kolento or Tides it is obvious you can feel inferior. But what is the point in that?
Show me the sport that has a place only for the best of the best.
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People not understanding what that means mathematically is on them, not Blizzard.
Alright, so if the game fails and loses a lot of players, which will imply in losing a lot of revenue, they can blame the players.
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But why are you so feared that game is loosing a lot of players?
Do we have any statistics on that?
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I am the 2%? Yippee, never achieved anything close to that in SC2, let alone BW - where I'm pretty sure I'm the bottom 2%, lol.
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Some interesting takes and though-provoking posts in the midst of vitriol.
Obviously these statistics do not tell the whole story as the nature of the individuals comprising the ladder is not well understood. Casual vs. pro, and everything in between. Time and/or money spent. It does not truly measure how good someone is as it can be subjective. Even experts will disagree what the best play is sometimes.
It would be nice to see some real rewards for ladder play, but not sure how that might work if it would work.
Never been interested in ladder play before, in any game. Not enough time for it. With HS, it's less time intensive to make at least some progress.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MGcWF39.jpg)
