SC2 Ranks are Not Accurate. The HotS Ranks Described by Browder are. Why does a "casual" game like HotS get an accurate ranking system, while a supposedly competitive game gets a progression ranking system with distortionary sugarcoating?
Dustin Browder says he wants to make the HotS rank system more accurate by displaying what is effectively MMR after placement games, and that it would be like how it works in SC2.
This is NOT how it works in SC2, but it is how it SHOULD work.
The SC2 ranking system is not accurate. It is wrong.
1. Browder talks about putting people in groups of size 2% that reflects MMR after placement games. But in SC2, people are placed in groups of up to size 32%. Thus, HotS ranks can have 16 times more precision than SC2 ranks.
2. Browder talks about making HotS ranks more accurate, and there's no bonus pool in HotS to distort ranks. But in SC2, your rank is wrong because it intrinsically declines every single hour due to the bonus pool.
3. Browder talks about adding a GM league to HotS. It won't have the bonus pool. But in SC2, the GM league is a joke because active players can't get kicked out of GM league no matter how many games they lose. Thus, players with superior MMR can't get in because that spot is locked.
4. In HotS, there are no leagues messing up the ranking system. In SC2 there are leagues. This is a charade with people complaining they're not in the league they "deserve", it creates ranking errors caused by no mid-season demotions and the distortion in the criteria for entering a league to accommodate lack of demotions and inactive players. They cause errors in league sizes which are only manually corrected by Blizzard when sufficient numbers of people notice and complain loud enough on the forums. They also cause the obfuscation of not being able to compare across leagues, even when people in higher leagues can have lower MMR.
The SC2 ranking system has no credibility, the ranks are wrong, they are not accurate, it is distortionary, it causes endless frustration amongst the player base, it is not a global ladder. On the other hand, the HotS ranking system outlined by Browder is superior in every way, the ranks are accurate, it is not distortionary, it does not cause frustration, it is a global ladder.
After 5 years of an utterly broken ranking system that wrongly ranks players, it's time to finally fix it by replacing it with something very similar to the HotS ranking system.
Improving the HotS Ranking System Further. There are a few minor improvements that can be made to the HotS ranking system for LotV:
1. Increase the number of groups from 50 to 100, to increase the precision of ranks even further.
2. A user interface that lists the ranks of all players on the server that can ideally be filtered by, for example, friends, clans, created rival list, active players and all players.
3. Define a criteria for activity (e.g. at least 5 games a week). Inactive players keep their rank but will not be on the default filter of the list of ranks of all players, i.e. by default, only active players are ranked so that your rank reflects your MMR percentile out of all active players and so that the mid to bottom of the ladder isn't clogged up by people who don't even play the game anymore. When an inactive player becomes active again, they are immediately put back on the default filter of the list of ranks of all players.
Appendix: Information on the HotS Ranking System.
Let’s start by talking about how your rank is presented and what it means.
Each player (or team) is assigned a rank that is a visual representation of their skill in a particular game mode. The lowest rank is 50, while the current highest rank is 1. Each number indicates the approximate percentile rank you fit in compared to the rest of the population, with each rank accounting for roughly 2% of the population. For example, rank 1 is intended to represent the top 2% of players in the game for their region. Not all players can climb to the highest ranks. Players will need to improve in skill to be able to beat better opponents and climb the ranks.
However, the current ranking system includes a progression aspect where players initially start at Rank 50 and climb through the ranks until they reach a plateau that accurately reflects their skill. Under the current system, a player’s rank may not truly reflect their skill if they are still making progress [in SC2, it's also wrong when you have unused bonus pool or can't get demoted]. This system has caused some confusion around Ranked matchmaking modes. While we like the idea of progression and ranking up each season, we do not want it to come at the cost of an accurate ranking. To improve the accuracy of a player’s rank, we are planning to introduce a set of placement matches that players will need to complete before they receive an official rank. During this phase, a player’s rank will not be assigned or displayed. Instead, other players will see the player is in their “Placement Phase.”
Once they have completed their placement matches, the player will be assigned a rank that more accurately reflects their skill. We are still determining the exact number of placement matches required before players are assigned a rank. Players exploring a ranked mode for the first time will have to complete a larger number of placement matches. With each new season, the system will have a much better understanding of each player’s skill and fewer placement matches will be required before new ranks are assigned. After placing into a rank, players will carry on as they do today. Players will compete against opponents of similar skill level and earn Rank Points to climb the ranks.
Rank Points
After each ranked match, players will gain or lose an amount of Rank Points. The total Rank Points earned at the end of a game are a combination of two different types: Match Points and Bonus Points.
Match Points are always gained or lost at the end of a ranked game based on whether you won or lost the game. The amount of Match Points your team gains or loses is dependent on the skill difference between the teams. An equally matched game will result in 100 Match Points being earned by the winning team, and 100 points being lost by the losing team. If the teams were not evenly matched skill wise (which hopefully should be rare), your team could potentially earn up to 200 Match Points for a win, or lose 200 Match Points following a defeat. All players on a given team earn or lose the same amount of Match Points for a game.
Bonus Points may also be awarded to players at the end of the game. Bonus Points are awarded to individual players on the winning team if their personal skill rating (MMR) is outpacing their visible ranking. This can happen if a player wins several games in a row and can help get them closer to an accurate ranking.
I want MMR numbers to be shown in SC2. One for 1v1 and one for Archon/Team modes. I dont care if there are filthy casuals who cant handle a number going up and down.
its justs stupid how people care so much, move 5 years on and the game u play may be just a mere memory . . .but recognize the time you sank into a pointless endeavor
if ur winning, ur winning. lose one . . well now you can waste more time in finding out why. Of course new players shouldnt be matched against plats and above but ive never seen that EVER happen. the bz accounts ive played are against very similar skilled all the way up to the masters. not sure why people really care so much and why ive bothered posting . . .oh yea im on cooldown after my workout
If they'll do it for HotS, they'll port it over to sc2. They did it for chat channels, they'll do it for the ladder as well. Especially since Davie mentionned updates to the ladder system coming in LotV in a previous Community Feedback thing. Just stay calm, and wait for it.
On August 08 2015 21:07 StatixEx wrote: its justs stupid how people care so much, move 5 years on and the game u play may be just a mere memory . . .but recognize the time you sank into a pointless endeavor
if ur winning, ur winning. lose one . . well now you can waste more time in finding out why. Of course new players shouldnt be matched against plats and above but ive never seen that EVER happen. the bz accounts ive played are against very similar skilled all the way up to the masters. not sure why people really care so much and why ive bothered posting . . .oh yea im on cooldown after my workout
Exactly, I don't know why people care so much. It's impossible to accurately rank players in SC2 because of the wide variety of strategies someone is good at or weak against. Someone might be good at macro play and aggression, but might lose against someone who makes 3 drops happen in the game. Or they might be good at executing one or two timing attacks and will lose automatically if the game goes into the mid game because they don't know what to do past that. There are so many variables that it's almost pointless to waste time on fine tuning the ranking system. As it is now, I think it is very good. I regularly get matched vs players around my skill level, I will sometimes get matched against a bit better than me, but that only helps me become a better player, since the end goal is for me to be better than him anyway, and now I get to see strats used at his level. I really don't see the problem with fighting someone better than you from time to time.
At the end of the day if you're good enough you will reach the top of the ladder, but the gm 200 slots is kind of bullshit. Sitting at rank 1 master for weeks on end is pretty boring.
I never had an issue understanding Sc2 ranks. You just have to realise that there is significant overlap in leagues. To advance in league, you need to play consistently better than roughly 50% of the next league. Taking into account inactive players in league, it probably means that you need to be able to stabilise at around rank 25 of the next league in order to be promoted.
The system requires stability in winrate because that's the best way to ensure you're correctly placed, to precede a promotion. It was just a solution they used to avoid players bouncing between two leagues, because that would screw with the idea of stable divisions in which a player could compare themselves to others.
On August 08 2015 20:58 graNite wrote: I want MMR numbers to be shown in SC2. One for 1v1 and one for Archon/Team modes. I dont care if there are filthy casuals who cant handle a number going up and down.
Remove unranked, give us real ranks!
Playing the game casually does not make you filthy, or deserving of disrespect. Keep in mind that the majority of people who play the game (and games in general) are casual players.
With regard to ladder, I never really got the impression that the current design was the result of player pressure. I could be wrong, but I haven't read a lot of comments over the history of SC2 that praise the hiding of MMR. I could never understand why they would do the leagues the way they have. They give you very little idea of how good you actually are relative to the rest of the playerbase until you get into masters/grandmaster.
I agree with the OP, give us a more informative ladder. I wouldn't be against knowing my absolute rank, even if it was 20,124 or something. If I'm bad I'd like to know, and I'd like to track my improvement.
On August 08 2015 20:58 graNite wrote: I want MMR numbers to be shown in SC2. One for 1v1 and one for Archon/Team modes. I dont care if there are filthy casuals who cant handle a number going up and down.
Remove unranked, give us real ranks!
Playing the game casually does not make you filthy, or deserving of disrespect. Keep in mind that the majority of people who play the game (and games in general) are casual players.
With regard to ladder, I never really got the impression that the current design was the result of player pressure. I could be wrong, but I haven't read a lot of comments over the history of SC2 that praise the hiding of MMR. I could never understand why they would do the leagues the way they have. They give you very little idea of how good you actually are relative to the rest of the playerbase until you get into masters/grandmaster.
I agree with the OP, give us a more informative ladder. I wouldn't be against knowing my absolute rank, even if it was 20,124 or something. If I'm bad I'd like to know, and I'd like to track my improvement.
they do that because they dont want you to know how bad you are as a casual player. moving between ranks 250000 and 350000 seems to be too depressing. going up a meaningless ladder that consists of players you never play against with just massing games because spending the bonus pool takes you up by itself is a way better option in their eyes.
On August 08 2015 20:58 graNite wrote: I want MMR numbers to be shown in SC2. One for 1v1 and one for Archon/Team modes. I dont care if there are filthy casuals who cant handle a number going up and down.
Remove unranked, give us real ranks!
Playing the game casually does not make you filthy, or deserving of disrespect. Keep in mind that the majority of people who play the game (and games in general) are casual players.
With regard to ladder, I never really got the impression that the current design was the result of player pressure. I could be wrong, but I haven't read a lot of comments over the history of SC2 that praise the hiding of MMR. I could never understand why they would do the leagues the way they have. They give you very little idea of how good you actually are relative to the rest of the playerbase until you get into masters/grandmaster.
I agree with the OP, give us a more informative ladder. I wouldn't be against knowing my absolute rank, even if it was 20,124 or something. If I'm bad I'd like to know, and I'd like to track my improvement.
they do that because they dont want you to know how bad you are as a casual player. moving between ranks 250000 and 350000 seems to be too depressing. going up a meaningless ladder that consists of players you never play against with just massing games because spending the bonus pool takes you up by itself is a way better option in their eyes.
I understand what you're saying. All I'm trying to say is I think this a decision Blizzard made on their own, contrary to the wishes of the playerbase. I suppose this wasn't a particularly important point to make
To say sc2 ranking is inaccurate or wrong are 2 entirely different things. They are inaccurate, but not wrong. If a player has enough games played in his league, adjusted points (points - spent bonus pool but i prefer points + unspent bonus pool) are a good measure of someone's MMR. If 2 players have all the same amount of unspent bonus pool (for example 0) and have enough games played in their league, the one with the higher amount of points should have the higher MMR.
And btw, locked leagues (even gm) are a good measure against ladder anxiety. I guess they could put a very low MMR threshold for demotion (around midmaster) where if you legitly earned your promotion even at 1am season start you shouldn't go below, at least to prevent boosted accounts from stealing GM spots (8 accounts currently in bottom 10 GM EU were all boosted by the same guy this season lol).
On August 08 2015 21:07 StatixEx wrote: its justs stupid how people care so much, move 5 years on and the game u play may be just a mere memory . . .but recognize the time you sank into a pointless endeavor
if ur winning, ur winning. lose one . . well now you can waste more time in finding out why. Of course new players shouldnt be matched against plats and above but ive never seen that EVER happen. the bz accounts ive played are against very similar skilled all the way up to the masters. not sure why people really care so much and why ive bothered posting . . .oh yea im on cooldown after my workout
Exactly, I don't know why people care so much. It's impossible to accurately rank players in SC2 because of the wide variety of strategies someone is good at or weak against. Someone might be good at macro play and aggression, but might lose against someone who makes 3 drops happen in the game. Or they might be good at executing one or two timing attacks and will lose automatically if the game goes into the mid game because they don't know what to do past that. There are so many variables that it's almost pointless to waste time on fine tuning the ranking system. As it is now, I think it is very good. I regularly get matched vs players around my skill level, I will sometimes get matched against a bit better than me, but that only helps me become a better player, since the end goal is for me to be better than him anyway, and now I get to see strats used at his level. I really don't see the problem with fighting someone better than you from time to time.
The first half of your post says it's impossible to accurately rank people. The second half of your post says Blizzard's matchmaker is already accurately ranking people. Contradiction.
On August 08 2015 20:58 graNite wrote: I want MMR numbers to be shown in SC2. One for 1v1 and one for Archon/Team modes. I dont care if there are filthy casuals who cant handle a number going up and down.
Remove unranked, give us real ranks!
Playing the game casually does not make you filthy, or deserving of disrespect. Keep in mind that the majority of people who play the game (and games in general) are casual players.
With regard to ladder, I never really got the impression that the current design was the result of player pressure. I could be wrong, but I haven't read a lot of comments over the history of SC2 that praise the hiding of MMR. I could never understand why they would do the leagues the way they have. They give you very little idea of how good you actually are relative to the rest of the playerbase until you get into masters/grandmaster.
I agree with the OP, give us a more informative ladder. I wouldn't be against knowing my absolute rank, even if it was 20,124 or something. If I'm bad I'd like to know, and I'd like to track my improvement.
they do that because they dont want you to know how bad you are as a casual player. moving between ranks 250000 and 350000 seems to be too depressing. going up a meaningless ladder that consists of players you never play against with just massing games because spending the bonus pool takes you up by itself is a way better option in their eyes.
Strawman.
There is no rank 250,000 in HotS. Ranks go from 1 to 50. Moreover, rank 250,000 can be converted to something readable by dividing by the number of players.
On August 08 2015 22:10 TokO wrote: I never had an issue understanding Sc2 ranks.
No one does. E.g. if you're in gold league in SC2, you're in the top 40% to top 72%. This is 16 times less precision than know you're rank 20 in HotS which is top 40% to top 42%.
You just have to realise that there is significant overlap in leagues. To advance in league, you need to play consistently better than roughly 50% of the next league.
Why is this good? Why isn't the transparent HotS system that Dustin Browder advocates better?
The system requires stability in winrate because that's the best way to ensure you're correctly placed, to precede a promotion. It was just a solution they used to avoid players bouncing between two leagues, because that would screw with the idea of stable divisions in which a player could compare themselves to others.
Divisions are meanginless, so who cares if they are stable. The leagues are wrong. You can have higher MMR than your league and not get promoted, or lower MMR and not get demoted. This is one reason why HotS scraps leagues and replaces with an accurate, fluid ranking system based on a continuum of points, not buckets that are discrete, arbitrary and wrong.
On August 08 2015 22:39 KingAlphard wrote: To say sc2 ranking is inaccurate or wrong are 2 entirely different things. They are inaccurate, but not wrong.
If the ranks are sufficiently inaccurate, and they are, then they are wrong.
If a player has enough games played in his league, adjusted points (points - spent bonus pool but i prefer points + unspent bonus pool) are a good measure of someone's MMR. If 2 players have all the same amount of unspent bonus pool (for example 0) and have enough games played in their league, the one with the higher amount of points should have the higher MMR.
Correct.
But Blizzard has countered your argument: "However, the current ranking system includes a progression aspect where players initially start at Rank 50 and climb through the ranks until they reach a plateau [i.e. all bonus pool spent in SC2] that accurately reflects their skill. Under the current system, a player’s rank may not truly reflect their skill if they are still making progress. This system has caused some confusion around Ranked matchmaking modes. While we like the idea of progression and ranking up each season, we do not want it to come at the cost of an accurate ranking."
And btw, locked leagues (even gm) are a good measure against ladder anxiety. I guess they could put a very low MMR threshold for demotion (around midmaster) where if you legitly earned your promotion even at 1am season start you shouldn't go below, at least to prevent boosted accounts from stealing GM spots (8 accounts currently in bottom 10 GM EU were all boosted by the same guy this season lol).
How many complaints are there of of ladder anxiety in HotS? Zero, I searched the HotS forums (seems the HotS team, unlike the SC2 team, were smart enough to scrap the league system). As Browder now realizes, accurate ranks are important.
On August 08 2015 23:15 Plexa wrote: There's no need to quadruple post. =/
He's just very adamant about fixing a system that is indeed a poor man's choice in today's world. Games from decades ago had better ranking systems (see warcraft 3).
I've alway thought matchmaking in SC2 was pretty good--significantly better than many other games, in other genres.
They're improving ranking accuracy in Heres because matchmaking is horribly, horribly bad, atm. But, it's also a wildly different system. Not even apples to apples. More like, apples to hockey, lol.
Improving the SC2 matchmaking should--imho--have only one goal: increase enjoyment for rec-level players. It is not fun to lose a match because you never had a chance. If possible, the vast majority of games should be up against opponents of similar skill. I believe the SC2 matchmaking already does this fairly well, but could probably be improved.
So the SC2 league system appears to be clunky, and perhaps less accurate because there are a small number of divisions. These are just shiny objects to get you to play the game more, lol. I strongly suspect your league badge has very little to do with the matches you play. But *shrugs* that's just me.
The other issue is the number of players and the quality of time playing. Is it better to have longer waits and closer matches, or shorter waits and total stomp-fests? This is a user experience issue that must be addressed, and it can be a downward spiral. Less people playing means the rec-level players will have a harder time having fun with the game.
At the rec-level, it needs to be fun first. If you don't think you're recreational, then none of this matters. You're super tryhard and dedicated, and your MMR should do a decent job at keeping your W/L at 50%. But what the hell do I know?
EPT
