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On October 27 2012 00:11 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2012 20:40 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 02:59 darkness wrote:On October 26 2012 02:58 Wildmoon wrote:On October 26 2012 02:57 GizmoPT wrote:
would be nice to get maybe unit with different models for leveling up instead of just decals and portraits Different model for the same unit could potentially harm the gameplay. The 2 DT skins. The 2 Thor skins. Well, Blizzard may/should make such changes so obvious like the above one that no one gets mistaken. One should play the opponent, not brag around with unmistakable extra skins. SC2 already allows to have decals to show off. Too many different models would also make the game harder to read for newbies. TF2 has dozens of hats and it doesn't make the classes any harder to distinguish from each other.
It makes it very slightly harder to read, but it won't be a noticeable difference. It could also turn the game into a joke, particularly if they start adding joke models, like how they have joke decals and portraits from collector's editions, Blizzcon and other exclusive things.
This is a esport, readability is key, so standardization is better than customization. I don't even like decals. All units should be exactly the same, except for player colors.
I wouldn't mind if there's a way to turn it off, so that they can see whatever model they want, but I don't have to see it. I want to see standard unit models on my screen. It's a good idea to add unit models to the level system as long as it can be turned off from the perspective of my client. The same applies for decals. I really don't like them.
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Hmm... I think I read somewhere that starcraft needed something like this to keep their casual players somewhere, not to long ago...
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I belive Quake LIve had this command forceenemymodel, it should be included in gameplay option for spec and player. Especially for tournaments etc. If you don't want new decals, you don't have see them that way.
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Starcraft must become more attractive to a larger part of the gaming community or it will fail as an esports title.
This is the utter most important thing. And instead of discussing ladder and points we should come up with ideas on how to improve the game by making it more attractive to other players. I mean I am sure you know many other people who play computer games very active but who wont play Sc2 or who have stopped playing even month ago.
The game has to be more fun and has to be more appealing.
An experience system is a great idea for that.
If I take Lol or Dota, many people enjoy Bot games, although they are (especially in lol) esay to defeat for experienced players they are a challenge for new players or casual players. But if you take the SC II , AI, not in terms of their reaction speed and when its not cheating, the AI is very rudimentary and only knows 2-3 strategies, it does not really expand etc. etc.
I think some playermode vs. AI that is more challenging would also attract more players that maybe would then look into player vs. player or if not at least watch streams, tournaments etc.
I think unlockable unit skinns, or animations, taunts etc. are a great thing to increase the longterm playability.
For example if you play the game and you just have time for 2-3 games per week, you will not improove above a certain level, so if you have reached this level there is no point for the casual player to keep playing from a competitve point of view, but if there are other goals he can achive that reward him, he might play longer and have more fun with it.
Another thing is that what new players ALWAYS critizise and I am 100% SURE you heard it if you presented the game to others that didnt know SCII s that you cant zoom out more. I mean you must not zoom out indefintaly but the actual level is really ridiculous in comparison to what is possible.
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On October 26 2012 02:17 Danzo wrote:Is that necessarily a good thing? At least Blizzard is trying to take an initiative and come with interesting ideas. Not sure how I feel about it yet but can't wait to try it soon.
Are you kdiing me?, Call of DUty UI is beautifull  like really really good looking and usefull
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On October 26 2012 23:28 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2012 22:31 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 21:11 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 26 2012 20:32 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 02:54 tritonice wrote:
I'm fine with this, and it will have some holding power, but not for very long. I am in the wait-and-see mode at the moment. Blizzard seems to be rolling out several features for HOTS, and some more will probably be revealed. There are some good improvements, and hopefully more will roll out. I will play SC2 no matter what with a mix of ladder and monobattle customs for the most part.
My main complaint is the ladder. I am a big boy, just show me where I rank across the entire silver ladder. What is the purpose of the 100 person group? I know they made some changes to better reflect where you are relative to promotion, but that has a limit in given 100 person groups. If I know I am ranked 24,637 out of 54,382 current season silver players, that gives me more incentive than rank 24 of an arbitrary set of 100 players. With having so many players, the random noise is a big factor. You can lose 10 or 20 ranks with doing nothing. The devision also allows for a more personal experience "oh that damn zerg on rank 1 is always 50 points above me". You remember his name and compete against the rank of a name instead of just looking at large numbers. This is just nonsense. That damn zerg on rank 1 doesn't matter because rank 1 in a division is utterly meaningless. It means nothing. You're being ranked with 100 arbitrary, faceless men. It has no meaning. It says nothing about how good you are. Even with noise, a global ladder is still better because it gives you an approximation of your position compared to the entire playerbase, instead of 100 pointless players. You talk about noise as if it's the death of the global ladder. But this can be address by using a percentile (e.g. 67th percentile), or incrementing percentiles by 5 (e.g. top 5%, top 10%, top 15%, etc). But guess what, changes in division ranks are also completely meaningless due to the fluctuation caused by bonus pool. You log off for a 2 days and you've fallen 10 ranks because everyone else has used up their bonus pool. That's noise that distorts the already worthless division rank. Why don't you complain about that? The division system is literally the worse ranking system ever devised in any serious competitive video game. It makes your rank utterly meaningless, worthless, unimportant. There is absolutely no reason to care about your division rank because it can't be compared with other player's. Ranks are for measuring epeen. It's impossible to measure epeen with division ranks, because division ranks are incomparable and meaningless. Division ranks now no longer have a hidden modifier, so you get a rough picture where you stand. You get no accurate account, but this is intentional as you should play the game, not the ladder. The 100 players in the division are not "pointless". A group of about 100 can be understood by a human mind. Numbers like tenthousands on the other hand are mepaningless. We can compare them, but not really grasp them. Of course you need to compare ladder rank with bonus pool, which you have to do manually. Division rank rewards constant playing. If you are a competitive player, you could play online tournaments and see who you can beat. It makes little sense to create a really competitive environment for the most of the players. Why would you know "how good you are"? You get a rough idea by your league. Most players make little or no progress anyway, because the MMR does not increase (unless someone really commits.) If would be frustrating to see that you are stuck or even falling behind compared to the general poulation. If you like real competition, again, there are online tournaments. No, division ranks continue to be meaningless. Division modifiers apply to points, not division ranks. For more than 2 years points have also been completely meaningless. It's only since this season that points can be compared. 100 can be understood, but not 100,000? Are you just too stupid to understand large numbers or do you like strawman arguments? Have you heard of division? You can divide 230,130 out of 502,010 to get 46/100. Where are you getting this idea that a global ladder would suddenly create an ultra-competitive environment and that this would be bad for the game? In the recent UI update, Blizzard basically admitted that they lied about why they were hiding losses, and admitted that the true reason was ladder anxiety. They argue that we can have stats in HotS because unranked play solves ladder anxiety. Why doesn't Blizzard's logic apply here? After all, a global rank, or percentile, is just another stat, like win ratio. You say that you have to take out bonus pool before comparing rank, but that's got nothing to do with what I said. It's a dodge. I asked you why you aren't complaining about bonus pool adding noise to the division rank. Why are you hypocritically using the noise argument against a global ladder but not against the bonus pool system? You also say that division rank rewards constant playing. If this were true, then points would be completely meaningless, because it would imply that the more you play, the more points you get, and the higher your division rank. But it's not true. The ladder system rewards playing only to the extent that bonus pool is used up. Not only is this statement wrong, it's also irrelevant to the discussion. Next, you talk about leagues giving an idea of how good you are. But this is very broad. If you're in diamond this means you're in the top 20%-40%. This is a very large skill range, and gives very little information. This is why there should be a global ladder or percentile. Even if it's in increments of 5%, it would still provide like 4 times more information. Also, how does a tournament solve anything? Does it reveal your true rank? How can I compare my rank to yours? This is basically the argument behind Master's league: 98% of the players don't deserve to see their true rank. It's very condescending. Despite the fact that most player's MMR won't tend to improve, it is a horribly bad argument to claim that a global ladder discourages playing due to the feeling of getting stuck. Firstly, there's no reason why anything needs to be taken away. If you're encouraged to play because you really care about how you're ranked in your division of 100 faceless randoms, then there's no reason why that can't continue to motivate you. Secondly, the new level system is designed to encourage people to play. Thirdly, why don't you complain about bonus pool discouraging people to play? Blizzard claims that bonus pool is to help people to "catch up", but this is completely wrong. The bonus pool CAUSES the gap in the first place. When you log on, your meaningless division rank would have fallen BECAUSE other player's have used their bonus pool. The bonus pool is the problem, not the solution. Why doesn't the fact that everyday the bonus pool is the cause of seeing your rank fall, which is psychologically worse than stagnating, discourage people from playing? Why don't you use this argument to complain about the bonus pool. Fourthly, a global ladder would continue to rank using points, so there will be no stagnation because of the bonus pool system (it's worse). So you're completely wrong, But even worse, it is utterly hypocritical for you to claim that the problem is noise and fluctuation in your previous post and then claim that the problem is actually stagnation in the above post. What is it? At least get your story straight. I find the level of your cognitive dissonance in defending Blizzard's flawed and contradictory design very troubling.
Did you read Sirlin's thoughts about the ladder? (He was involved at the early stage.) Did you hear DBs statements at Blizzcons and other interviews?
I don't think it is useful to just present own thoughts without knowing why the decision were made in the first place. You use a lot of strong words like "hypocritical" and "uterly" and so on; you try to construct contradictions without addressing the actual issue Blizzard is facing (that is, that MMR doesn't change much and gives no incentive to play.)
There has been a lot said about the bonus pool, the actual reason is to implement ladder point decay for not playing but do it inversly with rewarding playing so that the player on a break doesn't feel punished. HotS now brings unranked play with match-making, where you get no points in the first place.
Because most casual gamers play the game to play the game, not to rank themself in 6-digit numbers versus the server population.
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Levling is a good thing, im not saying its going to make SC2 the greatest game on earth now(sry blizz you need to fix the game for that)
However, ANYTHING, yes ANYTHING beats the current shit that is being rank 4 in Drone Piss Fuck WTFBBQ Masters division. This will give a lot more people motivation ladder wise if you combine a change like this with the actual game itself getting fixed.
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On October 27 2012 00:56 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2012 23:28 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 26 2012 22:31 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 21:11 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 26 2012 20:32 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 02:54 tritonice wrote:
I'm fine with this, and it will have some holding power, but not for very long. I am in the wait-and-see mode at the moment. Blizzard seems to be rolling out several features for HOTS, and some more will probably be revealed. There are some good improvements, and hopefully more will roll out. I will play SC2 no matter what with a mix of ladder and monobattle customs for the most part.
My main complaint is the ladder. I am a big boy, just show me where I rank across the entire silver ladder. What is the purpose of the 100 person group? I know they made some changes to better reflect where you are relative to promotion, but that has a limit in given 100 person groups. If I know I am ranked 24,637 out of 54,382 current season silver players, that gives me more incentive than rank 24 of an arbitrary set of 100 players. With having so many players, the random noise is a big factor. You can lose 10 or 20 ranks with doing nothing. The devision also allows for a more personal experience "oh that damn zerg on rank 1 is always 50 points above me". You remember his name and compete against the rank of a name instead of just looking at large numbers. This is just nonsense. That damn zerg on rank 1 doesn't matter because rank 1 in a division is utterly meaningless. It means nothing. You're being ranked with 100 arbitrary, faceless men. It has no meaning. It says nothing about how good you are. Even with noise, a global ladder is still better because it gives you an approximation of your position compared to the entire playerbase, instead of 100 pointless players. You talk about noise as if it's the death of the global ladder. But this can be address by using a percentile (e.g. 67th percentile), or incrementing percentiles by 5 (e.g. top 5%, top 10%, top 15%, etc). But guess what, changes in division ranks are also completely meaningless due to the fluctuation caused by bonus pool. You log off for a 2 days and you've fallen 10 ranks because everyone else has used up their bonus pool. That's noise that distorts the already worthless division rank. Why don't you complain about that? The division system is literally the worse ranking system ever devised in any serious competitive video game. It makes your rank utterly meaningless, worthless, unimportant. There is absolutely no reason to care about your division rank because it can't be compared with other player's. Ranks are for measuring epeen. It's impossible to measure epeen with division ranks, because division ranks are incomparable and meaningless. Division ranks now no longer have a hidden modifier, so you get a rough picture where you stand. You get no accurate account, but this is intentional as you should play the game, not the ladder. The 100 players in the division are not "pointless". A group of about 100 can be understood by a human mind. Numbers like tenthousands on the other hand are mepaningless. We can compare them, but not really grasp them. Of course you need to compare ladder rank with bonus pool, which you have to do manually. Division rank rewards constant playing. If you are a competitive player, you could play online tournaments and see who you can beat. It makes little sense to create a really competitive environment for the most of the players. Why would you know "how good you are"? You get a rough idea by your league. Most players make little or no progress anyway, because the MMR does not increase (unless someone really commits.) If would be frustrating to see that you are stuck or even falling behind compared to the general poulation. If you like real competition, again, there are online tournaments. No, division ranks continue to be meaningless. Division modifiers apply to points, not division ranks. For more than 2 years points have also been completely meaningless. It's only since this season that points can be compared. 100 can be understood, but not 100,000? Are you just too stupid to understand large numbers or do you like strawman arguments? Have you heard of division? You can divide 230,130 out of 502,010 to get 46/100. Where are you getting this idea that a global ladder would suddenly create an ultra-competitive environment and that this would be bad for the game? In the recent UI update, Blizzard basically admitted that they lied about why they were hiding losses, and admitted that the true reason was ladder anxiety. They argue that we can have stats in HotS because unranked play solves ladder anxiety. Why doesn't Blizzard's logic apply here? After all, a global rank, or percentile, is just another stat, like win ratio. You say that you have to take out bonus pool before comparing rank, but that's got nothing to do with what I said. It's a dodge. I asked you why you aren't complaining about bonus pool adding noise to the division rank. Why are you hypocritically using the noise argument against a global ladder but not against the bonus pool system? You also say that division rank rewards constant playing. If this were true, then points would be completely meaningless, because it would imply that the more you play, the more points you get, and the higher your division rank. But it's not true. The ladder system rewards playing only to the extent that bonus pool is used up. Not only is this statement wrong, it's also irrelevant to the discussion. Next, you talk about leagues giving an idea of how good you are. But this is very broad. If you're in diamond this means you're in the top 20%-40%. This is a very large skill range, and gives very little information. This is why there should be a global ladder or percentile. Even if it's in increments of 5%, it would still provide like 4 times more information. Also, how does a tournament solve anything? Does it reveal your true rank? How can I compare my rank to yours? This is basically the argument behind Master's league: 98% of the players don't deserve to see their true rank. It's very condescending. Despite the fact that most player's MMR won't tend to improve, it is a horribly bad argument to claim that a global ladder discourages playing due to the feeling of getting stuck. Firstly, there's no reason why anything needs to be taken away. If you're encouraged to play because you really care about how you're ranked in your division of 100 faceless randoms, then there's no reason why that can't continue to motivate you. Secondly, the new level system is designed to encourage people to play. Thirdly, why don't you complain about bonus pool discouraging people to play? Blizzard claims that bonus pool is to help people to "catch up", but this is completely wrong. The bonus pool CAUSES the gap in the first place. When you log on, your meaningless division rank would have fallen BECAUSE other player's have used their bonus pool. The bonus pool is the problem, not the solution. Why doesn't the fact that everyday the bonus pool is the cause of seeing your rank fall, which is psychologically worse than stagnating, discourage people from playing? Why don't you use this argument to complain about the bonus pool. Fourthly, a global ladder would continue to rank using points, so there will be no stagnation because of the bonus pool system (it's worse). So you're completely wrong, But even worse, it is utterly hypocritical for you to claim that the problem is noise and fluctuation in your previous post and then claim that the problem is actually stagnation in the above post. What is it? At least get your story straight. I find the level of your cognitive dissonance in defending Blizzard's flawed and contradictory design very troubling. Did you read Sirlin's thoughts about the ladder? (He was involved at the early stage.) Did you hear DBs statements at Blizzcons and other interviews? I don't think it is useful to just present own thoughts without knowing why the decision were made in the first place. You use a lot of strong words like "hypocritical" and "uterly" and so on; you try to construct contradictions without addressing the actual issue Blizzard is facing. There has been a lot said about the bonus pool, the actual reason is to implement ladder point decay for not playing but do it inversly with rewarding playing so that the player on a break doesn't feel punished.
Keep dodging.
Yes, I've read Sirlin and I've listened to Pardo and Browder at Blizzcon. Sirlin didn't design the ladder. There's no evidence that I've seen to suggest that he's even consulted on it.
It's all just spin and it's entirely wrong. Just look at Pardo tell us how fun it is climbing the ranks in your own little, insignificant, faceless and meaningless division, when the ladder system was first revealed at Blizzcon. It's laughable.
No amount of you sheepishly regurgitating their bad logic will change the fact that these arguments are contradictory, hypocritical, and just plain wrong.
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On October 27 2012 00:57 XXXSmOke wrote:
Levling is a good thing, im not saying its going to make SC2 the greatest game on earth now(sry blizz you need to fix the game for that)
However, ANYTHING, yes ANYTHING beats the current shit that is being rank 4 in Drone Piss Fuck WTFBBQ Masters division. This will give a lot more people motivation ladder wise if you combine a change like this with the actual game itself getting fixed.
Yes, it shows Blizzard is listening and trying. This is definitely a good thing. I applaud the Sc2 team for their continued efforts to reach out to the community.
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On October 26 2012 02:24 MegaFonzie wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2012 02:23 Wildmoon wrote:
I can't really complain about a good thing that doesn't hurt anything. bingo
gonna third this. hard-core won't care, and casuals may appreciate it. why not?
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United States12267 Posts
On October 27 2012 01:07 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2012 00:56 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 23:28 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 26 2012 22:31 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 21:11 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 26 2012 20:32 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 02:54 tritonice wrote:
I'm fine with this, and it will have some holding power, but not for very long. I am in the wait-and-see mode at the moment. Blizzard seems to be rolling out several features for HOTS, and some more will probably be revealed. There are some good improvements, and hopefully more will roll out. I will play SC2 no matter what with a mix of ladder and monobattle customs for the most part.
My main complaint is the ladder. I am a big boy, just show me where I rank across the entire silver ladder. What is the purpose of the 100 person group? I know they made some changes to better reflect where you are relative to promotion, but that has a limit in given 100 person groups. If I know I am ranked 24,637 out of 54,382 current season silver players, that gives me more incentive than rank 24 of an arbitrary set of 100 players. With having so many players, the random noise is a big factor. You can lose 10 or 20 ranks with doing nothing. The devision also allows for a more personal experience "oh that damn zerg on rank 1 is always 50 points above me". You remember his name and compete against the rank of a name instead of just looking at large numbers. This is just nonsense. That damn zerg on rank 1 doesn't matter because rank 1 in a division is utterly meaningless. It means nothing. You're being ranked with 100 arbitrary, faceless men. It has no meaning. It says nothing about how good you are. Even with noise, a global ladder is still better because it gives you an approximation of your position compared to the entire playerbase, instead of 100 pointless players. You talk about noise as if it's the death of the global ladder. But this can be address by using a percentile (e.g. 67th percentile), or incrementing percentiles by 5 (e.g. top 5%, top 10%, top 15%, etc). But guess what, changes in division ranks are also completely meaningless due to the fluctuation caused by bonus pool. You log off for a 2 days and you've fallen 10 ranks because everyone else has used up their bonus pool. That's noise that distorts the already worthless division rank. Why don't you complain about that? The division system is literally the worse ranking system ever devised in any serious competitive video game. It makes your rank utterly meaningless, worthless, unimportant. There is absolutely no reason to care about your division rank because it can't be compared with other player's. Ranks are for measuring epeen. It's impossible to measure epeen with division ranks, because division ranks are incomparable and meaningless. Division ranks now no longer have a hidden modifier, so you get a rough picture where you stand. You get no accurate account, but this is intentional as you should play the game, not the ladder. The 100 players in the division are not "pointless". A group of about 100 can be understood by a human mind. Numbers like tenthousands on the other hand are mepaningless. We can compare them, but not really grasp them. Of course you need to compare ladder rank with bonus pool, which you have to do manually. Division rank rewards constant playing. If you are a competitive player, you could play online tournaments and see who you can beat. It makes little sense to create a really competitive environment for the most of the players. Why would you know "how good you are"? You get a rough idea by your league. Most players make little or no progress anyway, because the MMR does not increase (unless someone really commits.) If would be frustrating to see that you are stuck or even falling behind compared to the general poulation. If you like real competition, again, there are online tournaments. No, division ranks continue to be meaningless. Division modifiers apply to points, not division ranks. For more than 2 years points have also been completely meaningless. It's only since this season that points can be compared. 100 can be understood, but not 100,000? Are you just too stupid to understand large numbers or do you like strawman arguments? Have you heard of division? You can divide 230,130 out of 502,010 to get 46/100. Where are you getting this idea that a global ladder would suddenly create an ultra-competitive environment and that this would be bad for the game? In the recent UI update, Blizzard basically admitted that they lied about why they were hiding losses, and admitted that the true reason was ladder anxiety. They argue that we can have stats in HotS because unranked play solves ladder anxiety. Why doesn't Blizzard's logic apply here? After all, a global rank, or percentile, is just another stat, like win ratio. You say that you have to take out bonus pool before comparing rank, but that's got nothing to do with what I said. It's a dodge. I asked you why you aren't complaining about bonus pool adding noise to the division rank. Why are you hypocritically using the noise argument against a global ladder but not against the bonus pool system? You also say that division rank rewards constant playing. If this were true, then points would be completely meaningless, because it would imply that the more you play, the more points you get, and the higher your division rank. But it's not true. The ladder system rewards playing only to the extent that bonus pool is used up. Not only is this statement wrong, it's also irrelevant to the discussion. Next, you talk about leagues giving an idea of how good you are. But this is very broad. If you're in diamond this means you're in the top 20%-40%. This is a very large skill range, and gives very little information. This is why there should be a global ladder or percentile. Even if it's in increments of 5%, it would still provide like 4 times more information. Also, how does a tournament solve anything? Does it reveal your true rank? How can I compare my rank to yours? This is basically the argument behind Master's league: 98% of the players don't deserve to see their true rank. It's very condescending. Despite the fact that most player's MMR won't tend to improve, it is a horribly bad argument to claim that a global ladder discourages playing due to the feeling of getting stuck. Firstly, there's no reason why anything needs to be taken away. If you're encouraged to play because you really care about how you're ranked in your division of 100 faceless randoms, then there's no reason why that can't continue to motivate you. Secondly, the new level system is designed to encourage people to play. Thirdly, why don't you complain about bonus pool discouraging people to play? Blizzard claims that bonus pool is to help people to "catch up", but this is completely wrong. The bonus pool CAUSES the gap in the first place. When you log on, your meaningless division rank would have fallen BECAUSE other player's have used their bonus pool. The bonus pool is the problem, not the solution. Why doesn't the fact that everyday the bonus pool is the cause of seeing your rank fall, which is psychologically worse than stagnating, discourage people from playing? Why don't you use this argument to complain about the bonus pool. Fourthly, a global ladder would continue to rank using points, so there will be no stagnation because of the bonus pool system (it's worse). So you're completely wrong, But even worse, it is utterly hypocritical for you to claim that the problem is noise and fluctuation in your previous post and then claim that the problem is actually stagnation in the above post. What is it? At least get your story straight. I find the level of your cognitive dissonance in defending Blizzard's flawed and contradictory design very troubling. Did you read Sirlin's thoughts about the ladder? (He was involved at the early stage.) Did you hear DBs statements at Blizzcons and other interviews? I don't think it is useful to just present own thoughts without knowing why the decision were made in the first place. You use a lot of strong words like "hypocritical" and "uterly" and so on; you try to construct contradictions without addressing the actual issue Blizzard is facing. There has been a lot said about the bonus pool, the actual reason is to implement ladder point decay for not playing but do it inversly with rewarding playing so that the player on a break doesn't feel punished. Keep dodging. Yes, I've read Sirlin and I've listened to Pardo and Browder at Blizzcon. Sirlin didn't design the ladder. There's no evidence that I've seen to suggest that he's even consulted on it. It's all just spin and it's entirely wrong. Just look at Pardo tell us how fun it is climbing the ranks in your own little, insignificant, faceless and meaningless division, when the ladder system was first revealed at Blizzcon. It's laughable. No amount of you sheepishly regurgitating their bad logic will change the fact that these arguments are contradictory, hypocritical, and just plain wrong.
I think the basic intent was just to create tangible goals. For most people, even the very hardcore, there is a common understanding of "let me just get higher than this person above me." Even though points mostly don't tell you anything, even though division ranks aren't comparable, even though there's no unified skill-categorized ladder, you still look at your division and think "let me get past this guy, then that's it for tonight."
SF4 has a points system and a global ranking. I can tell you from personal experience that I think no differently of my opponent whether he's rank #7,854 or #16,210 or #21,822. It's so easy to shift hundreds of positions in just a short time. Therefore, I have to mentally create new skill definitions: "okay if he's got 1K player points he's probably not very good, 2K is okay, 3K is pretty good, 4K is tournament level". The rank number is mostly meaningless to me unless the opponent is in the top 1,000 or is in the top 100 in the character-specific rankings ("wow that was the #2 Sagat? that wasn't so bad").
Of course divisions don't help you understand where you are in the grand scheme at all, and that becomes a major complaint especially for people who are in the top ranks of their division because they lose their incentive to play. For what it does, however, I think it's mostly fine (maybe they could show a league rank by points in-client on a separate leaderboard?) because the alternative is honestly not very spectacular.
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Ideally, the rewards system would give points for skills relevant to RTS games. For example, give points for not getting supply blocked or for executing a standard build order perfectly. Conversely, it would be a waste of time to give points for meaningless achievements that don't have any connection with actual RTS skills. The goal should be to use the rewards system to teach noobs how to play. You can give them silly electronic trophies too if they need something shiny.
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Does anybody know roughly how long it is going to take to reach max level?
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On October 27 2012 01:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2012 01:07 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 27 2012 00:56 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 23:28 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 26 2012 22:31 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 21:11 paralleluniverse wrote:On October 26 2012 20:32 [F_]aths wrote:On October 26 2012 02:54 tritonice wrote:
I'm fine with this, and it will have some holding power, but not for very long. I am in the wait-and-see mode at the moment. Blizzard seems to be rolling out several features for HOTS, and some more will probably be revealed. There are some good improvements, and hopefully more will roll out. I will play SC2 no matter what with a mix of ladder and monobattle customs for the most part.
My main complaint is the ladder. I am a big boy, just show me where I rank across the entire silver ladder. What is the purpose of the 100 person group? I know they made some changes to better reflect where you are relative to promotion, but that has a limit in given 100 person groups. If I know I am ranked 24,637 out of 54,382 current season silver players, that gives me more incentive than rank 24 of an arbitrary set of 100 players. With having so many players, the random noise is a big factor. You can lose 10 or 20 ranks with doing nothing. The devision also allows for a more personal experience "oh that damn zerg on rank 1 is always 50 points above me". You remember his name and compete against the rank of a name instead of just looking at large numbers. This is just nonsense. That damn zerg on rank 1 doesn't matter because rank 1 in a division is utterly meaningless. It means nothing. You're being ranked with 100 arbitrary, faceless men. It has no meaning. It says nothing about how good you are. Even with noise, a global ladder is still better because it gives you an approximation of your position compared to the entire playerbase, instead of 100 pointless players. You talk about noise as if it's the death of the global ladder. But this can be address by using a percentile (e.g. 67th percentile), or incrementing percentiles by 5 (e.g. top 5%, top 10%, top 15%, etc). But guess what, changes in division ranks are also completely meaningless due to the fluctuation caused by bonus pool. You log off for a 2 days and you've fallen 10 ranks because everyone else has used up their bonus pool. That's noise that distorts the already worthless division rank. Why don't you complain about that? The division system is literally the worse ranking system ever devised in any serious competitive video game. It makes your rank utterly meaningless, worthless, unimportant. There is absolutely no reason to care about your division rank because it can't be compared with other player's. Ranks are for measuring epeen. It's impossible to measure epeen with division ranks, because division ranks are incomparable and meaningless. Division ranks now no longer have a hidden modifier, so you get a rough picture where you stand. You get no accurate account, but this is intentional as you should play the game, not the ladder. The 100 players in the division are not "pointless". A group of about 100 can be understood by a human mind. Numbers like tenthousands on the other hand are mepaningless. We can compare them, but not really grasp them. Of course you need to compare ladder rank with bonus pool, which you have to do manually. Division rank rewards constant playing. If you are a competitive player, you could play online tournaments and see who you can beat. It makes little sense to create a really competitive environment for the most of the players. Why would you know "how good you are"? You get a rough idea by your league. Most players make little or no progress anyway, because the MMR does not increase (unless someone really commits.) If would be frustrating to see that you are stuck or even falling behind compared to the general poulation. If you like real competition, again, there are online tournaments. No, division ranks continue to be meaningless. Division modifiers apply to points, not division ranks. For more than 2 years points have also been completely meaningless. It's only since this season that points can be compared. 100 can be understood, but not 100,000? Are you just too stupid to understand large numbers or do you like strawman arguments? Have you heard of division? You can divide 230,130 out of 502,010 to get 46/100. Where are you getting this idea that a global ladder would suddenly create an ultra-competitive environment and that this would be bad for the game? In the recent UI update, Blizzard basically admitted that they lied about why they were hiding losses, and admitted that the true reason was ladder anxiety. They argue that we can have stats in HotS because unranked play solves ladder anxiety. Why doesn't Blizzard's logic apply here? After all, a global rank, or percentile, is just another stat, like win ratio. You say that you have to take out bonus pool before comparing rank, but that's got nothing to do with what I said. It's a dodge. I asked you why you aren't complaining about bonus pool adding noise to the division rank. Why are you hypocritically using the noise argument against a global ladder but not against the bonus pool system? You also say that division rank rewards constant playing. If this were true, then points would be completely meaningless, because it would imply that the more you play, the more points you get, and the higher your division rank. But it's not true. The ladder system rewards playing only to the extent that bonus pool is used up. Not only is this statement wrong, it's also irrelevant to the discussion. Next, you talk about leagues giving an idea of how good you are. But this is very broad. If you're in diamond this means you're in the top 20%-40%. This is a very large skill range, and gives very little information. This is why there should be a global ladder or percentile. Even if it's in increments of 5%, it would still provide like 4 times more information. Also, how does a tournament solve anything? Does it reveal your true rank? How can I compare my rank to yours? This is basically the argument behind Master's league: 98% of the players don't deserve to see their true rank. It's very condescending. Despite the fact that most player's MMR won't tend to improve, it is a horribly bad argument to claim that a global ladder discourages playing due to the feeling of getting stuck. Firstly, there's no reason why anything needs to be taken away. If you're encouraged to play because you really care about how you're ranked in your division of 100 faceless randoms, then there's no reason why that can't continue to motivate you. Secondly, the new level system is designed to encourage people to play. Thirdly, why don't you complain about bonus pool discouraging people to play? Blizzard claims that bonus pool is to help people to "catch up", but this is completely wrong. The bonus pool CAUSES the gap in the first place. When you log on, your meaningless division rank would have fallen BECAUSE other player's have used their bonus pool. The bonus pool is the problem, not the solution. Why doesn't the fact that everyday the bonus pool is the cause of seeing your rank fall, which is psychologically worse than stagnating, discourage people from playing? Why don't you use this argument to complain about the bonus pool. Fourthly, a global ladder would continue to rank using points, so there will be no stagnation because of the bonus pool system (it's worse). So you're completely wrong, But even worse, it is utterly hypocritical for you to claim that the problem is noise and fluctuation in your previous post and then claim that the problem is actually stagnation in the above post. What is it? At least get your story straight. I find the level of your cognitive dissonance in defending Blizzard's flawed and contradictory design very troubling. Did you read Sirlin's thoughts about the ladder? (He was involved at the early stage.) Did you hear DBs statements at Blizzcons and other interviews? I don't think it is useful to just present own thoughts without knowing why the decision were made in the first place. You use a lot of strong words like "hypocritical" and "uterly" and so on; you try to construct contradictions without addressing the actual issue Blizzard is facing. There has been a lot said about the bonus pool, the actual reason is to implement ladder point decay for not playing but do it inversly with rewarding playing so that the player on a break doesn't feel punished. Keep dodging. Yes, I've read Sirlin and I've listened to Pardo and Browder at Blizzcon. Sirlin didn't design the ladder. There's no evidence that I've seen to suggest that he's even consulted on it. It's all just spin and it's entirely wrong. Just look at Pardo tell us how fun it is climbing the ranks in your own little, insignificant, faceless and meaningless division, when the ladder system was first revealed at Blizzcon. It's laughable. No amount of you sheepishly regurgitating their bad logic will change the fact that these arguments are contradictory, hypocritical, and just plain wrong. I think the basic intent was just to create tangible goals. For most people, even the very hardcore, there is a common understanding of "let me just get higher than this person above me." Even though points mostly don't tell you anything, even though division ranks aren't comparable, even though there's no unified skill-categorized ladder, you still look at your division and think "let me get past this guy, then that's it for tonight." SF4 has a points system and a global ranking. I can tell you from personal experience that I think no differently of my opponent whether he's rank #7,854 or #16,210 or #21,822. It's so easy to shift hundreds of positions in just a short time. Therefore, I have to mentally create new skill definitions: "okay if he's got 1K player points he's probably not very good, 2K is okay, 3K is pretty good, 4K is tournament level". The rank number is mostly meaningless to me unless the opponent is in the top 1,000 or is in the top 100 in the character-specific rankings ("wow that was the #2 Sagat? that wasn't so bad"). Of course divisions don't help you understand where you are in the grand scheme at all, and that becomes a major complaint especially for people who are in the top ranks of their division because they lose their incentive to play. For what it does, however, I think it's mostly fine (maybe they could show a league rank by points in-client on a separate leaderboard?) because the alternative is honestly not very spectacular.
This is the same strawman argument that [F_]aths used. No one is arguing that divisions should be removed. While I suspect that removing divisions would have little to no effect on motivation, it's not what I'm arguing.
This idea of "let me get higher than someone higher than me" makes no sense to any rational player. Because rational players know that the division rank is meaningless. You hear about people on the forums talking about wanting to get promoted into the next league. That's a real goal. That has meaning. Leagues have meaning, they can be interpreted. When's the last time you read about someone wanting to achieve the goal of getting to the top of the division ladder? People don't care, and they are right to not care, because it's meaningless.
In fact, this argument about motivation to play on the ladder is something we've already gone over: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=341648¤tpage=20#399
And talking about rank #7,854 and #21,822 is the exact same sloppy logic and strawman argument that Blizzard used to try to sell this terrible ladder system in the first place. Of course, such a rank cannot be interpreted without context. But that's why it should be displayed as a percentile as I've already said in this thread:
You talk about noise as if it's the death of the global ladder. But this can be address by using a percentile (e.g. 67th percentile), or incrementing percentiles by 5 (e.g. top 5%, top 10%, top 15%, etc). But guess what, changes in division ranks are also completely meaningless due to the fluctuation caused by bonus pool. You log off for a 2 days and you've fallen 10 ranks because everyone else has used up their bonus pool. That's noise that distorts the already worthless division rank. Why don't you complain about that
You've been defending Blizzard's ladder system for a long time now. So why don't you stick to those arguments and use them to criticize Blizzard for deciding to re-implement losses in HotS?
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Well done Bilz! I'm excited, i'm not casual but i love this
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On October 27 2012 01:18 soon.Cloak wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2012 02:24 MegaFonzie wrote:On October 26 2012 02:23 Wildmoon wrote:
I can't really complain about a good thing that doesn't hurt anything. bingo gonna third this. hard-core won't care, and casuals may appreciate it. why not?
blizzard only has so many resources to work with. Many things need to be implemented before this. the fact that we don't have actual clans yet is concerning. automated tournaments would be a cool way to get people to keep playing. if you think blizzard has unlimited resources they put towards SC2 just because it's a big company you're wrong. they only have so many people to work with so until they implement the much needed things that will actually help the game i don't support this change. although it seems pretty much complete so there is no use complaining now
I do have a bone to pick with blizzard though. Leveling? the only thing this does is turn getting 1000 wins into a level system. It is good because it is more casual friendly than setting the benchmark at x amount of wins. However, it won't change much of people playing the game. leveling is certainly appealing in some ways, and it will probably get a couple more people to be a little more interested in the game. but there are changes that are needed much more than this. leveling should be at the lowest priority.
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On October 27 2012 01:57 Salient wrote:
Ideally, the rewards system would give points for skills relevant to RTS games. For example, give points for not getting supply blocked or for executing a standard build order perfectly. Conversely, it would be a waste of time to give points for meaningless achievements that don't have any connection with actual RTS skills. The goal should be to use the rewards system to teach noobs how to play. You can give them silly electronic trophies too if they need something shiny.
This is a fluff system that rewards time spent playing the game, and that's the way it should be.
It's not meant to measure how good a player is or make them better players or change how they play the game. It's meant to encourage playing by using a time-tested, RPG-style level system.
That's what makes it a great system. This isn't suppose to be ladder-points-lite.
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On October 27 2012 02:13 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2012 01:57 Salient wrote:
Ideally, the rewards system would give points for skills relevant to RTS games. For example, give points for not getting supply blocked or for executing a standard build order perfectly. Conversely, it would be a waste of time to give points for meaningless achievements that don't have any connection with actual RTS skills. The goal should be to use the rewards system to teach noobs how to play. You can give them silly electronic trophies too if they need something shiny. This is a fluff system that rewards time spent playing the game, and that's the way it should be. It's not meant to measure how good a player is or make them better players or change how they play the game. It's meant to encourage playing by using a time-tested, RPG-style level system. That's what makes it a great system. This isn't suppose to be ladder-points-lite.
but the leveling system was made for RPGs not RTS games. do you think that it will have the impact blizzard is looking for? i mean when you're leveling to unlock a new powerful spell or to build up your character to win a boss fight is one thing, but for what, portraits? that's completely different. i mean, you are right about it being a "fluff system" in the sense that its not going to do anything but encourage players to play more.
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I'd like to see it like this:
*Each level gives you a new portrait and a chance for the following rewards:, A decal, a alternative spell fx (Zeratul's blink effect for your stalkers with that cool smoke effect for example), a unit skin (Tomato Baneling or bunny Zergling stuff, or something smaller like a different blade for zealots etc). Or a different voice over for your race.
*After each ranked ladder match you have x % chance for any of above to drop (very low drop chance)
*If you're impatient and just want an entire themed set right away (for example, Fruit Zerg pack) you can buy it in the ingame store with battle.net balance.
*You can disable custom FX and skins in the option menu so your opponent only has the default skins.
*Once you're lvl 20 you can still earn XP and 'level up' but you don't get a new portrait or go to lvl 21 but you still get the other rewards.
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On October 27 2012 00:56 [F_]aths wrote:
There has been a lot said about the bonus pool, the actual reason is to implement ladder point decay for not playing but do it inversly with rewarding playing so that the player on a break doesn't feel punished.
You continue to dodge most parts of my posts and use strawman arguments. What you've written here is a zombie idea. No matter how many times I debunk it, it keep springing back up.
It's completely wrong. It's so so so so so wrong. And I don't see how anyone who has taken a moment to think about it can possibly get it so wrong.
Here's why it's wrong:
Yes, it is like the WoW rested XP system. It's almost surely based off the same philosophy: instead of punishing you by reducing XP by 50% if you played too long, they doubled all XP and made rested XP a 100% bonus. This was back in WoW's beta.
But there are also major differences. WoW is a competitive game, but levelling up in WoW is not. So the punishment of seeing your rank fall every day you log in because of bonus pool is not felt in WoW. This is something that they failed to see. This punishment cancels out the reward of increased points. When you log in, you must play games to catch up to where you were before.
In WoW, eventually you graduate out of leveling. In SC2, ladder is the game. So this punishment is persistent. It's like running an endless race and whenever you catch-up to the pack, you're destined to fall behind again, and then you need to start the work of catching up all over again, ad infinitum.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=341648¤tpage=21#403
Also please stop repeating the debunked argument that bonus pool is a psychological "feel good" reward. Any "reward" in terms of extra points for activity is self-defeating -- it cancels itself out. It doesn't take into account the punishment of your rank falling, and having to play catch up. The problem is that you don't understand that giving a reward for activity is NOT a reward. It's psychologically neutral, the reward is symmetric to the punishment. But it stuffs up the rankings which is why it's a bad idea.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=341648¤tpage=21#405
The bonus pool is disingenuous. Or at least Blizzard's reason is. Here's what they say about the bonus pool: Show nested quote +Q. What is the Bonus Pool and how are bonus points acquired? A. The Bonus Pool is an accumulation of points that every player receives whether they're online and playing or not. They're essentially used as a means to help give a player a catch-up boost if they haven't played in a while. The pool does have a cap, but it increases slowly until the end of a season. http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/110519 This is so wrong that it can almost be classed as a lie. The bonus pool doesn't help you catch-up with other players. The reason you even need to catch-up in the first place is because of the bonus pool. The bonus pool doesn't help close the divergence between points of 2 equally skilled players, it is the CAUSE of the divergence. If there were no bonus pool, after playing ~30 games you'll hit your MMR and you'll only fluctuate around this point as you continue to play games. This is what happens when you've used up your bonus pool anyway. There would be no need to catch-up, other than to play enough games to avoid point decay (which is the correct way to implement bonus pool). The bonus pool system causes endless inflation of points until the seasonal ladder reset. This also causes the ladder to never stabilize. E.g. Player 1 and 2 are ranked 10 and 15 respectively, and have used their bonus pool. Player 1 is better than player 2. The next day, player 1 doesn’t play, so he falls to rank 15 because others have used their bonus pool. Player 2 uses his bonus pool moving him to rank 12. Player 2 is now erroneously ranked higher than player 1, until player 1 and all the other players use their bonus pool, to increase their points, bumping player 2 down. Since the ladder never stabilizes, this again delegitimizes ladder ranks. In fact, ladder ranks are only correct when everyone has used up their bonus pool. The intention of bonus pool is obviously the same idea as XP decay in the WC3 AMM, but disguised as a reward. Thus, the bonus pool is a psychological gimmick. But it’s not a reward, because every time you log in, your rank falls, since others have used their bonus pool. Hence, it is a failed psychological gimmick. Bonus pool should be redesigned so it is the extra points you get for playing in the WoW arena system that is used to move your displayed rating (points) to quickly converge to your MMR. Point decay should be implemented. Another alternative is to freeze inactive players from the ladder. So if you haven't played a game for, say, 2 weeks and you're ranked 25. It will still be recorded on your profile that your last known rank was 25, until the ladder reset or until you become active again. But you won't be on the official ladder, until you've played a minimum of, say, 3 games. After these 3 games, you're put right back where you left off plus those 3 games played. This will make ladder ranks more accurate because the scope of the ladder is changed to ranking all active players. Currently, an active player can be ranked higher than inactive player, because of their activity. The ladder doesn't measure skill, it measures activity+skill. If we kick the inactive players off the ladder, we can make a ladder that measures skill only, while solving the problem of inactive players camping at high or untouchable ratings.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=341648¤tpage=20#397
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EPT
