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Dear Blizzard,
I have never made a game capable of filling stadiums with tens of thousands of spectators. I don't have 11 million players playing in a world I created. Nor do I have 2.5 billion dollars laying around in my bank account. I am simply one fan with an opinion I think you need to hear.
As a competitive StarCraft II player, I feel obliged to let you know that I find your current ladder system disappointing. I understand it is a work in progress and you have a million other things to work on, so I don't want to focus on the technical shortcomings. Instead I will consider only the changes that have already been made.
From the overall design of a segregated ladder and recent changes such as removing division numbers and taking away the ability for any player to create a uniquely identifiable name, it is obvious that you intend to obscure each player's global ranking information as much as possible. While your goal may be to let us all feel better about ourselves, I find it frustrating and condescending. I want to know how I stand compared to everyone, and as it turns out, I'm not alone.
Since I launched StarCraftRankings.com a little over a month ago, over 30,000 people have checked the rankings of themselves and their friends more than 500,000 times. My logs show that several hundred of those were even from your own office.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy writing my own ladder page for a game I love, but I think we'd all prefer that you just stop hiding information from your most dedicated fans in the first place.
An eternal fan,
Gibybo
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I have posted it on the front page of StarCraftRankings.com but I would appreciate some community support 
On Blizzard's forums: http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25026573397&sid=5000
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On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:
As a self-appointed representative of competitive StarCraft II players,
stopped reading here
User was temp banned for this post.
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thats a shame because what followed was intelligent
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Awesome man, personal thanks from me for making that site btw I've certainly used it. Hopefully you can use the site to leverage your case and get some real attention. Real feels condescending by Blizzard to try and hide the global ratings.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Signed a million times over.
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On May 22 2010 19:02 Crunchums wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:
As a self-appointed representative of competitive StarCraft II players, stopped reading here
You shouldn't have, the point he makes about starcraftrankings.com is really valid.
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Nice letter. I really hope that blizzard totally changes battlenet. Leagues are okay but divisions are not. Let's hope they remove the division crap and add a nice ranking. I also hope that the facebook thing gets removed.
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On May 22 2010 19:02 Crunchums wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:
As a self-appointed representative of competitive StarCraft II players, stopped reading here
You shouldn't have.
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I completely agree with you Gibybo.
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On May 22 2010 19:04 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Signed a million times over.
This.
/Signed
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On May 22 2010 19:02 Crunchums wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:
As a self-appointed representative of competitive StarCraft II players, stopped reading here
That's unfortunate, I thought I made it clear with 'self-appointed' that I did not mean to claim I spoke for anyone else, although I think it is clear a lot of people agree with the message overall.
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Absolutely agreed. You never cease to amaze me, Gibybo. I feel the same way. You do a better job of explaining it than I would though >_<
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/signed sealed and sent to elven_z for playtesting...
Post on the official forums!
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On May 22 2010 19:09 Gibybo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 19:02 Crunchums wrote:On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:
As a self-appointed representative of competitive StarCraft II players, stopped reading here That's unfortunate, I thought I made it clear with 'self-appointed' that I did not mean to claim I spoke for anyone else, although I think it is clear a lot of people agree with the message overall.
You should take out "self appointed". Instead of showing Bliz that you don't "mean to claim [you] spoke for anyone else", it seems more like you're being pretentious.
Besides that... I agree with your message.
Signed.
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I think you're right, I've modified the wording a little to better fit the tone I was going for.
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You sure as hell have my support.
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i dont mind the divisions as i actually find them to be kinda fun. But there should be someway of finding out if im better ranked than my friends. Mb just remove the bonus pool. then the score would be even for all the divisons.
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*signed and agreed in full.
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Supported!
But did they say they that they won't make an overall ladder ranking in the final release?
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On May 22 2010 19:14 leveller wrote:
/signed sealed and sent to elven_z for playtesting...
Post on the official forums!
I feel like such a nerd for knowing what that means, but ROFL.
Also if Blizzard made a decent ladder system, users like the OP wouldn't need to make these sites in the first place. But yeah removing identifiers screwed a lot of people over.
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/Signed
Hope Blizzard complies, I'm sick of this.
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they not gonna change bear it guys ; / w3 had amazing ladder system before patch 1.14 but they change it since tones of nubs were crying that they play game so long and they deserve to have higher level :D so now u have system that dont show where u realy are making all these guys feel like omg im top 10 !!
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/Signed
especially the identifiers part.
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On May 22 2010 19:25 Lylat wrote:
Supported!
But did they say they that they won't make an overall ladder ranking in the final release?
They have commented several times in support of their current division system, suggesting that an overall ladder ranking would not be as useful.
They have also mentioned their pro league a few times as a prestigious ladder, but the details on how it will be implemented remain hidden. It's likely they haven't decided exactly how they want to do it yet. My hope is that with a little pressure from the community they will get it right and solve most of the global rankings problem. Without that pressure, though, I fear that they will simply continue along their current path of information hiding.
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Agreed... but probably not a simple solution here... they left the leveling system of war3 for a reason... but divisions isn't the best as we all agree here.
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I don't play SC2 much but I agree completely with everything you have said.
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Katowice25012 Posts
I can't say I agree with this more, it had me so up in arms briefly that I wrote a piece on it.
They haven't said shit about what the pro league thing will be though, so I have my fingers crossed that this is all in vain and that league will address our problems. Who knows!
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Axing identifiers is stupid, I always felt that they were perfectly reasonable way to avoid harassment for more famous players, because they could keep it secret. I don't want random people to know my email, real name and other things when I add them to my friendlist, if I wanted them to know, I'd tell them. The divisions are exotic, but still somewhat decent solution, as long as ratings between leagues would be comparable, which they aren't.
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ok so im just looking at blizzards point of view
but when it comes to competive players like us you kind of know how you rank due to the tourneys i.e i don't mind not knowing how good i am compaired to the other <25 rank plat players
then i play in a aus/nz torney and i know where i stand
or would you like to see that the plat players are ranked in a "REAL" number but the rest be unchanged
but hay thats just me
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On May 22 2010 19:20 sidesprang wrote:
i dont mind the divisions as i actually find them to be kinda fun. But there should be someway of finding out if im better ranked than my friends. Mb just remove the bonus pool. then the score would be even for all the divisons.
I agree with this. The divisions are fun but please give us the option to see where we rank against everyone else outside of my division.
also, /sign to the original post.
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On May 22 2010 19:39 Gretch wrote:
ok so im just looking at blizzards point of view
but when it comes to competive players like us you kind of know how you rank due to the tourneys i.e i don't mind not knowing how good i am compaired to the other <25 rank plat players
then i play in a aus/nz torney and i know where i stand
or would you like to see that the plat players are ranked in a "REAL" number but the rest be unchanged
but hay thats just me
Yeah I think having the top league have only one division would be a fine solution, assuming they also fix the duplicate names problem so we can tell who is who. Tournaments are mathematically a much less accurate (fewer games to get data from) way of determining skill levels than a well designed ladder so I'm not satisfied with that.
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I completely support you.
Ever and ever, this is SO DAMN TRUE.
/signed.
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I agree with you Gibybo. Personnally I really enjoyed the Warcraft3 Ladder that was even better than the previous SC2 ladder. Your website was like this and that's why enjoyed it. I hope you will be able to continue.
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On May 22 2010 19:28 crappyleft wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 19:14 leveller wrote:
/signed sealed and sent to elven_z for playtesting...
Post on the official forums! I feel like such a nerd for knowing what that means, but ROFL. Also if Blizzard made a decent ladder system, users like the OP wouldn't need to make these sites in the first place. But yeah removing identifiers screwed a lot of people over.
How do you think I felt for writing it?
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More plat newbs that think their awesome by being top 10 in their division = happier newbs that will play longer and purchase more Activision/blizzard expansions/paid services. The "everybodies a winner" syndrome is leaking over from wow. Thanks activision.
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the current sc2 dev team is so stubborn!
they hear criticism and get defensive
they passionately defend their poor ideas to protect their ego, and refuse to objectively look at the pile of garbage they've created (bnet 2.0)
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I like the division idea, however i don't see why that has to exclude an overall ranking for everyone so /signed i guess :D
ALSO I WANT CHATROOMS!
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Signed as one of the people who has visited your site already!
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Chatrooms, global ranking, simple friend adding... So simple things that are possible in other games for a very long time and blizzard fails to implement it properly. Those things are BASICS...
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For what it's worth:
QFT, /signed, +1 etc etc
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my thoughts exactly, i don't know why they think that creating an illusion will award people with a sense of achievement and progress, we aren't that dumb.
/signed
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absolutely true. dont dare to do the same shit to sc2 as you did to wow. we dont want a casual game. we want to know how good we really are and if i am the last of the last on rank 10 million i also would like to know that. give us more feedback on our global rank !
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Add a petition ot it, ideas for solving it and it's done! With your website numbers backing it up Blizzard can't ignore it.
Idea:
Making platinum and pro league one single division.
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Gonna add my support to this as well.
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wholehartedly agree with this.
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/Signed by some SC kid ^^(the guy that said he stopped reading "here", well "here" wasn't in that post ^^)
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I agree. I feel lonely in a tiny little division with no way of comparing myself to the outside. I'm only a Silver level player and would have no problem being ranking 100 000 or higher. The problem with identifiers was how hidden they were and while finding the identifier out was annoying it's better than now.
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Weird that they now flaunt our personal details (name) around with no regard for privacy, yet wont give us the ability to search ladders. Doesn't make a scrap of sense.
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supported in full. If they want to keep the divisions so be it, but they need a global stats page in game, so it would be easier just to do away with the divisions.
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signed WE NEED GLOBAL RANKKING
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Need. You should post this on the official forums too if you haven't already
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/Signed, hopefully blizz will take us seriously.
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so where do i have to sign? 
it was a pleasure reading a well thought out and equally well written letter. good job there!
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On May 22 2010 19:47 Gibybo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 19:39 Gretch wrote:
ok so im just looking at blizzards point of view
but when it comes to competive players like us you kind of know how you rank due to the tourneys i.e i don't mind not knowing how good i am compaired to the other <25 rank plat players
then i play in a aus/nz torney and i know where i stand
or would you like to see that the plat players are ranked in a "REAL" number but the rest be unchanged
but hay thats just me Yeah I think having the top league have only one division would be a fine solution, assuming they also fix the duplicate names problem so we can tell who is who. Tournaments are mathematically a much less accurate (fewer games to get data from) way of determining skill levels than a well designed ladder so I'm not satisfied with that.
i see your point all good
and yes i would like the names porblem to be fixed also
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On May 22 2010 19:04 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Signed a million times over.
Says it all. I just hope this one gets attention (after all, I can't remember them acquiescing to that LAN petition way back when).
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United States22883 Posts
I wanted to say something catchy like "I wish this was a closed letter to Blizzard" but I actually agree completely. :/
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Signed and agreed in full.
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Blizzard needs to take a page out of microsoft's playbook and just completely scrap battle.net 2.0 like microsoft did to vista
and release battle.net 7.0... ill even be in their "battle.net 7 was my idea" commercials
battle.net 2.0 is just far too hard to navigate, im a very curious gamer
i go around adding lots of user names, looking at various players who are 2200+ rating
I look at match histories, losses, and build orders of players I don't personally know
with chatrooms along with a single ladder, i could just spam click and view many top gamers at once, look at their match histories and losses in a matter of seconds
such a simple task is incredibly tedious on battle.net 2.0
battle.net had /stats /profile (for wc3) and /whisper (for people not on friends list)
shit was just way too easy back then, i guess i took it for granted t.t
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/Signed
Thanks for the site, I never knew about it.
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that's really nice and i support it, but it would have been nice if you made a refresh just befor the stats were reset
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Removing ID is dumb, how are we supposed to play leagues/tournaments now? By adding thousands of RL friend just to play 1/2 games of tournaments? lol
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signed, we really need global rankings. What blizzard did in new patch - lets show how bad it is. Make everyone nickname on bnet same, something like 'White-Ra' and there will be so many players with this nick and we can hope blizzard will see how badly was remove identifiers. BTW im sorry to White-Ra for example his nice nickname ;]
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On May 22 2010 19:04 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Signed a million times over.
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While I see the current system as completely awful, I think they should just make the ladders open for search. I want to be able to have a page like the wow armory where I can browse the stats of all players and their rankings, even if that means they keep their arbitrary divisions.
But best thing of cause, would be to have one big bad ass division with everyone from Diamond, instead of divisions, or instead of those shitty battlegroups they figured out were such a success in WoW. A hint as to why they're doing this I think.
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On May 22 2010 20:53 Integra wrote:
<beating a dead horse animation>
We're in beta and major changes continue to be made to the ladder system. When something is this obviously broken, I will not give up until it's fixed.
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Hm, i dont really think that a global ranking is needed, its a fun toy to look at but the true measurement for players will be in tournaments. ladder in my eyes is practice and on higher levels probably mostly used when no practice partner is online for cgs.
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I really hope blizzard takes this seriously.
/Signed
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Divisions and whatnot are fine, and the removal of division numbers just makes it so people stop thinking lower number = better players... The biggest issue is with the inability to see rankings, as you've pointed out.
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I agree totally.
they could still keep the leagues but take off the divisions.
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On May 22 2010 20:53 Integra wrote:![[image loading]](http://www.moltenimage.com/photos/animated/beating-a-dead-horse.gif)
when blizzard refuses to acknowledge the flaws, then we're going to continue to voice our criticism
and not only did they not acknowledge the problems, they made bnet 2.0 even worse
On May 22 2010 20:56 {ToT}ColmA wrote:
Hm, i dont really think that a global ranking is needed, its a fun toy to look at but the true measurement for players will be in tournaments. ladder in my eyes is practice and on higher levels probably mostly used when no practice partner is online for cgs.
there is not a single amateur-pro gamer that did not, at one time, take a league/ladder practice very seriously
on the release of the wc3, all the very best players were playing mass games on the ladder for many months until the game eventually faded from WoW hype and the competition died out
Ladder competition isnt going to die out until the second expansion pack is released, all the strategies are established, and sponsored teams are assembled
A big reason the ladder isnt competitive because 1) it isnt global so you wont even know who is at the top and 2) there isnt a top 16-32 player tournament at the end of each season for actual incentive to top the ladder
long after wc3's strong competitive base faded away, blizzard managed to resurrect a little bit of the competition by creating a special ladder where the top players were invited to their blizzard world wide invitational tournament
people took this ladder VERY seriously
I envisioned a global ladder where the top 32 players are taken weekly or monthly for a bnet run tournament
this would create a large amount of games played by competitive gamers on the ladder at the end of the week/month probably
i thought they were going to do something like this except with the more complicated divisional system (top 8 from each division)
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well composed and totally right
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ALLEYCAT BLUES49918 Posts
/signed
most respectful letter written to blizzard
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I agree completely.
also, people on the battlenet forums are kind of stupid...
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great job on ur site and great job on ur mail agree with all
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SIGNED
even though I'm in the copper/silver range I would like to see exactly where I stand so I can tell if I'm makeing any progress or not.
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On May 22 2010 19:53 billyX333 wrote:
the current sc2 dev team is so stubborn!
they hear criticism and get defensive
they passionately defend their poor ideas to protect their ego, and refuse to objectively look at the pile of garbage they've created (bnet 2.0)
You're sorely wrong on that. There are some apparent correlation between patches and discussion that were had on Team Liquid. The Starcraft 2 development team listens to these thread and they sometimes make change related to them.
On the subject though, I don't have any gripe with the ladder system. I think ratings are trivial and only matter when used to match a player against a player of similar skill. In my experience, that works. Knowing your rating relatively to others serves only to indicate improvement or decrease. I see the ladder as being adequate.
Having a global ladder with a single division would not necessarily be more accurate. It would however, be far more crowded. As for the top players, isn't the the professional league?
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Gibyo I fully understand your point and to some degree endorse it. But my heart tells me to respectfully disagree. Believe it or not a lot of us suck at this game, and we are going to be mere statistics with respect to the global ranking; yes, that would be the majority of us. Most of us would prefer to strive for number 1 (or top 10, or top 50, or even top 100) in a division than striving for say, being 10,050th on the global rankings. The point you make about it being condescending is not without merit, but I think it needs to take into account more context. The people condescended by this are only the people who are good enough to be condescended by it... if you get my drift. In the end I think this system is more friendly to the majority, perhaps the vast majority, of gamers out there. And that probably means selling more copies. I actually think a third party mechanism like your website, or even one created by Blizzard outside of bnet, may be a decent compromise. Who knows... the ladder system can definitely be improved in more ways than one.
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defintely signed. At the very least it should be possible to choose if you want to be visible in a ranked list or not.
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On May 22 2010 21:23 Hydrolisko wrote:
Gibyo I fully understand your point and to some degree endorse it. But my heart tells me to respectfully disagree. Believe it or not a lot of us suck at this game, and we are going to be mere statistics with respect to the global ranking; yes, that would be the majority of us. Most of us would prefer to strive for number 1 (or top 10, or top 50, or even top 100) in a division than striving for say, being 10,050th on the global rankings. The point you make about it being condescending is not without merit, but I think it needs to take into account more context. The people condescended by this are only the people who are good enough to be condescended by it... if you get my drift. In the end I think this system is more friendly to the majority, perhaps the vast majority, of gamers out there. And that probably means selling more copies. I actually think a third party mechanism like your website, or even one created by Blizzard outside of bnet, may be a decent compromise. Who knows... the ladder system can definitely be improved in more ways than one.
What if they did both?
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^
Why should we need a 3rd party tool for all that? I agree that this is to cater the waves of noobs out there, but Blizzard should make sure the top players could easily know where they stand. I'm sure that having both systems in place (integrating a StarCraftrankings like ladder while keeping the current division system) would be a fair compromise.
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On May 22 2010 21:26 Gibybo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 21:23 Hydrolisko wrote:
Gibyo I fully understand your point and to some degree endorse it. But my heart tells me to respectfully disagree. Believe it or not a lot of us suck at this game, and we are going to be mere statistics with respect to the global ranking; yes, that would be the majority of us. Most of us would prefer to strive for number 1 (or top 10, or top 50, or even top 100) in a division than striving for say, being 10,050th on the global rankings. The point you make about it being condescending is not without merit, but I think it needs to take into account more context. The people condescended by this are only the people who are good enough to be condescended by it... if you get my drift. In the end I think this system is more friendly to the majority, perhaps the vast majority, of gamers out there. And that probably means selling more copies. I actually think a third party mechanism like your website, or even one created by Blizzard outside of bnet, may be a decent compromise. Who knows... the ladder system can definitely be improved in more ways than one. What if they did both?
I was about to explicitly address that point but deleted it because it was getting too wordy. But the thing about doing both is somewhat implicitly addressed in the last couple sentences. Basically, people don't want to be reminded that they're a statistic daily, having both would still have that effect. For example, I'd have a division rank of 11th, and a global ranking of 10000. That is why I think a third party (or even Blizz) outside of bnet should have the global ranking, that way ppl can check it at their whim if they're curious, and not be reminded daily that they really don't matter in the big picture.
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On May 22 2010 21:21 Tdelamay wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 19:53 billyX333 wrote:
the current sc2 dev team is so stubborn!
they hear criticism and get defensive
they passionately defend their poor ideas to protect their ego, and refuse to objectively look at the pile of garbage they've created (bnet 2.0)
You're sorely wrong on that. There are some apparent correlation between patches and discussion that were had on Team Liquid. The Starcraft 2 development team listens to these thread and they sometimes make change related to them. ?
you're right, on some issues like micro, ultralisks, forcefields, and zerg being boring/not diverse; they have definitely made some good changes
but from every interview i've read involving blizzard devs
they are always defending their ideas that may be viewed in a critical light
like about the mothership going from being an overpowered hero unit to being big slow worthless arbiter, devs will passionately disagree with you
when a person asked about moving shot, they said they see nothing wrong with the engine and defending themselves saying "its impossible to perfectly mimic the BW engine"
and much criticism around battle.net's division/ladder system has been dismissed or put on the bottom of a long priorities list
I could go on and on and make references to blizzard dev interviews where they dismiss criticism or throw it into a long "to-do" list
a to-do list that apparently had facebook integration as one of the very top priorities
+ Show Spoiler +once blizzard is able to look at an addition/nerf and immediately undo it due to poor reviews, then i'll believe the dev team has officially removed themselves from their egos and dont feel a need to stubbornly adhere to their bad ideas/mistakes
right now the only changes you're referring to are just adjustments/changes/additions
i havent seen them look at anything they've done specifically and been like "you know what, that was a bad idea we need to remove/undo that
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/signed
I like your website a lot but I wish it wasn't necessary.
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On May 22 2010 21:31 Hydrolisko wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 21:26 Gibybo wrote:On May 22 2010 21:23 Hydrolisko wrote:
Gibyo I fully understand your point and to some degree endorse it. But my heart tells me to respectfully disagree. Believe it or not a lot of us suck at this game, and we are going to be mere statistics with respect to the global ranking; yes, that would be the majority of us. Most of us would prefer to strive for number 1 (or top 10, or top 50, or even top 100) in a division than striving for say, being 10,050th on the global rankings. The point you make about it being condescending is not without merit, but I think it needs to take into account more context. The people condescended by this are only the people who are good enough to be condescended by it... if you get my drift. In the end I think this system is more friendly to the majority, perhaps the vast majority, of gamers out there. And that probably means selling more copies. I actually think a third party mechanism like your website, or even one created by Blizzard outside of bnet, may be a decent compromise. Who knows... the ladder system can definitely be improved in more ways than one. What if they did both? I was about to explicitly address that point but deleted it because it was getting too wordy. But the thing about doing both is somewhat implicitly addressed in the last couple sentences. Basically, people don't want to be reminded that they're a statistic daily, having both would still have that effect. For example, I'd have a division rank of 11th, and a global ranking of 10000. That is why I think a third party (or even Blizz) outside of bnet should have the global ranking, that way ppl can check it at their whim if they're curious, and not be reminded daily that they really don't matter in the big picture.
How about bronze-platinum stay as they are, and they just change diamond to one division? It doesn't completely solve the issue because I'm sure there are some bronze-platinum players who want to know their overall ranking, but for the most part I think players in diamond want to know global ranks and those in other leagues want to know division ranks.
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Signed as well ! Go get them!
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On May 22 2010 21:23 Hydrolisko wrote:
Gibyo I fully understand your point and to some degree endorse it. But my heart tells me to respectfully disagree. Believe it or not a lot of us suck at this game, and we are going to be mere statistics with respect to the global ranking; yes, that would be the majority of us. Most of us would prefer to strive for number 1 (or top 10, or top 50, or even top 100) in a division than striving for say, being 10,050th on the global rankings. The point you make about it being condescending is not without merit, but I think it needs to take into account more context. The people condescended by this are only the people who are good enough to be condescended by it... if you get my drift. In the end I think this system is more friendly to the majority, perhaps the vast majority, of gamers out there. And that probably means selling more copies. I actually think a third party mechanism like your website, or even one created by Blizzard outside of bnet, may be a decent compromise. Who knows... the ladder system can definitely be improved in more ways than one.
I don't think the OP argues for scrapping the divisions and replacing it with a single unified ladder. Of course it would be frustrating and lame trying to advance from rank 27648242 on such a ladder. He just asks for a way to check one's global rank. I think that could easily coexist with the divisions. It doesn't need to be in your face all the time if you don't want to know.
As for me, although I'll never compete anywhere near the top, at least I'd like to know where I stand compared to, say, the average. I'm struggling to make sense of an information like being 50 gold. What does that mean, especially since gold, which in the olympics means win, labels the mediocre category in sc2. That's obscuring information for the sake of meaningless feel-good rhetorics indeed.
Therefore: signed.
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I fully endorse some way to check global rankings (as I've mentioned above). If that was his point then I endorse =).
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I am beginning to think I am the only one that likes divisions. I would like to see an overall rank added somewhere, but I think they divisions are very good for people that are not. It was pretty disheartening to see I was ranked 90 Billion'th on iCCup but it was fun to see I was in the Top 8 in the Silver Division.
Well maybe I don't like divisions so much now tho that I placed into the same one as: CauthonLuck, KawaiiRice, SLush, eeK, and Kiwikaki ;(......
But in all seriousness divisions are there for the casual fans (which outnumber us like 200-1) will find divisions very, very appealing.
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Signed. For what it's worth. Awesome, and I agree
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AGREED. (remove the bonus pool too!)
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I think people that like the division system need to suck it up. Do you really enjoy being tricked into thinking you're more important? I can't let myself get any satisfaction out of moving up in division ranking at all, because it's so clear that it's so fake.
Plus, in a global ranking system, you would see yourself move up and down hundreds of places with every win and loss. I don't see why this isn't enough for people, and they would rather be tricked instead...
\signed
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divisions are one of the myriad of reasons i stopped playing sc2 beta after about 2 weeks
if you manage to be more meaningless than iccup rank you are messing up badly
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I'm hoping they will add a site much like the wow armory for StarCraft 2 where you can see all the stats as aswell as a global ladder. This could even be a site for replay uploading and map sharing. Would be an amazing thing for the competetive scene I think.
That way they can keep their divisions, and only people who care about global rankings can lurk on the online ladders.
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Absolutely agree, I don't mind the division system as a motivating tool WITH a global ranking, but having just the system without a global ranking is just stupid.
I shouldn't have to go to a third party just to have any idea of how Im doing.
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I totally 100 percent fulheartedly agree with the OP. The ranking system and ladder system in SC2 is really disappointing to me. It simply isn't a true representation of the players skill level. Hopefully they will fix this and if not we always have sites like yours >.<
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Blizzard please read feedback.
You take every balancing idea from here, please take away important feedback on other parts of the game.
We hate divisions. The system doesn't do what we want. We love information, we want to see where we are in the game. We can take it. Please stop hiding behind the excuse of people abusing the system. Not only is it frightening that you think keeping people uneducated and unaware is the means to keep them in line, there is no evidence to suggest that telling us where we are will encourage people to intentionally keep themselves down. There's no logic to suggest that.
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also constantly checked starcraftrankings
/signed
(if blizz is too dumb to make their own comprehensive ladder overview just keep it, have some subtle ads and rake in)
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United States3701 Posts
/signed, I love starcraft rankings, it's a great creation!
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/Signed
sc2rankings is such a usefull tool. Keep up the good work Gibybo
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Signed also. SCrankings was exactly what should've been part of the system in the first place, not made by fan community. Recent changes imply blizzard feels sites like these are somehow hurting the game, eventhough they're monitored mostly by competitive players who aim high and are eager to know their place in the rankings. I really don't care if I'm #1 in division omega alpha centauri, if in fact it equals around #300 rank in all europe. There's no satisfaction in feeling good about ladder rankings if you can't compete against everyone.
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lol /signed and thx for your site... I agree completely and have 100 more complaints.
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/signed
I sincerely hope that something good will become of this.I really liked the site and I appreciate the effort you made.
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I agree with the entirety of the post, and let me explain my situation. I may be one of those people that should be disagreeing with you.
I log in maybe 5-6 hours total throughout the week, a good 2-4 hours of that is during one session. So I just login, hit find match, and I'm off. I don't really have many friends on bnet to speak of, I don't really enjoy talking to many people, I just want to play. I play the game, see if I've improved or not (based on points and win/loss), see what I should improve on, and play again.
That being said, I don't see why it would be bad if there is a "compare all" button so I can see, maybe even once in my entire SC2 career, how I'm doing compared to everyone. Granted, it's nice to see 5/30 or whatever vs 12345/10000, but at least I know I'm improving overall.
I'm very much hoping that the non-unique names and horrible facebook integration (as the ONLY reasonable way to add friends), is a large oversight. If it isn't, Blizzard is truly moving away from the spirit of SC1. Let's hope there are a large amount of changes after the beta is shutdown at the end of this month (my marriage anniversary date, coincidentally lol).
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Sorry if anyone already noted this, but wtf:
32 62 Random Dustin.browder 2014 73 34 68.22% May 11, 19:08
This is crazy
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On May 22 2010 22:30 Mangemongen wrote:
Sorry if anyone already noted this, but wtf:
32 62 Random Dustin.browder 2014 73 34 68.22% May 11, 19:08
This is crazy
Probably an impostor,
back on subject,
Signed, without identifiers and original names this just complicated all ranking, replay and tournament sites.
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Signed.
Thank you for your work with the rankings site as well, I check it frequently and really appreciate the service and your efforts!
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nice but um...lack of a signed letter is not what keeps the servers segregated...
also, i dont want to sign this because when Blizzard Sythetic Organisms (BSOs) are unleashed they will be hunting down every on this list firstwise.
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Signed. Bliz can make this simple, players need to turn it ON if they want to be easily tracked. Default to OFF.
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/Signed
Battle.Net 2.0 does not do justice to what great game the core of Starcraft 2 is
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I completely agree with the OP but one thing that you have to understand is Blizzard wants the players to feel good about themselves and encourage laddering. If there was just a single division no one would get anywhere because there would be umpteen thousand people ahead of you by just a few points. I say "fuck it and don't spare our feelings" however I am telling you blizzard isn't going to change this any time soon. High lvl players will simply have to rely on third party sites like this to see how they stack up against the global ratings.... I am already amazed the at the shear amount of third party "apps" and we are just in beta! I am sure many neat tools such as this will be highly utilized once launch...
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I am completely supporting this letter. Well written!
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signed here and on offical forums, thanks for all your hard work on starcraftrankings
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Signed
Ladder info should definitely be made easier to access.
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I like the league and division system to some extent but it would be better if there was also a global ranking available somewhere (even if only on Blizzard's site).
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United States12607 Posts
This is a cause I can get behind.
sidenote: oh my god battle.net forums are awful. Do they have a single mod over there?
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wooo bringing the WoW casual love to Sc2.
Don't you love making everyone feel good? Even if it means no real ladder rankings?
Lolol battlenet "2.0"
more like 0.2
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On May 22 2010 23:56 JWD wrote:
This is a cause I can get behind.
sidenote: oh my god battle.net forums are awful. Do they have a single mod over there?
Blizz doesnt mod their forums they ignore the vast majority of the posts and then randomly decide which ones get a blue post in response to causing the users to do more and more ridiculous things trying to entice a blue post. It's terrible I gave up on the bnet forums a long long time ago.
PS: Fix this crap... I'm so confused hell last patch my rank was u... and I couldnt view my own ladder. So not like it's much of a step down for me.
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edit: whoops I wish I could delete, made some kind of error.
Er, ladder ranking rage! Yeah!
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You have my support. Fucking signed.
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This is a good post but it should be left as a stand alone arguement blizzard frowns on petition posts again though excellent post just the petition aspect of support request is maybe not the best, a humble suggestion.
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Yea, i felt kind of disgusted and actually insulted by that crap.
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Don't agree in any way whatsoever, moreover I think petitions are about the furthest thing from getting a response or even a solution out of Blizzard. The league system is perfectly fine as is, the real problem is not being able to communicate with players outside of a match. This problem will be solved by CHAT CHANNELS not changing the leagues. The league system helps divide players into semi-accurate categories, and has been stated by Blizzard countless times there will be the implementation of 'pro' level leagues, invite only or something of that nature. To be honest seeing this many people taking the approach of 'lets whine like little girls' as the method to 'force Blizzard to change the horribly broken leagues' as quite simply the most disheartening thing I've read on a forum in quite some time.
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You got my support. Signed
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Signed.
I never was one to jump on the, "Blizzard only wants money!" train, but I am slowly going there.
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United States2095 Posts
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On May 23 2010 00:28 SichuanPanda wrote:
To be honest seeing this many people taking the approach of 'lets whine like little girls' as the method to 'force Blizzard to change the horribly broken leagues' as quite simply the most disheartening thing I've read on a forum in quite some time.
uh...
as opposed to being quiet and not saying anything?
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POST ON THE OFFICIAL FORUMS
signing it here doesn't do much compared to the REAL BLIZZARD FORUMS
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On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:
Since I launched StarCraftRankings.com a little over a month ago, over 30,000 people have checked the rankings of themselves and their friends more than 500,000 times. My logs show that several hundred of those were even from your own office.
Great argument my friend. Nothing more needs to be said.
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Agreed. Transparency is the best policy.
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Now that I've thought about it more, I'm finding a bit of logical discord between the act of creating a system by which to rank players and not informing them of their rank and how they are ranked.
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I think the system is perfectly fine IF they make the Diamond league the proper way.
If you're bad, you really don't need to know you're 10050th, all you need to know is "you're not quite there yet", and that you need to move up to this league and that league.
But if everyone knew that there was a Diamond league where the true ranking of the best players is revealed, it would be a pretty good solution in my opinion.
tl;dr version: this system is good for all leagues but Diamond. Make Diamond with transparent ranking.
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On May 23 2010 01:33 niteReloaded wrote:
I think the system is perfectly fine IF they make the Diamond league the proper way.
If you're bad, you really don't need to know you're 10050th, all you need to know is "you're not quite there yet", and that you need to move up to this league and that league.
But if everyone knew that there was a Diamond league where the true ranking of the best players is revealed, it would be a pretty good solution in my opinion.
tl;dr version: this system is good for all leagues but Diamond. Make Diamond with transparent ranking.
this is a great idea!
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Agreed. Companies understandably cater to the noobs and try and make them feel better (IE buffing Terran over and over again), but I dont see a good reason to hide someones true ranking or name. That by nature removes the sport and will definately have a huge effect on E sport with this game.
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On May 23 2010 01:43 Iron_ wrote:
Companies understandably cater to the noobs and try and make them feel better (IE buffing Terran over and over again),
So stupid.
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I thought they were doing divisions for tournaments? I'm willing to wait for it.
Keep the divisions, but allow an overall standings view as well.
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On May 23 2010 01:43 Iron_ wrote:
Agreed. Companies understandably cater to the noobs and try and make them feel better (IE buffing Terran over and over again),
Did you know that tvp was like 46%-54%?
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agree /signed for all parts.
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Yes, yes, yes. Yes to this, and every other problem B.net is currently having.
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i dont like the leagues system at all, but the new one is definitely worse then the old one.
it doesnt bear any significance if ur in division overlord rho or taccobell sierra. it just sounds like random words strung together.
and what i would very much like to see, is a tendency-meter. like how close are u to get promoted to the next higher league e.g.
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On May 23 2010 01:45 lew wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 01:43 Iron_ wrote:
Agreed. Companies understandably cater to the noobs and try and make them feel better (IE buffing Terran over and over again), Did you know that tvp was like 46%-54%?
did you know BW TvP, PvZ, AND ZvT were ALL 45%-55%?
Is BW broken and imbalanced?
crap, sorry for the tangent. agree in full
/sign
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/signed.
I don't understand why Blizzard hasn't implemented this yet. The Warcraft 3 ladder showed the top 1000 and people liked it. Why did they have to remove it?
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It would b nice if blizz could make a ladder system that told u your rank on the server u r playing on.
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/signed and agree 100% glhf
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Wish they listen to this.
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Signed, its such garbage that the fans have to put together 3rd party software just to get some kind of global ranking. I really appreciate all the work you do on starcraftrankings.com btw, thanks.
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+1, thanks for making starcraft rankings.com.
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Signed and has my full support! Why can't they just be simple and effective like ICCUP.
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/signed
cool site btw, how often does it update?
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Here's what I posted on the battle.net th read...
I support the idea of being able to toggle your personal view from divisional and global rankings. I find little reason anyone could argue otherwise- to simply give users the choice to view the information they desire in the way that pleases them would make everybody happy.
I'll even go as far to say that I'm fine with the default option being divisional rankings, but there is no reason that I know of to not allow us a choice.
Not so much digging the idea of "division rankings for everything except the top league," though. It's either got to be one way, the other, or both, for all leagues.
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/signed. i dont think anyone will disagree
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Signed, fully agree with your point
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I'm in silver league 1v1 and I'm only getting matched with players much higher than me.. its really annoying. My last 3 games have been with gold league players. and My last game was with a person in his placement matches, but he was in diamond league 2v2. It's like impossible for me to win a game now, and really annoying to play now. Before I was getting an even rank maybe like 20-17, now im like 3-10. I've probably gotten an even match like once, and I've never been a favored player.
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*signed and agreed. Thanks for everything Gibybo and your hard work. I love your site and how you put effort into it and I greatly appreciate it!
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They won't make a global ranking because it's meaningless for 99% of the playerbase. Pretty much only platiniums players would care, because for everyone else being 10,509th doesn't tell much, and doesn't make you care about being in the ladder. If you're 200th of course you start to get interest, but that's because you're probably "in the league" with the top.
You just have to break this mentally of ladder, that accompanied most RTS and Blizzard's since pretty much forever.
Instead, think of sports (...esports?) leagues.
Look at baseball. There is :
Minor League
Little League
Junior League
Senior League
Big League
Major League (the MLB)
Says you have a kid playing in the minor league. Do you think he cares about his ranking, from every single baseball players around the USA? No he doesn't, what he cares about is performing well within his division. He wants to do well against other people from his league, and over time he might move up to another league, but the "goal" is not necessarily to be in the MLB (plat). If you're in silver/copper, that doesn't mean you fail, you are just in the skill group appropriate for you, and from there you can be competitive, within you're league, like everyone else. He knows a MLB team could rape him a new one, but that's not the point those players are "out of his league" and he knows it. A global ranking is then completely pointless, because the skill range is just too wide. It's the exact same thing with Starcraft. With this model everyone can be competitive, with the old one players who weren't in the top 1000th lost interest.
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well written, I couldn't agree more.
/signed
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On May 23 2010 03:38 Shade692003 wrote:
They won't make a global ranking because it's meaningless for 99% of the playerbase. Pretty much only platiniums players would care, because for everyone else being 10,509th doesn't tell much, and doesn't make you care about being in the ladder. If you're 200th of course you start to get interest, but that's because you're probably "in the league" with the top.
You just have to break this mentally of ladder, that accompanied most RTS and Blizzard's since pretty much forever.
Instead, think of sports (...esports?) leagues.
Look at baseball. There is :
Minor League
Little League
Junior League
Senior League
Big League
Major League (the MLB)
Says you have a kid playing in the minor league. Do you think he cares about his ranking, from every single baseball players around the USA? No he doesn't, what he cares about is performing well within his division. He wants to do well against other people from his league, and over time he might move up to another league, but the "goal" is not necessarily to be in the MLB (plat). If you're in silver/copper, that doesn't mean you fail, you are just in the skill group appropriate for you, and from there you can be competitive, within you're league, like everyone else. He knows a MLB team could rape him a new one, but that's not the point those players are "out of his league" and he knows it. A global ranking is then completely pointless, because the skill range is just too wide. It's the exact same thing with Starcraft. With this model everyone can be competitive, with the old one players who weren't in the top 1000th lost interest.
They could make more plat/gold/silver etc. and have no divisions.
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Signed.
As an aside, sad to see so many people actually did switch over to terran. In my diamond division alone, I think more than 50% are terran now.
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So very apt. Hopefully blizz will take notice.
having such a fragmented ladder really detracts from the competitive aspect of the game, trying to promote competition while equalizing everyone and making everyone feel like they are just as important/skilled as everyone else defeats the purpose of competitive ladder play.
I am also completely confused by the addition of a "diamond" league and removal of copper (how does diamond even fit in among the list of metals?). Seems like blizz is indeed trying to make everyone feel important by giving them all special titles.
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Signed // Please also include chat channels in within the first week of retail.
Thanks
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Only problem is if it's low on players, it'll match you up with the same person after a game.
SORRY FOR FLAME:
I played this fucking noob a day ago, who's play style was just soo gay and cheesy he won me over like that (again sorry for flame). I rage quit calling me a fag, and I play him AGAIN after the matching system. Kind of an awkward and embarassing moment after I flamed him... (But I still won).
Again the main point is, you shouldn't play the same person 2 times in a row in a random ladder matchup.
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On May 23 2010 04:18 Zurles wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 03:38 Shade692003 wrote:
They won't make a global ranking because it's meaningless for 99% of the playerbase. Pretty much only platiniums players would care, because for everyone else being 10,509th doesn't tell much, and doesn't make you care about being in the ladder. If you're 200th of course you start to get interest, but that's because you're probably "in the league" with the top.
You just have to break this mentally of ladder, that accompanied most RTS and Blizzard's since pretty much forever.
Instead, think of sports (...esports?) leagues.
Look at baseball. There is :
Minor League
Little League
Junior League
Senior League
Big League
Major League (the MLB)
Says you have a kid playing in the minor league. Do you think he cares about his ranking, from every single baseball players around the USA? No he doesn't, what he cares about is performing well within his division. He wants to do well against other people from his league, and over time he might move up to another league, but the "goal" is not necessarily to be in the MLB (plat). If you're in silver/copper, that doesn't mean you fail, you are just in the skill group appropriate for you, and from there you can be competitive, within you're league, like everyone else. He knows a MLB team could rape him a new one, but that's not the point those players are "out of his league" and he knows it. A global ranking is then completely pointless, because the skill range is just too wide. It's the exact same thing with Starcraft. With this model everyone can be competitive, with the old one players who weren't in the top 1000th lost interest. They could make more plat/gold/silver etc. and have no divisions.
That they could, but the league system definitively have it's place. The divisions system in sports exists mainly because of geographical issues anyway. (East/West division in National Hockey League for instance).
I could see tournaments between top divisions like playoffs though.
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Total agreement. I hope blizzard does something about this. Catering to the friendly neighborhood noobs isn't a way to create a competitive atmosphere
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On May 23 2010 04:28 chraej. wrote:
So very apt. Hopefully blizz will take notice.
having such a fragmented ladder really detracts from the competitive aspect of the game, trying to promote competition while equalizing everyone and making everyone feel like they are just as important/skilled as everyone else defeats the purpose of competitive ladder play.
I am also completely confused by the addition of a "diamond" league and removal of copper (how does diamond even fit in among the list of metals?). Seems like blizz is indeed trying to make everyone feel important by giving them all special titles.
You HAVE to stop thinking it's a global ladder that it's fragmented. Is the baseball "ladder" fragmented and player are being detracted from being competitive because of it? Absolutely not. Why would a small league player want to be compared to a major league baseball player anyway? They are in totally different skill park, so there is no point to compare them. The closest thing is multiple ladders systems running simultaneously, and all those ladders have people of similar skill level. If anything it promotes competitive vibe.
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Blizzard don't care what you guys think sorry, the fact of the matter is you're all going to buy the game and play it anyways ^ ^
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On May 23 2010 04:41 Shade692003 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 04:28 chraej. wrote:
So very apt. Hopefully blizz will take notice.
having such a fragmented ladder really detracts from the competitive aspect of the game, trying to promote competition while equalizing everyone and making everyone feel like they are just as important/skilled as everyone else defeats the purpose of competitive ladder play.
I am also completely confused by the addition of a "diamond" league and removal of copper (how does diamond even fit in among the list of metals?). Seems like blizz is indeed trying to make everyone feel important by giving them all special titles. You HAVE to stop thinking it's a global ladder that it's fragmented. Is the baseball "ladder" fragmented and player are being detracted from being competitive because of it? Absolutely not. Why would a small league player want to be compared to a major league baseball player anyway? They are in totally different skill park, so there is no point to compare them. The closest thing is multiple ladders systems running simultaneously, and all those ladders have people of similar skill level. If anything it promotes competitive vibe.
you are saying you do not think a universal ladder ranking would promote competition more than an ambiguous multi ladder system?
i would think at least having the option to see a universal ladder ranking would interest the majority of competitive players.
you would not be interested in your global placement?
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On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:
An eternal fan,
Gibybo
An eternal fan? Will you like blizzard even after you die?
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for the humble bronze players like me the system is good as it is it gives you the feel that you can get somewhere to the top of division and then promote ,gives you an objective, thats all.
after all to see where we are in the entire league we already have the ratings.
Also I think that once you hit Diamond you should get the "real" competition and not a decaffeinated version , top players should be all together battling for the no1 , and why not replays of top players in the news section (XXX BEATS YYY AND TAKES Europe No1!!!) would be cool ^^.
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Only way I can see this happening is for a concurrent ladder to go alongside with divisions, since the global ladder ignores divisions, the server would have to do 2 calculations, one for within your division and one for the global ladder. Provided that each division does not have a pre-fixed value added when taken account into the global ladder position.
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Just make the pro-league, or perhaps diamond actually have a global ladder. I understand if soccer mom #454536 wants to feel like shes in 5th place in copper, but goddamn blizzard is fucking stupid. Make the elite ladder global and people won't complain.
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Yeah, not a big fan of the removal of the identifiers or facebook integration. Impossible to find anyone I had as a friend previously.
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Personally I think that some of this is good (like the identifiers which I really liked) but I really don't agree with the whole not having global rankings is horrible thing. Really if they did this global ranking system I think that would make people become more obscure and I really like the whole working your way up to #1 in your division thing. Although I am a lower ranked (gold after diamond was added) but I really like the feeling of making my way from #50 to #1 in my division.
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On May 23 2010 04:53 chraej. wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 04:41 Shade692003 wrote:On May 23 2010 04:28 chraej. wrote:
So very apt. Hopefully blizz will take notice.
having such a fragmented ladder really detracts from the competitive aspect of the game, trying to promote competition while equalizing everyone and making everyone feel like they are just as important/skilled as everyone else defeats the purpose of competitive ladder play.
I am also completely confused by the addition of a "diamond" league and removal of copper (how does diamond even fit in among the list of metals?). Seems like blizz is indeed trying to make everyone feel important by giving them all special titles. You HAVE to stop thinking it's a global ladder that it's fragmented. Is the baseball "ladder" fragmented and player are being detracted from being competitive because of it? Absolutely not. Why would a small league player want to be compared to a major league baseball player anyway? They are in totally different skill park, so there is no point to compare them. The closest thing is multiple ladders systems running simultaneously, and all those ladders have people of similar skill level. If anything it promotes competitive vibe. you are saying you do not think a universal ladder ranking would promote competition more than an ambiguous multi ladder system? i would think at least having the option to see a universal ladder ranking would interest the majority of competitive players. you would not be interested in your global placement?
Yes, I'm saying that i don,t think an universal ladder ranking would not help promote competition, like I said, the skill range in Starcraft is very wide, there is no point to compare between leagues. A diamond player don't have to judge himself to other leagues, so a global ranking is useless to him.
And I care as much about my "global" ranking as a random hockey street player enthusiast is interested to see how he is placed compared to the NHL. There is no point really, they are in a whole other skill level.
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On May 23 2010 05:21 Meatloaf wrote:
for the humble bronze players like me the system is good as it is it gives you the feel that you can get somewhere to the top of division and then promote ,gives you an objective, thats all.
after all to see where we are in the entire league we already have the ratings.
Also I think that once you hit Diamond you should get the "real" competition and not a decaffeinated version , top players should be all together battling for the no1 , and why not replays of top players in the news section (XXX BEATS YYY AND TAKES Europe No1!!!) would be cool ^^.
Yeah even though I'm for the league system, which makes a lot more sense than a big fat single ladder everyone is in, divisions could see a rework.
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signed, lets make this known to blizz
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Signed, completely agree with this.
I think a combo of leagues/divisions + the global rankings would do very well for the game, how exactly it can be combined I do not know, but I'll leave that up to your capable hands...
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couldn't find myself on that website =(
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It's just the divisions I have an issue with really, having so many that they become completely meaningless at least. Great I can fight to be #1 of the one I'm in, but chances are that I won't actually ever play someone from my own division because there are so many to be matched up against...in which case, why does it even matter?
If I could choose between being #1 gold in the meaningless current system or #15097 gold in an absolute one where each league ranked people in order of rating, then I would choose the latter every single time.
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/Signed
The top 1000 from sc/wc3 ladder gave me a huge drive to improve my play. It was a huge moment for me when I finally made it on the top 1000 in wc3, I was now on the official ladder ranking page for all to see! I felt truly triumphant!
Yet I still had a long way to go, still a thousand players for me to set my sights on and it drove me to improve my rank. I don't have that feeling with the current system, and I really miss it.
Blizzard, I humbly ask you to return a global ranking system to Starcraft 2.
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I find it amusing that some people whine about Blizzard catering to new players and the "everybody is a winner" mentality.
Stroking your e-peen to a global ranking to feel better about yourself is basically the same thing as the division system, but catering to the opposite side of the player-base.
I support having the division system and then having a pro league at the very top that's ranked, so everyone gets satisfied.
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AGREEEEE, Its a shame, I know there are millions of competitors, but knowing where you stand in comparison to EVERYONE is something we all desire.
Also feel that when you get to the top of your division you get kind of slack, and feel lethargic with no other thing to "aim for" persay.
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Signed. Hope this catches Blizzard's attention.
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I won't sign it, since i think this kind of ladder is better for number of people that are going to be in sc2. But i don't like it in 100% of course. I stated it in some other topic here on tl net. Those leagues and number of divisions in it should be like a pyramid. Having infinite number of TOP league is just stupid. I will show u that using my pro drawing skillz.
How it is now: ( BEHOLD OF MY PAINT SKILLZ!):
http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/1952/isnow.jpg
Quite plain and stupid system we have now, don't we?
How i think it should be :
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/8877/shouldbe.jpg
I find it more interesting and giving more info about players. After all sc2 is competetive game and we we want it to be like that. But, those are just my wishes, nothing more ; - /
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/signed
I don't like this carebear approach to the game either. Ladder is ladder, and should be competitive, Viking Romeo doesn't tell me a thing.
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also /signed.
It's just extremely dissapointing how obscure and restricted the new Battle Net 2.0 is.
Especially the ladder ranking system is a huge punch in everyone's face, who loves to look trough the ladder rankings. I remember doing this a lot in Wc3.
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/signed
Seriously, there's no reason to hide it. I'm a bad player, and I still want to compare myself to others. Remember iccup? Boy, I sure do remember saying how much I didn't want to be looking at the standings.
What's frustrating is, Blizzard has said nothing about which features will or will not be in Battle.net 2.0 at the release of StarCraft II, but almost everything I've seen - from horrible service to lack of even the simplest features that the original Battle.net took for granted - is a disappointing mess.
Just... disappointing.
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So many spammers with /signed burying actual posts.
Regarding my previous posts, one thing I'd like them to add is a "league ladder" because divisions have too small of a player pool to judge. I still stand besides the league system though, and that comparing players between leagues is pointless.
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IMO this is one of the BETTER aspects of Bnet 2.
I don't care about my stupid Logo. Or how superior I feel bragging about it on TL.
99% of games I am matched up with someone very very comparable skill to me. Their APM is usually similar as well as their overall skill.
This has proven true as I've worked my way through most of the Leagues and improved.
Though- I understand this isn't true for the top 1% of players- this is because there could be very few on who would even offer you resistance.
Lots of things about 2.0 are trash though- don't get me wrong. Challenging, but not overly difficult games- have been in abundance thus far for me.
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I think the ICCUP-like system would be better, just replace the rank names. D->Copper, C->Bronze etc. and 0-500 Copper, 500-1000 Bronze etc.
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/signed
It would be so much better if we even at least knew the percentile range for each league instead of being left to guess what a #XY rank in league Z means for your overall standing
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
You know what irks me about the whole thing? I feel like its my mom trying to protect me from the real world when i was 5 years old.
"you are the most handsome, smartest boy in the world you are great "
It's ok mom, you can let me know how bad i am at SC2. I'm not as stupid as those kids in the playground (xbox live). The hundreds of thousands of players that took part in Iccup/wgtour at their primes should be evidence that yes in fact players CAN handle the knowledge that they aren't as good as others.
Would i rather be shown that im not good, or have information hidden to protect me from quitting cause im so mad....Some rethinking really needs to happen with this one.
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Signed. Please let this reach someone who will care.
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/signed
I find it much more motivating when I have a tangible target in mind.. right now I have no sense of where I stand.
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I could not agree more.
blizzard simply does not understand what the majority of the starcraft community wants.
They didnt have a problem moving up the iCCup ladder as a low C- player, They knew that every game they were learning. Now, however, you're giving everyone a sense of entitlement, nerd rage will ensue as all players will think that they are awesome. Please blizzard, implement a global ranking.
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Giby has it right, look I'am never gunna be in the top 50 or even top 10,000 but I don't care! I want to know who is! I would like to know the top players, I don't mind divisions and leagues but I dislike the lack of unification, I don't understand why blizzard seems unwilling to put up a simple ladder of rankings ala the Wow armory for battlegroup arena rankings.
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/signed, stamped, and mailed
Couldn't agree with you more.
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United States313 Posts
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Didn't blizzard say there would be a top tier "Pro" ranking in the retail game?
The Pro ranking match replays will also be public use?
I think if that tier is a single conglomerate, then I'll be fine with it. I'm more worried about how they're going to consolidate the different regions and reduce the lag.
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(edited for tone and clarification)
Some food for thought: Lets look at the many tasks Blizzard has in front of them and what their main objectives are. One of the most prominent of these is to bring in as many players as possible. The way Blizzard has gone about accomplishing this goal is (from what I can currently assess) quite fantastic, and believe it or not, good for the competitive scene. Having less cut-throat, black and white statistics and ranking system allow for newer players to slowly integrate themselves into the competitive scene. This means more players, and more competition. Drawing from WC3 as an example, many new players became quickly discouraged when they couldn't keep a 50% winning rate. As a result, many of these players soon abandoned the competitive heart of Blizzard's RTSes (1v1) and permanently migrated to the realm of UMS and 4v4.
Having a fan-made fringe site which aggregates the global rankings instead of official integration into BNet allows the best of both worlds: the pros get what they want, and new players will stick around because they'll be having more fun. I want as many people as possible to enjoy Starcraft, and in the long run, a more transparent ranking system would (in my opinion, and depending on method) hinder the community more than help it. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard did integrate this though, as nearly all of TL wants it (and understandably so).
In a selfish way, I'd prefer to have global rankings. But I also am heavily concerned with SC2's accessibility. I don't want all the newer players solely playing UMS because they see they're rank 10,000. I want them to have a chance to experience the true essence of Starcraft and continue to have enough incentive to stick around.
I think it's important to have this discussion, and express the community's yearn for this feature, but I would hope if Blizzard decides to listen, they integrate it in a fashion that doesn't hinder SC2's already abysmal accessibility to new comers.
P.S. I love your site and use it all the time!
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This reminds me of the TF2 stat tracking system. Their game is wholly casual, and to say that the competitive scene is small is being generous. Knowing that most of their fans were "casual" ( I say that meaning that even if they were playing 100 hours a week, the majority just played and that was that); they abandoned the global ranking system for a personal best system.
Often times you'd get little messages saying "You killed more players than your previous best!" The messages ridiculous after a while though with things like "You almost dominated more players as an engineer than your previous best!"
It's been said a thousand times over, but this is not what starcraft needs. We want a global ladder, we want cold hard facts. That's what SC players like. Raw data. This is coming from a silver league player. I don't mind the ELO system, but again, who cares if I'm ranked 7th in Silver division #34. I can then lose a few games, and get PROMOTED to rank 25 in Gold league division 14.
I have no idea if it's just the kinks in the system, or if I'm getting better or worse. It's quite foolish.
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France1919 Posts
I doubt that Blizzard will listen to us since it's obvious that they already know what TL members want regarding the rankings. In order to actually make a change they'll need massive complaint from various players and communities, not only from TL.
But come on Blizzard, on this one follow us...
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/signed
+1
bump
w/e it takes. I agree with this a million times over. I don't care if I'm only ranked 31846 or 63937 in the world. It's still nice to know. Hide it or make it not so obvious if you need to, but at least make it accessible. Or maybe not a truly "universal" rankings that puts diamond players in the same rankings as copper players. Make separate global rankings for them if you wish, but I WANT MY RANK DAMMIT.
PS: That figgernaggot guy from the bnet forums is hilarious.
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On May 23 2010 12:43 PREWTAHS wrote:
(edited for tone and clarification)
Some food for thought: Lets look at the many tasks Blizzard has in front of them and what their main objectives are. One of the most prominent of these is to bring in as many players as possible. The way Blizzard has gone about accomplishing this goal is (from what I can currently assess) quite fantastic, and believe it or not, good for the competitive scene. Having less cut-throat, black and white statistics and ranking system allow for newer players to slowly integrate themselves into the competitive scene. This means more players, and more competition. Drawing from WC3 as an example, many new players became quickly discouraged when they couldn't keep a 50% winning rate. As a result, many of these players soon abandoned the competitive heart of Blizzard's RTSes (1v1) and permanently migrated to the realm of UMS and 4v4.
Having a fan-made fringe site which aggregates the global rankings instead of official integration into BNet allows the best of both worlds: the pros get what they want, and new players will stick around because they'll be having more fun. I want as many people as possible to enjoy Starcraft, and in the long run, a more transparent ranking system would (in my opinion, and depending on method) hinder the community more than help it. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard did integrate this though, as nearly all of TL wants it (and understandably so).
In a selfish way, I'd prefer to have global rankings. But I also am heavily concerned with SC2's accessibility. I don't want all the newer players solely playing UMS because they see they're rank 10,000. I want them to have a chance to experience the true essence of Starcraft and continue to have enough incentive to stick around.
I think it's important to have this discussion, and express the community's yearn for this feature, but I would hope if Blizzard decides to listen, they integrate it in a fashion that doesn't hinder SC2's already abysmal accessibility to new comers.
P.S. I love your site and use it all the time!
This is a great point on integrating new players, which is why i suggest, instead of us having to create this content, blizzard could do something to help it out, like create a global ladder separate from the regular b net ladder. Because the issue as it stands is, who knows what division is good and what divisions not, there are far to many random players who simply dont get to play eachother because the isolation that blizzard is creating, and simply dont have the information about who else is good besides the more famous players.
Also I want to point out to this "business" standpoint is this, 10 years of starcraft was not done by casual gamers. A ladder with 3000 players at any given time playing hundreds of thousands of games, was not done by the casual gamers. An e-sport that has taken over crashed every livestream type website by sheer numbers of people watching players "explain" or stream live games, was not created by casual gamers. And millions of dollars in tournament prizes, advertisement space, and television networks was not created by casual gamers. So the idea that it is the smartest thing from a business perspective to cater to casual gamers always sounds so ludicrous to me, because the money is in completion.
Not to mention I dont think any casual gamer is going to go, oh shucks im not on the top of my ladder I hate this game, because if they did, theyd probably try to get to the top of their ladder, in which case theyd literally seise to exist as "casual gamers." So plz blizzard your sparing no one.
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On May 23 2010 14:49 gk_ender wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 12:43 PREWTAHS wrote:
(edited for tone and clarification)
Some food for thought: Lets look at the many tasks Blizzard has in front of them and what their main objectives are. One of the most prominent of these is to bring in as many players as possible. The way Blizzard has gone about accomplishing this goal is (from what I can currently assess) quite fantastic, and believe it or not, good for the competitive scene. Having less cut-throat, black and white statistics and ranking system allow for newer players to slowly integrate themselves into the competitive scene. This means more players, and more competition. Drawing from WC3 as an example, many new players became quickly discouraged when they couldn't keep a 50% winning rate. As a result, many of these players soon abandoned the competitive heart of Blizzard's RTSes (1v1) and permanently migrated to the realm of UMS and 4v4.
Having a fan-made fringe site which aggregates the global rankings instead of official integration into BNet allows the best of both worlds: the pros get what they want, and new players will stick around because they'll be having more fun. I want as many people as possible to enjoy Starcraft, and in the long run, a more transparent ranking system would (in my opinion, and depending on method) hinder the community more than help it. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard did integrate this though, as nearly all of TL wants it (and understandably so).
In a selfish way, I'd prefer to have global rankings. But I also am heavily concerned with SC2's accessibility. I don't want all the newer players solely playing UMS because they see they're rank 10,000. I want them to have a chance to experience the true essence of Starcraft and continue to have enough incentive to stick around.
I think it's important to have this discussion, and express the community's yearn for this feature, but I would hope if Blizzard decides to listen, they integrate it in a fashion that doesn't hinder SC2's already abysmal accessibility to new comers.
P.S. I love your site and use it all the time! This is a great point on integrating new players, which is why i suggest, instead of us having to create this content, blizzard could do something to help it out, like create a global ladder separate from the regular b net ladder. Because the issue as it stands is, who knows what division is good and what divisions not, there are far to many random players who simply dont get to play eachother because the isolation that blizzard is creating, and simply dont have the information about who else is good besides the more famous players. Also I want to point out to this "business" standpoint is this, 10 years of starcraft was not done by casual gamers. A ladder with 3000 players at any given time playing hundreds of thousands of games, was not done by the casual gamers. An e-sport that has taken over crashed every livestream type website by sheer numbers of people watching players "explain" or stream live games, was not created by casual gamers. And millions of dollars in tournament prizes, advertisement space, and television networks was not created by casual gamers. So the idea that it is the smartest thing from a business perspective to cater to casual gamers always sounds so ludicrous to me, because the money is in completion. Not to mention I dont think any casual gamer is going to go, oh shucks im not on the top of my ladder I hate this game, because if they did, theyd probably try to get to the top of their ladder, in which case theyd literally seise to exist as "casual gamers." So plz blizzard your sparing no one.
I dont want to sound like the standard omg I'm a competitive gamer wtf are you doing, but instead I want to suggest that casual gamers are underestimated. In the year 2010, I do not beleive that anyone looks at a large scale competitive ladder as alien, and matter of fact, you get a lot of players thinking its cool and wanting to play on it. To essentially tear down (exaggeration) and hinder competitive play, in hopes well simply do it ourselves, and create websites like the one in the letter, makes the community jaded, and we begin to stop believing in blizzard having our best interest, and the need for associations like kespa. That is all thank you
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/signed. I'd love to see how I stack up vs EVERYBODY.
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/signed
Thanks for putting this argument in concise, but mature terms.
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I think a global ladder is a good idea, but I also believe the leagues and divisions serve a real purpose - a purpose that may be over our heads.
My understanding is that rankings aren't only based on a win/loss ratio. It is also heavily based on your relative score. This score only has meaning within the context of the league system. Let's say I'm at the top of my division in the silver league and I lose to a gold ranked player - but our scores are very close. The system will bump me up to gold. I am now competing with people of similar skills.
What does this process reveal about Blizzard's motives? They are more concerned with creating a matchmaking system that will supply a player a mix of even matches and challenging matches. These challenging matches are all within reach though.
What you are proposing completely undermines what I assume Blizzard has spent at least a year, if not more, and thousands upon thousands of dollars developing - its matchmaking system.
who knows what division is good and what divisions not
I believe this statement reveals you are missing the point of Blizzard's system. It doesn't matter what division is good and what division is bad. It is random. For 95% of players on Battle.net, the league system and division system supplies tangible goals and ideas of where they stand. 95% of players on the ladder will always be able to move up in the rankings.
The only players who need to know if their division is good or not are those standing at the tip of the iceberg in the diamond league. And from my understanding Blizzard will be supplying them with an invite only Pro League. And before we all freak out and demand that Blizzard rip apart what they have spent years developing consider Pro League. This will most likely supply you with a global ladder.
So what does this mean for the 95% of us not in the pro league? It gives us the ability to slowly climb the ladder. And, sorry for the cliche metaphor, but sometimes it's easier to climb something when you can't see how far you have to climb. Sometimes its best to focus on one step at a time as opposed to the 2000 steps leading to the top of the empire state building. It's so everyone can be competitive and everyone can have the chance to make it to the top. And for those at the top, they will be able to see where they stand.
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I guess I'm the only person who likes the divisions?
It is a little more fun to compete with a small group than one where you have to look through 6000 pages just to get an indication of where you are at. It makes the competition feel a little more tight and close-knit. You can still compare your rating if you want to have penis-measuring contests.
That said, a pro league would be absolutely awesome, and would abolish any reservations about the system.
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On the old Xbox, I remember my brother being SOO stoked when he broke into like the top 100 players in the US on John Madden '05 or something. But, he did that because he kept playing when he was ranked 9000. Or 14000.
Getting to the top of your Division, of 100 people, isn't really telling you a whole lot.
Especially since their matchmaking system seems to work so well, I don't see why anyone would be concerned knowing they were ranked 15,000 if all the games they played were well balanced, challenging and fun.
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/signed
really nice letter, well formated, total support
++ mad props for making that ladder ranking
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I like leagues, but I see no point for divisions 
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Absolutely. I especially agree with the lack of unique names. That just makes me mad.
/signed
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You do realise that the Division Numbers are just arbitrary and pointless, right? They only exist based on when you joined the ladder, they have no bearing on your actual skill.
If you mean comparing via points and Win/Loss ratios, then sure, I guess.
I wouldn't mind being able to check out how people in Silver, Gold etc. are doing as well.
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On May 23 2010 12:06 Kennigit wrote:"you are the most handsome, smartest boy in the world you are great "
But you are.
Man Divisions look even more crappy after the patch. Tables are way too spaced but the window is smaller??? What's up with that. It's like it's some kind of side feature now noone should really care about...
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On May 23 2010 12:06 Kennigit wrote:You know what irks me about the whole thing? I feel like its my mom trying to protect me from the real world when i was 5 years old. "you are the most handsome, smartest boy in the world you are great " It's ok mom, you can let me know how bad i am at SC2. I'm not as stupid as those kids in the playground (xbox live). The hundreds of thousands of players that took part in Iccup/wgtour at their primes should be evidence that yes in fact players CAN handle the knowledge that they aren't as good as others. Would i rather be shown that im not good, or have information hidden to protect me from quitting cause im so mad....Some rethinking really needs to happen with this one.
I liked this analogy. However, children learn extremely quickly the praises of their parents aren't true while many gamers never fully realize how bad they are. They either justify their losses or only play weaker opponents.
Blizzard is fully aware of the effects of their division and ranking system. The way I see it...only casuals would be turned off by a global system while almost no competitive gamer would be turned off by the lack of a global system. I hate repeating this but it's all about money. Blizzard is trying to maximize the people playing the game.
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Personally I would like to see five different global ladders, one for each league. If it will remain the same as today, I think I will lose interest fairly quickly, it just feels way to isolated.
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I have no real problem with dividing the lower ladders into leagues as long as the top ladders have a proper one. At the moment it's a little bit too obfuscating but I think it's actually more manageable to assign a denominator to certain skill ranges than having some insane number that doesn't really hold any relative value anymore as soon as you hit the 4-digit mark. Look at iCCup for example. Most players will identify with their ladder rank and maybe their points but not their ladder position. The same thing could be done here. Add a few more leagues, get rid of the divisions in the top league and you're all set.
Actually they already had a system exactly like that and - except for the smurfers which wouldn't be a problem anymore - it worked wonderfully.
Warcraft 3's ladder only had the top 1000 players in it and that was far more than enough to hold everyone important. Back in 2005 or so before Blizzard screwed it up in an attempt to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place and levels still meant something the players who weren't in the top 150 or something like that also just compared each other via their ladder levels and everyone was happy.
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On May 23 2010 19:49 omg.deus wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 12:06 Kennigit wrote:You know what irks me about the whole thing? I feel like its my mom trying to protect me from the real world when i was 5 years old. "you are the most handsome, smartest boy in the world you are great " It's ok mom, you can let me know how bad i am at SC2. I'm not as stupid as those kids in the playground (xbox live). The hundreds of thousands of players that took part in Iccup/wgtour at their primes should be evidence that yes in fact players CAN handle the knowledge that they aren't as good as others. Would i rather be shown that im not good, or have information hidden to protect me from quitting cause im so mad....Some rethinking really needs to happen with this one. while almost no competitive gamer would be turned off by the lack of a global system.
Really? Have you seen this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=126767 ?
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Marshall Islands104 Posts
Wow, totally amazing. Fantastic work Gibybo, both for creating what the fans want and for making such a slick site while you were at it
How could I have missed this? I don't know...
PS I was pleased to see how many people from teamliquid were ranked so high. Jinro being 24th in all of Europe is awesome!
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On May 23 2010 20:53 Mikami_ wrote:
/signed
Looks like we've...
*puts on sunglasses*
got a petition thread
NOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
But on serious note stop with /signed posts, be more constructive
Blizzard said that ranking system like in WC3 only served people who got mad skills as unskilled players didn't wanted to see themselves ranked 60000-something
I agree, but not putting this kind of function is also bad imo.
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They did state that there will be a way to see who the top of the top are through the "pro league". So while you as a gold player for example, wont know your standing against the rest of the server/world, the truly top players should be able to.
I'm fine with that.
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On May 23 2010 21:12 Gibybo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 19:49 omg.deus wrote:On May 23 2010 12:06 Kennigit wrote:You know what irks me about the whole thing? I feel like its my mom trying to protect me from the real world when i was 5 years old. "you are the most handsome, smartest boy in the world you are great " It's ok mom, you can let me know how bad i am at SC2. I'm not as stupid as those kids in the playground (xbox live). The hundreds of thousands of players that took part in Iccup/wgtour at their primes should be evidence that yes in fact players CAN handle the knowledge that they aren't as good as others. Would i rather be shown that im not good, or have information hidden to protect me from quitting cause im so mad....Some rethinking really needs to happen with this one. while almost no competitive gamer would be turned off by the lack of a global system. Really? Have you seen this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=126767 ?
I mean turned off enough to the point that they won't continue playing the game. Competitive gamers will take the initiative as you have to make their own ranking system as well as tournament placings speak for themselves.
There is no doubt in my mind that Blizzard is fully aware of the implications of their current ranking system. If their 'feel good' ranking system only makes 1 person continue playing that would have quit out of frustration then it is probably worth it in their eyes.
I would love to have a global ranking system and feel that this politically-correct-feelgood-system is bullshit but Blizzard is not catering to the competitive community.
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/signed and sent to friends to do so too
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/signed
I'm so sick of having everything dumbed down so that we can all feel good about ourselves. It's already becoming like WoW and how everything that people once had and worked hard for were made accessible to all so that there was no individuality. I quit WoW once this happened. What's the point of playing when anyone and everyone can get everything? It takes away the fun for me and many others that I know.
Many people that I've talked to want to see a ranking system. Many of these people are my irl friends who are in the copper and bronze league and STILL want a overall ranking system. They want to see where they're at overall so that they have motivation to get better and climb the rankings.
You can keep the ranking system now, but somewhere on our profile they need to put a number representing our OVERALL rank.
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/signed
Add to that the ability to search any player's profile and view it regardless of whether they're online or offline.
And a quick link to the top 100 of diamond league would be great too
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On May 22 2010 19:04 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Signed a million times over.
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On May 24 2010 11:53 -orb- wrote:
I agree, I just had to wait so I could quote cool people.
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/signed we really need to know. Maybe something like gold and platinum only to have a combined ladder because they are the divisions where "Making you feel good about yourself" doesn't matter much.
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It's not really a new opinion that the segregation of ladders is a stupid thing what is clarified in the community's efforts of creating a single ladder since first beta week. I think first guys who tryed to list all platinum players was a esports french page, later there was starcraftrankings as the probably best page for this.
Btw is there any statement of blizzard why they did this divisions and leagues stuff?
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On May 23 2010 20:17 ven wrote:
I have no real problem with dividing the lower ladders into leagues as long as the top ladders have a proper one. At the moment it's a little bit too obfuscating but I think it's actually more manageable to assign a denominator to certain skill ranges than having some insane number that doesn't really hold any relative value anymore as soon as you hit the 4-digit mark. Look at iCCup for example. Most players will identify with their ladder rank and maybe their points but not their ladder position. The same thing could be done here. Add a few more leagues, get rid of the divisions in the top league and you're all set.
Actually they already had a system exactly like that and - except for the smurfers which wouldn't be a problem anymore - it worked wonderfully.
Warcraft 3's ladder only had the top 1000 players in it and that was far more than enough to hold everyone important. Back in 2005 or so before Blizzard screwed it up in an attempt to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place and levels still meant something the players who weren't in the top 150 or something like that also just compared each other via their ladder levels and everyone was happy.
Excellent post. No divisions in diamond an a few more leagues is best of both worlds. Top players are happy because they are in the illustrious diamond with an absolute ranking, and everyone else is happybevause they get to be rank 5 in some division.
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On May 25 2010 00:25 m3rciless wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 20:17 ven wrote:
I have no real problem with dividing the lower ladders into leagues as long as the top ladders have a proper one. At the moment it's a little bit too obfuscating but I think it's actually more manageable to assign a denominator to certain skill ranges than having some insane number that doesn't really hold any relative value anymore as soon as you hit the 4-digit mark. Look at iCCup for example. Most players will identify with their ladder rank and maybe their points but not their ladder position. The same thing could be done here. Add a few more leagues, get rid of the divisions in the top league and you're all set.
Actually they already had a system exactly like that and - except for the smurfers which wouldn't be a problem anymore - it worked wonderfully.
Warcraft 3's ladder only had the top 1000 players in it and that was far more than enough to hold everyone important. Back in 2005 or so before Blizzard screwed it up in an attempt to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place and levels still meant something the players who weren't in the top 150 or something like that also just compared each other via their ladder levels and everyone was happy. Excellent post. No divisions in diamond an a few more leagues is best of both worlds. Top players are happy because they are in the illustrious diamond with an absolute ranking, and everyone else is happybevause they get to be rank 5 in some division.
Definitely. It's fun to work up the rankings, get a new shiny badge and metal, etc... and it's kind of neat that you play more games with people from your division, so that if they're at your level, you might start getting to know them. And to jockey with them for a higher rank in the division should be enjoyable.
But once you're getting near the actual top, you should know where you stand.
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I agree wholeheartedly Motivation to improve is helped by being able to gauge your progress against the entire community as opposed to a small pool of players. Being the top of your division gives you a false sense of where your skills are at as a player.
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United States12235 Posts
On May 23 2010 20:17 ven wrote:
I have no real problem with dividing the lower ladders into leagues as long as the top ladders have a proper one. At the moment it's a little bit too obfuscating but I think it's actually more manageable to assign a denominator to certain skill ranges than having some insane number that doesn't really hold any relative value anymore as soon as you hit the 4-digit mark. Look at iCCup for example. Most players will identify with their ladder rank and maybe their points but not their ladder position. The same thing could be done here. Add a few more leagues, get rid of the divisions in the top league and you're all set.
Actually they already had a system exactly like that and - except for the smurfers which wouldn't be a problem anymore - it worked wonderfully.
Warcraft 3's ladder only had the top 1000 players in it and that was far more than enough to hold everyone important. Back in 2005 or so before Blizzard screwed it up in an attempt to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place and levels still meant something the players who weren't in the top 150 or something like that also just compared each other via their ladder levels and everyone was happy.
I sort of have a different take on this. On the one hand, you really are just another face in the crowd beyond a certain ranking, virtually to the point where it's meaningless. The gains and losses in a global ranking system on the low end cause you to jump tens, hundreds, even thousands of places up or down the ladder. It's not really relevant where you stand unless you're among the top players, which of course most people are not. Therefore, to maintain interest, realistic relative goals were created.
I totally understand why they did it and personally I'm for it. It's much easier and more enjoyable to follow bread crumbs sometimes. If you had to take a trip across the US and some people are flying but you're walking, you're not going to reach your destination overnight like those other people. Therefore, you need to plan out each night how far you're going to travel, what supplies you'll need for the day, which town you're going to sleep in, until you eventually cross the entire country (we'll call this the Forrest Gump allusion, for better or for worse).
Now, the beefs I have with the system are related to browsing the top players, but again this is something that may be rectified when the new pro league is created. The ranking in your division is also less meaningful since they removed the top 8 as being tournament qualifier positions, so there's less of a sense of achievement there. You can call the current implementation "catering to the casuals" if you like, and to some extent it is, but you also need to wonder whether seeing an absolute rank would be any more meaningful to your goals as a player, and it's arguable that it would be just as meaningful or less meaningful unless you're in the top percentile.
To respond to your War3 reference, I thought the levels were inflated as a result of how the matchmaking system worked, where it searched for opponents based on level difference. If the top players were level 10-12 and everyone else was level 5-6, a very poor player could fight a top player. That's not effective matchmaking. However, by thinning out each level they are more likely to pair players who are closer in skill. If SC2 matchmaking works as I've guessed, more dynamically based on the population as a whole rather than arbitrary breakpoints, that's a much better system.
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i wont lie. i laddered to get like top 10 in my division by just playing games, but the fact was i had no real desire to ladder since being first in division 65 is so meaningless. id rather be place 780 out of 1000 people then number 6 in division 65.
thats how it was on the wc3 ladder, i remember being like man i had a good day today i got level 25 and am ranked 400th! im awesome!
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Personally I would appreciate the option to show you your current rank. But I understand that people don't want to be reminded that they are SO BAD that they are rank 768 000. And what you need to understand is that they'd be shooting themselves in the foot by adding serverwide ranking system.
Most of TL community wouldn't be affected because we wouldn't be players at the bottom. Still, you have to think about bad players as well. They just want to have fun and compete with players of their own skill level. Serverwide ranking would just keep telling them they suck and that they are better of playing Sims.
I would propose something else, though. Let's say that they will show current rankings of top, say, 10000 players. Or any other compromise would be good. They have to think about all players, even those with tactics such as 6 drone/probe/scv FE.
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On May 25 2010 00:57 commanderchobo wrote:
i wont lie. i laddered to get like top 10 in my division by just playing games, but the fact was i had no real desire to ladder since being first in division 65 is so meaningless. id rather be place 780 out of 1000 people then number 6 in division 65.
thats how it was on the wc3 ladder, i remember being like man i had a good day today i got level 25 and am ranked 400th! im awesome!
yeah, that shit was awesome, from being unranked into like the top 1000, and then realistically working your way down that number, feels good
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On May 25 2010 00:57 commanderchobo wrote:
i wont lie. i laddered to get like top 10 in my division by just playing games, but the fact was i had no real desire to ladder since being first in division 65 is so meaningless. id rather be place 780 out of 1000 people then number 6 in division 65.
thats how it was on the wc3 ladder, i remember being like man i had a good day today i got level 25 and am ranked 400th! im awesome!
But what would be your rank out of 1 000 000 players ? It wouldn't look very good and to be in top half million, don't you think? Plus it'd be hard keeping track of your own rank anyway, because it'd be likely to change every hour or so. Being away for a few days you could drop thousands of places.
It's very different when there are so many players playing the game.
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Why is it that they cannot have both Division Ranks alongside Overall Ranks? This way casual gamers could set smaller goals for themselves and more competitive gamers could have a more accurate reflection of their skill in comparison to the overall competition. This is the kind of system we have for many sports and games where people or teams will be ranked in their city, state, and nation.
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That's why ELO rankings are better because then you can say, "Man, I just went over 1300!" That has a lot more meaning. I remember when I first hit 1200 in vanilla and I was excited because you got the shiny icon next to your name. lol
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I'm not expert in statistics, but it doesn't look like Blizzard is doing it solely to make players feel better (although that's a reason as well). Take WoW for example. They have no problem showing your current standing but you have only 5000 teams playing on each battlegroup. SC2 will have almost or even more than one million players on a server. Would ELO be able to sufficiently evaluate so many players where many of them will never face each other? Maybe that's the point. It's just that they don't have a good enough system that could evaluate players accurately.
I think Blizzard mentioned that Pro-league will be one division and players will be matched only with other players from Pro-league (at least mostly). And in Pro-league you will see the rankings. But Pro-league is much smaller and given the odds of players being matched with other players from pro-league being very high you can accurately evaluate them using ELO-type algorithms.
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I guess what I don't understand is why Blizzard should devote development resources to changing this when viable 3rd party alternatives exist.
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On May 25 2010 03:43 Spidinko wrote:
I'm not expert in statistics, but it doesn't look like Blizzard is doing it solely to make players feel better (although that's a reason as well). Take WoW for example. They have no problem showing your current standing but you have only 5000 teams playing on each battlegroup. SC2 will have almost or even more than one million players on a server. Would ELO be able to sufficiently evaluate so many players where many of them will never face each other?
Yes - in fact the ELO system (like most rating systems) will work better with a larger number of players because ideally the system wants to match players up with other players of similar ELO rating. Then the result of the game can determine which player "deserves" to be at that particular rating or higher (the winner) and which player should probably be ranked lower (the loser).
Then the loser gets to play someone slightly lower rated and can "proove" themselves better than that particular rating. This goes on until players find their niche and their rating will go up and down around a central point for awhile until their skill gradual grows or diminishes based mainly on practice time.
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/signed
even though iam a casual player
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Just a reminder to everyone, make sure to show your support in the Battle.net forums thread as well. Link is in the OP.
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On May 25 2010 08:25 Cuddly wrote:
I guess what I don't understand is why Blizzard should devote development resources to changing this when viable 3rd party alternatives exist.
I don't have access to anywhere near the same quality of data that Blizzard does. There are some things 3rd parties like starcraftrankings.com can do, but ultimately we'd always be behind what an official Battle.net source could have.
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On May 25 2010 08:25 Cuddly wrote:
I guess what I don't understand is why Blizzard should devote development resources to changing this when viable 3rd party alternatives exist.
Blizzard's stance on SC2 seems to be that they want to be a part of everything. Every tournament, every game, every single-player game...everything. For there to be a ranking system which is obviously such leaps and bounds better than what they offer should entice them to improve.
What Starcraft rankings does, is give us an entirely new ladder. It doesn't include stuff below Platinum, but nothing below plat even matters. People who are not in Platinum know that in order to really be anything, they need to first work on getting to platinum.
So since at the competitive level, Platinum/Diamond or whatever the top one may be at any given time, is assumed, its all that matters. We already have what we want, its just a little messy. What Gibybo has given us is plain and simply superior to Bnet ranking. But if Blizzard did what Gibybo did, it could have better data, be more fluid, and of course be more integrated.
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On May 25 2010 08:56 andyrichdale wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2010 03:43 Spidinko wrote:
I'm not expert in statistics, but it doesn't look like Blizzard is doing it solely to make players feel better (although that's a reason as well). Take WoW for example. They have no problem showing your current standing but you have only 5000 teams playing on each battlegroup. SC2 will have almost or even more than one million players on a server. Would ELO be able to sufficiently evaluate so many players where many of them will never face each other? Yes - in fact the ELO system (like most rating systems) will work better with a larger number of players because ideally the system wants to match players up with other players of similar ELO rating. Then the result of the game can determine which player "deserves" to be at that particular rating or higher (the winner) and which player should probably be ranked lower (the loser). Then the loser gets to play someone slightly lower rated and can "proove" themselves better than that particular rating. This goes on until players find their niche and their rating will go up and down around a central point for awhile until their skill gradual grows or diminishes based mainly on practice time.
Yes, ELO works if you have enough players AND these players play enough games for them to get to their "true" rating. The problem is the same as WoW, it is fairly accurate for the top teams (well not really because of the abuses but let's forget that) but not much for lower teams because they dont play enough and the overall ladder is skewed on the lower tiers.
Now I agree with the OP. As much as I understand the purpose of divisions and leagues (giving people smaller goals), I would like a way to both know the overall rank, who are the top players, and also not being kinda "drowned" by being like the 18934th player.
Anyway... it will always be just an estimation of skill and not what really skill is, so... will never be perfect.
I would like blizzard to add a way to know what ranking have the opponents and allies... maybe after game if necessary.
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On May 25 2010 01:03 Spidinko wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2010 00:57 commanderchobo wrote:
i wont lie. i laddered to get like top 10 in my division by just playing games, but the fact was i had no real desire to ladder since being first in division 65 is so meaningless. id rather be place 780 out of 1000 people then number 6 in division 65.
thats how it was on the wc3 ladder, i remember being like man i had a good day today i got level 25 and am ranked 400th! im awesome! But what would be your rank out of 1 000 000 players ? It wouldn't look very good and to be in top half million, don't you think? Plus it'd be hard keeping track of your own rank anyway, because it'd be likely to change every hour or so. Being away for a few days you could drop thousands of places. It's very different when there are so many players playing the game.
IT WOULDN'T LOOK VERY GOOD?
That's exactly the attitude Blizz is catering to.
Who cares if it wouldn't look very good? That just means that the player isn't very good. That's the player's skill cap. It's honest and accurate.
If you want a better looking rank, then be a better player. Simple as that.
It's not hard to keep track of your own rank. You just open your profile and look.
War3 did not rank anybody that was not in the top 1000. That's the fix in keeping track of millions of players.
Cap it at the top 10000 for sc2. Not everybody needs a rank.
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On May 25 2010 10:12 InfiniteIce wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2010 01:03 Spidinko wrote:On May 25 2010 00:57 commanderchobo wrote:
i wont lie. i laddered to get like top 10 in my division by just playing games, but the fact was i had no real desire to ladder since being first in division 65 is so meaningless. id rather be place 780 out of 1000 people then number 6 in division 65.
thats how it was on the wc3 ladder, i remember being like man i had a good day today i got level 25 and am ranked 400th! im awesome! But what would be your rank out of 1 000 000 players ? It wouldn't look very good and to be in top half million, don't you think? Plus it'd be hard keeping track of your own rank anyway, because it'd be likely to change every hour or so. Being away for a few days you could drop thousands of places. It's very different when there are so many players playing the game. IT WOULDN'T LOOK VERY GOOD? That's exactly the attitude Blizz is catering to. Who cares if it wouldn't look very good? That just means that the player isn't very good. That's the player's skill cap. It's honest and accurate. If you want a better looking rank, then be a better player. Simple as that. It's not hard to keep track of your own rank. You just open your profile and look. War3 did not rank anybody that was not in the top 1000. That's the fix in keeping track of millions of players. Cap it at the top 10000 for sc2. Not everybody needs a rank.
I say do it like was mentioned earlier by someone (not sure who) Keep the current system, except for diamond, make diamond divisionless and be an absolute ranking. "Casuals" get their feel good stats, and the good players can actually get useful info.
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Great letter, I hope blizzard listens!
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
I understand what Blizzard is doing. For the average player, having divisions so that your rank feels more motivating and satisfying is a very good idea. The same principle is used in other places, such as XBox Live games that allow you to view your rank in a game compared to just your friends. It is a great improvement over being ranked #57,136. It gives the average player a much more realistic goal: to be one of the best among a small group of players. And they SHOULD feel good about an accomplishment like that. They SHOULD feel good about moving from #57,136 to #56,814, because they have accomplished something, and yet it feels meaningless. That is a big problem with an overall ranking.
That said, I think this thread is evidence enough that an overall ranking is a far superior method for, say, the top 10% of the players.
There is an easy way to satisfy most players in both groups. Have divisions for the vast majority of the players, but once you reach the highest level (diamond, titanium, plutonium (because you're HOT STUFF), whatever), group all the players at that level into a single division, creating an overall ranking.
Having 2 systems works great because of how the players are distributed. If you're a player who gets more out of the division system, then you're probably in the lower levels. If you're a player who gets more out of the overall ranking system, then you're probably in or close to the highest level. So you're pleasing far more players like this than you would be with just one system or the other.
Adding a top level with an overall ranking also adds an additional incentive or milestone for the high-level players who want to be ranked in that manner: no only do you get to take pride in being in the top level, but you also get to take pride in stepping out of the divisions and into the overall ranking.
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On May 25 2010 08:56 andyrichdale wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2010 03:43 Spidinko wrote:
I'm not expert in statistics, but it doesn't look like Blizzard is doing it solely to make players feel better (although that's a reason as well). Take WoW for example. They have no problem showing your current standing but you have only 5000 teams playing on each battlegroup. SC2 will have almost or even more than one million players on a server. Would ELO be able to sufficiently evaluate so many players where many of them will never face each other? Yes - in fact the ELO system (like most rating systems) will work better with a larger number of players because ideally the system wants to match players up with other players of similar ELO rating. Then the result of the game can determine which player "deserves" to be at that particular rating or higher (the winner) and which player should probably be ranked lower (the loser). Then the loser gets to play someone slightly lower rated and can "proove" themselves better than that particular rating. This goes on until players find their niche and their rating will go up and down around a central point for awhile until their skill gradual grows or diminishes based mainly on practice time.
Wouldn't that only work if players played sufficient amount of games?
I understand that everyone would have their rating, but would it be accurate? You mentioned they would play each other. If that happened, it would work. But given such a huge amount of players it would be unlikely for them to face each other considering casual players don't play that much. Would ranking on their level be accurate? Higher leagues wouldn't have that problem, though.
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On May 25 2010 10:12 InfiniteIce wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2010 01:03 Spidinko wrote:On May 25 2010 00:57 commanderchobo wrote:
i wont lie. i laddered to get like top 10 in my division by just playing games, but the fact was i had no real desire to ladder since being first in division 65 is so meaningless. id rather be place 780 out of 1000 people then number 6 in division 65.
thats how it was on the wc3 ladder, i remember being like man i had a good day today i got level 25 and am ranked 400th! im awesome! But what would be your rank out of 1 000 000 players ? It wouldn't look very good and to be in top half million, don't you think? Plus it'd be hard keeping track of your own rank anyway, because it'd be likely to change every hour or so. Being away for a few days you could drop thousands of places. It's very different when there are so many players playing the game. IT WOULDN'T LOOK VERY GOOD? That's exactly the attitude Blizz is catering to. Who cares if it wouldn't look very good? That just means that the player isn't very good. That's the player's skill cap. It's honest and accurate. If you want a better looking rank, then be a better player. Simple as that. It's not hard to keep track of your own rank. You just open your profile and look. War3 did not rank anybody that was not in the top 1000. That's the fix in keeping track of millions of players. Cap it at the top 10000 for sc2. Not everybody needs a rank.
Firstly, I would like to see my ranking. I just think more people would be pushed away seeing their ranking.
You say give it to top 10k and I completely agree. I said the same think just a couple of posts before. I actually think that this is going to happen because of the Pro-league. Pro-league should have global ranking system and I kind of think they are going to let more players into Pro-league, not only pros.
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On May 25 2010 12:46 Bill307 wrote:I understand what Blizzard is doing. For the average player, having divisions so that your rank feels more motivating and satisfying is a very good idea. The same principle is used in other places, such as XBox Live games that allow you to view your rank in a game compared to just your friends. It is a great improvement over being ranked #57,136. It gives the average player a much more realistic goal: to be one of the best among a small group of players. And they SHOULD feel good about an accomplishment like that. They SHOULD feel good about moving from #57,136 to #56,814, because they have accomplished something, and yet it feels meaningless. That is a big problem with an overall ranking. That said, I think this thread is evidence enough that an overall ranking is a far superior method for, say, the top 10% of the players. There is an easy way to satisfy most players in both groups. Have divisions for the vast majority of the players, but once you reach the highest level (diamond, titanium, plutonium (because you're HOT STUFF), whatever), group all the players at that level into a single division, creating an overall ranking. Having 2 systems works great because of how the players are distributed. If you're a player who gets more out of the division system, then you're probably in the lower levels. If you're a player who gets more out of the overall ranking system, then you're probably in or close to the highest level. So you're pleasing far more players like this than you would be with just one system or the other. Adding a top level with an overall ranking also adds an additional incentive or milestone for the high-level players who want to be ranked in that manner: no only do you get to take pride in being in the top level, but you also get to take pride in stepping out of the divisions and into the overall ranking.
i like this post and agree with it. Even if you dont totally get rid of divisions, maybe at the highest rank they could give you both overall + division or something.
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+1 here for support
/signature
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On May 25 2010 00:47 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2010 20:17 ven wrote:
I have no real problem with dividing the lower ladders into leagues as long as the top ladders have a proper one. At the moment it's a little bit too obfuscating but I think it's actually more manageable to assign a denominator to certain skill ranges than having some insane number that doesn't really hold any relative value anymore as soon as you hit the 4-digit mark. Look at iCCup for example. Most players will identify with their ladder rank and maybe their points but not their ladder position. The same thing could be done here. Add a few more leagues, get rid of the divisions in the top league and you're all set.
Actually they already had a system exactly like that and - except for the smurfers which wouldn't be a problem anymore - it worked wonderfully.
Warcraft 3's ladder only had the top 1000 players in it and that was far more than enough to hold everyone important. Back in 2005 or so before Blizzard screwed it up in an attempt to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place and levels still meant something the players who weren't in the top 150 or something like that also just compared each other via their ladder levels and everyone was happy. [...] To respond to your War3 reference, I thought the levels were inflated as a result of how the matchmaking system worked, where it searched for opponents based on level difference. If the top players were level 10-12 and everyone else was level 5-6, a very poor player could fight a top player. That's not effective matchmaking. However, by thinning out each level they are more likely to pair players who are closer in skill. If SC2 matchmaking works as I've guessed, more dynamically based on the population as a whole rather than arbitrary breakpoints, that's a much better system.
Sure, if the top players were 10-12 and everyone else was 5-6 it wouldn't be a very good system. Save for the very beginning that was never the case though. I admit they had a few issues with match making and even a few easily exploitable holes to give you the worst possible opponents but this was never about match making because that's really not an issue with SC2.
Having a clear representation of where you stand is, though, and Warcraft 3's ladder before they butchered it did an excellent job of that. Levels actually meant something and were a pretty accurate (and thus comparable) gauge of your ability and how a global ranking works well to get a look at the very top should be obvious.
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I dont know if im the only one but before when i was hovering between 1-3rd of my plat division i would actually avoided playing games when i was tired or didn't feel "serious" or what have you.
Because i didnt want to go on a losing streak and fall to 10th or w/e, it acted as a disincentive for me to play on my off days.
im sure there some saying about how people at the top most fear their fall from grace or w/e. Even though i KNEW i wasn't anywhere near "top" world wide, this division system gave me the illusion that i was. If there was a global ranking and I was ranked something like 1000th i wouldnt really care if i fell to 1100th or w/e
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On May 26 2010 05:41 lim1017 wrote:
I dont know if im the only one but before when i was hovering between 1-3rd of my plat division i would actually avoided playing games when i was tired or didn't feel "serious" or what have you.
This was common advice for ICCUP at all levels - don't play on your main if you feel tired/distracted/angry, because you'll play bad --> lose & lose ranking --> feel worse.
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/signed however I'm interested to see how pro league works. If its global ranking then for lesser players does it really matter if you're ranked 5324/10000 or 45/100? I'm mostly interested in a global system to see where the best of the best are ranked, otherwise all I really care about is finding equal matches
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I myself is an architect/developer and it just dawned on me that the current division ladder system might be related to the underlying system architecture.
It is exhaustively more expensive to calculate the true ranking against 100 million people in real time versus having to calculate the true ranking for a partitioned sub-divisions. Due to an extremely frequent nature of the changes in ranking, you're almost forced to calculate ranking every time if the ladder system was just one giant ladder. Also it makes any type of caching and database partitioning strategy a lot less challenging when dealing with with small set of data called "division."
Perhaps they didn't want to set up 10,000 real-time replicated database services. Instead they could just set up 1,000 partitioned databases with little lags in between replications (in conjunction with partitioned distributed caching layer). This could also potentially explain some discrepancies with "Favored" status due to the latency in replication of data across different databases.
Well.. may be it's just my crazy idea. But if I had to architect a massive infrastructure like that, the current implementation actually makes a lot of sense.
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well they dont have to update your world wide ranking in real time once an hour or even a day would probably please most people..
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On May 26 2010 06:17 Kardiss wrote:
I myself is an architect/developer and it just dawned on me that the current division ladder system might be related to the underlying system architecture.
It is exhaustively more expensive to calculate the true ranking against 100 million people in real time versus having to calculate the true ranking for a partitioned sub-divisions. Due to an extremely frequent nature of the changes in ranking, you're almost forced to calculate ranking every time if the ladder system was just one giant ladder. Also it makes any type of caching and database partitioning strategy a lot less challenging when dealing with with small set of data called "division."
Perhaps they didn't want to set up 10,000 real-time replicated database services. Instead they could just set up 1,000 partitioned databases with little lags in between replications (in conjunction with partitioned distributed caching layer). This could also potentially explain some discrepancies with "Favored" status due to the latency in replication of data across different databases.
Well.. may be it's just my crazy idea. But if I had to architect a massive infrastructure like that, the current implementation actually makes a lot of sense.
i'm only a freshman cs major, but given that blizz is already calculating elo and favored status dynamically, across all divisions, a general ranking would be only marginally harder to implement. An easy labor saver would be that your ranking only updates once ever 24 hours at 0:00 server time, or every time you finished a game, instead of truly dynamically. I don't think database management should be a real concern here.
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Cronjob to calculate the ranking every 24 hours or so obviously is really easy. But we would have 24 million angry users asking why their ranking is not real-time. You see, Blizzard can never escape from angry users no matter what they do. In order to calculate ELO and favored status, you only need the real time rating for your opponent (which is simple). You don't need full data sync for that. But for general ranking, you need the entire set. Database management for small scale is easy. For a massive clustered databases of this scale is definitely not. A lot of times these challenging problems are over generalized and simplified by non-technical people - which is understandable.
But I have a high expectation that Blizzard will deliver what we want eventually.
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1) It's not hard, ELO scales extremely well to large numbers. I gave some back of the napkin numbers in some other post of mine on TL, I'm 95% sure I could handle 1 million players on 1 server (just the ladder...).
2) They are already doing it for the matchmaking ratings, they just hide them. Sure they don't need the full rankings for that, but it is trivial to maintain real-time rankings when you have real-time ratings, I don't know why you think it wouldn't be.
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Signed. So Signed.
All has been said more than enough times regarding the ridiculous divisions and their nonexistant overview.
I just feel obliged to sign once more. Sadly I doubt Blizzard gives a fuck.
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An example of how stupid this system is:
![[image loading]](http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/8946/screenshot002tt.jpg)
HEY GUYS, IM TIED RANK 1 / 2!! CAN I PLAY IN TOURNAMENTS, YET!?
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On May 26 2010 13:38 Bibdy wrote:
An example of how stupid this system is:
HEY GUYS, IM TIED RANK 1 / 2!! CAN I PLAY IN TOURNAMENTS, YET!?
Pretty sure this has to do with the fact that the #1 place player has played 2 times the games you have. Still, that blows. XD
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On May 25 2010 12:46 Bill307 wrote:I understand what Blizzard is doing. For the average player, having divisions so that your rank feels more motivating and satisfying is a very good idea. The same principle is used in other places, such as XBox Live games that allow you to view your rank in a game compared to just your friends. It is a great improvement over being ranked #57,136. It gives the average player a much more realistic goal: to be one of the best among a small group of players. And they SHOULD feel good about an accomplishment like that. They SHOULD feel good about moving from #57,136 to #56,814, because they have accomplished something, and yet it feels meaningless. That is a big problem with an overall ranking. That said, I think this thread is evidence enough that an overall ranking is a far superior method for, say, the top 10% of the players. There is an easy way to satisfy most players in both groups. Have divisions for the vast majority of the players, but once you reach the highest level (diamond, titanium, plutonium (because you're HOT STUFF), whatever), group all the players at that level into a single division, creating an overall ranking. Having 2 systems works great because of how the players are distributed. If you're a player who gets more out of the division system, then you're probably in the lower levels. If you're a player who gets more out of the overall ranking system, then you're probably in or close to the highest level. So you're pleasing far more players like this than you would be with just one system or the other. Adding a top level with an overall ranking also adds an additional incentive or milestone for the high-level players who want to be ranked in that manner: no only do you get to take pride in being in the top level, but you also get to take pride in stepping out of the divisions and into the overall ranking.
agreed. It'd be more cool if the overall ranking was called "The Ladder" or something and only top players could ascend to "The Ladder" while everyone else plays in "The League" (with all the divisions nonsense). Just an idea
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SIGNED. I feel like these new developers are taking too much precaution because of WoW, they are trying to keep everything "Ok" for everyone, which really means catering to all the players a game community needs, plus the ones it doesn't (the xY year olds who might as well be 6 behind the keyboard)
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smaller divisions so more people can feel like they are "on top" also means more people feeling like they are "the worst": someone has to be at the bottom of all these many divisions
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I just created an account to sign this! I want a real ranking!
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I definitely think that there needs to be a overall rank for the top of the server ie: top 1000 places.
However theres no reason to give everyone an overall rank. Once you get past top 2000 it will almost become completely meaningless to know your overall rank because noone knows how many active ladder players there are at any time, making league standing a more practical indication of skill for lower league users.
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An idea I saw on the official forums (yes I saw something intelligent on the official forums o.O) that I really like was:
Increase the pool size for divisions as you go up in leagues, until diamond where there are no divisions and just one pool of players.
Bronze: 100 players per division
Silver: 200 players
Gold: 1000 players
Platinum: I dunno how many players there are in a league overall, but have like 10-20 divisions
Diamond: 1 division.
This lets players lower in the ladder get more of a personal feeling instead of being number #329834 and gives them an indication of how close they are to advancing, and as you move up, you gain more comparison as you become more competitive, while still giving some measure of possible achievement without being overwhelming, and then as you get to the top level, give the information fully competitive players want, their overall place.
Anyone else think this is cool?
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/signed
What is Blizzard doing here???
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On May 26 2010 18:11 ZapRoffo wrote:
An idea I saw on the official forums (yes I saw something intelligent on the official forums o.O) that I really like was:
Increase the pool size for divisions as you go up in leagues, until diamond where there are no divisions and just one pool of players.
Bronze: 100 players per division
Silver: 200 players
Gold: 1000 players
Platinum: I dunno how many players there are in a league overall, but have like 10-20 divisions
Diamond: 1 division.
This lets players lower in the ladder get more of a personal feeling instead of being number #329834 and gives them an indication of how close they are to advancing, and as you move up, you gain more comparison as you become more competitive, while still giving some measure of possible achievement without being overwhelming, and then as you get to the top level, give the information fully competitive players want, their overall place.
Anyone else think this is cool? I don't.
I think it goes against elitism. I would make the opposite. Less players on top. Hard to reach the top.
Regarding the main topic, i "can't see" Blizzard letting anyone take any nickname already taken, and let the ladder as it is. If it stays like that, from day 1, i'll start a clan where everybody is named "Bob", and we'll become the biggest clan in europe and then control the world of Bob... then Blizzard may change their mind.
No, seriously it's too silly to stay as it is.
And about knowing where you stand, though i agree with OP, one thing we miss at the moment, to discuss, is the online rankings page, where you could see anyone's stats. I dont think any Blizzard's guy did communicate about this, but of course there will be online stats. (at release, a patch after, an expansion later? >_< )
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Guys, please show op suppport on the thread in battle.net also. I know blizz reads here but many casual players that don't know about TL should also see how many we are. 19 pages here but only 8 on official forums.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
I actually like the divisions. I see no problem with not being stuck at like number 10,000. It's nice to be able to be the top 10 in my division and it's nice to actually feel progression from passing people.
If I'm number 10,000 I get a win and go up to 9,999 what have I actually accomplished? I'm just one player in what seems to be and endless pool of people.
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On May 26 2010 19:48 Qikz wrote:
I actually like the divisions. I see no problem with not being stuck at like number 10,000. It's nice to be able to be the top 10 in my division and it's nice to actually feel progression from passing people.
If I'm number 10,000 I get a win and go up to 9,999 what have I actually accomplished? I'm just one player in what seems to be and endless pool of people.
So you prefer lying to yourself to feel good, than just dealing with the truth and being intrinsically motivated by your success?
Ok...
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On May 26 2010 19:48 Qikz wrote:
I actually like the divisions. I see no problem with not being stuck at like number 10,000. It's nice to be able to be the top 10 in my division and it's nice to actually feel progression from passing people.
If I'm number 10,000 I get a win and go up to 9,999 what have I actually accomplished? I'm just one player in what seems to be and endless pool of people.
Thing is you haven't accomplished more by being top 10 in your division. Only difference is that blizzard is giving you the sense as if you have.
Being top 10 in your division means less then being 9999 of a global pool. When you are 9999 of a global pool then you actually are 9999 of total players.
Now where did you stand again? top 10 of what divsion?? is that divison good? how good? compared to other divisions in same league? How good are you actually?
If you are a competitive player than ofc you want to know where you stand compared to others.
If not, then I understand. But this solution that blizz is going with feels like i am playing with 5 year old kids that is going to cry if they lose or can't show off to their facebook friends how good they are.
Don't get me wrong. I am nowhere good. I play in bronze league, but hell I wanna know where I stand and don't want blizz to treat me as I was a little kid that can't handle the truth!
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On May 26 2010 19:48 Qikz wrote:
I actually like the divisions. I see no problem with not being stuck at like number 10,000. It's nice to be able to be the top 10 in my division and it's nice to actually feel progression from passing people.
If I'm number 10,000 I get a win and go up to 9,999 what have I actually accomplished? I'm just one player in what seems to be and endless pool of people.
If you would be rank 10k in a merged division then your are number 10k too now in terms of elo points. I don't really understand how you can see your own progression when you fight for rank 1 in the 115th division with a guy who played 600 games just to maintain his 1450 points in plat. And in a merged division 1 win would mean at least 20-30 places in the rank, so with a lucky streak you could be 500 places higher than the you were yesterday. I think that would be a bit better motivation. But it's my opinion only.
Also /signed.
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Signed. Good initiative, I hope it leads to something.
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Signed! I hope its not to late to make changes -.-'
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The division thing would be a lot more interesting if it, at the very least, were piramid shaped, instead of what we got now (seems rectangle shaped to me).
Like the top league being only 1 division (pro league), diamond being like 5 - 10 divisions, all the way to bronze which should be a couple 100 divisions.
This will help bad players feel good about themselves like now, but at least you'd have a reasonable idea of how good the top league players are.
And also, need to have access to a system that allows you to see all divisions of all leagues.
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500k page views that just goes to show how necessary this is, if Blizzard implemented and linked to something like this it would be tens of millions of views by now.
/signed
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Really do hope that Blizzard will listen to us.
/signed
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/signed
I tried to read all the post on this, but at this point there is a lot. So here a couple of ideas.
First, maybe make a global ladder for each league. Having a way to compare yourself to others in your league (like you can be ranked 200th amongst gold players). I think that would please both casual and pro alike.
Second idea, maybe make a global ladder for the top 1,000 players (rough number) so that the top player knows how they stand and us spectators can see how they stand. Not having personalized names makes it tough to stand out and is silly not to have (thats like rule one of games played with large number of players).
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On May 26 2010 14:13 Afterhours wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2010 13:38 Bibdy wrote:
An example of how stupid this system is:
HEY GUYS, IM TIED RANK 1 / 2!! CAN I PLAY IN TOURNAMENTS, YET!? Pretty sure this has to do with the fact that the #1 place player has played 2 times the games you have. Still, that blows. XD
I wasn't trying to point out the stupidity of the tied state. More that I can run around saying I'm a #1 Diamond player, with a rating of 140 and only 11 games played.
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On May 22 2010 19:04 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Signed a million times over.
Agreed.
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just make LAN. it will solve all problems. people can play on blizzard battle.net if they want official recognition or they can play on all sorts of custom servers like iccup. let the consumer control his software. there is no excuse. pirates? nigguh pleaz.
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On May 26 2010 18:11 ZapRoffo wrote:
An idea I saw on the official forums (yes I saw something intelligent on the official forums o.O) that I really like was:
Increase the pool size for divisions as you go up in leagues, until diamond where there are no divisions and just one pool of players.
Bronze: 100 players per division
Silver: 200 players
Gold: 1000 players
Platinum: I dunno how many players there are in a league overall, but have like 10-20 divisions
Diamond: 1 division.
This lets players lower in the ladder get more of a personal feeling instead of being number #329834 and gives them an indication of how close they are to advancing, and as you move up, you gain more comparison as you become more competitive, while still giving some measure of possible achievement without being overwhelming, and then as you get to the top level, give the information fully competitive players want, their overall place.
Anyone else think this is cool?
I love this idea. No more 100 #1 diamond players.
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I kinda just want an update on the status of starcraftrankings post patch 13 =)
I love the site btw
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ranking will probably be a after release or we'll have 1/2 million #1 Diamond players :D
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I completely agree. Now that I think about it all the things they do to make us feel like we are better than we are like making the enemy always favored and hiding are exact ranks is quite condescending, and seems like a cheap way to make gamers think they are better than they are so that they play more.
/signed
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Thanks for the website. It was great while it lasted. Just a lot of fun comparing how your rating stacked up against other good players, and to see your improvement every week.
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I am going to be a devil's advocate here and try to convey what I think is Blizzard's logic.
Everyone should know that they are going to implement the Pro league and it will have congregated ranking. So for the competitive player, there will be a global ranking.
What about those that are unable to make it into Pro league? Don't you want to know where you stand in your own league?
Well...to be blunt, that means you suck! (not to be demeaning, I am going to be one one of those people) To put it in ICCUP terms, you may be ranking C or below (or whatever Blizzard set the cut off point to be). If you think like that, then you know where you stand.
Also, many people may not realize it, but knowing your ranking within your entire league is just as obfuscated as your ranking in your division. Say you are rank #1 in platinum, that really means you are about #14295 overall. You may not think like this now, but when the game comes out, I am sure a lot of you would prefer to say you are a high ranking Diamond than someone who can't get into Pro league and rank #12834.
For those that really want global ranking instead of ranking in their league, then what's the point of having different league? Are you suggesting to remove the league system all together? If you want to have league and know your ranking in that league, what's to say this level of obfuscation is better than what Blizzard is implementing now?
So in summary, if you really are competitive and want to know your global ranking, get better and get into the Pro league!!
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I actually wouldn't mind removing divisions.
However, it may be really hard to move up leagues then, so really, I don't know.
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thing is how does one even get into the pro league? isn't it invite only?
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Only thing I really have an issue with is not having unique names, why would they even do that?
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Good post, I went onto the official forums and posted my +1 just to bump the thread. I hope Blizzard listens but at least if they don't we have starcraftrankings.com
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/agree
Conclusion: The System should be in that way of StarcraftRankings.
although i think a leaguesystem in general is not that bad in order to replace a "level-system" combined with a top 1000 ranked ladder(i refer to WC3 system in that point). In fact the level gradation was just a transformation of your points. So you exchange a number with another number which is subtly.
The Change into a league with different qualities/values (value because the classification in form of silver, gold, platin.... is smart, i think) is comprehensible. It enables the possibility to correleate your performance/points with a decent rank, which is gradated in another value of performance. This gradation is just kind of iccup ranks for the masses. The Problem with the leagues at the moment is that there are x diamond, x platin.... So your space to compare you with eachother is too small. Like the threadopener just said, its frustating and even in a more casual sight, not motivating(maybe shortsighted like first ten games).
The solution which lay on hands is to define, there are just one diamond, one platin etc. Maybe it brings problems with scaling up and down a league. But actual it would just afford to find another formula (good players rising faster up that not that good players).
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/Signed
Maybe they could implement a dual option in the settings with the lameness that is the current state the default setting, that would satisfy the sheeple that want to feel good about their ranking. The other option, obviously, would be to display your ranking on a global/server scale. I suppose that would make too much sense...
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I wholeheartedly agree. Btw, congrats about your website, I didn't even know it existed. You are the man.
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On May 27 2010 07:57 radynom wrote:
Also, many people may not realize it, but knowing your ranking within your entire league is just as obfuscated as your ranking in your division. Say you are rank #1 in platinum, that really means you are about #14295 overall. You may not think like this now, but when the game comes out, I am sure a lot of you would prefer to say you are a high ranking Diamond than someone who can't get into Pro league and rank #12834.
For those that really want global ranking instead of ranking in their league, then what's the point of having different league? Are you suggesting to remove the league system all together? If you want to have league and know your ranking in that league, what's to say this level of obfuscation is better than what Blizzard is implementing now?
So in summary, if you really are competitive and want to know your global ranking, get better and get into the Pro league!! You could have the best of both worlds.
They could just keep the current divisions that makes some people happy but also add your global ranking as a small number on some corner of your player profile. You might not even want to look at that number if you don't care about it and just look at the big bright "number 1 diamond" that makes you feel so awesome. But other players might wanna check the global rankings
From my experience in other games. Having different rankings and different types of goals to achieve works very well. You can't get to top #10000 ranking X? Well you could always aim for top 10 on rank Y! Not good at that too? Well, there's always rank Z! This works very well in other game types to keep players engaged and always have something to look for.
They don't need to obfuscate the global rankings to make the average players feel good about themselves.
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please get rid of this awful division system and implement an easy to navigate ladder.
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tbh id rather be rank 12423 Diamond than #2 Platinum.
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Why does Blizzard think they can just assume they know what customers want? Why are they so arrogant?
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/signed
I sent this e-mail to blizz today:
"http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128014
check the polls on the bottom. Shocking aren't they?
Seriously, I understand that you are trying to take control of the global e-Sports scene, but don't forget that the players are the ones who make the e-Sport possible. Don't drive your top level players and most dedicated fans away because you are too cocky to realize that you NEED LAN play, you NEED chat channels, YOU NEED A GLOBAL, UNIQUE LADDER, and you NEED to allow cross-region play. These aren't hard aspects to implement. Chat channels would probably take one programmer about 3 hours to finalize and polish. Cross region? Just let a battle.net account connect to multiple regions, like in SC1... Unique Ladder? YOU HAD ONE AND GOT RID OF IT. What were you thinking? Did you never look at http://starcraftrankings.com/ ? This website proves that people WANT and REQUIRE a UNIQUE LADDER. No one cares if you are better than 50 other people at your skill level. I want to know how good I am globally, compared to all other players. So does EVERYONE ELSE.
Please Blizzard, as someone who has literally grown up on your games, I have played SC1 and BW since 1998, I've played WoW for over 4 years. I played D2 until I got carpal tunnel. Don't leave us hanging on the biggest game to be released since 1998. You may not realize it, but you are shooting your feet off with these policies. All I ask is for some kind of response, do something, make it clear that your intentions are toward the players, not towards your bank account. We all know how much you make off of WoW (16,000,000 times 15 is.... 240,000,000 a month) so don't get greedy like everyone else, stick to your guns, don't forget that the thing that brought your company to the precipice of the gaming world if a focus on your players and the community.
And seriously, go on the www.teamliquid.net forums and read what people are saying. You have professionals abandoning the sport all together because of what you are doing with this game. Don't ruin the phenomenon, keep the gravy train rolling! Please. I beg you. Don't ruin this for everyone."
Maybe if more people on the ground floor for blizz realize what the community wants, because clearly they don't, they will change some stuff. I think at this point it is just a question of gathering enough voices to ensure that Activision (who is really behind all this non-sense) gets the idea.
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On May 31 2010 10:49 Chronald wrote:/signed I sent this e-mail to blizz today: "http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128014 check the polls on the bottom. Shocking aren't they? Seriously, I understand that you are trying to take control of the global e-Sports scene, but don't forget that the players are the ones who make the e-Sport possible. Don't drive your top level players and most dedicated fans away because you are too cocky to realize that you NEED LAN play, you NEED chat channels, YOU NEED A GLOBAL, UNIQUE LADDER, and you NEED to allow cross-region play. These aren't hard aspects to implement. Chat channels would probably take one programmer about 3 hours to finalize and polish. Cross region? Just let a battle.net account connect to multiple regions, like in SC1... Unique Ladder? YOU HAD ONE AND GOT RID OF IT. What were you thinking? Did you never look at http://starcraftrankings.com/ ? This website proves that people WANT and REQUIRE a UNIQUE LADDER. No one cares if you are better than 50 other people at your skill level. I want to know how good I am globally, compared to all other players. So does EVERYONE ELSE. Please Blizzard, as someone who has literally grown up on your games, I have played SC1 and BW since 1998, I've played WoW for over 4 years. I played D2 until I got carpal tunnel. Don't leave us hanging on the biggest game to be released since 1998. You may not realize it, but you are shooting your feet off with these policies. All I ask is for some kind of response, do something, make it clear that your intentions are toward the players, not towards your bank account. We all know how much you make off of WoW (16,000,000 times 15 is.... 240,000,000 a month) so don't get greedy like everyone else, stick to your guns, don't forget that the thing that brought your company to the precipice of the gaming world if a focus on your players and the community. And seriously, go on the www.teamliquid.net forums and read what people are saying. You have professionals abandoning the sport all together because of what you are doing with this game. Don't ruin the phenomenon, keep the gravy train rolling! Please. I beg you. Don't ruin this for everyone." Maybe if more people on the ground floor for blizz realize what the community wants, because clearly they don't, they will change some stuff. I think at this point it is just a question of gathering enough voices to ensure that Activision (who is really behind all this non-sense) gets the idea.
Good post but the current population in WoW is nowhere near 16 million, by Blizzard's own count they're still a bit over 11 million but there's some doubt over that. Warcraft Census has the active population at 3.4 million for the U.S., and 2.4 million for Europe for a total of 5.7 million. Of course this is just the number of active characters, and the average WoW player has more than one character, so the actual amount of people with active subscriptions in these two regions is definitely smaller than 5.7 million.
http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=-1&factionid=-1&minlevel=10&maxlevel=80&servertypeid=-1
Unfortunately it is hard to get figures for China but I doubt they have more than 5 million active users.
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hey Gib
any chances that you're going to bring your site back anytime soon? aka for release?
it was amasing 
Edit: sorry for necroing this thread... I'm just really interested in this website and I hope that if we give this guy support.. he's going to reimplement it
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i like the divisions 
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EDIT: I wrote this post, then about 10 minutes later I found this: http://beta-us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/24939/1/ladder/53/ ... Hotness. As long as Blizzard is ok with it, I should be able to get starcraftrankings.com up with complete data very soon (this weekend at the latest).
I don't know, my traffic seems to go up when I don't update it, why would I want to interfere with that?!
![[image loading]](http://fileza.com/d/14ro408/winup.png)
On a more serious note, I just started a full time job a couple weeks ago and the project we're working on is in a pretty demanding phase so I don't have much time to do other things right now
In addition, the new naming/division system makes my client updater significantly less effective because you can't just lookup someone else's division and scan it, you have to know their character code which is much less accessible than even the identifiers before them. Also, without division numbers, it is difficult to figure out which divisions are missing. It's still doable, but it will either be much less accurate or require a much more sophisticated updater.
Blizzard has said they are developing their own SC2 Armory of sorts. While they are unlikely to provide overall rankings on it, it will probably have all the divisions on it and it will be much easier to update my overall rankings from a website than the client (primarily because the client is completely proprietary and hard to figure out, while websites conform to open standards). If they release it soon, I can get away with avoiding the client updater altogether and save a lot of time and frustration, so that's what I'm hoping for.
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agree with everything and signed
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On July 16 2010 12:18 Gibybo wrote:EDIT: I wrote this post, then about 10 minutes later I found this: http://beta-us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/24939/1/ladder/53/ ... Hotness. As long as Blizzard is ok with it, I should be able to get starcraftrankings.com up with complete data very soon (this weekend at the latest).
Thanks Gibybo!
Adding all of these online stats that are accessible seems like a data junkie's dream come true
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Props for putting in the effort to make this.
/Signed ofcourse.
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Signed.
I find the "EU and lower leagues coming soon." degrading though -Yes I know it's not supposed to be interpreted that way
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On July 16 2010 19:43 Curs3d wrote:Signed. I find the "EU and lower leagues coming soon." degrading though -Yes I know it's not supposed to be interpreted that way
Or is it?? Heh, I've modified it a little
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I dig it. Thanks for coding the website, it looks pretty awesome. A much simpler interface and less of a load time compared to Blizz's new beta site. :D
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How do we bring this to Blizz's attention?
another signature here.
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Signed.
Btw very well written.
Also on a side note, I think the ladder system in phase to is very... jumpy?. I just jumped from Silver rank 23 to Platnum rank 1 like five minutes ago O_O.
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Wow man...
thanks Gib... :D
didn't knew it would go that fast... but much <3 to you!
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OP really captures how I feel about the divisions. Hopefully Blizzard will take notice of it.
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Seeing that Blizz beta site has convinced me that we won't be getting any ladder changes before release. Bah.
Here's hoping that the tournament patch we have been promised adds in some of the global and regional competitive rankings.
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/signed- thanks for writing up what most of us were thinking.
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/signed
of course! really stupid to have it any other way!
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Bosnia-Herzegovina439 Posts
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Hell about time someone did this.
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/signed. On here and on Bnet forums.
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signed. No question, signed.
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Signed. Just make a ladder like warcraft III with a ranking on batte.net.
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On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:Dear Blizzard, I have never made a game capable of filling stadiums with tens of thousands of spectators. I don't have 11 million players playing in a world I created. Nor do I have 2.5 billion dollars laying around in my bank account. I am simply one fan with an opinion I think you need to hear. As a competitive StarCraft II player, I feel obliged to let you know that I find your current ladder system disappointing. I understand it is a work in progress and you have a million other things to work on, so I don't want to focus on the technical shortcomings. Instead I will consider only the changes that have already been made. From the overall design of a segregated ladder and recent changes such as removing division numbers and taking away the ability for any player to create a uniquely identifiable name, it is obvious that you intend to obscure each player's global ranking information as much as possible. While your goal may be to let us all feel better about ourselves, I find it frustrating and condescending. I want to know how I stand compared to everyone, and as it turns out, I'm not alone. Since I launched StarCraftRankings.com a little over a month ago, over 30,000 people have checked the rankings of themselves and their friends more than 500,000 times. My logs show that several hundred of those were even from your own office. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy writing my own ladder page for a game I love, but I think we'd all prefer that you just stop hiding information from your most dedicated fans in the first place. An eternal fan, Gibybo -- I have posted it on the front page of StarCraftRankings.com but I would appreciate some community support On Blizzard's forums: http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25026573397&sid=5000
Sounds like you're just annoyed that your site is suffering. Don't see how this makes you a representative of the Starcraft 2 community.
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On July 17 2010 02:54 Tone_ wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:Dear Blizzard, I have never made a game capable of filling stadiums with tens of thousands of spectators. I don't have 11 million players playing in a world I created. Nor do I have 2.5 billion dollars laying around in my bank account. I am simply one fan with an opinion I think you need to hear. As a competitive StarCraft II player, I feel obliged to let you know that I find your current ladder system disappointing. I understand it is a work in progress and you have a million other things to work on, so I don't want to focus on the technical shortcomings. Instead I will consider only the changes that have already been made. From the overall design of a segregated ladder and recent changes such as removing division numbers and taking away the ability for any player to create a uniquely identifiable name, it is obvious that you intend to obscure each player's global ranking information as much as possible. While your goal may be to let us all feel better about ourselves, I find it frustrating and condescending. I want to know how I stand compared to everyone, and as it turns out, I'm not alone. Since I launched StarCraftRankings.com a little over a month ago, over 30,000 people have checked the rankings of themselves and their friends more than 500,000 times. My logs show that several hundred of those were even from your own office. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy writing my own ladder page for a game I love, but I think we'd all prefer that you just stop hiding information from your most dedicated fans in the first place. An eternal fan, Gibybo -- I have posted it on the front page of StarCraftRankings.com but I would appreciate some community support On Blizzard's forums: http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25026573397&sid=5000 Sounds like you're just annoyed that your site is suffering. Don't see how this makes you a representative of the Starcraft 2 community.
What? Did you not read what he wrote. Some people. Seriously. Scram.
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On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:
Since I launched StarCraftRankings.com a little over a month ago, over 30,000 people have checked the rankings of themselves and their friends more than 500,000 times. My logs show that several hundred of those were even from your own office.
topicId=25026573397&sid=5000
this is the best part of the letter, well done sir
I support the message in this letter.
I was sad when starcraftrankings stoped updating, I hope it will resume when the game goes retail, I asume that you stopped working on it cuz they changed it somehow during one of the many patches and didnt wanna put your effort into something they would just change in the next patch?
or have the encrypted it somehow? that would suck...
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I support the essence of the letter, even if it is melodramatically written. It reminds me of a letter I wrote Bill Clinton when I was 13 about space travel.
But I'm all for some sort of in-game single-ladder/global/regional ranking info.
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sounds about right
im not on the site T_T im only Gold though
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They could keep their precious divisions..but they could just as easily show ladderrankings in the way starcraftrankings.com did without removing divisions - just a thought
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On July 17 2010 03:12 arnold(soTa) wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2010 19:00 Gibybo wrote:
Since I launched StarCraftRankings.com a little over a month ago, over 30,000 people have checked the rankings of themselves and their friends more than 500,000 times. My logs show that several hundred of those were even from your own office.
topicId=25026573397&sid=5000 this is the best part of the letter, well done sir I support the message in this letter. I was sad when starcraftrankings stoped updating, I hope it will resume when the game goes retail, I asume that you stopped working on it cuz they changed it somehow during one of the many patches and didnt wanna put your effort into something they would just change in the next patch? or have the encrypted it somehow? that would suck...
They changed the division names to some rubbish instead of numbers. It's impossible to tell how many divisions there are and navigate in general. At least that's what I assume was the reason it's no longer updated.
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hopefully they will implement and overall ladder system on their fancy new website O_O here's to wishing...
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Blizzards system is amazing and here's why:
They already stated that they are implementing Pro League which will take the top players in each Diamond division after a certain time interval (specifics pending) and they will play against eachother for tournaments hosted by Blizzard.
For everyone else who isnt the top .01% (not literal) of players, actually get to compete and rise up in their designated division based on their skill level. As they gradually get better then they will rise up in the leagues. This system makes it so that players arnt discouraged to play because they are #12,654,116 in the ladder, but rather have a set goal to get into the top of their division which is more realistic. This system helps people improve by taking it one step at a time.
Blizzard I see what your doing and I approve. Your approach is going to do so much for Esports around the world.
Just look at it now and the game isnt even out yet! It's hard to fathom how big the scene will be in the years to come.
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EPT
