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Why the division system is better than you think - Page 6

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Erucious
Profile Joined March 2010
Norway393 Posts
July 12 2010 23:54 GMT
#101
i think no one really knows how well this system is going to be untill we have 1-3 months of a lot of activity and we can see how well it fares. Before we had so many resets, bugs, etc that it wasnt quite right.
I'm Norwegian/Dutch. Just the awesome parts of them though :D
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States44600 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-12 23:56:52
July 12 2010 23:56 GMT
#102
On July 13 2010 08:51 Tiptup wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 13 2010 04:42 Issorlol wrote:
Your division is a sample of the entire population of the league in which you place. This means that your rank in your division is, over a long period of time with many games played by the community as a whole, indicative of your rank as a whole compared to everyone in your league by percentile

That means if you play 300 games and you're rank 89 in your division... You're as good as 89% of the other people in your league.


So if I'm rank 89 I'm then "as good" as someone at rank 1? Huh?

Or, do you mean I'm "as good" as everyone in the bottom 89%? (I'm "as good" as someone at rank 12 if I'm at rank 89.)

I'm sorry, but if you can't communicate what you're thinking with clarity and accuracy then that makes it hard for me to believe you know what you're talking about. Perhaps you do, but I'm not going to bother deciphering your confusing statements.


He's explicitly stated that division rank = percentile rank. While that's an incorrect statement (and most obviously incorrect in the diamond league), he's made it quite clear in the OP and throughout this thread that he thought that your rank (like being ranked #1 in your division) is the same as your percentile rank (like being in the top 1% of all the people in your league).

It's interesting how many people understood his platform quite easily >.> There wasn't much to decipher.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Tiptup
Profile Joined June 2007
United States133 Posts
July 12 2010 23:59 GMT
#103
On July 13 2010 08:52 FabledIntegral wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 13 2010 08:51 Tiptup wrote:
So if I'm rank 89 I'm then "as good" as someone at rank 1? Huh?

Or, do you mean I'm "as good" as everyone in the bottom 89%? (I'm "as good" as someone at rank 12 if I'm at rank 89.)


Think of "as good or better than." Aka if you're 89%, 11% are better than you.


That seems backwards. If 11% of the people in my league are "as good or better" than me at rank 89 then what percentage of people of are "as good or better than me" at rank 12? 88%?
So certain are you.
Tiptup
Profile Joined June 2007
United States133 Posts
July 13 2010 00:03 GMT
#104
On July 13 2010 08:56 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
He's explicitly stated that division rank = percentile rank. While that's an incorrect statement (and most obviously incorrect in the diamond league), he's made it quite clear in the OP and throughout this thread that he thought that your rank (like being ranked #1 in your division) is the same as your percentile rank (like being in the top 1% of all the people in your league).

It's interesting how many people understood his platform quite easily >.> There wasn't much to decipher.


Then that clearly contradicts the meaning of the phraseology he used in the section I quoted.

If it's a strict percentage system then that would mean that rank 89 places you in the top 89% of your league (you're as good or better than the bottom 11%).
So certain are you.
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States44600 Posts
July 13 2010 00:03 GMT
#105
89th percentile = ranked 11th.

99th percentile means in the top 1%.

40th percentile means ranked 60 out of 100, or coming in 60th place out of 100.

Hope that helps. You guys are getting confused, since percentile rank doesn't actually apply to StarCraft 2 leagues. Think of standardized test scores.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Tiptup
Profile Joined June 2007
United States133 Posts
July 13 2010 00:06 GMT
#106
On July 13 2010 09:03 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
89th percentile = ranked 11th.

99th percentile means in the top 1%.

40th percentile means ranked 60 out of 100, or coming in 60th place out of 100.

Hope that helps. You guys are getting confused, since percentile rank doesn't actually apply to StarCraft 2 leagues. Think of standardized test scores.


Yes, that makes more sense. Thank you.
So certain are you.
Wargizmo
Profile Joined March 2010
Australia1237 Posts
July 13 2010 00:08 GMT
#107

Divisions are a good system for 99% of us, but for those who are at the absolute top of the game it's almost useless, there needs to be a pro league or something where the top 100 people in the world can be ranked against each other.
Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is best. - Frank Zappa
FabledIntegral
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States9232 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-13 00:15:20
July 13 2010 00:09 GMT
#108
On July 13 2010 08:59 Tiptup wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 13 2010 08:52 FabledIntegral wrote:
On July 13 2010 08:51 Tiptup wrote:
So if I'm rank 89 I'm then "as good" as someone at rank 1? Huh?

Or, do you mean I'm "as good" as everyone in the bottom 89%? (I'm "as good" as someone at rank 12 if I'm at rank 89.)


Think of "as good or better than." Aka if you're 89%, 11% are better than you.


That seems backwards. If 11% of the people in my league are "as good or better" than me at rank 89 then what percentage of people of are "as good or better than me" at rank 12? 88%?


Explanation fail on my part, I meant to say that if you're rank 89, 11% are worse than you and 89% are as good or better. But yeah it's just percentiles.

On July 13 2010 09:08 Wargizmo wrote:

Divisions are a good system for 99% of us, but for those who are at the absolute top of the game it's almost useless, there needs to be a pro league or something where the top 100 people in the world can be ranked against each other.


More like top 1,000 or even top 10,000^^.

Think of how many ppl in Korea are B+ and still wouldn't make the list in SC1 and would have no idea where there relative rank is. I feel like I would want to know where I stand, and I'm only C level in SC1.

EDIT: Although I guess it'd be top 100 per realm and we'd filter out all the Koreans this time...
darmousseh
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States3437 Posts
July 13 2010 00:13 GMT
#109
This is missing the most important point though. Blizzard will be reseting rankings often. In wow they do it like every 6-9 months. Rankings have no bearing on your actual rating. For example, is a player with 1500 points with a 50% record better than someone with 200 points but a 100% win record? The answer is, I have no freaking idea. The point system is designed intentionally to do 2 things.

1. Always be increasing. Since matchmaking will always try to help you play against similarly ranked players, then you will win about 50% of your games. Since there are bonus points, you average rating will increase every day. Don't be surprised if in diamond there are players will a 6000 rating. (Does that mean they are good? I have no freaking idea)

2. Encourage more playing and hide your actual rating. Good players like knowing what their ranking is. Bad players don't. Guess what? 95% of sc2 players will be bad at the game. The system is designed to obfuscate their strength and make it appear like they are progessing. This will keep players interested for longer since you can always increase ranking. This is also why they will be doing resets. To encourage players to keep playing.


This system is fine for the 95% of players that just want to play the game and have fun. for the 5% (or nearly 100% of TL, including myself) it feels condescending. But from a business perspective, its better not to scare the people that pay for the game.

Eventually, I see blizzard releasing actual rankings, but I don't see them doing that for 3-4 years when the casuals have basically stopped playing the game.

Anyway, achievements suck too.
Developer for http://mtgfiddle.com
KiF1rE
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United States964 Posts
July 13 2010 00:16 GMT
#110
http://yfrog.com/0vscreenshot2010071220151j

heres why i hate divisions =/ i feel so not competitive...
FabledIntegral
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States9232 Posts
July 13 2010 00:16 GMT
#111
On July 13 2010 09:13 darmousseh wrote:
This is missing the most important point though. Blizzard will be reseting rankings often. In wow they do it like every 6-9 months. Rankings have no bearing on your actual rating. For example, is a player with 1500 points with a 50% record better than someone with 200 points but a 100% win record? The answer is, I have no freaking idea. The point system is designed intentionally to do 2 things.

1. Always be increasing. Since matchmaking will always try to help you play against similarly ranked players, then you will win about 50% of your games. Since there are bonus points, you average rating will increase every day. Don't be surprised if in diamond there are players will a 6000 rating. (Does that mean they are good? I have no freaking idea)

2. Encourage more playing and hide your actual rating. Good players like knowing what their ranking is. Bad players don't. Guess what? 95% of sc2 players will be bad at the game. The system is designed to obfuscate their strength and make it appear like they are progessing. This will keep players interested for longer since you can always increase ranking. This is also why they will be doing resets. To encourage players to keep playing.


This system is fine for the 95% of players that just want to play the game and have fun. for the 5% (or nearly 100% of TL, including myself) it feels condescending. But from a business perspective, its better not to scare the people that pay for the game.

Eventually, I see blizzard releasing actual rankings, but I don't see them doing that for 3-4 years when the casuals have basically stopped playing the game.

Anyway, achievements suck too.


Not true really, or everyone would be around ~B rank minimum in Starcraft. Instead it means you'll plateau at a certain rank when you're going less than 50%. It doesn't mean you'll keep winning 50% of your games.
Tamerlane
Profile Joined July 2009
Canada424 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-13 00:19:58
July 13 2010 00:18 GMT
#112
On July 13 2010 06:23 Issorlol wrote:I don't even know the number of times I've said that this doesn't apply to top diamond


read again carefully, I mentioned top players, but the problem applies to the entire diamond league

as long as the players will move up and down, such system would work (given its objectives - although that's another subject), but as soon as a large number of players hit the top class (or league in this case) we get a serious problem of bias and the system completely fails to sort out the stronger players for the end season tournament (yes, I am attacking the proposition that rank would be a good indicator of skill over a long period of time)




after reading your OP a little more, I came around this :

Right now, due to relatively small populations and inactivity, ranking is not really the most reliable way of rating yourself. However, in the release, there will be more players, and so the chance of a top 1% player being in any given league is a lot higher (given, perhaps, higher population caps for leagues, but this would make interpreting rank much harder to do for a player).


as you pointed out, it would require a higher population cap, but that's not gonna happen, there's a huge flaw right there

also, the inactivity will be DRASTICALLY higher after the release than during the beta, a few reasons for that : continuity (you don't get your stats erased every few weeks), privilege (being able to play the game before a lot of people - any serious player wants to use this advantage - or at least avoid to fall behind) and regular updates (# of games played is always higher at the beginning of a patch rather than the end, beta had about 8-10 major patches while we'll be lucky if we get more than 1 patch during the same period of time after release)

but my main point is: every current RTS player that is serious about reaching a minimum proficiency level in SC2 is already playing the beta and there's no reason to believe they will not be hitting the ladder within the first couple days, this will stay the same for every single ladder reset in the next decade - the lesser good players (casual players and players that fought their way up) will inevitably end up in much smoother divisions and will rank higher than they would in other division

there is no way the rank will be representative of the percentile a player belongs to at the diamond level, even if you move up 100 players into a pro league

(as for the others, well, as I said: if they can move up and don't, that means they belong where they are - so the system is fine for the non-competitive players, hurray!!)
Bibdy
Profile Joined March 2010
United States3481 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-13 00:22:35
July 13 2010 00:21 GMT
#113
On July 13 2010 09:08 Wargizmo wrote:

Divisions are a good system for 99% of us, but for those who are at the absolute top of the game it's almost useless, there needs to be a pro league or something where the top 100 people in the world can be ranked against each other.


Pretty much that. If the divisions break the playerbase up into 20% chunks and the top 20% play against each other...well there's always a huge, huge, huge difference between the top 20% to the top 10% to the top 5%, 2%, 1%, 0.5% etc.

Let alone the problems with distinctions between divisions. #1 of a division made 6 months after release, with a rating of 1000, isn't anywhere near as impressive as being #1 of a division made on release day, with a rating of 10,000.

Put one against the other and who would you place money on?
RifleCow
Profile Joined February 2008
Canada637 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-13 00:25:37
July 13 2010 00:24 GMT
#114
I understand what hes saying. Basically the division is a sample of the population league. On average over a large amount of samples number 1 will be better than 99% of the league. That is not to say that in a particular division the number 1 guy is better, its just on average over all the divisions. Though, this is really just common sense and saying im top 1% of my league is pretty much useless since 1% of lets say 100k is still 1 thousand people and when your striving to be competitive you still wanna know how well you match up against the best.
hohoho
Ryuu314
Profile Joined October 2009
United States12679 Posts
July 13 2010 00:34 GMT
#115
OP's point is valid but only in the long run. It seems to me that Blizzard's ranking system will only really work and reflect proper rankings once the ladder has been in existence for quite a while. This is greatly reflected in the nature of the point inflation.

The reason why people gain many more points than they lose is because the system wants to inflate the point pool, such that it becomes easier to distinguish between different players. For example, if the highest point value someone attains is 2000 and another random player's value is 1240, that's a lot easier and more accurate indicator of skill discrepancy than if the difference were say 600 being the highest and 400 being the random player. I have confidence that the ladder will eventually stabilize.

However, this does not mean everything's fine and dandy. The absolute lack of clear cut distinctions in terms of overall rank is still quite annoying. Divisions that are created earlier will obviously have people with higher point values than those created later. This is fine, except Blizzard has made it so that you can't tell which divisions are created in which order. The muddy-ing of the entire system is a pointless, and frustrating one that we could do without.
0mar
Profile Joined February 2010
United States567 Posts
July 13 2010 01:37 GMT
#116
On July 13 2010 09:13 darmousseh wrote:
This is missing the most important point though. Blizzard will be reseting rankings often. In wow they do it like every 6-9 months.


That's retarded. The whole point of ELO is that you don't need to reset, ever.

I'd only advocate a global reset after each expansion is launched. Players should be free to self-reset as they see fit.
b0t
Profile Joined July 2010
Luxembourg37 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-13 01:39:12
July 13 2010 01:38 GMT
#117
Congratulations, you just won the longest post award

>>Overall, I feel the division system is (or perhaps has the potential to be) a MUCH better way of indicating player skill level than other systems.

The division system is pure marketing and has nothing to do with real skills. Look at the 1st diamond division in US for phase 2. People like Idra, Tester, WhiteRa started playing right away after the server came up. And of course were placed in the 1st formed diamond division with quite a few other top players. 20th place in that division takes way more skills than 1st place in my diamond division, which I'm currently holding with 90 APM and 3 build orders.

The real skills are indicated by the hidden index, used for match making.
Wear conservative blue or white Oxford shirts
Sentient
Profile Joined April 2010
United States437 Posts
July 13 2010 02:01 GMT
#118
OP is only valid assuming all divisions have 100 active players. It takes about 100 games just for your rating to settle in to where it should be.
pullarius1
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States522 Posts
July 13 2010 02:10 GMT
#119
I'm not sure if they changed the system since the new Beta phase, but my experience so far has been pretty bizarre. When I found out the beta was back up, I was unfortunately totally drunk, but decided to play my placement matches anyway, all -3 of them. Of course, I did pretty horribly and placed into Bronze, which was annoying since I was a high Plat player in phase 1 (don't judge I'm new to SC and never played BW :-( )

So after a few blowouts (when sober) I notice that all of a sudden, all my opponents are "favored," and I'm only winning about 60% of my matches. This gets me pretty depressed because I think I'm playing against fellow Bronzers and that I must really, really suck. So this goes on for the past two days then all of a sudden, bam I'm promoted straight from Bronze back to mid-Platinum. Of course, I'm very relieved that I'm not actually terrible, but it was still pretty weird.
@pullarius1
FabledIntegral
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States9232 Posts
July 13 2010 04:40 GMT
#120
On July 13 2010 10:37 0mar wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 13 2010 09:13 darmousseh wrote:
This is missing the most important point though. Blizzard will be reseting rankings often. In wow they do it like every 6-9 months.


That's retarded. The whole point of ELO is that you don't need to reset, ever.

I'd only advocate a global reset after each expansion is launched. Players should be free to self-reset as they see fit.


Not cool when people are able to dominate early and sit at the top and never play though. Also the ladder becomes stale when this happens.

Think about Iccup and how it reset every 3 months - then imagine the seasons resetting only half as much or even a third.
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