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On September 20 2010 11:53 Tazza wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2010 11:44 Sentient wrote:On September 20 2010 11:38 Tazza wrote:
They should NOT remove the bonus point system becauese it wouldn't be fair for players like me that can only play one day a week. Bonus pool should work for players that don't play for a certain amount of time The bonus pool doesn't help you though, because people who play 24/7 get just as many bonus points as you do. It's entirely psychological. No, what I mean is, players that don't play for like 3 days straight should get bonus points, people that play all day everyday should not. This would better even out the skill levels as a player that can only a few times would be ranked significantly lower than a player that can play all the time even if their skills are the same
I don't think you understand how the ranking system works. If a player that plays every day gets no bonus pool, then on average they will get 12 points for a win and -12 points for a loss, and they will win 50% of their games, since that's how matchmaking is designed. As a result they end on average with a net of 0.
Then another player who plays less, gets 12 + min(bonus pool, 12) points for a win, and -12 points for a loss. Again this player wins on average 50% of his games, and assuming he plays until he has spend his bonus pool (even that that takes several days), he will end with a net of the amount of bonus points accrued over that time period.
The bonus pool system is flawed in many ways, but at least it inflates everyone's points equally, and is fair whether or not you play a lot or little (as long as you spend the bonus pool). Further, it is possible to compare players with unspent bonus pools (assuming they've played sufficient games so they get on average +/- 12 points for wins/losses), by simply adding the points and bonus pool together.
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better or worse than warcraft 3 level system?
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On September 20 2010 12:55 Bean54 wrote:
better or worse than warcraft 3 level system?
For the purposes of ranking, probably worse.
However, an issue with WC3's system is that since they don't have leagues it is difficult to say what percentage group of the population you're in until you've played enough games for your displayed rating to converge to your MMR.
It would definitely be better if they superimposed the league system on top of the WC3 level system.
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Honestly, I don't think the system is as deep or devious as many people think it might/should be.
I think it is simply a shallow, terrible system and Blizzard is too embarrassed to say anything (which is why they refuse to say anything about it) that will be changed at some point without telling anyone or in a very subtle way.
Point inflation is crazy and if their solution is simply "reset points" every once in a while, then that is a terrible system.
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323435 people have said that it treats everyone equally. It does not. Read the damn thread.
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Assuming you have used up your bonus pool, then your points are directly comparable to anyone else who has consumed up their pool as well. Bonus pool only has the effect of inflating (evenly) everyones scores over time.
If you make a statement about what X points in diamond means. Then in 2 hours, you will need to revise that statement to X+1. Today's ~1000 point diamond will be next weeks ~1100 point diamond player.
Bonus pool is just an incentive to keep people playing, and to hide the fact that real progress through the ranks would be tedious to watch. Points remain a valid way to judge your rank in the population.
In the end, everything is fine, except points are now a function of time.
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On September 20 2010 13:19 ToxNub wrote:
323435 people have said that it treats everyone equally. It does not. Read the damn thread.
Everyone is given 1 bonus point every 2 hours.
How does it not?
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On September 20 2010 13:08 On_Slaught wrote:
Honestly, I don't think the system is as deep or devious as many people think it might/should be.
I think it is simply a shallow, terrible system and Blizzard is too embarrassed to say anything (which is why they refuse to say anything about it) that will be changed at some point without telling anyone or in a very subtle way.
Point inflation is crazy and if their solution is simply "reset points" every once in a while, then that is a terrible system.
I think it's more accurate to say that it's exactly the system Blizzard wanted. They're not embarrassed by it, they designed it to do what they wanted it to do and it does that. I think they couldn't be prouder of it. It keeps people playing. Just look at the sheer number of people even in a place like teamliquid who are hung up on points and leagues and ranks when it's all just made up numbers and pictures to make people feel good. That's what sells games and keeps people playing, after all. Not telling them they suck and will never amount to anything.
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On September 20 2010 13:27 tetracycloide wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2010 13:08 On_Slaught wrote:
Honestly, I don't think the system is as deep or devious as many people think it might/should be.
I think it is simply a shallow, terrible system and Blizzard is too embarrassed to say anything (which is why they refuse to say anything about it) that will be changed at some point without telling anyone or in a very subtle way.
Point inflation is crazy and if their solution is simply "reset points" every once in a while, then that is a terrible system. I think it's more accurate to say that it's exactly the system Blizzard wanted. They're not embarrassed by it, they designed it to do what they wanted it to do and it does that. I think they couldn't be prouder of it. It keeps people playing. Just look at the sheer number of people even in a place like teamliquid who are hung up on points and leagues and ranks when it's all just made up numbers and pictures to make people feel good. That's what sells games and keeps people playing, after all. Not telling them they suck and will never amount to anything.
People are always hung up over points, leagues and ranks, and even without a bonus pool endlessly inflating points and destabilizing ladder rankings, this would still be the case.
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On September 20 2010 13:32 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2010 13:27 tetracycloide wrote:On September 20 2010 13:08 On_Slaught wrote:
Honestly, I don't think the system is as deep or devious as many people think it might/should be.
I think it is simply a shallow, terrible system and Blizzard is too embarrassed to say anything (which is why they refuse to say anything about it) that will be changed at some point without telling anyone or in a very subtle way.
Point inflation is crazy and if their solution is simply "reset points" every once in a while, then that is a terrible system. I think it's more accurate to say that it's exactly the system Blizzard wanted. They're not embarrassed by it, they designed it to do what they wanted it to do and it does that. I think they couldn't be prouder of it. It keeps people playing. Just look at the sheer number of people even in a place like teamliquid who are hung up on points and leagues and ranks when it's all just made up numbers and pictures to make people feel good. That's what sells games and keeps people playing, after all. Not telling them they suck and will never amount to anything. People are always hung up over points, leagues and ranks, and even without a bonus pool endlessly inflating points and destabilizing ladder rankings, this would still be the case.
Yes but fewer of them though. With meaningless points anyone can compete. If the points meant something only the players good enough to compete for them would be hung up on them. I mean sure, there are exceptions for especially tenacious players but the average person just wants to be patted on the head and told they're doing a good job on a constant basis.
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On September 20 2010 13:51 tetracycloide wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2010 13:32 paralleluniverse wrote:On September 20 2010 13:27 tetracycloide wrote:On September 20 2010 13:08 On_Slaught wrote:
Honestly, I don't think the system is as deep or devious as many people think it might/should be.
I think it is simply a shallow, terrible system and Blizzard is too embarrassed to say anything (which is why they refuse to say anything about it) that will be changed at some point without telling anyone or in a very subtle way.
Point inflation is crazy and if their solution is simply "reset points" every once in a while, then that is a terrible system. I think it's more accurate to say that it's exactly the system Blizzard wanted. They're not embarrassed by it, they designed it to do what they wanted it to do and it does that. I think they couldn't be prouder of it. It keeps people playing. Just look at the sheer number of people even in a place like teamliquid who are hung up on points and leagues and ranks when it's all just made up numbers and pictures to make people feel good. That's what sells games and keeps people playing, after all. Not telling them they suck and will never amount to anything. People are always hung up over points, leagues and ranks, and even without a bonus pool endlessly inflating points and destabilizing ladder rankings, this would still be the case. Yes but fewer of them though. With meaningless points anyone can compete. If the points meant something only the players good enough to compete for them would be hung up on them. I mean sure, there are exceptions for especially tenacious players but the average person just wants to be patted on the head and told they're doing a good job on a constant basis.
There's nothing stopping bad people from competing even without a bonus pool system.
Bad players will still end up in bronze, and they will still have less points than better players in the same league.
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The system actually appears to be working correctly, and I am a big fan of it. If you think the bonus point system can be abused you probably don't understand it.
This has been said before in this thread, but the bonus points are really a measure of activity. They are a way to prevent inactive players from maintaining their position at the top of the ladders.
Though the numbers may seem high compared to WoW Arena numbers, or ELO rankings, once you understand them, they will start to make sense.
You get 1 point every 2 hours. That is 12 points per day.
A perfectly even ranked match is valued at +/-12 points for a win or loss. So in effect the bonus pool is making players play 1 game per day to maintain their ranking.
Assuming a 50% win ratio against completely even matched opponents, you will have 0 loss/gain to both your hidden skill rating, and your ladder rating. The system is a 0 sum game, with inflation (bonus pool) over time to promote activity.
Without the bonus pool, players would hit a plateau where their rating would not change, and this would cause most players to stop playing. By adding this inflation people must keep playing to maintain their ranking (not skill rating). And really, practice and playing more games is the only way to improve, so in effect the bonus pool is promoting practice and activity, causing people to get better at SC2.
It would say the system is working as intended.
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On September 20 2010 14:09 Chizambers wrote:
The system actually appears to be working correctly, and I am a big fan of it. If you think the bonus point system can be abused you probably don't understand it.
This has been said before in this thread, but the bonus points are really a measure of activity. They are a way to prevent inactive players from maintaining their position at the top of the ladders.
Though the numbers may seem high compared to WoW Arena numbers, or ELO rankings, once you understand them, they will start to make sense.
You get 1 point every 2 hours. That is 12 points per day.
A perfectly even ranked match is valued at +/-12 points for a win or loss. So in effect the bonus pool is making players play 1 game per day to maintain their ranking.
Assuming a 50% win ratio against completely even matched opponents, you will have 0 loss/gain to both your hidden skill rating, and your ladder rating. The system is a 0 sum game, with inflation (bonus pool) over time to promote activity.
Without the bonus pool, players would hit a plateau where their rating would not change, and this would cause most players to stop playing. By adding this inflation people must keep playing to maintain their ranking (not skill rating). And really, practice and playing more games is the only way to improve, so in effect the bonus pool is promoting practice and activity, causing people to get better at SC2.
It would say the system is working as intended.
This isn't a zero sum game in the sense that the points you win (even without bonus pool) is equal to the points your opponent loses.
There are several ways of promoting activity, such as weekly ladder decay. Weekly ladder decay doesn't endlessly inflate points.
You didn't mention other problems with the bonus pool system. It causes your rank to drop everyday because other people have use their bonus pool. In fact, ladder ranks are only correct when everyone has used their bonus pool, otherwise points are in flux and ladder ranks are inaccurate.
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On September 20 2010 12:43 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2010 12:41 tetracycloide wrote:On September 20 2010 12:31 paralleluniverse wrote:On August 29 2010 19:13 Inori wrote:
P.S. Yes, I know ICCUP has huge rating numbers as well, but nobody measures skill by them anyway. You can say I'm "A" on ICCUP and it means you're really good. You can say you're Diamond in SC2 and it means.. nothing. Being in diamond means you're in the top 7% of all players. Let's assume, for a moment, that diamond literally is the top 7% of all players skill wise. Is that a small enough percent? I don't think so. I'd love for there to be another league that's top 0.7% We could have 1000 leagues, each of which represents 0.1% of the population.
Or we could be reasonable instead =]
Instead of adding leagues (which is just awfull idea, five leagues is already nearly too much), we could visually subdivide exciting leagues, so just by looking at your division rankings you could easily tell where you stand across whole league. Three "subleagues" would give us 15 ranks (versus iccup's 12), so that much would be definitely enough, and that will certainly make it possible to see and accurately communicate your skill-level without referring to points.
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Perhaps eventually Diamond will become like A on ICCUP as good players become awesome and casual players can no longer compete and are bumped down.
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Personally I think that "higher win-rate = better player", but the points system allows a player to get to the top by simply playing more games than a competitor with a higher win rate. A win rate would also be easily useable to put someone in a higher or lower league.
The bonus points is also a bit dubious concept and should be replaced with a "penalty" to your ladder position when you stop playing. When you start playing again after a break you then should get virtual bonus points to remove that penalty but nothing more.
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iCCup's system is great. Too bad Blizzard won't like the idea of having a casual player constantly have a D or D- rating by their name.Maybe have an A to D rating within each league? I'm a Diamond C player, or Gold B player, etc.
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On September 20 2010 14:57 Rabiator wrote:
Personally I think that "higher win-rate = better player", but the points system allows a player to get to the top by simply playing more games than a competitor with a higher win rate. A win rate would also be easily useable to put someone in a higher or lower league.
If the system is doing its job, everyone but the very best and very worst would have a 50% win rate.
On September 20 2010 15:12 cHaNg-sTa wrote:
iCCup's system is great. Too bad Blizzard won't like the idea of having a casual player constantly have a D or D- rating by their name.Maybe have an A to D rating within each league? I'm a Diamond C player, or Gold B player, etc.
I've been saying this for a while, but I really really believe they should just show your percentile. Add another column in the ratings page besides the points that says This Person is rank 43 with 834 points and is in the top 30% of his league. I don't think they will because it would immediately reveal that points do not correlate with rank, but it would easily let players compare across divisions without feeling like they are ranked out of a million people. To avoid the bottom 10% players feeling bad about themselves, it can be broken into chunks like 0-50%, 50-75%, 75-90%, 90-95%, etc, and at the top 1000 players it should simply show your absolute ranking.
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On September 20 2010 15:12 cHaNg-sTa wrote:
iCCup's system is great. Too bad Blizzard won't like the idea of having a casual player constantly have a D or D- rating by their name.Maybe have an A to D rating within each league? I'm a Diamond C player, or Gold B player, etc.
There is no difference between saying "you're bad because you're D", and "you're bad because you're Bronze".
Blizzard's problem is they are obsessed with psychological gimmicks to make casuals feel good, rather than having accurate ladder ranks.
This explains why there is no global ladder, why the bonus pool system exists, and why there are no ladder stats besides overall W/L.
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The main problem isn't the point inflation really, it's the fact that we have no other means to compare skill levels. While points weren't used much in ICCUP, ranks at least meant something and could be used to judge someone's skill, thus they could have implemented the point inflation feature and we wouldn't have cared much. In other words, don't fix the points, fix the leagues!
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EPT
