[D] Points system

I think you gain Bonus points to fast. That´s why everyone is always raising his points. When they adjuste the rate of gaining bonus points it would be a little bit better.

On August 29 2010 19:13 Inori wrote:
It's also very easy to hit top level if you start off later. For example, if you create an account now, you will have about 550-600+ bonus points saved up.

On August 29 2010 19:33 Platypus wrote:
Win Ratio tells me if a player is good, for the most part...

On August 29 2010 19:37 Inori wrote:

The problem here is that unless you were playing ONLY when you had bonus pool, you will be at a disadvantage compared to someone who has all these points stacked up if he has at least 50% w/l ratio.

You get about 1 point per 2 hours I think.

On August 29 2010 19:46 Grummler wrote:


Reread that sentence:
Everyone gets the exact same amount of bonus points. No mater if playing a lot or only once a week.

The system doesnt care of you are active or not. If 1 point/2hours is correct, you will get 1 point per 2 hours. No matter if you were active or not. Dustin Bowder said this in one of the dev chats, lets see if i can find it.

On August 29 2010 19:33 Platypus wrote:
Win Ratio tells me if a player is good, for the most part...

On August 29 2010 19:56 Inori wrote:

Let's say you have 10 points stacked up and you play 10 games in 50% w/l. You gain 10p and you lose 12p (that's about the numbers I keep getting in ladders.. actually I usually lose even more).

You will get:
10*5 + 10p bonus = 60p
You will lose:
12*5 = 60p

Overall: 0p gain

Now let's say you have 500p stacked up:
You will get:
10*5 + 10*5 = 100p
You will lose:
12*5 = 60p

Overall: 40p gain

That's assuming 50% w/l. As it gets higher, bonus pool stacking gets better.

On August 29 2010 19:33 Platypus wrote:
Win Ratio tells me if a player is good, for the most part...

On August 29 2010 20:04 Inori wrote:

You keep missing my point that unless the guy that got points EARLIER will play ONLY when he has points, he will have them negated over time due to losses.

On August 29 2010 19:33 Platypus wrote:
Win Ratio tells me if a player is good, for the most part...

On August 29 2010 20:32 Sanguinarius wrote:
No, it tells you absolutly nothing.

A 50% top diamond player is a hell of alot better than a 60% gold player.

Win ratio just tells you if the system is working as intended.

On August 29 2010 20:28 Inori wrote:
...

Let's assume we both enter Diamond at the same time. Both at 300 inital rating when we enter. Both have 50% w/l. Both gain 10pt at win and lose 12pt at loss. You will play every day for 10 days after that, 26 games per day, about 10 minutes per game (which means about 4 hours per day), while I wait to stack the points up for 10 days and after that only play untill I have enough points.

Your results:
Day1 results:
13*10 + 2 = 132pt gain
13*12 = 156pt loss

Every other day results:
13*10 + 2 + 10 (idling time) = 142pt gain
13*12 = 156pt loss

You will be at 136pt by day10.

Now my results:
Day10
13*10 + 12*10 = 250pt gain
13*12 = 156pt loss

I will be at 394pt by day10.

As the time goes on you will lose more and more points while I gain more and more due to stacking up.

On August 29 2010 20:35 JudoChopper wrote:

What about an 80% top Diamond player and a 65% top Diamond player, see what I did there?

On August 29 2010 21:57 Diks wrote:
Yeah i totally agree with OP.
Blizzard should really opt for an ELO-like system.

I wonder why they did this method ?
- Maybe in order to produce the effect "omg i'm getting stronger and stronger everyday !"
- Maybe they want to make people play more regulary
- Maybe both
- Maybe neither ?

On August 29 2010 20:35 JudoChopper wrote:

What about an 80% top Diamond player and a 65% top Diamond player, see what I did there?

The Bonus Pool accrues at a rate of 1 point per 2 hours, whether the player or team is active or not. The Bonus Pool also begins building based on when the ladder season began. That is, if Player A was placed into a division and started with a Bonus Pool of 100, then 24 hours later Player B placed into a new division, Player B's Bonus Pool would be 112.

On August 29 2010 19:13 Inori wrote:
Why this bothers me is because this system has no stable grounds - a way to know what level a player is based on his rating in any given time. For example in chess 1500 is mid, 1800 - good and 2200+ is pro level. This was true 30 years ago. This will be true 30 years from now. In SC2, however, 2-3 months from now everyone will have 5k+ points. And in another 2-3 months, what? 9999 points? And after that? Sure, resets may come, but they don't really solve the core of the problem.

On August 29 2010 22:50 Takkara wrote:
The reason there is so much inflation in the ladder is that people aren't close to being maxed atm. At a certain level of ELO they'll start losing 20 points for a loss and gaining maybe 1-2 (2-4 with bonus) for every win. At that point, the ELOs will start stagnating even with Bonus Pool. They just aren't there yet.

On August 29 2010 23:09 DuncanIdaho wrote:
The only explanations I can come up with are these: Either Blizz is not worried about equating scores over time (perhaps they've done studies and found that little kids playing sc2 would rather see that they have 5k points than that they havea z-score of -0.56667432), or Blizz doesn't have statisticians on their paid staff.

On August 30 2010 00:10 Klockan3 wrote:

Blizzard have a PHD statistician doing their ladder, they know better what they are doing than just about anyone in this thread.

LINK

On August 30 2010 01:09 GobIin wrote:
what i want to know is why check prime has 200 more wins than choya, 50 more losses, higherwinrate but is lower

On August 29 2010 20:00 japro wrote:
To me it looks like bonus points are nothing but a "fluff" feature so everyone can be happy about his ever increasing rating. If I understand it correctly it just offsets all ratings by some factor proportional to the time since the last reset (except for people that don't play or don't win a single game). So except for changes on small timescales the system would be equivalent without bonus points.

Edit: one could argue it discurages rating camping (building up a huge rating somehow and then stop playing ladder to not risk losing it) but as it is now, having a lot of points doesn't really have any "real" benefits...

On August 29 2010 19:13 Inori wrote:
For example in chess 1500 is mid, 1800 - good and 2200+ is pro level. This was true 30 years ago. This will be true 30 years from now.

On August 29 2010 22:40 Klockan3 wrote:


You don't know how the rating works, not at all. None does but the designers working for Blizzard. It could be that the bonus pool artificially inflates the ratings but we don't know that and we wont know that until either Blizzard makes an official statement or in at least a few months. And look at these arguments:
1. It takes a long while for the system to stabilize when everyone starts out at x rating. chess haven't had a situation like this in ages.
2. If suddenly the whole world started to play competitive chess then everyones chess ranking would get a huge increase simply because the system puts all new players at the same ranking and most of the world are way worse than the worst parts of the competitive chess community.
3. The top players scores increases faster than the bonus pool adds points.

On September 18 2010 20:11 TheRabidDeer wrote:
I hate the system, I dont get to play very much so I am constantly behind everybody because of the bonus points. I have about 650 points in diamond but my hidden rating has me consistently getting matched against people that are at 1100-1200 now.

A couple weeks ago it was me against 800 point players, now its against 1200 point players.

(I am 38-24 at this point)

On September 18 2010 20:27 HCastorp wrote:
Forget worrying about how many points you have. Worry about what percentile you are in. If it were easy to see global percentile, I would be pretty happy with the current system. Heck, I could even give myself an ICCup style letter grade by matching my percentile against this chart.

On August 29 2010 20:35 JudoChopper wrote:

What about an 80% top Diamond player and a 65% top Diamond player, see what I did there?

On September 18 2010 20:16 Numy wrote:


You are completely missing the point. Bonus pool creates a large inflation. This is a FACT. No matter how match making works the points you see in your profile is increasing. This creates massive problems for the player. Now if I want to know if I have improved there is no baseline for me to compare myself to since 1000 points. today could be the same as 500 points last week. This inflation is stupid and serves only to boost the egos of those that don't understand.

Bonus pool inflates POINTS - Rating is something we don't see and will most likely not see for a long time so it's meaningless as a visual indicator of improvement.

EDIT:

I get the same thing. I'm around 800 points and always get matched up against 1200-1500 points players. The actual matchmaking is fine, I really enjoy it but what I don't understand is why the system has to hide the fact that I am a 1200-1500 player because of this stupid inflation. I want to be able to look at my points and get a rough idea of if I have improved from last week or not.

On August 29 2010 23:06 Grummler wrote:


I read something similar on broodlings.com, but the reasoning has a weak point. I mean, mathematically it is absolutly possible to reach a situation, where you lose much more points as you get for winning. So with 50% win/loss you would lose way more points overall. But with the bonus point system it could equal out, so your points remain stable.

So far i agree.

But as you always fight opponents of roughly the same skill AND you lose always as much as your opponent wins (without taking bonus points into account!) its not possible to reach a situations where most peoples points are stable and everyone gets bonus points.

Of course i could be wrong with "you lose always as much as your opponent wins (without taking bonus points into account!)". I am actually not sure about this.
As a new player without many games you will get way more points for winning than for losing, no matter if you get bonus points or not. Right now i always get the amount of points my opponent loses (after subtracting bonus points) , but that could change with more games, too, as it did after the first 20 games or so.

On August 29 2010 19:51 piegasm wrote:


The matchmaking system is designed to make your win/loss ratio approach 50% at all times. Only the very best and very worst players will ever stray very far from that number.

On September 19 2010 01:25 shtdisturbance wrote:
I personally just feel we need more leagues. Points don't say much. iccup had soo many different leagues, i feel we need those extra leagues to separate the ok, good, pro players. Right now its kind of all those 3 in diamond. I don't feel like i should be in the same place as B players on BW.

On September 19 2010 03:44 Tomtaietot wrote:
I M ASKING THIS FOR THE 4TH TIMEEEE !!!

Nobody seens to wonder ...

WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE BONUS POOL ?! WHY IT DOESN T GIVE POINTS ANYMORE ?!?!? ALL HAVE OVER 40 points SO FAR (at least in diamond) ....

DOES ANYONE KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING ?!?!?

(sorry for caps - but it becomes annoying)

On September 20 2010 06:53 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:
i like the bonus points because some people don't get a lot of time to play but still are really good players, and i'm serious about this it is true although not very often... but for those who don't get the time to play a lot the bonus pool system act's sort of like rested xp in wow it allows you to atleast somewhat keep up with the ppl who play 500 games a week

On September 19 2010 01:18 Shikyo wrote:
Diamond league should give 15 points for a win and reduce 25 points for a loss

Should stabilize better then

On August 29 2010 22:13 ejac wrote:
Win ratio doesn't tell you shit really, at lower levels of diamond I was 41-13 and as I've started to progressively play better people, it has become smaller as expected.

On September 20 2010 06:57 TheRabidDeer wrote:

Except the people that play 500 games a week are where they would be anyway. The system is designed such that you would normally stay around a certain amount of points. You would win some games, and lose some... you would find your own cap. Then they add in bonus points, which inflates that cap and makes it so people like me (the people that dont get a lot of time to play) actually fall farther behind.

On August 29 2010 19:51 piegasm wrote:


The matchmaking system is designed to make your win/loss ratio approach 50% at all times. Only the very best and very worst players will ever stray very far from that number.

On August 29 2010 19:37 Inori wrote:

The problem here is that unless you were playing ONLY when you had bonus pool, you will be at a disadvantage compared to someone who has all these points stacked up if he has at least 50% w/l ratio.

You get about 1 point per 2 hours I think.

On September 20 2010 08:48 arb wrote:

I dont get points when i play most of the time early on when i had no bonus points i played for about 9 hours and i was still at 0

you get bonus points when you dont play

Id rather see a ranking system like Iccup
atleast that put you where you belonged

On August 29 2010 20:04 arb wrote:

I used to think that on Iccup until you see some of those 30-10 people that absolute garbage and cheese every game.

Win ratio means very very little

On September 20 2010 10:06 Floophead_III wrote:


This is true.

I also feel like very very very few players have significant win %'s at top teir. HuK's the first that comes to mind.

However, people on iccup would get to A or higher with like 80-90% wins, so just keep that in mind when I mention that almost every single player is between 55 and 65% wins.

On September 20 2010 10:06 Floophead_III wrote:
It's also a problem that because of the inflationary nature of the ladder, people who don't get to play all the time (I'm one of them) end up being underrated.

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

On September 20 2010 11:44 Sentient wrote:

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.

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.

On September 20 2010 12:31 paralleluniverse wrote:

Being in diamond means you're in the top 7% of all players.

On August 29 2010 23:09 DuncanIdaho wrote:
Inori, I'm a statistician, and I'm trying to understand your beef with this. First off, point inflation is not really an issue, since numbers can go on infinitely. Unless there were some ceiling to how high numbers went (i.e., Blizz might have pulled a stupid and only alloted 8 digits to hold the points of each player, by the way, I have no knowledge of any such thing, who knows though), then inflation isn't a big issue.

However, if you're wanting some linear combination of these scores that maintain an equating characteristic throughout the ends of time, then I do get what you're saying. Yet again, Blizz does allow you to know relativistically, with some limitations of course, how you stack up to others in your ladder. Though, in agreement with you, I would like to know a z-score(relativistic measure in units of standard deviations, eg. z=0 means you're average, z=2 means approx better than 95%, z=-2 means approx bottom 5% of skills. For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_score ) of my abilities, such that I have a clear idea as to where my skill set is in comparison to others.

The problem though, is that all of the non-statisticians complain and fight and program games and such without consulting us. Just look at the shameful, not-guided-by-statisticians policy of No Child Left Behind in the U.S, where non-statistician Bush thought it would be a good idea to make a policy, without consulting statisticians, where schools whose scores go from, say, 15-20 get lots of $$, but schools whose scores go from 99-98 have to fire half their staff. I don't necessarily mean you the gamers are stupid, but all of the people out there, programmers and gamers alike who try to squabble about stats yet don't know a thing about them. I know, I'm nerd raging, but meh...

The only explanations I can come up with are these: Either Blizz is not worried about equating scores over time (perhaps they've done studies and found that little kids playing sc2 would rather see that they have 5k points than that they havea z-score of -0.56667432), or Blizz doesn't have statisticians on their paid staff.

I don't know, and honestly, I've given up caring about the stupidity of the ruling non-statisticians of the corporate world. Everyone has an opinion, but no one wants to do their rigorous research, and instead they just implement their stupid ideas...

On September 20 2010 12:41 tetracycloide wrote:

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%

On September 20 2010 12:43 paralleluniverse wrote:

We could have 1000 leagues, each of which represents 0.1% of the population.

On September 20 2010 11:53 Tazza wrote:

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

On September 20 2010 12:55 Bean54 wrote:
better or worse than warcraft 3 level system?

On September 20 2010 13:19 ToxNub wrote:
323435 people have said that it treats everyone equally. It does not. Read the damn thread.

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.

On September 20 2010 13:27 tetracycloide wrote:

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.

On September 20 2010 13:32 paralleluniverse wrote:

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.

On September 20 2010 13:51 tetracycloide wrote:

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.

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.

On September 20 2010 12:43 paralleluniverse wrote:

We could have 1000 leagues, each of which represents 0.1% of the population.

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.

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.

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.

On September 20 2010 16:17 Zamkis wrote:
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!

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.

On September 20 2010 16:19 Schplyok wrote:
Do you like the current points system?
The point system definitely does its job well. That is to stimulate players to advance through leagues and generally increase their skill.
I don't think Blizzard envisioned its purpose to be measuring skill levels at any point. And we shouldn't try to measure skill with it at all.

Example:
I'm about 750 diamond player. When I play autoMM games, I get matched against decent opponents - our skill levels are pretty close therefore my win percentage is about 50.
When I try custom games, sometimes I get other diamond players. Some of them have Elo of about 1200 or higher. The skill disparity however is quite often in my favor. And what I mean is, I obliterate them. I really had no idea how bad some players in diamond were before playing a few custom 1v1 games.

Conclusion:
Blizzard does a great job determining skill levels. However not through the system of leagues and Elo numbers that are exposed to us.

What we should do:
We get weekly top 200 players of n region. These rankings are not determined by players Elo number (I think) and maybe are a result of Blizzard's hidden logic of determining skill levels. Therefore someone with vast mathematical knowledge should try to reverse engineer this hidden logic by looking at consequentive top 200 lists and the games players in those lists played during the time between the lists being published.
Once we know the algorithm, we could use it to measure skill levels between players the same way the AutoMM system does.
Until Blizzard decides to change their logic, of course

On September 20 2010 16:25 GagnarTheUnruly wrote:
I just want to see my AMM rank. Blizzard, if you're listening, PLEASE give us the option of looking at our AMM rank!

Edit: I also would REALLY like to see a ranking subsystem in Diamond to distinguish the best from the rest, a-la iccup.

If the system is doing its job, everyone but the very best and very worst would have a 50%

On September 20 2010 16:30 paralleluniverse wrote:

This is complete nonsense.

The truth is the MMR or ELO or whatever you want to call it is very capable and successful in measuring skill, as evidenced by having nearly all players with a win record close to 50%.

On September 18 2010 20:16 Numy wrote:


You are completely missing the point. Bonus pool creates a large inflation. This is a FACT. No matter how match making works the points you see in your profile is increasing. This creates massive problems for the player. Now if I want to know if I have improved there is no baseline for me to compare myself to since 1000 points. today could be the same as 500 points last week. This inflation is stupid and serves only to boost the egos of those that don't understand.

Bonus pool inflates POINTS - Rating is something we don't see and will most likely not see for a long time so it's meaningless as a visual indicator of improvement.

EDIT:

I get the same thing. I'm around 800 points and always get matched up against 1200-1500 points players. The actual matchmaking is fine, I really enjoy it but what I don't understand is why the system has to hide the fact that I am a 1200-1500 player because of this stupid inflation. I want to be able to look at my points and get a rough idea of if I have improved from last week or not.

On September 20 2010 16:34 Schplyok wrote:


So, you are saying if we factor in bonus pool and look at the numbers, we will have an adequate measure of skill?

On September 20 2010 16:39 Drazzzt wrote:


Probably you are missing the points? Please read Excalibur_Z articles (mentioned later in this thread) and the comments about bonus pools. Stating that inflation is A FACT can only be a true if you really prove it (mathematically), which you can't as you don't know the details.
The article describes quite well what is happening and it is quite certain (and well accepted) that the bonus pool only increases your shown points not the hidden MMR.
So, there is some (!) inflation in the shown points, but definitely only a certain (not infinite!!!) amount. Why?
The points gained after a win are calculated comparing your shown points with the opponents hidden MMR. If your points are inflated (the MMR is not, because no bonus pool), they will be much higher than the opponents MMR and, thus, the points you gain by winning will be getting lower and lower. The bonus points are only a constant to be added determined by the 1 point per 2 hours rate.
To make it even more clear: if 2 top players play against each other, they should both (!) see that they are favored compared to each other. Thus, winning won't get them many points.

Now you could discuss if this makes sense or not (both seeing themselves as favored if they are actually at the same level, meaning that MMR and shown points are always separated by the aforementioned constant, but it will stop inflation.)

On September 20 2010 08:33 TheOGBlitzKrieg wrote:


i was actually referring to myself too the bonus pool helps players who don't play as often stay caught up with the competition not fall behind by giving you bonus points for not playing as much... how does this make you fall farther behind than if they didn't give you any bonus points?

On September 20 2010 15:17 Sentient wrote:

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 16:40 paralleluniverse wrote:

Well, sort of. Yes, it would be a good measure of skill.
...

On September 20 2010 16:53 Rabiator wrote:

The current system isnt doing its job then. Just from the worldwide ladder system we can see
#1 Huk, 2010 points, 75.66% win rate
#2 Fenix, 2003 points, 70.27% win rate
#3 dayvie, 1995 points, 57.81% win rate
Huk and Fenix being "at the top" is ok, dayvie shouldnt be there with such a low win rate. Better players win have a higher chance of winning a game, but currently the points system puts too many people at the top of the rankings who are simply massing their games instead (and with a win rate of less than 60%) of improving their quality as a player. That is wrong and needs to be changed.
http://www.sc2ranks.com/#ratio:0
That shows the top 100 players and there is a win rate fluctuation from 81% (DeMusliM) to 52%. That is hardly good.

On September 20 2010 16:57 Schplyok wrote:

Then why do people get matched against players with various amount of points when laddering? Example: you can be favored vs someone who has higher Elo rank that you (and lets say you both have an empty bonus pool).

I also think the Elo system is quite capable of measuring skill. The thing is Blizzard has made modifications to it so that you gain points faster and seeing your points increase when laddering is not a slow and tedious process. The most obvious of these modifications is the bonus pool but maybe its not the only one.

On the other hand they can rank players pretty well somehow (as evidenced by everyone but the best getting ~50% win rate). We don't know that they use for that, maybe another Elo system with some other modifications that we don't know.

So, what I'm saying is that we have 2 systems - one designed to make people have a sense of accomplishment when laddering, and another that ensures everyone is facing an opponent of similar skill.

If we as a community want to have a system that measures skill, we should either somehow use Blizzards hidden system or create our own.

On September 20 2010 16:44 paralleluniverse wrote:

That is not correct.

There is no evidence to suggest that: "the points you gain by winning will be getting lower and lower".

Points will most likely increase indefinitely until a ladder reset, and converge not to MMR, but rather, (MMR + 0.5t), where t is the number of hours from the beginning of the season to right now.

On September 20 2010 17:16 Drazzzt wrote:



When stating something like this you should at least try to explain the reasoning behind it....
What you are missing here is that you won't win all of your games.....you will lets say lose 50%
Lets say you play 1 game an hour, constantly. you lose one, you win one, you lose one, you win one and so on.
Your points are much higher than your MMR (as there is no bonus pool). And your equally skilled opponent has the same MMR and points. So, your points are compared to his MMR, his points are compared to your MMR.
So, if you win you get 1-3 normal points (as you are favored, your points >> his MMR) plus one bonus pool point (you win every two hours). If you lose you will lose 18-24 points as you are favored.
So, you win 2-4 and lose 18-24 points, win 2-4, lose 18-24.....How will this increase indefinitely?

On September 20 2010 17:19 paralleluniverse wrote:

There is no evidence to suggest this is the case.

In the actual game, if you win you get 12 (24 if you have bonus pool), if you lose you get -12.

Come on, what are you talking about? In the game, you win points and lose points according to who is favored....Please, make yourself more knowledgeable about the topic. It's never always +12 and -12, only if you play against equal/even players. (and even than you have 9-15 points, not always 12)

And it is well accepted that your points are compared to the opponents hidden MMR and vice versa.
So, if your points are much higher than your MMR which is the case when their is bonus pool inflation in your points and not your MMR, you will always be favored when high in the ladder. Thus, only winning much less than +12 and losing much more than +12...
So, please next time make your point and GIVE a REASONING behind it.

On September 19 2010 03:44 Tomtaietot wrote:
I M ASKING THIS FOR THE 4TH TIMEEEE !!!

Nobody seens to wonder ...

WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE BONUS POOL ?! WHY IT DOESN T GIVE POINTS ANYMORE ?!?!? ALL HAVE OVER 40 points SO FAR (at least in diamond) ....

DOES ANYONE KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING ?!?!?

(sorry for caps - but it becomes annoying)

On September 20 2010 17:54 AcOrP wrote:
BP is good. If you play 50 games a day it doesn't affect you at all.
But If you play 3-4 games a day. This give you chance to stay at some decent spot in your division.
Yes it doesn't mean you are better if you have more points. But if diamond avg win% is 53%
you will get more points without the pool too. The more you play the more points you get.
So 4-5 games a day with 3w 2 lose is going to give you enought points so you are not very far behind more active players with 27:23 W:L

On September 20 2010 17:38 paralleluniverse wrote:

A new account will have nearly all opponents favored, but when sufficient games are player nearly all opponents are evenly matched.

This is because deciding who is favored is done by comparing a transformation of your points, adjusted for bonus pool inflation, to your opponents MMR.


No, your points are not directly compared to your opponents MMR. If they were then the behavior you described (once hitting high points, you get few points for winning, and lots of points for losing) will occur.

And there is no empirical evidence that this is the case. Furthermore, you are NOT always favored when high in the ladder. You are nearly always favored *low* in the ladder, and evenly matched high in the ladder.

Again, you claims are not consistent with observable evidence.

The best explanation is that points adjusted for bonus pool inflation is compared to MMR.

Hopefully this graph will be illuminating: http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/5416/graphs.jpg (replace R with MMR).

On September 20 2010 14:02 paralleluniverse wrote:

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.

On September 20 2010 17:55 paralleluniverse wrote:

TheRabidDeer:

It is not a system that promotes "catching up". Everybody gets bonus points, which means that any distance that you might be away from somebody that is at your skill level is actually just there BECAUSE of the bonus points

On September 21 2010 02:22 Champ24 wrote:
Exactly how do you gain 50 points by going 50/50 in 10 games?

You gain and lose the same amount for a win and a loss, for the most part.

You would net 50 for the week because of the bonus points whether you played 10 games or 100 games. Hence the inflation.

And before you bring it up I have a degree in math and engineering so I probably know a little bit more about how to do calculations than you do.

Edit: I think I see what you mean now but the wording is freaking terrible. Do you mean some dude who started with 500 ends with 550? If so then you admit to inflation since both players who went 50/50 got an additional 50 points added to their score even though they split their games.

On September 21 2010 03:14 PTZ. wrote:
Considering that bonus points are generated for everyone evenly and at the same rate (unlike a similar rest system in WoW that more or less generates only when you aren't doing anything in town/logged out), what is the point of the bonus pool system at all?

All it does is inflate everyone's scores at a constant rate as with the 'intended' 50/50 win rate you will constantly grow in points from the bonus pool alone.

I'm quite confused by its purpose.

On September 21 2010 03:09 ToxNub wrote:


There was a mistake in my OP (I've corrected it now). Sorry for the confusion. Things ARE equal at 50/50, but they are not equal anywhere else. What I had meant to show was that x wins and 10*x wins behave differently with the bonus point system to the advantage of the x.

Ok, but as to the rest of your post
1) I never denied that there was inflation, I was pointing out WHY the system works the way it does, since nobody seems to understand that part.
2) Look, if you want to get into an epeen contest, I'll gladly take the challenge. People who cite their degrees as evidence of their capability to perform grade-school math seem to be majoring in bullshit more than anything else.

On September 21 2010 03:32 hmunkey wrote:
Grinding games should not increase a player's points steadily. Ideally the only way to gain points is to win more games than you lose, and win against better players. I'll admit this happens to me, but I lose around as many games as I win yet my point value consistently rises. It makes it so there is no clearcut boundary of better players and worse players since anyone can get to the top regardless of skill.

On August 29 2010 19:13 Inori wrote:
[Why this bothers me is because this system has no stable grounds - a way to know what level a player is based on his rating in any given time. For example in chess 1500 is mid, 1800 - good and 2200+ is pro level. This was true 30 years ago. This will be true 30 years from now. In SC2, however, 2-3 months from now everyone will have 5k+ points. And in another 2-3 months, what? 9999 points? And after that? Sure, resets may come, but they don't really solve the core of the problem.

On September 21 2010 02:04 ToxNub wrote:


No. Please observe the following.

5 games per week (0% loss) = 50 points + 50 point bonus pool = 100 points
10 games per week (40% loss) = 10 points + 50 point bonus pool = 50 points
100 games per week (40% loss) = 100 points + 50 point bonus pool = 150 points

10:100 is a far bigger difference than 50:150. Thus

1. The system helps players who cannot play often (above a minimum threshold).
2. The system REALLY helps players who are ranked far too low for their skill, but cannot play too often. (In this example, doubling his gains).

But sure, everyone is going to ignore this and just continue to post shit from their ass.

On September 21 2010 03:47 SCdinner wrote:


I think this problem is better than ones that would exist without bonus points.

For example: someone with the beta who learned the fundementals playing a bunch of games against new players and getting a high rating after a couple days. Then he never plays again and in a couple years his name is up there at the top with a bunch of people that are WAY better than him.

I think a better comprimised system would be for your bonus points to come from your actual points so after a day you gain 12 bonus points but loose 12.

On September 21 2010 04:47 InRaged wrote:
Champ24, point decay from WC3 was based on punishment. This system is based on reward. This psychological trick makes it so much better than WC3 system even though it has some flaws like inflation. Just look at this thread alone and see how many people think that this system helps those who don't play often (even though it does not). WC3 system on other had only negative perception

On September 21 2010 04:44 JustPlay wrote:
The inflation is terrible and offers no static assessment of skill. Outside of that the system is fine.

It's intentionally designed to give people a false sense of progress no matter how stagnant their play is. This would be fine if points and the league you are in weren't the only measure of skill, but it literally is the only measure of skill because they don't show your "true" rating anywhere. Bonus points are designed to get people on and playing games.

The only real improvement they could make is to show actual ratings in some way. I'm not sure how they would do this in a way that most people could ignore, but it's not my job to figure that out.

On September 21 2010 02:04 ToxNub wrote:


No. Please observe the following.

5 games per week (0% loss) = 50 points + 50 point bonus pool = 100 points
10 games per week (40% loss) = 10 points + 50 point bonus pool = 50 points
100 games per week (40% loss) = 100 points + 50 point bonus pool = 150 points

10:100 is a far bigger difference than 50:150. Thus

1. The system helps players who cannot play often (above a minimum threshold).
2. The system REALLY helps players who are ranked far too low for their skill, but cannot play too often. (In this example, doubling his gains).

But sure, everyone is going to ignore this and just continue to post shit from their ass.

Realy ToxNub is right I don't understand why you care about the infloation at all everyone get the same bonus pool so it doesn't realy change the ranking. And just check the diamond league I am mid-low diamond with winrate 52-53% If someone 52% winrate play 100 games per day thats 48 points in 10 days this is 480 points. Someone else with 60% winrate play 10 games per day so 24 points in 10 days thats 240 points(this is the case without bonus pool)
so difference is 240 points ahead for the weaker skill player and more points
With bonus pool
100 games = 48 points + for example if the bonus pool can give you 5 double point games this is extra 60 points total 1080 points
10 game = 24 points +60 84= 840 in 10 days
now compare 1080 to 840
then compare 480 to 240
So do you still think that 52% winrate guy that can play 10 times more games should have double the points of someone with 60% winrate that can't play much. If we add few days without playing things get even worse without bonus pool.

On September 21 2010 04:30 InRaged wrote:

Except in order to redeem your whole bonus pool you need to earn as many points as it's accumulated, cause bonus pool merely doubles your winnings.
So your second example would have only 20 points

On September 21 2010 08:28 TheRabidDeer wrote:

(assume 10 points per win, 10 points per loss)
With bonus pool:
10 games per week (40% loss) = 20 points + 50 point bonus pool = 70 points
100 games per week (40% loss) = 200 points + 50 point bonus pool = 250 points
Point difference: 180 points

Without bonus pool:
10 games per week (40% loss) = 20 points
100 games per week (40% loss) = 200 points
Point difference: 180 points

The point spread is the same in any and all cases. This should be obvious to you if you know anything at all about math since you are adding a constant number to everything.



No, he wont have double the points of somebody with a 60% winrate that cant play much. You also cant look at just the win rate. The way things work is that you rise and rise in points until you are facing people that are near the same skill as you. Then you start to lose more, and eventually you reach a 50/50 win loss for that rating. However, it wont look like a 50% win/loss on your profile because while getting up to that point you might have had an 80% win/loss. So, the more you play just reduces your win/loss %.

So these top players that you see with a 52% win rate with huge numbers of games played are only that low of a win % because of the number of games they have played.

On September 21 2010 15:52 ThunderGod wrote:
I thought everyone knew: it's 1 bonus point per hour.

On September 21 2010 21:36 Snowfield wrote:
Also; EVERYONE GETS 1 BONUS POINT PR HOUR, ITS THE SAME,

On September 21 2010 15:48 AcOrP wrote:

70:250=1:3,5
20:200=1:10
point difference is 180 points in both cases
Thats the simple idea of it. And there are players that maintain 60% winrate... diamond has alot skilled players that play more custom games than ladder. System will match them with equal but system may also match them with some weaker players this cause higher winratio. the 50/50 thing is joke...

On September 23 2010 02:32 coren wrote:
Can someone reply me please?

On September 22 2010 00:58 ToxNub wrote:


Right, but the thing you need to remember is that 180 points can be made up in fewer games by a player who a) wins more and b) uses bonus points.

That's the complete and only reason for bonus points, as I've said probably about 5 times now: to help very skilled people who are placed too low due to their playtime.

On September 23 2010 05:55 Bairemuth wrote:
Would just like to state for the record that at this hour the current max bonus pool is 827. Game has been out for roughly 57 days. Thus you roughly gain 14.5 bonus points per day as opposed to the 12 points per day someone had suggested. I'm certain 827 is the max since my 2v2 random, 3v3 random, and 4v4 random all have 827 bonus pool (with no games played after placement).

Anyways, as for how good the current points system is? It definitely leaves a lot to be desired.