|
On February 14 2011 23:38 Ender985 wrote:
I think BNet2 needs:
1) Separate MMRs for each played race (T,P,Z and R)
2) Ability to automatically search for an opponent in your conditions: opponent's race and/or map being played. These matches would NOT count for your ladder points.
3) Ability to watch replays along with other people (as in BNet1 IIRC)
4) Periodic map pool rotation.
This.
I want more power regarding my choices as to what map and vs which race I wish to play against. Even if it does not count towards one's ladder rating, I feel that a more customizable matchmaking system would benefit the learning process.
Having trouble vs race X on map Y? Play a few games to brainstorm a solution.
|
On February 14 2011 12:22 Arisen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2011 12:04 Kazang wrote:
If you really want an ICCup-like system, that isn't against the TOS (im 100% sure it's possible, perhaps not easy though), you (as in us, the community) will have to implement it.
The ladder is what is, a mass market quick game finder, it is designed to be as simple and noob friendly as possible. All the millions of players that don't even know TL exists are the main target of the ladder.
Is that holding back true competition and "free market" system of ladders, yes most certainly. But at the end of the day blizzard can't just change it to a complicated system that alienates a massive number of players, costs them money and potentially opens up a whole raft of huge security problems for b.net.
It comes back to control of their product and resource management at the end of the day,
It's the same as the lan thing, I of course would like lan, as i would like custom ladders in b.net, but in reality that isn't going to happen any time soon. And if it does it wont be the result of our words here.
I'm being a little cynical, but this is blizzard-activision we are talking about. Don't hold your breath waiting for them to do anything. Here's an interview from Rob Pardo Many players decide to play on ICCUP, would you allow servers like ICCUP in StarCraft II?Neu. Because that's one of the reasons we don't have LAN play is because we do want everyone to play Battle.net we want to make sure that is a great experience. If there is a reason why people are not enjoying battle.net we want to correct it there. But we want to make sure people are playing on Battle.net. They are using a modified version of battle.net, they are actually using your own battle.net, not LAN.Yeah, which is even worse! That's called a pirate server. Sorry, you're 100% wrong according to blizzard. No, it's not legal, for iCCup to work, you needed to be in a separate (modified) server. You can't go to a custom server in the first place, not to mention modifying it.
It's funny that blizzard gives ICCUP no credit. Starcraft probably wouldn't be half of what it is without it, but still they want everyone to play on their battlenet on their ladder.
|
On February 15 2011 05:55 Arisen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 14 2011 22:57 Prime`Rib wrote:On February 12 2011 19:26 Arisen wrote:
1
"Maps," my friend continued on "aren't even the only problem. Why can't I choose to play on metalopolis, instead of getting a random map? Why Can't I choose to play vs. Terran instead of vs a random race? In Brood War, I'd spend entire practice sessions on specific maps on a specific matchup I was having trouble with, and it lead to interesting play. You couldn't do the exact same thing ZvT on python as you could ZvT on Fighting Spirit. The way the ladder itself was structured led to more interesting plays based on maps. Do you know how hard it is to develop a specific style on a specific map in star2 without a lot of very good practice partners? You have to pray that map/match up comes up on the random ladder to get some practice."
2
"Why," he exclaimed "can I only have one account per game? If I'm a competitive player vying for top 200 and I want to play around with protoss on the ladder, I'm risking allot of points. Why can't I just have a separate account? What if I'm having allot of problems with a specific map, and I'm really struggling with zvp on one of these new maps that blizz puts out, what am I going to do? Suck it up and get my ass handed to me a bunch? In BW I'd reset my account, play against some D players and really find some timings that I could abuse at those higher levels without being worried all the time about all the stuff those better players could do to me."
Another good set of points, I thought. Allot of people would disagree with the last point, as the whole "smurfing problem" could get out of hand, but to be honest, I think that resetting your account to find these holes and timings you could abuse was such a good way to improve in BW (listen to Day9's old podcast named "Why You should play against worse players") for an overview of the concept.
3
"It seems," he concluded, "they're just trying to create a situation where they can ream the game for as much money as it's worth. People will clamor for LAN latency for months, then they'll come along and say 'good news, we'll be releasing a patch that implements LAN latency...for a fee'. They'll start selling map packs, or whatever they can get away with. I hope I'm wrong, but that just seems the direction things are going, and if that's the case, I'm fine with going back to BW."
The whole conversation was pretty eye opening to me. I of course, wanted allot of the same things he wanted, but I never stopped to think that Blizzard being so inflexible about providing these sorts of things might lead people to stop playing because they're getting bored with it, or just are frustrated with Blizzard that much. It seems to me like, if these new maps are just more of the same and blizzard continues refusing community maps, how long before casual competitive players (read non-pros) just drop away?
Your friend is just ignorant. If you consider his conversation is eye opener, you just got brainwashed. Before i go on, please consider these 3 points: 1. What does ladder mean to you? 2. If you play a game on ladder, do you expect to win? 3. If you know that playing against certain race on certain map will have a near 80% win rate, would you likely to queue that map more often? If ladder means nothing to you, then you can play custom games all day and be happy. However, if you are competitive like me, you will make sure that if you play a game, you want to be the winner. 1.Your friend want to pick his opponent's race on his map's choice on ladder. Maybe your friend has good intention of practicing, but he forgot about other players who wants to advances through the ladder. It is the ladder. Everyone wants to be the winner, no one wants to take a loss. Everyone will queue maps that favor their race. This will lead to a long queue time, which i assure you there will be a outcry how Blizzard is garbage, money-hungry company that make you waiting too long for game. Also, no one will take ladder seriously because it does not prove your skill. It only proves how abusive you can get. 2.Again your friend is just pure ignorant and stubborn. He wants to off-race and doesn't want to lose ladder points. Is he a fucking retard or what? So he wants smurf accounts, so he can beat up newbies when he offraces on ladder? You need to tell him that he is a selfish bitch. He can offrace fine in custom games. But no, it must be ladder, right? Fucking selfish bitch. By the way, i am absolutely against smurf accounts. Smurf account is the bane of genuine new player and it is near impossible to gauge one's skill. 3.Blizzard is not inflexible about implement a community map. There are lot of good community maps. However, it is not wise to implement all of them because it would be way too many maps on ladder. The question is which one should blizzard add? When they add one map, i would be so sure that there will be demand to add another one, and another one, and another one. You get the idea. First off, I'd like to point out that berating my friend, calling him a "fucking selfish bitch", "ignorant", "stubborn", etc without knowing him is ridiculous. Talk like this makes me think you're probably an insufferable douchenozzle who's going to miss everything cool in life and die angry. Anyway, that being said... 1. Firstly, your underlying assumptions about the ladder are flawed. The ladder doesn't prove who's best, only who is the winner. This "winning is everything" mindset makes it a perfect place to practice, dispite your presumptions. iNcontroL, for instance, on a recent VOD talks about using the ladder as his practice for tourneys because people will do anything to win, cheese, macro, agression, passivity. Everything. Somehow people assume that if you have the OPTION to choose race/map, that you HAVE to. This is not the case, and obviously allot of people love the 1 button game finding, however, players after better practice could choose to play this custom game in the same cuthroat "winning is everything" atmosphere. There are a lot of people who are offended by this type of play being on the ladder because players who abuse the system could get to a higher league faster. My response would be WHO GIVES A FUCK? Don't play these custom games against these players if this is a problem for you. The only thing hurt are people's egos. 2. Besides your obvious personality flaws, I'd like to point out that having to pay for the same game 3 times to be able to enjoy laddering as each race rubs a lot of people the wrong way. If you are competitve, but like to mess around with the other races, you're almost certainly going to lose allot more as other races than with your main race, and thus lose points. Wanting to play on the ladder as an off race is not the same as "lets roll newbs all day long as a masters league offrace and still somehow remain in bronze". 3. Actually, they are. Not one map from the community has made its way onto the PTR, just blizzard maps. There might be a good reason for this, I don't know, I don't work for Blizzard. As a player, however, if these maps are not a reasonable bit better than previous maps, I'm going to be a sad panda, because they're all blizzard maps. There are professional map makers showing new maps to Blizzard all the time, and they are ditching them in favor of their own maps, and if they are not very good, I view it as a sign of things to come, ie. more bad maps. As to new maps making people wanting new maps, well, yes, that's the general idea. You see people want a rotating map pool to keep the game fresh and interesting.
I agree that he shouldn't have been so harsh and disrespectful in his post, but your so called counterpoints really don't invalidate anything he said. I actually can't even follow your point in your first counterargument.. it almost seems like your agreeing with him..
I have to say his initial arguments to your OP are really a lot stronger than your counterpoints despite the distasteful tone..
Honestly allowing people to pick the map and their opponent's race on ladder is a horrible idea..
I could go both ways on the whole smurfing thing.. at worst it's a mild annoyance. It's really only a problem for people who are scared to lose their precious ladder ranking and have no other friends to practice off-race with... if you really care about practicing and getting better I would think you'd want to offrace against higher skilled players on the ladder. You can play customs to practice against people who are less skilled if you prefer that. Also if your truly playing to simply practice and get better (and have fun!) you really shouldn't care so much about your ranking that your refusing to offrace in fear of losing points... I mean what are we all top 200 famous players here? (they are the only ones who truly should have a gripe about no smurfing) stop caring so much about your points sheesh..
|
Agreed
*The leagues silver , gold etc are too few and very far apart , its takes a month at least to be promoted between leagues and its easy to feel demotivated and dishearted if ur stuck in the same league for a while. Having iccup style D-,D,D+..A-,A,A+ would be nicer
*Ability to pick what map or map race you want to play would be awesome, i can then actually focus on a match and try improve.
|
What if ICCUP was hosted offshore in a country with little regulation?
|
On February 15 2011 07:12 dani` wrote:
Even though Prime`Rib worded it harshly I do agree with the points he is making. To respond with the 1,2,3:
1.
Apparently you do not care if people abuse the option of effectively choosing your map & opponent, but I can tell you many other people will. I would be one of them. The ladder is like the 'official' measure of a player's skill when put against the world (or in this case, his region). The player ranked 1st should be capable of winning in all circumstances, not just in TvZ on LT doing cliff drops and 2 rax marine pushes.
I am not against such an option though, but it should *not* count for ladder points. It should be an option added to the Custom Games, not to League Games...
2.
If you want to "mess around" with other races, do so in Custom Games. That's what they are for (among other things). Nowadays I meet mainly Diamonds+ in Custom Games, so that would be good practice for your offrace. Obviously ladder would be even better practice, but apparently your friend values his points too much so then he should simply play CGs. There is no need whatsoever for 3 accounts, that's total nonsense.
Constantly "resetting your account" like he apparently does in BW to bash on newbies is just extremely sad. Apparently he doesn't like losing, so instead he resets his own account to start owning up other people. Do you think they like to lose vs someone who actually played 1000 games already but seems to be new? Smurfs ruin the game for new people, Prime`Rib was right about that.
3.
I am not really sure about the map-issue yet. I kinda understand Blizzard for not quickly allowing 3rd party maps into the ladder, but it might be they are a bit too reserved about this. Tough one. He could simply ask around for practice partners (like you) and play the maps in Custom Games.
Agreed completely.
For those of you wanting to pick and choose your ladder games, what would you say about the idea of either allowing it only on the custom games or creating a separate hidden "ladder" where points are nonexistent, but you have a separate MMR to be matched up against players of similar skills?
If you still insist that you want it on the current main ladder system with points, then you are being rather hypocritical for using "I don't care about some cheeser's ladder points" as the root of your argument and yet oddly showing an attachment for your own points.
|
I think in Beta I saw a post on the Bnet forums and the thread suggest that Blizzard should add a practice ladder kind of thing. It would not effect your ladder score, but you could choose the map and race to play against at your level. I thought it was a great idea, but I don't know is Blizz ever saw it.
|
On February 14 2011 23:38 Ender985 wrote:
2) Ability to automatically search for an opponent in your conditions: opponent's race and/or map being played. These matches would NOT count for your ladder points.
This is a good idea, it will let people practice a particular matchup but they can't abuse it to get high ladder points.
Also didn't Blizzard say online replays with friends will be coming early 2011? Still waiting.....
Also waiting for clan support.
|
On February 12 2011 19:44 Rabbitmaster wrote:
man ppl have no patience today... the game is still sooooo young. Give it 2-3 years and an expansion, then you can start comparing it to broodwar imo.
altho, gief fucking lan support, atleast for tournaments.
I really have to disagree with that statement as it's a terrible cop-out. If you make a game, especially a sequel to a great game, you have to make it better. Why should people who paid for the game have to wait 2-3 years to get a product as good as one which came out 11 years ago?
For example, Age of Conan and various other games died a terrible death because they came out unpolished and worst of all not as good as World of Warcraft (which is the game you must rival/beat) to get anywhere in the MMORPG market).
Don't make excuses, BW was a fantastic game and SC2 needs to capitalise on that experience but with upgraded graphics and improved gameplay.
When one step forward turns into two steps back, you're obviously worse off than when you started.
Back on subject; I would love an options for alternate accounts or an unranked but MMR based practice ladder system also though. All three races look fantastic and I feel so pigeonholed if I choose just one. Also there's the whole "know your enemy" aspect!
|
On February 15 2011 07:40 stk01001 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 05:55 Arisen wrote:On February 14 2011 22:57 Prime`Rib wrote:On February 12 2011 19:26 Arisen wrote:
1
"Maps," my friend continued on "aren't even the only problem. Why can't I choose to play on metalopolis, instead of getting a random map? Why Can't I choose to play vs. Terran instead of vs a random race? In Brood War, I'd spend entire practice sessions on specific maps on a specific matchup I was having trouble with, and it lead to interesting play. You couldn't do the exact same thing ZvT on python as you could ZvT on Fighting Spirit. The way the ladder itself was structured led to more interesting plays based on maps. Do you know how hard it is to develop a specific style on a specific map in star2 without a lot of very good practice partners? You have to pray that map/match up comes up on the random ladder to get some practice."
2
"Why," he exclaimed "can I only have one account per game? If I'm a competitive player vying for top 200 and I want to play around with protoss on the ladder, I'm risking allot of points. Why can't I just have a separate account? What if I'm having allot of problems with a specific map, and I'm really struggling with zvp on one of these new maps that blizz puts out, what am I going to do? Suck it up and get my ass handed to me a bunch? In BW I'd reset my account, play against some D players and really find some timings that I could abuse at those higher levels without being worried all the time about all the stuff those better players could do to me."
Another good set of points, I thought. Allot of people would disagree with the last point, as the whole "smurfing problem" could get out of hand, but to be honest, I think that resetting your account to find these holes and timings you could abuse was such a good way to improve in BW (listen to Day9's old podcast named "Why You should play against worse players") for an overview of the concept.
3
"It seems," he concluded, "they're just trying to create a situation where they can ream the game for as much money as it's worth. People will clamor for LAN latency for months, then they'll come along and say 'good news, we'll be releasing a patch that implements LAN latency...for a fee'. They'll start selling map packs, or whatever they can get away with. I hope I'm wrong, but that just seems the direction things are going, and if that's the case, I'm fine with going back to BW."
The whole conversation was pretty eye opening to me. I of course, wanted allot of the same things he wanted, but I never stopped to think that Blizzard being so inflexible about providing these sorts of things might lead people to stop playing because they're getting bored with it, or just are frustrated with Blizzard that much. It seems to me like, if these new maps are just more of the same and blizzard continues refusing community maps, how long before casual competitive players (read non-pros) just drop away?
Your friend is just ignorant. If you consider his conversation is eye opener, you just got brainwashed. Before i go on, please consider these 3 points: 1. What does ladder mean to you? 2. If you play a game on ladder, do you expect to win? 3. If you know that playing against certain race on certain map will have a near 80% win rate, would you likely to queue that map more often? If ladder means nothing to you, then you can play custom games all day and be happy. However, if you are competitive like me, you will make sure that if you play a game, you want to be the winner. 1.Your friend want to pick his opponent's race on his map's choice on ladder. Maybe your friend has good intention of practicing, but he forgot about other players who wants to advances through the ladder. It is the ladder. Everyone wants to be the winner, no one wants to take a loss. Everyone will queue maps that favor their race. This will lead to a long queue time, which i assure you there will be a outcry how Blizzard is garbage, money-hungry company that make you waiting too long for game. Also, no one will take ladder seriously because it does not prove your skill. It only proves how abusive you can get. 2.Again your friend is just pure ignorant and stubborn. He wants to off-race and doesn't want to lose ladder points. Is he a fucking retard or what? So he wants smurf accounts, so he can beat up newbies when he offraces on ladder? You need to tell him that he is a selfish bitch. He can offrace fine in custom games. But no, it must be ladder, right? Fucking selfish bitch. By the way, i am absolutely against smurf accounts. Smurf account is the bane of genuine new player and it is near impossible to gauge one's skill. 3.Blizzard is not inflexible about implement a community map. There are lot of good community maps. However, it is not wise to implement all of them because it would be way too many maps on ladder. The question is which one should blizzard add? When they add one map, i would be so sure that there will be demand to add another one, and another one, and another one. You get the idea. First off, I'd like to point out that berating my friend, calling him a "fucking selfish bitch", "ignorant", "stubborn", etc without knowing him is ridiculous. Talk like this makes me think you're probably an insufferable douchenozzle who's going to miss everything cool in life and die angry. Anyway, that being said... 1. Firstly, your underlying assumptions about the ladder are flawed. The ladder doesn't prove who's best, only who is the winner. This "winning is everything" mindset makes it a perfect place to practice, dispite your presumptions. iNcontroL, for instance, on a recent VOD talks about using the ladder as his practice for tourneys because people will do anything to win, cheese, macro, agression, passivity. Everything. Somehow people assume that if you have the OPTION to choose race/map, that you HAVE to. This is not the case, and obviously allot of people love the 1 button game finding, however, players after better practice could choose to play this custom game in the same cuthroat "winning is everything" atmosphere. There are a lot of people who are offended by this type of play being on the ladder because players who abuse the system could get to a higher league faster. My response would be WHO GIVES A FUCK? Don't play these custom games against these players if this is a problem for you. The only thing hurt are people's egos. 2. Besides your obvious personality flaws, I'd like to point out that having to pay for the same game 3 times to be able to enjoy laddering as each race rubs a lot of people the wrong way. If you are competitve, but like to mess around with the other races, you're almost certainly going to lose allot more as other races than with your main race, and thus lose points. Wanting to play on the ladder as an off race is not the same as "lets roll newbs all day long as a masters league offrace and still somehow remain in bronze". 3. Actually, they are. Not one map from the community has made its way onto the PTR, just blizzard maps. There might be a good reason for this, I don't know, I don't work for Blizzard. As a player, however, if these maps are not a reasonable bit better than previous maps, I'm going to be a sad panda, because they're all blizzard maps. There are professional map makers showing new maps to Blizzard all the time, and they are ditching them in favor of their own maps, and if they are not very good, I view it as a sign of things to come, ie. more bad maps. As to new maps making people wanting new maps, well, yes, that's the general idea. You see people want a rotating map pool to keep the game fresh and interesting. I agree that he shouldn't have been so harsh and disrespectful in his post, but your so called counterpoints really don't invalidate anything he said. I actually can't even follow your point in your first counterargument.. it almost seems like your agreeing with him.. I have to say his initial arguments to your OP are really a lot stronger than your counterpoints despite the distasteful tone.. Honestly allowing people to pick the map and their opponent's race on ladder is a horrible idea.. I could go both ways on the whole smurfing thing.. at worst it's a mild annoyance. It's really only a problem for people who are scared to lose their precious ladder ranking and have no other friends to practice off-race with... if you really care about practicing and getting better I would think you'd want to offrace against higher skilled players on the ladder. You can play customs to practice against people who are less skilled if you prefer that. Also if your truly playing to simply practice and get better (and have fun!) you really shouldn't care so much about your ranking that your refusing to offrace in fear of losing points... I mean what are we all top 200 famous players here? (they are the only ones who truly should have a gripe about no smurfing) stop caring so much about your points sheesh..
Well, I most definatley am not agreeing with his point, and I don't know why you can't follow the point. The ladder does NOT prove your skill at the game, just how much you win. I'll give an example.
There is a player in high masters league who only 6 pools. Is he better than others around his rating? No, but he wins allot because most players don't know how to properly respond to 6 pools. That's the kind of enviroment the ladder fosters that makes it so perfect for practicing. In last year's dream hack, there was a player just like that, ActionJezus. He 6 pooled almost every game, and won against far better players than himself, such as NonY. The underlying assumption is that the ladder is a representation of your skill, but that is just wrong, the ladder is just a measure of your wins. Winning doesn't make you the best player. A lot of people could take a game off flash or Jaedong, but that doesn't mean that they're better.
So, assuming that allowing custom games on the ladder would tarnish the meaning is just wrong. So many people let their egos guide them, which is why they are offended by this notion. It rubs people the wrong way to think that they worked very hard to get to the level they are at and another person took an easier road to your level than you did. I'm saying that it doesn't matter. IF someone only plays ZvT on scrap, in a game on metal, you're going to smash him, because he never practices it. He's one demensionalized his play, you have not. It's an unfortunate abuse that could happen, but it won't effect ANYTHING but your ego.
As to playing offrace on the ladder, imo, allot of higher ranked players dislike that idea. The ladder is very competitive, and giving up points to play an off race is pobably not the best idea. WIth the current custom game system, its almost impossible to find a good match to play an off-race.
|
Arisen you are making less and less sense as you go on.
In your last post you say that: "The underlying assumption is that the ladder is a representation of your skill, but that is just wrong, the ladder is just a measure of your wins. Winning doesn't make you the best player."
And then a few paragraphs later: "The ladder is very competitive, and giving up points to play an off race is pobably not the best idea."
So which is it? Very competitive or not a representation of skill? Because the two are mutually exclusive.
You say winning means nothing yet the ladder is competitive and people can't off race becasue they might win less.
That doesn't make any sense.
The other thing is you seem to stuck on the idea of a privately hosted server(s) or open custom ladders on b.net as the only options. There are many other options. There is nothing stopping people running ladders through battle.net with a external ranking system.
This is extremely common in other games, sites such as ESEA offer solutions that don't require breaking the TOS.
I could make a automatic replay parser and chat bot to facilitate the organisation of a ladder or tournament run through b.net without too much effort, there are tools already available that do this. That's just one idea off the top of my head that I know will be viable and wouldn't violate any TOS.
There are many other ways to work it using more complicated methods using active bots which are not technically allowed but would achieve what you want without using a private server and aren't actually preventable anyway. Even an in between system such as using whatever database sc2ranks pulls it's info from to verify results would probably be sufficient, although I don't know enough about that to say for sure.
Setting up games could be done through a small app or website, play the game on b.net, results get auto submitted at a certain time.
The only thing preventing you getting what you want, within legal parameters, is effort.
|
On February 15 2011 16:44 Kazang wrote:
Arisen you are making less and less sense as you go on.
In your last post you say that: "The underlying assumption is that the ladder is a representation of your skill, but that is just wrong, the ladder is just a measure of your wins. Winning doesn't make you the best player."
And then a few paragraphs later: "The ladder is very competitive, and giving up points to play an off race is pobably not the best idea."
So which is it? Very competitive or not a representation of skill? Because the two are mutually exclusive.
You say winning means nothing yet the ladder is competitive and people can't off race becasue they might win less.
That doesn't make any sense.
The two are not mutually exclusive. Just because the ladder isn't a definitive representation of skill doesn't mean it's not competitive. The winner of a competition is not necessarily the better player/athlete. MVP took a game off flash, so was he the better BW player? No. The nature of competition isn't to be the better team/player, it's to be the winner. Was Buster Douglas a better boxer than Mike Tyson? No. But he KO'd tyson for the heavyweight championship in 90' against 42-1 odds. Was the 80' US olympic hockey team better than the SU team? No, yet we have the miracle on ice. The 69' Miracle Mets, Appalachian State upsets Michigan, Superbowl III, Nuggets>Sonics in 94, the list goes on. Lets take a look at starcraft if you're not sports fans. Is MKP better than Jinro, or IdrA? No, but he was in the finals of the last GSL and they weren't. Was ActionJesuz better than NonY? Nope, but he beat him. There would be no point in any competition if the best player/team always won. Would you watch the NFL if the same team trounced every other team every game? Maybe you would, but most wouldn't, because it's no longer exciting, its just one team always winning. You'd never see upsets, or underdogs. The drama behind competition is no longer there. Being the better player/team is an advantage in competition, but doesn't assure victory.
It's human nature to want to reach the top, and there are rewards for doing so, namely tourney invites in this case. If you know you're worse than someone else, are you going to opt not to play? No, because you still could win. I'd wager to say Douglas never thought he was better than Tyson, but he tried his damnedest to win, and he did. Do you think the Detroit Lions think they're the best team? No, they know damn well they're one of the worst teams in the NFL, but they're competitive as hell, and this year, they had a shot at the playoffs. Just because you know you're not the best player in NA, are you going to stop trying to advance in the ladder? Hell no, you're going to cut some throats and try to get to the top.
|
Instead of qqing, let's consider how we'd go about emulating a custom ladder through bnet using ICCUP maps. Running an online Tournament is pretty simple, as is matchmaking (even if it would require a bunch of channels).
Kazang's mention of automatic replay parsers intrigue me. I'd like to know more about these kinds of things, as I'm a relative noob.
I'd been thinking of using Blizzard ladder rank (which is fairly representative of skill. At least as much as any other system we could use) to get people of similar skill in similar channels so they could play each other. If we could rank people based off how they did on ICCUP maps, then we'd end up with a ladder that was pretty close to the ICCUP one.
But I don't know how to do it. Maybe a chatbot could be told two people were about to play, and look to their battle.net profiles after the game to see who won and who lost? It's a little abusable, but it's a start.
|
I really dont think its ruining the game i quite enjoy playing random maps vs random players!
|
On February 15 2011 17:40 Arisen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 16:44 Kazang wrote:
Arisen you are making less and less sense as you go on.
In your last post you say that: "The underlying assumption is that the ladder is a representation of your skill, but that is just wrong, the ladder is just a measure of your wins. Winning doesn't make you the best player."
And then a few paragraphs later: "The ladder is very competitive, and giving up points to play an off race is pobably not the best idea."
So which is it? Very competitive or not a representation of skill? Because the two are mutually exclusive.
You say winning means nothing yet the ladder is competitive and people can't off race becasue they might win less.
That doesn't make any sense. The two are not mutually exclusive. Just because the ladder isn't a definitive representation of skill doesn't mean it's not competitive. The winner of a competition is not necessarily the better player/athlete. MVP took a game off flash, so was he the better BW player? No. The nature of competition isn't to be the better team/player, it's to be the winner. Was Buster Douglas a better boxer than Mike Tyson? No. But he KO'd tyson for the heavyweight championship in 90' against 42-1 odds. Was the 80' US olympic hockey team better than the SU team? No, yet we have the miracle on ice. The 69' Miracle Mets, Appalachian State upsets Michigan, Superbowl III, Nuggets>Sonics in 94, the list goes on. Lets take a look at starcraft if you're not sports fans. Is MKP better than Jinro, or IdrA? No, but he was in the finals of the last GSL and they weren't. Was ActionJesuz better than NonY? Nope, but he beat him. There would be no point in any competition if the best player/team always won. Would you watch the NFL if the same team trounced every other team every game? Maybe you would, but most wouldn't, because it's no longer exciting, its just one team always winning. You'd never see upsets, or underdogs. The drama behind competition is no longer there. Being the better player/team is an advantage in competition, but doesn't assure victory. It's human nature to want to reach the top, and there are rewards for doing so, namely tourney invites in this case. If you know you're worse than someone else, are you going to opt not to play? No, because you still could win. I'd wager to say Douglas never thought he was better than Tyson, but he tried his damnedest to win, and he did. Do you think the Detroit Lions think they're the best team? No, they know damn well they're one of the worst teams in the NFL, but they're competitive as hell, and this year, they had a shot at the playoffs. Just because you know you're not the best player in NA, are you going to stop trying to advance in the ladder? Hell no, you're going to cut some throats and try to get to the top.
I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say anymore. Were FD, Nestea, MC, and MVP not the best players in each of the last 4 GSL? Just how are you judging who is the most skilled player then?
A single win obviously doesn't make you the best player, but winning consistently against other top players do make you a very good one for sure. Why do people "cut some throats and try to get to the top"? Because ladder was designed to be a representation of your skill. It's not the most reliable way, but it's a heck lot better than if people were allowed to choose maps and opponent races.
I asked you a question about leaving the ladder alone and making the custom game "customizable" like you say as well as with a separate MMR, but you didn't answer it yet. However, based on what you've been saying, I'm guessing that is not an attractive option for you.
|
I firmly believe that if the ladder is to be taken as any kind of measurement of player skill, or used for any meaningful purpose, such as Blizzcon invites, players must not be allowed to have any control over whom they play in ranked games. If you could decide what race you wanted to play against on the ladder, then top players vying for Blizzcon invites would be encouraged not only to pick a race and focus on it, as they do now, but play only their best matchup.
A player who has an amazing PvT matchup, for example, could get invited over a much more well rounded player by only playing against Terran while Blizzcon is coming up. This would not be good for the tournament, because as soon as he gets matched against P or Z, he falls apart, and this is neither entertaining nor a good allocation of Blizzard resources.
If the whole community thinks T is overpowered, then everybody chooses only to play against P and Z, and Terran players can't get games, except maybe wtih each other.
If all protoss players hate PvP, then they just won't play it and it will stagnate forever. Every protoss player will be out of practice and more encouraged to cheese, so PvP will never be anything but cheese.
However, if a system of custom games were implemented where you could have complete control over what race you wanted to play against and what map you want to play on, and it was unrated, I think that would be pretty much the best thing ever. Though It would make me ladder less =/
|
yea realistically you can replicate any ladder match by pming the guy you just beat, adding them and asking for a rematch. Do that for a day and you got a friendlist's full of practice partners and abuse them to your liking. Of course this is from a standpoint of someone who played BroodWar like twice.
|
On February 14 2011 23:38 Ender985 wrote:
I think BNet2 needs:
1) Separate MMRs for each played race (T,P,Z and R)
2) Ability to automatically search for an opponent in your conditions: opponent's race and/or map being played. These matches would NOT count for your ladder points.
I agree so much. I've always wanted the second, and I've always wondered why on earth there weren't already rankings for different races. If I'm a gold level toss and bronze level zerg, why can't I see it as such?
|
On February 16 2011 02:38 Sein wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 17:40 Arisen wrote:On February 15 2011 16:44 Kazang wrote:
Arisen you are making less and less sense as you go on.
In your last post you say that: "The underlying assumption is that the ladder is a representation of your skill, but that is just wrong, the ladder is just a measure of your wins. Winning doesn't make you the best player."
And then a few paragraphs later: "The ladder is very competitive, and giving up points to play an off race is pobably not the best idea."
So which is it? Very competitive or not a representation of skill? Because the two are mutually exclusive.
You say winning means nothing yet the ladder is competitive and people can't off race becasue they might win less.
That doesn't make any sense. The two are not mutually exclusive. Just because the ladder isn't a definitive representation of skill doesn't mean it's not competitive. The winner of a competition is not necessarily the better player/athlete. MVP took a game off flash, so was he the better BW player? No. The nature of competition isn't to be the better team/player, it's to be the winner. Was Buster Douglas a better boxer than Mike Tyson? No. But he KO'd tyson for the heavyweight championship in 90' against 42-1 odds. Was the 80' US olympic hockey team better than the SU team? No, yet we have the miracle on ice. The 69' Miracle Mets, Appalachian State upsets Michigan, Superbowl III, Nuggets>Sonics in 94, the list goes on. Lets take a look at starcraft if you're not sports fans. Is MKP better than Jinro, or IdrA? No, but he was in the finals of the last GSL and they weren't. Was ActionJesuz better than NonY? Nope, but he beat him. There would be no point in any competition if the best player/team always won. Would you watch the NFL if the same team trounced every other team every game? Maybe you would, but most wouldn't, because it's no longer exciting, its just one team always winning. You'd never see upsets, or underdogs. The drama behind competition is no longer there. Being the better player/team is an advantage in competition, but doesn't assure victory. It's human nature to want to reach the top, and there are rewards for doing so, namely tourney invites in this case. If you know you're worse than someone else, are you going to opt not to play? No, because you still could win. I'd wager to say Douglas never thought he was better than Tyson, but he tried his damnedest to win, and he did. Do you think the Detroit Lions think they're the best team? No, they know damn well they're one of the worst teams in the NFL, but they're competitive as hell, and this year, they had a shot at the playoffs. Just because you know you're not the best player in NA, are you going to stop trying to advance in the ladder? Hell no, you're going to cut some throats and try to get to the top. I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say anymore. Were FD, Nestea, MC, and MVP not the best players in each of the last 4 GSL? Just how are you judging who is the most skilled player then? A single win obviously doesn't make you the best player, but winning consistently against other top players do make you a very good one for sure. Why do people "cut some throats and try to get to the top"? Because ladder was designed to be a representation of your skill. It's not the most reliable way, but it's a heck lot better than if people were allowed to choose maps and opponent races. I asked you a question about leaving the ladder alone and making the custom game "customizable" like you say as well as with a separate MMR, but you didn't answer it yet. However, based on what you've been saying, I'm guessing that is not an attractive option for you.
Were the last 4 GSL winners the best players? Not all of them. Did you watch GSL 1? SOO many people believed Rainbow was going to smash Cool, but he choked and played like shit. Ask players like IdrA about Nestea in S2, he'll tell you in no uncertain terms Nestea shouldn't have been able to get to the finals, but no one doubted he'd stomp MKP. MC and MVP, on the other hand, are touted as the rightful winners by allot of people.
Here are some quotes from pros on the subject:
iNcontroL: You keep harping on how the tournement needs to determine the best player, and I think it just needs to determine the winner
Day9: A tournement does not determine the ranking of players. Period. It does not do that...we can think of each player as a coin, a 50/50 chance of winning or losing, unless one player is better, in which case he has something like a 75/25 chance of losing. I think you'd agree there is no such thing as a player that has a 100% chance of winning. Probabalisticly, the coin that is more weighted toward winning should win the tournement, but it is not probabablisticaly unlikely at all that a player that has a 60% chance of winning everything could lose to the person who has a 40% chance of winning everything.
Day9: It's even difficult to determine your skill based on something like your PGTour or iCCup Ranking.
Once again, the only thing letting a player you think is worse than you in your bracket of the ladder is hurting is your ego.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
