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On April 20 2011 03:11 [F_]aths wrote:
enzym
My statement you mention is not a lie. While you may be will not play more ladder, you will at least not play less ladder. Even if you do, I see many more voices here in this thread which state that they now ladder more.
Win ratio does not provide "additional" information, it only provides misinformation up to diamond league. The only reason it can have a meaning in higher leagues is just caused by the small player pool the AMM tries to match you with. Since battle.net does not want to have you wait for hours, it then gives you a weaker opponent so you can maintain a positive win ratio if you are a really top player. Most master players will also get close to 50% if they play enough games. This renders the win ratio display meaningless. If you fail to understand this, so be it. I don't have time to repeat myself forever.
Blizzard does not "screwed over" competitive people because according to Blizzard's valuation you are not really competitive until you reach at least lower master ranks. I am just stating this as a conclusion of the facts at hand including hidden division modifiers for any league below Master. May be they hurt your feelings since it is now so visible as they removed the loss counter from you, but I have the feeling that Blizzard attracts more users overall. If you are not convinced that Blizzard draws more people to ladder, so be it. I will no longer try to convince you.
The 'deceptions' in the casual ladder parts can be viewed as good or bad. While I see the disadvantages, I also understand the positive effects. They did it how they did it.
AMM waiting time is reduced when many players are online and searching for a ladder game at the same time. To include elements which induce a feeling of pressure scares away some folks. If they are not laddering, waiting time increases. Also the accuracy gets lower because after a while the AMM widens the search range to get you an opponent eventually.
There is also a chain reaction. Often times, the lesser skilled players are scared because they mostly play rushes or other coinflip strategies. They don't know the feeling to control the game flow. With fewer people of this low skill level online, the remaining ones gets stronger opponents more often. They feel how one-sided the match is and lose interest in laddering, too. To provide low-skill players a good ladder environment, you have to make sure that enough of those players are online and not scared away.
The scare potential of the win ratio is of course purely based on the wrong impression that skill somehow relates to the win ratio while in fact it does not because of the way the AMM is intended to work.
Considering anyone below master league not to be really competitive is not my personal opinion but Blizzard's view obviously as they decided to make the cut between diamond and master league. I just agree to this particular choice.
Blizzard should be interested in having even the most poorly skilled player laddering because those players are more likely to follow tournaments. Tournaments keep the hardcore scene alive. This is constant promotion for the game and help long-term sales.
aths, why do you have such a hard time admitting that there might be people with valid opinions different from your own?
I and others have tried our best to explain that and why w/l is of value to us. One of the reasons for it is the same you use to argue against the inclusion of w/l, even as an option (comfort).
Despite you claiming that none of these reasonse exist they still do exist, just as your opinion that w/l is of no value [to you] exists. You can't force that opinion, that w/l must be meaningless because the way in which you could have valued it is meaningless, onto others. But that is exactly what you continue to argue throughout this entire thread, denying us the right/ability to have a different, valid opinion and continue to deny us the acknowledgement and respect that comes with it.
Your whole argument, as evidenced by your last post and especially its beginning, is based on your personal opinion ("No", "I disagree"), on actively neglecting facts which underline the opinions you do not like, it is based on irrelevant conclusions (ignoratio elenchi/red herring), and speculation. That is incredibly disrespectful.
Just because you don't see meaning in something does not make its meaninglessness a fact. Others don't have to ask you for permission.
People in Camp 2 were not asking to have w/l forced onto everybody, but you argue in favour of forcing its removal onto everybody.
We were just asking for an option and you even want to deny us that.
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On April 20 2011 06:14 enzym wrote:
aths, why do you have such a hard time admitting that there might be people with valid opinions different from your own? This is no matter of opinion.
Win ratio is of no value in the leagues in question by design of the AMM.
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On April 23 2011 04:10 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2011 06:14 enzym wrote:
aths, why do you have such a hard time admitting that there might be people with valid opinions different from your own? This is no matter of opinion. Win ratio is of no value in the leagues in question by design of the AMM.
That it is not of value to you is your opinion and you have every right to have it, however you can't force others to only find the same value in it as you do. As evidenced by this thread people do find value in w/l in different ways from you other than the very specific statistical aspect you are focused on.
The facts are that you have an opinion and others have an opinion and that you can't force others to value the same things for the same reasons you do.
The fact is also that other people to find value in w/l for valid reasons, which you don't agree with but have never managed to invalidate properly.
It is not a fact, however, that w/l is meaningless for everybody and for all times, just because you agree with it. This reality is completely out of discussion, because you can't control people's opinion by disagreeing with them. You try very hard to invalidate their reasoning, but focus only on one very specific argument of them, while managing to ignore all the other ones which make a lot more sense.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 24 2011 01:01 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2011 04:10 [F_]aths wrote:On April 20 2011 06:14 enzym wrote:
aths, why do you have such a hard time admitting that there might be people with valid opinions different from your own? This is no matter of opinion. Win ratio is of no value in the leagues in question by design of the AMM. That it is not of value to you is your opinion and you have every right to have it, however you can't force others to only find the same value in it as you do. As evidenced by this thread people do find value in w/l in different ways from you other than the very specific statistical aspect you are focused on. The facts are that you have an opinion and others have an opinion and that you can't force others to value the same things for the same reasons you do. The fact is also that other people to find value in w/l for valid reasons, which you don't agree with but have never managed to invalidate properly. It is not a fact, however, that w/l is meaningless for everybody and for all times, just because you agree with it. This reality is completely out of discussion, because you can't control people's opinion by disagreeing with them. You try very hard to invalidate their reasoning, but focus only on one very specific argument of them, while managing to ignore all the other ones which make a lot more sense.
In the end, though, it's Blizzard's decision that matters. They provided the reasoning for the loss counter being removed, and in that context, we're just trying to explain that. There are many reasons why people want to see their W/L ratio, but we can determine by Blizzard's actions that those reasons should not be as emphasized as they are.
I'd speculate that there were pretty heated discussions about their decision, probably going up to the highest levels of the company. I know if such a big decision like that came down at my company, I wouldn't be the only one saying "there's going to be an uproar if we do this." For them to move forward with it, the reasons must have been pretty convincing.
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On April 24 2011 02:00 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2011 01:01 enzym wrote:On April 23 2011 04:10 [F_]aths wrote:On April 20 2011 06:14 enzym wrote:
aths, why do you have such a hard time admitting that there might be people with valid opinions different from your own? This is no matter of opinion. Win ratio is of no value in the leagues in question by design of the AMM. That it is not of value to you is your opinion and you have every right to have it, however you can't force others to only find the same value in it as you do. As evidenced by this thread people do find value in w/l in different ways from you other than the very specific statistical aspect you are focused on. The facts are that you have an opinion and others have an opinion and that you can't force others to value the same things for the same reasons you do. The fact is also that other people to find value in w/l for valid reasons, which you don't agree with but have never managed to invalidate properly. It is not a fact, however, that w/l is meaningless for everybody and for all times, just because you agree with it. This reality is completely out of discussion, because you can't control people's opinion by disagreeing with them. You try very hard to invalidate their reasoning, but focus only on one very specific argument of them, while managing to ignore all the other ones which make a lot more sense. In the end, though, it's Blizzard's decision that matters. They provided the reasoning for the loss counter being removed, and in that context, we're just trying to explain that. There are many reasons why people want to see their W/L ratio, but we can determine by Blizzard's actions that those reasons should not be as emphasized as they are.I'd speculate that there were pretty heated discussions about their decision, probably going up to the highest levels of the company. I know if such a big decision like that came down at my company, I wouldn't be the only one saying "there's going to be an uproar if we do this." For them to move forward with it, the reasons must have been pretty convincing.
That's of course a possibility, but it depends on a lot of trust in the company. Another possibility is that Blizzard puts emphasis on a different philosophy than the people who'd like to have the ability to see their w/l, and that Blizzard decided that it is ok to screw these players over in order to gain a different advantage. They might have good reasons for it from one perspective, but I think that having an option to see it could possibly have achieved similar results without as much negative reaction. It's hard to judge though, because nobody knows the goals of the Blizzard brain.
I'm not under the illusion to be able to change Blizzard's decision, nor am I claiming that an option must 100% be better than no option. That's because I don't know how they discussed it. I'm only arguing that some people would like to see w/l for valid reasons, something which aths continously denies.
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On April 24 2011 02:00 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2011 01:01 enzym wrote:On April 23 2011 04:10 [F_]aths wrote:On April 20 2011 06:14 enzym wrote:
aths, why do you have such a hard time admitting that there might be people with valid opinions different from your own? This is no matter of opinion. Win ratio is of no value in the leagues in question by design of the AMM. That it is not of value to you is your opinion and you have every right to have it, however you can't force others to only find the same value in it as you do. As evidenced by this thread people do find value in w/l in different ways from you other than the very specific statistical aspect you are focused on. The facts are that you have an opinion and others have an opinion and that you can't force others to value the same things for the same reasons you do. The fact is also that other people to find value in w/l for valid reasons, which you don't agree with but have never managed to invalidate properly. It is not a fact, however, that w/l is meaningless for everybody and for all times, just because you agree with it. This reality is completely out of discussion, because you can't control people's opinion by disagreeing with them. You try very hard to invalidate their reasoning, but focus only on one very specific argument of them, while managing to ignore all the other ones which make a lot more sense. In the end, though, it's Blizzard's decision that matters. They provided the reasoning for the loss counter being removed, and in that context, we're just trying to explain that. There are many reasons why people want to see their W/L ratio, but we can determine by Blizzard's actions that those reasons should not be as emphasized as they are.
Even if Blizzard's decision dictates what we see in our account summaries, it does not remove the fact that the problem can be approached in multiple points of views. The view that lose and total games counters do not matter, because win-ratio cannot be used for evaluating the skill level of the players is only one point of view. There are several other valid points of views why these statistics matter. E.g. they can be used as motivational tools, progress meters (short time frame & longer time frame in different sense), even subjective & complementary skill meters in some situations (while still understanding how the matchmaking & league systems work) and for other reasons.
Blizzard provides quite lousy statistics especially for people who are not in masters league or above. Divisional ranks & league points do not matter much. It has been made hard to compare different players regarding skill. Now it is even harder to follow-up progress as you don't have simple meters such as lose and total games counters available. As the provided metrics cannot be used directly by themselves to evaluate skill or progress, they can be used as complementary metrics when evaluating these things.
Also this decision created 1st class and 2nd class customers. People in masters and above are offered more features than people in lower leagues. Some could view this even as discrimination. Some have also already started to use this as a way to insult others. Some youngsters who have reached masters are already mocking people in lower leagues in tone such as: "You suck so much that Blizzard had to hide your lose counters". Also the way Blizzard chose to divide people was surprising. Many of us interpret their message that Blizzard considers that people lower than masters are 'unskilled and not intelligent enough to understand how the match making system works'. The truth is that the skill level of lots of people in diamond, platinum and even in lower leagues is relatively high, as they have committed lots of hours to play the game and trying to become better in it.
Also the original poster of this thread has been very rude and insulting. There are lots of competitive people who take the game seriously in lower leagues than masters. Some don't have enough time to play due to real life duties to reach masters, some do not have natural skill to reach masters quickly, some like me have some races that are in masters level, but want to play as random and have weaknesses with some races/match-ups and thus have not yet risen. For many of us lose and total games counters matter. Many of us understand how the matchmaking system functions. Still the original poster in many of his posts declares that our points of views are invalid and we just don't understand how the system functions. People have been banned in this thread when stating that the original poster cannot dictate how individual people perceive things. Still the original poster himself has not even got a warning, even if he has multiple times been much more rude to the others.
On April 24 2011 02:00 Excalibur_Z wrote:
I'd speculate that there were pretty heated discussions about their decision, probably going up to the highest levels of the company. I know if such a big decision like that came down at my company, I wouldn't be the only one saying "there's going to be an uproar if we do this." For them to move forward with it, the reasons must have been pretty convincing.
Blizzard must have had good reasoning for real-id system, not providing chat channels and other things in their point of view. We are here to discuss were their reasoning good enough to upset potentially hundreds of thousands customers and could there have been better ways to solve things. Also discussions like this hopefully affect (provide pressure) when Blizzard is making future decisions.
In US servers Blizzard stated (the discussion thread was filled to max and thus locked, I did not find the thread anymore as the blue answer was not registered in the "blue tracker", so this is based on what I recall) that they had no plans for providing more advanced statistics, but they will discuss the issue. In that post they also warned that if they make decision to budget development resources for providing better statistics, it will take time before the new features are available. They also described that removing lose and total games counters was a 'quick fix'. In EU servers they did not provide any reasons for the removal of lose and total games counters, but asked forum users what new statistics they would like to see in future, but forgot to provide same warning as in US servers, that it will take time if they decide to implement new features.
There have been several other issues that have been criticized by the community. In some cases Blizzard reverted their decisions (real-id & chat channels) and in some they said that they are looking the issue in the future (cross server licenses, tournament servers). Some issues they have not commented at all. It has been also evident that after the community pressure drops, the Blizzard often becomes dead silent regarding things they promised to look after. For example one could speculate that they have silently decided not to provide cross server licenses in the future, as community remains silent regarding this issue.
In IT industry (where I work myself also) its common that companies try to use minimum recourses to develop things. By observing development of e.g. Battle.net service Blizzard seems to share this point of view. If there is no pressure to develop features then companies often do not budget resources for developing them.
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I agree  I love the ladder.
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United States12235 Posts
They said that they do want to add more detailed stats. One issue with choosing which stats to show is they need to be stats that are correct in context. It's been discussed before in this thread but a Silver player who has 60% wins doesn't really mean anything because he's not playing against Silver players anymore. However, something like "65% TvP on Metalopolis" is a little more informative because some of those games will be against higher level players and others will be against lower level players, they won't just automatically anchor down to 50% over time.
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i would like to see my win/loss ratio as well as that of the opponents i face on ladder. We as a sc community did enjoy this briefly...too briefly
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On April 24 2011 04:53 Excalibur_Z wrote:
They said that they do want to add more detailed stats.
Yes. They have stated that they want to add also many other features too. Some earlier than others (some via patches, some via expansion packs) and some may not be implemented ever if more important needs arise.
Personally I feel the best approach in this issue would have been not to remove the loss and total games counters (and by doing this upset many) and silently implement more advanced statistics. When the more advanced statistics would be published, there would be no need to remove loss and total games counters as there would also be more meaningful statistics available.
On April 24 2011 04:53 Excalibur_Z wrote:
One issue with choosing which stats to show is they need to be stats that are correct in context. It's been discussed before in this thread but a Silver player who has 60% wins doesn't really mean anything because he's not playing against Silver players anymore. However, something like "65% TvP on Metalopolis" is a little more informative because some of those games will be against higher level players and others will be against lower level players, they won't just automatically anchor down to 50% over time.
But then again Blizzard should trust that the players themselves are intelligent enough to judge can the provided statistics be used e.g. to evaluate skill levels. There are and will be many players who will not understand these things, but it should not be reason to deny all lower than masters players this information.
For example now Blizzard shows only win counter for people under masters. There is no context for that counter at all at the moment, as total games and loss counters are not available. These counters provide basic facts: 'you have won X games, lost Y games and played Z games'. The numbers themselves are just progress information. It is worrisome that some only see them as a possibility to count 'win-ratio'.
Of course even if more advanced statistics would be provided, there will still be problem that the opponent skill level (and MMR) will differ over time, which will make e.g. skill evaluation just based on the statistics inaccurate. Perfect system that would not lead to misinterpretations cannot be made. If Blizzard provides more statistics then people can analyze them regarding different things more 'accurately', even if the analysis will be far from perfect.
(edit: fixed sentance "By providing more information people can analyze the statistics regarding different things more 'accurately'... " to "If Blizzard provides more statistics then people can analyze them regarding different things more 'accurately'...")
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korona,
There was a patch in the beta where only Real ID was possible because the common friend feature was under rework to change it from name + identifier to name + automatically given three-digit number. Blizzard never intended to force Battle.Net users to use Real ID.
Blizzard only wanted Real ID in their forums. This was changed after the uproar. Mike Morheim even wrote a letter to the community.
I personally agreed with the absence of chat channels because in WC I must join the chat to communicate with my friend list and the chat was filled with spam bots. Later Blizzard added channels to SC2, luckily for me in a way that I don't must auto-join a chat.
I don't think that the statistics should be too detailed because many players seem to play not that much that the statistic reflects their current skill. About Battle.net: I don't think it would be wise to just throw resources at it as would may be allow a bloated, but not necessarily better interface. Blizzard probably also considers the impact on Diablo 3 and future titles when they improve the Battle.net.
I think it was Frank Pearce who talked about crossregion play. He stated that Blizzard would offer it once the technology is available to offer it with a reasonable lag.
You said "Also the original poster of this thread has been very rude and insulting. There are lots of competitive people who take the game seriously in lower leagues than masters. "
They – including me – try to, but obviously fail. If one – again, including me – don't have too much time to play, it affects the skill. You cannot get competitive until you devote yourself to the game and commit on improvement. The current ladder does give us something to compete on: The ranking within the division or a league promotion. But we still don't get to a skill level where the win ratio gets distorted as there are too few folks at our skill level online.
To not derail this thread, I don't think it's good to elaborate too much on excuses players find why they are not good at Starcraft. While those excuses are made up to feel better ("ladder does not reflect my true skill") I still don't think anyone should look down to us below-master-players. I am even preparing a new thread about that.
On the other hand I would go as far as to say that most of us don't actually play Starcraft. We play a game with the same graphics but due to lack of real understanding we throw random or bad strategies to us and we execute them poorly.
On April 24 2011 05:12 Disarm22 wrote:
i would like to see my win/loss ratio as well as that of the opponents i face on ladder. We as a sc community did enjoy this briefly...too briefly Why would you like to see it? To estimate their skill? Win ratio does not tell you something about their skill level as the SC2 match making is designed to give you 50% chance every new match.
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On April 24 2011 07:05 [F_]aths wrote:
korona,
Blizzard never intended to force Battle.Net users to use Real ID. There was a patch in the beta where only Real ID was possible because the common fried feature was under rework to change it from name + identifier to name + automatically given three-digit number.
Blizzard only wanted Real ID in their forums. This was changed.
I personally agreed with the absence of chat channels because in WC I must join the chat to communicate with my friend list and the chat was filled with spam bots. Later Blizzard added channels to SC2, luckily for me in a way that I don't must auto-join a chat.
I don't think that the statistics should be too detailed because many players seem to play not that much that the statistic reflects their current skill. About Battle.net: I don't think it would be wise to just throw resources at it as would may be allow a bloated, but not necessarily better interface. Blizzard probably also considers the impact on Diablo 3 and future titles when they improve the Battle.net.
Please note that the real-id's in bnet forums and chat channels were example cases that relate to SC2 where Blizzard reverted their decision after major community pressure. There are not many similar examples. Normally when facing community pressure Blizzard seems to try to calm the community down by promising to rethink the features that the community was concerned about. And often after the 'storm' has calmed down Blizzard remains silent.
I also wonder if Aths is Blizzard employee or has some insider information as he often writes like he knows for certain what Blizzard planned / intended regarding different things? We 'outsiders' can only speculate what Blizzard intended by the information Blizzard has publicly released.
On April 24 2011 07:05 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2011 05:12 Disarm22 wrote:
i would like to see my win/loss ratio as well as that of the opponents i face on ladder. We as a sc community did enjoy this briefly...too briefly Why would you like to see it? To estimate their skill? Win ratio does not tell you something about their skill level as the SC2 match making is designed to give you 50% chance every new match.
It is true that one cannot directly assess player skill by looking at win and lose counts, but Aths still seems to approach the issue only in one point of view. There are many things you can deduce by looking at the numbers (not only win-ratio) when looking at also other complementary things. Some of these things most likely have already been mentioned in this and other threads.
(edit: added question if Aths has insider information from Blizzard + added missing word to one sentance + this post only quotes what aths originally wrote in his last message, he seems to have added lots of text after that.)
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On April 07 2011 00:39 Icx wrote:
Okay what about the other person, let's call him Icx.
Icx is far from a talented rts player, and he will never be in the top of something, but he still wants to get good at the game as possible.
Icx is also very competitive, and likes the competitive aspect of starcraft2
Icx is in diamond, not the best out there, but not a bronze league newbie anymore.
Icx wants to know how much he has improved, how far he is progressing, and w/l ratio is part of that, why does he have to have the same rules enforced on to him by bob the bronze leaguer?
My point is, yes everything in your post is correct, but imo blizzard went to far with enforcing it onto a to large group of players.
I can understand it for bronze/Silver/gold, but everyone I know in plat/diamond is actually playing to get better, and isn't seeing this is just a pure "I wanna be a battlecruiser commander".
Why not have a system where they are disabled by default and you can actually turn them on if you so wish?
Or enforce them only on the casual players, for example bronze/silver (and if you look at sc2 ranks, like 40% of the community is in bronze, and my guess is that is actually that large more casual crowd that doesn't want to see their w/l ratio or care about it)
That's me, ad I want my losses back. It doesn't even have to be public, I just want them! Maybe because I had a 70% win rate, maybe because I feel like it is important to know when trying to learn the game. But only showing wins means we'll never know how many games we've played. Sure, in an ideal world we would all be on 50%, but many people below gold aren't. Doing it for the little kids has never really been a good reason for me, and I've never been afraid of laddering. I dont understand why people are
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I'm not so sure that the noobies like it. I have quite a few friends from my school who are ranging between bronze-platinum and they aren't happy. They love comparing to each other and they can not do that now.
I am sure it will grow on people though.
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Are there actually still people that came from SC BW/iccup and that don't make money/win tournaments and that still play SC2?
SC2 has hugely blunted my love for all things RTS and esports. One reason is the ladder system for reasons that were given before beta started.
Sad thing it is probably so because of the same reasons others think it is 'great'.
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On April 20 2011 05:56 [F_]aths wrote:
This alone (people not understanding that in means nothing) is a reason to hide it.
No, people not understanding something is no reason to hide it. That's bizarre logic and applied anywhere else, it sounds just as ridiculous.
- People don't understand what their "rank" in a league is, let's hide it.
- People don't understand what the leagues mean, let's hide it.
- People don't understand what their # games won means, let's hide it.
All these number are equally worthless in terms of gauging a player, but they remain in the game. Maybe real life examples will fair better.
- People don't understand what their credit rating is, let's hide it.
- People don't understand what the stock market does, let's hide it.
I'm sure you see why this isn't a reason to hide anything.
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On April 24 2011 09:16 BilltownRunner wrote:
I'm not so sure that the noobies like it. I have quite a few friends from my school who are ranging between bronze-platinum and they aren't happy. They love comparing to each other and they can not do that now.
I am sure it will grow on people though. They can roughly compare through league. If they like to compare, they should play against each other.
This is the best way to compare anyway, because "skill level" can be intransitive. Player A could have 80% win rate vs player B who wins 80% of his games versus C who wins 80% of his game versus A.
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On April 24 2011 09:30 Offhand wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2011 05:56 [F_]aths wrote:
This alone (people not understanding that in means nothing) is a reason to hide it.
No, people not understanding something is no reason to hide it. That's bizarre logic and applied anywhere else, it sounds just as ridiculous. - People don't understand what their "rank" in a league is, let's hide it. - People don't understand what the leagues mean, let's hide it. - People don't understand what their # games won means, let's hide it. All these number are equally worthless in terms of gauging a player, but they remain in the game. Maybe real life examples will fair better. - People don't understand what their credit rating is, let's hide it. - People don't understand what the stock market does, let's hide it. I'm sure you see why this isn't a reason to hide anything. Because it shows you progress when you play. It would make no sense to hide the wins as you would have no feeling of progress. Same applies for the rank. As active people using up their bonus pool, they get rewarded by higher rankings compared to inactive people. Having people active is good for everyone because a fast and accurate opponent search relies on a large pool of players. If you feeling progress, you are more likely to return to play some more games. Blizzard did explain what leagues mean and I think this is widely understood.
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It is very hard for Blizzard to please everyone, but I think they've done a good job as far as introducing new players to the genre. I started playing when the game came out, having no expirience. It takes a long time to develop skill, but it is very satisfying to see your improvement shine in the rankings. I am in Platinum league now and I think most of the other platinums out there wouldn't bother to see their losses.
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Wow very good write up. Although I have to say that since the start of season 2 I've been tallying my losses. Basically the removal of losses removes a lot of the 'tilt' sc2 comes with
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EPT
