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With Patch 1.3 and the removal of the total games played for leagues below Master, it is not possible to calculate the win ratio. Many users see this as the final proof that the ladder is good for nothing since it no longer has any meaning. Blizzard is just pleasing the noobs to sell more copies. Competitive play is not really promoted since anyone can get milestones or achievements while he still has no more than 12 drones at any given time in the match.
But let us look on a casual gamer with little RTS experience. Let’s him call Bob. Bob purchased Starcraft 2 because he likes military science fiction or because he was told that the game is good. Or he stumbled upon a Husky cast as a friend forwarded him the Baneling video and now Bob dreams of beeing a terran general to commandeer some battle cruisers.
Bob did play through the campaign on the easiest level and still had trouble with “All In”. He started the online mode and got crushed. He started another game and got crushed again. After practice league and placement matches he finds himself 0-5ed in Bronze. Five or ten games later his MMR adjusted and he fights other guys like him and he eventually gets close to a 50% win ratio, even though he cannot see it unless he digs up his match history. Anyway, he now thinks that he has improved while in fact he has not, he just gets opponents of equal skill. But the important thing here is that he has fun and that he plays. Bob will perhaps never get promoted, but he gets into Top-8 of his division and he tells a friend that this Starcraft thing is very fun and he should buy it, too. Now they can play custom 1v1 with no attack until 8:00 minutes or do a 2v2 with double sixpool.
Eventually, some players who got into the game will be interested to get actually better. This is my main point. Sir Taste-A-Lot and Striderdoom once were nubs, too. They nubbed probably for months, if not years, in an environment with no real competetive pressure. Everyone should have the chance to play online against players of equal skill without having to worry to get a poor ladder statistic. In SC1, everyone could create a new account at any time to hide the inglorious past. But this promoted smurfing, and it is not fair to let mid-skilled players bash noobs.
To have more players at pro level in the long term, Starcraft should attract the masses. It is not good to sort out the players who cannot stand the pressure before they had a chance to develop love for the game. Imagine a balance discussion between Bob and Jack, both bronzies. May be their views are horriblys wrong, but it is important that they talk about Starcraft. May be a friend overhears a conversation how imbalanced the Dark Templar is and purchases the game just for having a chance to feel great to crush someone with a DT rush.
It is also important that they watch some pro leagues because leagues need an audience to get sponsors. An elitist attitude regarding Starcraft will only drive away the masses, not letting the scene develop into mainstream.
We need people who play, or we will run out of fresh blood. Blizzard is doing the right thing to ensure new blood for any league. Blizzard is right awarding activity with a good placement in the division. If you want to see your win ratio, you can earn this honor by getting in Master. If you want to see your real skill with no bonus pool adjustment, you can sign up for a tournament and see who you can beat.
The Blizzard ladder is constructed to get people play the game and it does its job well. It rewards just playing the game, it keeps people playing because it removes the fear of getting below 50%. More players overall today = more pro-gamers overall tomorrow.
edit Technical note: With exception for the lowest and the highest league, if you keep playing, your ratio will be close to 50% regardless. If you have much more (or less) than 50%, you did not just play enough for the MMR do adapt. Having >50% in Diamond is no sign of skill. It's just a sign that you did not yet play enough games for the MMR do adapt.
Now let's say you had a bad day, you are a bit tired and afraid of playing 1v1 since you could lose a lot of games today. You could decide to rather not play to keep your 51% win statistic. Okay, a week or two weeks later you feel great but you are afraid that the strategies developed further and you would get crushed. Having not to worry about stats will make it easy to play regardless of your condition. The more players are hitting the search-game-button, the better the system works because it can match you to someone with similar skill very fast. This keeps the interest in actually playing instead of worrying about statistics.
Addendum: The ladder from Bronze up to Diamond is tailored to provide a challenge. It is not made for real competition. If someone wants to measure his skill, he can play an online tournament, there are plenty. If you like to be considered competitive in the ladder, you need to earn this privilege through getting to Master at least.
The display of losses makes you want to avoid losses. This is the tournament mindset, where you show off what you are capable of. The ladder is a playground. You should not try to avoid losses, but to learn from your losses.
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Very well written, looks like you gave this some thinking. I have to say I agree with you, even though it's still kind of pathetic that losses had to be removed so that noobs wouldn't feel bad... But I get it, it's good business, and it will attract more people to the game, which might ultimately end up in more pro gamers.
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Totally agree.
When you hate everything new (hipster gamer), you end up looking like an idiot when something new comes out that is good. But they'll continue to hate.
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On April 07 2011 00:28 Rakanishu2 wrote:
Totally agree.
When you hate everything new (hipster gamer), you end up looking like an idiot when something new comes out that is good. But they'll continue to hate.
Yeah, the thread about the Nydus worm notification with like 20 pages is a good indication of this as well. People don't think before they hate.
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Wait, did Tasteless really call himself Sir Taste-A-Lot? Thats hilarious!
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Then they should just give people the option of turning losses on as well, just have losses off by default so all the new people you talk about wouldn't see their losses.
I couldn't care less about that, but I just think it's really retarded to not let people see their own win/loss ratio even if they want to. (Without resorting to counting match history or using a out of game program like scgears.)
At the very least show it privately on the profile somewhere if not public for everyone to see.
It's just one step forward and two steps backwards just like everything else on battle.net, except the matchmaking itself.
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While I don't really care that they've hidden the losses for players below masters I do think it's kind of silly. For instance, yesterday I was off my game and got crushed all day. I ended the day 4 - 9 overall I think. From what I understand Blizzard wants to hide the fact that I suck so I keep playing lol. The funny thing is that I'm painfully aware of how bad I was yesterday (not that this will keep me from playing). Does hiding losses from players really make them think they're better than they are?
The other reason that I think Blizzard may have hidden losses that isn't really discussed much from what I've seen is to help reduce flaming because of records. If someone has more losses than wins it seems that they are more likely to get flamed after a game when someone is able to see their record. It still seems to me though that this is unnecessary for Diamond and maybe even Platinum.
Again, I'm not really against it because I'm generally aware of how bad/good I'm playing because I don't forget losses easily but maybe that's just me. Has hiding the losses really had a positive effect on lower level players though? I would be interested to hear from some Bronze/Silver/Gold players on the change.
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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)
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So what about Joe? The Bronzie guy who really likes bashing Bob, but he doesnt have as much time as Bob does, so he plays less. Joe always liked to say: "here look, I'm better than Bob, because I won 20 games and only lost 5, while he played 100 games and won 50. Bob has more points than I do, but surely you agree, I am better."
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I totally disagree there because its plain bullshit. If your point would be true, they could have just removed the loss statistics for bronze or bronze -> gold. In fact they just undermine the will of half of the community to please the other half who are obviously newbs (nothing bad about it) who play once a week. And saying everyone who likes statistics should play 3 hours a day and get into Masters to be able to doesnt make sense at all. This is a competetive game, not only at the highest lvl, and therefore statistics matters. And btw, if you lose 5 games in a row a non existing statistic about it wont make you feel any better.
Oh well, they should also remove all archievement and portraits - not that anyone feels jealous about someone else..... /doh
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they should make it optional (only player can see it not others), but have the default show no losses. That way if your troubled enough to want the losses you will find it, but you can also remain blissfully ignorant
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Blizzard has their reasons, as described by you. But the fact remains: there is a large population of players that care about improving and gauging improvement. These players will play SC2 for a long time. However, inability to see win/loss and the lack of a system that truly displays your rank makes gauging your improvement difficult. I can be #1 in a masters league and not even be in the top 50% of masters players. As a result, a player may decide to stop playing SC2 because games become meaningless if he has no idea if he's better or weaker a month ago.
The best of both worlds would just make the current system apply to bronze/silver/gold players and have a real ladder for those in higher leagues.
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Edit: Someone already stated the same, I was too slow to reply.
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I think your thoughts about new players are pretty spot on. I have seen the same progression that "Bob" has in your example, with my friends and my brother. I think the matchmaking system and leagues are terrific, and works very well to help players of every skill have fun and be challenged.
However I am not a fan of Blizzard's choice to remove the losses from everyone's profile except for master's league. While I understand how it is beneficial for some people, especially very casual players. I think it would be great if it were an option you could turn off, or was re-instated for Diamond and perhaps Platinum players. I do not know anyone who is a "casual" player who is in diamond, and are scared to play because of their record. It is a valuable tool to judge your progress, and is mostly just annoying to not be able to see your losses.
I also think it is important to not judge casual players or their discussions, and have a positive attitude to new players in general.
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On April 07 2011 00:39 Icx wrote:
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?
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)
If this is important to Icx he can find out. I think overall the new system is good, cause there are still ways to keep track of your W/L ratio for people who find this important.
Saving replays with W/L .
or saving all replays with SCgears or something similar, which again can analyze it and give you matchup records etc.
If you could turn it on/off, people will still turn it on and off to check it or pressure other to find out theirs. And then they would feel bad cause there W/L is bad). Or others would laugh at them for their poor W/L making them feel bad about their skill.
Overall I agree with OP and think this is a good change, as I think more players will enjoy laddering and play more games and becoming even better as they are playing more.That amounts of win is growing, without them having to watch the amount of losses also grow to.
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the "casuals" that just play for some fun are probably never going to get platinum or even diamond. so why not block the losses only for those below gold or soemthing?
and tbh, im not sure how many pro gamers evolve from this system. a progamer will become a pro gamer because he loves playing the game. and if he's not having fun because his win/loss ratio isnt good at the start, chances are he'll never amount to anything anyway.
also even though there are more players im not sure how many progamers are actually new. most progamers are existing progamers that transfered from broodwar or warcraft 3. It seems the amount of noob casual players compared to the amount of actual new progamers is relativley low.
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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?
WL ratio means nothing. Mine is below 50% and it's because I was high masters before the reset and I have to face pros / semi-pros every game. When I get over 50% does it mean I improved? No it means I started playing weaker players after a loss streak. If I did improve to where I could compete with semi pros I would still be pushed towards a 50% winrate as I got stronger and my opponents get stronger. You cannot use WL ratio as a gauge of skill unless you are one of the best.
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Your logic is flawed. You made a case for some players to not see their losses. You made no case at all for why this should encompass everyone from bronze to diamond. You also made the assumption that people will have found their love for the game only once they reached diamond, as that is the upper limit for the removal of the display of these statistics. That assumption is completely baseless and closer to bogus than truth too.
You haven't thought this through at all.
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Icx, a diamond player who neither gots promoted nor demoted will have a win ratio close to 50% anyways. To show the losses (or the number of games played) is pointless. The AMM is engineered to match you against equal skill so you have to come out near 50% win ratio. Only very, very good or very, very bad players can be far from 50%.
If you want to put your skill to a test, you could play a Go4SC2, Zotac or any other open cup.
edit: Several posters suggest to have the losses optional. This could incite flaming "Hey nub, afraid to show your losses?"
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I like the blizzard ladder because it was difficult to find players in sc1 of equal skill. Most of the time it was either someone who is vastly skilled or unskilled and the game wasn't as fun/challenging.
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I like your points OP, I think that you really put some time into this post, and that is much appreciated.
I think that Blizzard has done exactly as you said, made a ladder that encourages people to play. However the main gripe that many community members have with the ladder is that it doesn't encourage you to get better. Even casual players want to be better than they were yesterday, that is the nature of any game. I think that matching people ONLY with players of equal skill can be detrimental in many ways. Players get rewarded for doing silly things, look at the portrait farmers who worker rush every game, or the constant cheesers, etc. These players play the game, and bought it for the lulz. While lulz are awesome in every community, we don't want to necessarily give them free quarter.
iCCup had the D- pool, where most players would stay for eternity. This could be seen as Bronze league, but frankly D- encompassed everything from Mid-Diamond (basically people not waiting for Masters promotion) and lower. If you are in Masters then you are most likely from D to C+ in iCCup terms.
I think that what many people want is to see their actual MMR as opposed to some inflated non-sense number that Blizzard makes up. Players want to know this because this number, as opposed to meaningless standing in ladder division, as a standard of their skill. In chess players get games with each other based on their ELO, if I have 1800 ELO and you have 1500 you may not want to play me, because you know I'm 300 points ahead. However saying something similar in SC2 would not exact the same result. If you wanted to play me I could say, "I'm 87 points diamond rank 28 in my division" but what the fuck does that mean to you? Nothing most likely, and you could play me, even though I could be 300 points above/below you in actual MMR.
I think that with some revision the Blizzard ladder will be awesome in both regards, they just need to get rid of their silly ladder point system.
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Offtopic but why did blizzard remove the total games played chart for players below masters? I liked the way it was before...
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I agree with your statement till platinum level. Once Platinum you play for the marbles. I am luckily in Masters, otherwise it would have been a slap in my face to remove my losses. I am not 12 years old, I can take my losses.
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On April 07 2011 00:48 [F_]aths wrote:
Icx, a diamond player who neither gots promoted nor demoted will have a win ratio close to 50% anyways. To show the losses (or the number of games played) is pointless. The AMM is engineered to match you against equal skill so you have to come out near 50% win ratio. Only very, very good or very, very bad players can be far from 50%.
If you want to put your skill to a test, you could play a Go4SC2, Zotac or any other open cup.
if this system is so perfect whats wrong with showing someone a 50/50 win ratio. thats not discouraging..
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A player who loses a lot will still see that everyone around him has more points than him from less played games, so he knows how bad he is. This makes the removal of W/L pointless. Imagine a player with 15 played games and having 0 points (there is one in my division) when he compares himself to others in his division. Does this encourage him to play more?
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I saw the title, and was like "okay here's another noob fag promoting casual gaming" but I read on.
Very well written man. We too often forget that most any league under sometimes even diamond is full of casual gamers who are in fact fueling the community, regardless of their desire to play the game at a competitive level.
Esports is growing in america, that means the rise in semi-active spectators as well. It's never talked about, but I bet S.Korea has some of the biggest noob fanboys failing miserably at sair reaver or doing a 15 minute 3CM drop. But those are the valuable numbers that factor into sponsorship payoffs. Embrance the noobz <3
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On April 07 2011 00:39 zooalt wrote:
So what about Joe? The Bronzie guy who really likes bashing Bob, but he doesnt have as much time as Bob does, so he plays less. Joe always liked to say: "here look, I'm better than Bob, because I won 20 games and only lost 5, while he played 100 games and won 50. Bob has more points than I do, but surely you agree, I am better."
I'm glad Joe can't do that anymore because he was incorrect. Better win to loss ratio doesn't translate into more skill except at the highest level.
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On April 07 2011 00:47 Ichobicho wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 00:39 Icx wrote:
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?
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) If this is important to Icx he can find out. I think overall the new system is good, cause there are still ways to keep track of your W/L ratio for people who find this important. Saving replays with W/L . or saving all replays with SCgears or something similar, which again can analyze it and give you matchup records etc. If you could turn it on/off, people will still turn it on and off to check it or pressure other to find out theirs. And then they would feel bad cause there W/L is bad). Or others would laugh at them for their poor W/L making them feel bad about their skill. Overall I agree with OP and think this is a good change, as I think more players will enjoy laddering and play more games and becoming even better as they are playing more.That amounts of win is growing, without them having to watch the amount of losses also grow to.
We are discussing the inherent Blizzard SC2 system here, so for all intents and purposes, third party tools like programs or websites should have no say in this. If you think otherwise then please establish precicely why that is so. Unless Blizzard somehow advertises sc2gears or any such tool to all their players I don't see how it can be brought into this argument.
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To get more people intrested in SC2, you're absolutely right, blizzard is doing everything right. I personally disagree the sentiment that we should dumb down the game to appeal to a larger audience, but that doesn't make the idea that we should try to grow at all costs wrong.
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I agree with all of your points as well, there is really some time into thinking before writing anything.
On April 07 2011 00:30 dunc wrote:
Yeah, the thread about the Nydus worm notification with like 20 pages is a good indication of this as well. People don't think before they hate.
Actually nydus worm notification would be good for the minority but it will completely remove double-nydus out of the game as you will get 2 notifications instead of 1. I remember nydus'ing someone in the main and nydusing island expo simultaneously with enemy getting only 1 notification. That will remove this from the game but whatever.
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On April 07 2011 00:56 Djagulingu wrote:I agree with all of your points as well, there is really some time into thinking before writing anything. Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 00:30 dunc wrote:
Yeah, the thread about the Nydus worm notification with like 20 pages is a good indication of this as well. People don't think before they hate. Actually nydus worm notification would be good for the minority but it will completely remove double-nydus out of the game as you will get 2 notifications instead of 1. I remember nydus'ing someone in the main and nydusing island expo simultaneously with enemy getting only 1 notification. That will remove this from the game but whatever.
Couldn't they just change it to not work that way? It wouldn't be hard, I'd imagine.
Does it do this already for nukes? It should work the same way, regardless if it does notify twice or doesn't notify twice.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 07 2011 00:48 PokePill wrote:Show nested quote +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? WL ratio means nothing. Mine is below 50% and it's because I was high masters before the reset and I have to face pros / semi-pros every game. When I get over 50% does it mean I improved? No it means I started playing weaker players after a loss streak. If I did improve to where I could compete with semi pros I would still be pushed towards a 50% winrate as I got stronger and my opponents get stronger. You cannot use WL ratio as a gauge of skill unless you are one of the best.
This, this, a thousand times this. This post is exactly right, and this was Blizzard's explanation too. They didn't do it solely out of psychology (but I'm sure that either had something to do with it or turned out to be a convenient side effect) or to placate new players, they did it because nobody really knows how good they are and relying upon a WL ratio is extremely misleading given that the system seeks to match you against players where you'll end up going 50-50 anyway. The only place that ends up not being true is at the very top end, where some players really are that much better than everyone else and their win % becomes a little more relevant.
Old-school BW aficionados will remember the old skill curve argument, where at the low end, you might be twice as good as some other guy, but then there's someone who's twice as good as you, and there's someone who's ten times as good as that guy, and there's someone who's a hundred times better than that other guy. That's basically what we're seeing with the Master and Grandmaster leagues. These players at the top aren't just a little better, they're exponentially better than people in the next tier.
Anyway I don't want to let this thread get derailed into another WL argument. Suffice it to say the OP is pretty correct. Skill does stagnate or plateau for just about everyone, and players who are destined to never get promoted need some kind of encouragement to keep playing, and the point system does this well enough. I think ironically one of the big problems with the ladder is the league system because that's all anyone ever focuses on, and it affects even people who are familiar with the system. In fact, just yesterday Vanick was grumbling about how he hates losing because it's preventing him from moving up into Diamond, but that focus on getting promoted is like the only thing that matters to people, which is a flaw in my opinion.
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"With Patch 1.3 and the removal of the total games played for leagues below Master, it is not possible to calculate the win ratio"
You can use Sc2gears to analyze the replays and get your win ratio. Sure it's not possible for other to look at your win/losses but you can find it out on your own.
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
Kinda missing the point, Excalibur. I don't want W/L because I'm desperate to gauge my progress by it, I want it because there's no reason for me not to have it and I enjoy knowing what my W/L is.
Like others suggested, have it as an option and default it as off if you must. Or make it so only you can see your own W/L. Whatever, I don't really care, it should just be there.
Btw, "edit: Several posters suggest to have the losses optional. This could incite flaming "Hey nub, afraid to show your losses?"" is a terrible argument against anything. Morons will be morons will be morons, decisions shouldn't be made on this basis.
Removing functionality and information just seems so goddamn backwards.
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I Agree with the OP. As much as this whole "carebear-ifying" of the ladder is drawing a lot of ridicule, there are undoubtedly plenty of people that enjoy laddering pressure free.
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It seems that most people whining about ratios don't really understand how the matching system works. As Excalibur has explained numerous times, everybody should be hovering around a 50% win loss ratio eventually because you are matched with harder or easier opponents to meet that target.
All the arguments regarding 'keeping track of progress via win/loss' are completely wrong.
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Indeed i agree with the pointless-ness of showing W/L ratio. In fact, showing W/L ratio is an approach who caters to the "casuals" as they are irrelevant statistic unless you are Naniwa status.
It is pointless to show w/l ratio because for 99 percent of the people the w/l ratio is 50 percent. If you are upset that you cant see someone's losses. Just look at his win column. That is approximately how much losses he has.
For those elite 1 percent in the super high masters, w/l ratio does not matter because they gauge themselves by tournament wins. I bet Naniwa takes more satisfaction from his MLG win rather than the fact that he was top of the ladder with 70%+ win rate
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Maybe blizzard needs 2 ladders, similar to a lot of mmorpg games, 1 for PvP (competitive) and 1 for PvE (casual). The current ladder we have would be like the PvP ladder, where the most skilled players are placed on top. A PvE type of ladder would put the ones with the most wins on top. Most stats for this ladder are hidden, the only advantage you can see a diamond have over a bronze is that the diamond had played more games and has more wins. This encourages people to play because the more games you play, the more wins, the more wins, the higher your ranking goes. The ladders are separate, where win counts in one ladder wont count in the other.
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Agree with OP.
Agree that W/L ratio is not skill indicator.
People will whine about anything.
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I agree with OP but masters is too high. Only top 3.3% is in masters league.WTF.
A huge issue is: I will enjoy the game but only temporarily since theres nothing to go for in this game. There's no win/lose high lows that you get. It just becomes bland. I won? Meh I lost? Meh Let's play some Deadspace.
Let's face it, people in Diamond is pretty competitive. So give it to diamond and plat.
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On April 07 2011 00:52 mustache wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 00:48 [F_]aths wrote:
Icx, a diamond player who neither gots promoted nor demoted will have a win ratio close to 50% anyways. To show the losses (or the number of games played) is pointless. The AMM is engineered to match you against equal skill so you have to come out near 50% win ratio. Only very, very good or very, very bad players can be far from 50%.
If you want to put your skill to a test, you could play a Go4SC2, Zotac or any other open cup. if this system is so perfect whats wrong with showing someone a 50/50 win ratio. thats not discouraging..
The issue is when people start loarding their 63% win ratio over people and using it to claim superiority over someone with a 50% win ratio, when the reality is the first player probably just got to play opponents that were weaker than him a lot more. It's all very well looking at your 50% win/loss and thinking "That's how it's supposed to be" but as people continue to value their win ratio, so it becomes discouraging to see that yours is lower than theirs.
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I don't even know why you bothering with this, I mean, do you consider yourself affected by this change, this is well written but I think it was just useless to write it down, I mean you are probably master and this change doesn't affect, I diamond very happy with it, since your cannot make another account like in warcraft3 or sc bw, I am glad I don't see I am 44% ou 56%, this is can be demoralizing for players, I think this is a very good change, but I do think there could off by default and make an option to display them
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well written, but in my opinion too optimistic and unrealistic.
you looked at the best case, without any valid arguments.
though I like the W/L Ratio change blizzard made, I'm not convinced of your post
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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)
Sorry Icx, but w/l ratio doesn't actually tell whether or not you've improved. If you have, your MMR will go up and the people you play against will be harder. Master players have about the same 55-45 ratio everyone has.
Everyone! If you give them the option to turn it on or off it defeats the whole purpose. Why? Having it off basically means you suck and are ashamed of it. "Lol nub trying to hide his losses"
Also Icx, in SC2 it's hard to tell if you have improved. Day9 Daily 100 brings up some examples. You just simply play and practice and you'll get better. Eventually practice partners or just play styles you have met in the past will feel slower and simpler to beat.
Lastly, if you TRULY want to get better. Stop worrying about W/L ratios or meaningless statistics. Just play practice and eventually you'll get better. It's like apm. Those who worry about being faster are generally worse than those who simply get better and in turn faster.
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I'm a silver player that plays very casually (5-10 games/wk) and i don't mind at all the fact loss counts are not show for me. Prior to the patch i was always concerned with getting the W, but now i don't mind throwing a game here and there for the sake of experimenting. It makes the game more fun for me. Totally agree with the OP.
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On April 07 2011 01:32 NikonTC wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 00:52 mustache wrote:On April 07 2011 00:48 [F_]aths wrote:
Icx, a diamond player who neither gots promoted nor demoted will have a win ratio close to 50% anyways. To show the losses (or the number of games played) is pointless. The AMM is engineered to match you against equal skill so you have to come out near 50% win ratio. Only very, very good or very, very bad players can be far from 50%.
If you want to put your skill to a test, you could play a Go4SC2, Zotac or any other open cup. if this system is so perfect whats wrong with showing someone a 50/50 win ratio. thats not discouraging.. The issue is when people start loarding their 63% win ratio over people and using it to claim superiority over someone with a 50% win ratio, when the reality is the first player probably just got to play opponents that were weaker than him a lot more. It's all very well looking at your 50% win/loss and thinking "That's how it's supposed to be" but as people continue to value their win ratio, so it becomes discouraging to see that yours is lower than theirs.
and its not discouraging to see someone with half as many wins but double the points? or simply with double as many wins?
If they don't want a W/L ration then they shouldnt make a damn ladder. With the point system you can still see roughly how much better someone is than you. this is a half assed attempt to change something, but it fails miserably because your W/L is still hidden in your wins/points ratio.
so to conclude it changes nothing, just annoys people that want to knwo their exact score
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As a Platinum player, I definitely agree with the people saying that w/l should be shown platinum and higher because we do care about improving and knowing how we are doing. So far I have been able to keep track of everything with a notepad but I will slip up at some point, and it seems ridiculous that I should have to in the first place. Originally I was for the idea, but then I realized I couldn't set goals for myself anymore. I used to try to have a certain number of wins over losses, it started with 10, then 20, and so on. This gave me motivation as the only way I could achieve that was to improve. So far, it still is working this season (my goal is 10 more wins than losses, which I am at 7 of) but I would rather not have to keep track of it myself. To be honest, if I lost track of my record I wouldn't really care, as I now look at who I win against instead of how often I win. Hopefully I will be promoted soon, as I have been playing a lot of diamonds the last few days.
I do understand how hiding losses can help. I was once a Bronze level player with a record of 9-22. Back then I was afraid of losing even more because it would look bad to my friends (who I'm now better than). Even when I evened up my record I was still scared of wrecking it and getting below 50% instead of just playing the game and having fun.
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Well said; I totally agree. Arguing that ladder losses not appearing in one's profile undermines the competitive integrity of Starcraft is like saying the fact that the outcome of pickup basketball games isn't permanently recorded undermines the integrity of the NBA.
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I feel Blizzard should not calculate losses for gold and below, and do so with diamond and up.
Only counting losses for Masters is a bit too much.
Also, when trying to view the previous season ranks in profiles, it seems to be bugged. It shows the current standings/points/ranks, and not the previous seasons like it should.
I hope this gets fixed soon. ^^;
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So "Bob" played and lost till his MMR reached the 50% mark.
How many games do you seriously think that took? Even when he's a REALLY bad player, that shouldnt be more than around...20 or so (and 20 is a real high number)
Dont you think it would be more fun for Bob to play, get better and reach the 50% mark by himself?
Besides, think about "long term motivation" reaching top of your divison is not THAT much of a deal (at least not in bronze/silver/gold) It's more about playing a lot than winning all the games.
So bob reached top of his division - and is still far away from getting promoted to silver.
what motivation does he get from just seeing the wins?
I really feel blizzard behaves like a soccer mom, telling her little boy that "he's great no matter what the others say"
in the end of the day, i think blizz screwd themselves over with this logic. Do you really think "Bob"
who's only playing on easy and wants easy wins is gonna keep with sc2? Or isnt it much more likely that bob will jump on the next bandwagon as soon as he hears about the good graphics of another game?
From a business perspective i do understand Blizz - if their short time goal is " to sell copies and keep the real casual gamer in touch till the first expansion comes out.
The guys who play sc2 to get better will stick the game anyways right?
But i think they shot themselves in the foot - cause the medicore players who WANT to play but want to see how they get better as well will lose an incentive to play.
If i play 10 games and lost 7 - im more likely to play "just 2 more" to even the score.
And lastly:
It's psychological proven you remember losses more than wins:
That means if you lose 5 games in a row but you won 5 in a row before you will remember the losses much more and actually feel worse.
so if you're on a losing streak and you cant compare your actual win loss ratio to "even" it out, your slump will probably worsen. - and this is independant of your league.
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On April 07 2011 01:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:
I think ironically one of the big problems with the ladder is the league system because that's all anyone ever focuses on, and it affects even people who are familiar with the system. In fact, just yesterday Vanick was grumbling about how he hates losing because it's preventing him from moving up into Diamond, but that focus on getting promoted is like the only thing that matters to people, which is a flaw in my opinion.
This.
I know too many people that get promoted to a league that they think correctly showcases the level of skill they possess and then they will rarely ladder again until the next season rolls in so they can re-establish themselves in the same league.
On the matter of Losses showing.
Heres my scenario:
I was Diamond 1v1 before Season 2 and I am really afraid of the ladder, I come from an FPS background where your kill to death ratio plays a big role and so when I started SC2 my WLR became the new thing. But in FPS games you join a server with a mix of all skill levels so a good KD ratio is relatively easy to maintain. Whereas in SC2 (and this is the scary part for me) you never know who your going to face, exactly how good he is and its 1v1! Theres noone else but you and him. Theres no excuses like "My team is terrible" or "You got a lucky shot" it all falls on you to best your opponent. But Blizzard those bastards make sure you only face people that are roughly the same skill level! Making it near impossible to maintain a WLR above 50% (Unless your a top tier player)
So needless to say I welcomed the new change to hide losses in all leagues Diamond and lower. I thought to myself "What a relief now I can ladder as much as I want and not care if I win or lose!"
Oh how wrong I was.
Because as soon as I played my placement match in the new season I got promoted to masters.
So now here I am with like 10 games played, too proud and egoistic to demote myself so i can enjoy the stress free, fun Dreamy Diamond ladder I imagined before the Season reset and too scared to play in my new masters league which I am both very proud of and completely terrified by.
All I want is to be able to hide my losses and be able to put a password on re-enabling it so I can lock the door and throw the key away so as to deny any temptation to look at the losses. I think this would satisfy all players both casual and serious.
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This.
I know too many people that get promoted to a league that they think correctly showcases the level of skill they possess and then they will rarely ladder again until the next season rolls in so they can re-establish themselves in the same league.
On the matter of Losses showing.
Heres my scenario:
I was Diamond 1v1 before Season 2 and I am really afraid of the ladder, I come from an FPS background where your kill to death ratio plays a big role and so when I started SC2 my WLR became the new thing. But in FPS games you join a server with a mix of all skill levels so a good KD ratio is relatively easy to maintain. Whereas in SC2 (and this is the scary part for me) you never know who your going to face, exactly how good he is and its 1v1! Theres noone else but you and him. Theres no excuses like "My team is terrible" or "You got a lucky shot" it all falls on you to best your opponent. But Blizzard those bastards make sure you only face people that are roughly the same skill level! Making it near impossible to maintain a WLR above 50% (Unless your a top tier player)
So needless to say I welcomed the new change to hide losses in all leagues Diamond and lower. I thought to myself "What a relief now I can ladder as much as I want and not care if I win or lose!"
Oh how wrong I was.
Because as soon as I played my placement match in the new season I got promoted to masters.
So now here I am with like 10 games played, too proud and egoistic to demote myself so i can enjoy the stress free, fun Dreamy Diamond ladder I imagined before the Season reset and too scared to play in my new masters league which I am both very proud of and completely terrified by.
All I want is to be able to hide my losses and be able to put a password on re-enabling it so I can lock the door and throw the key away so as to deny any temptation to look at the losses. I think this would satisfy all players both casual and serious.
Very well said
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I agree.
Does anyone have any insight as to why I'm still in bronze league?
I have about 80+ wins(Season 1 and Season 2) and only about 40 losses. I keep playing every day yet I've never ranked up!
Should I keep grinding in the bronze league or just give up all hope?
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On April 07 2011 00:50 Chronald wrote:
I like your points OP, I think that you really put some time into this post, and that is much appreciated.
I think that Blizzard has done exactly as you said, made a ladder that encourages people to play. However the main gripe that many community members have with the ladder is that it doesn't encourage you to get better. Even casual players want to be better than they were yesterday, that is the nature of any game. They claim they want to get better, but they don't do the right things to improve. Tell a casual newbie he should focus on mechanics and macro. He will think you just burden him with tiresome practice work while in fact a better strategy (or a better cheese) would just do fine.
I think we should not try to convert those guys. It is up to them if they do the right steps to actually improve. There don't have to.
I do want to give all types of players free quarter unless they are unfriendly and do shittalk to others.
The Elo system would not work well for Starcraft. Elo uses just one single number, but the MMR system uses two, if not three numbers ("skill" and "confidence in that skill" are indirectly confirmed through Blizzcon Q&A.) If you like real competition, you can sign up to an open tournament. The SC2 ladder is a playing environent, no tournament or real league.
Also the bonus pool is great. I did not mention it in the OP because it would be too long then. But the bonus pool with the point inflation rewards activity. Having mediocre players active is better than having good players inactive. Real competitive players don't give a damn to the ladder anyways, they seek their success in tournament where they could earn some money.
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I agree.
Does anyone have any insight as to why I'm still in bronze league?
I have about 80+ wins(Season 1 and Season 2) and only about 40 losses. I keep playing every day yet I've never ranked up!
Should I keep grinding in the bronze league or just give up all hope?
Let's reverse things, if you were 40-90(approx) would you keep grinding? I highly doubt so
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On April 07 2011 00:38 Achaia wrote:
While I don't really care that they've hidden the losses for players below masters I do think it's kind of silly. For instance, yesterday I was off my game and got crushed all day. I ended the day 4 - 9 overall I think. From what I understand Blizzard wants to hide the fact that I suck so I keep playing lol. The funny thing is that I'm painfully aware of how bad I was yesterday (not that this will keep me from playing). Does hiding losses from players really make them think they're better than they are?
The other reason that I think Blizzard may have hidden losses that isn't really discussed much from what I've seen is to help reduce flaming because of records. If someone has more losses than wins it seems that they are more likely to get flamed after a game when someone is able to see their record. It still seems to me though that this is unnecessary for Diamond and maybe even Platinum.
Again, I'm not really against it because I'm generally aware of how bad/good I'm playing because I don't forget losses easily but maybe that's just me. Has hiding the losses really had a positive effect on lower level players though? I would be interested to hear from some Bronze/Silver/Gold players on the change.
Instead of making yourself aware that you suck, I think its more so to keep your "suckiness" hidden from other people, so that someone isn't embarrassed to play if they lost many games. That way, a person will be more inclined to play, even if they lose often, cause no one has to know about it.
Blizzard is a business and will of course do anything that will help them sell more copies of the game. Many starting off players aren't going to be instantly good, so this is a way to keep the new players to keep on playing.
I agree with what other said about the option to display losses and/or only hiding loss records for bronze to gold players, since higher level players below masters can tend to be proud of their matches and would prefer to have the losses shown.
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United States12235 Posts
Another thing to consider: think about why they made losses visible only for Master players and above. If it was to protect fragile newbie egos, losses would only be hidden for Bronze, or maybe Silver. Blizzard knows how skill is distributed, that's why there are different tiers of divisions, that's why some leagues are larger than others. Statistically, there will always be plenty of competition around your level unless you're around that top 2%ish part of the ladder. In that sense, a win ratio is not relevant.
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I'm not really convinced someone would buy the game just because it's easy, or because there are strats that can be devastating to noobs. I hear people talk about halo, COD or whatnot and how they own noobs, but that doesn't make me want to spend money to buy those games. How are they even gonna figure out that the ladder doesnt show your win/loss rating? does it explain that on the box? do they advertise it on commericals? I've just never seen the logic behind these assumptions that making the game easier or more casual/noob friendly will make people buy more copies.
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the ladder system just gets worse and worse. remember when platinum was the top league? they just keep adding more and more leagues which is meaningless. first diamond and now masters. everytime they add a league it doesnt matter, the top players will always be in the top league and anything lower is noobie. if theyre going to add masters, then diamond needs to still have a lot of really good semi-pro players so that masters actually MEANS SOMETHING. right now if ur in diamond that means u SUCK. they need to stop adding meaningless leagues. they need to change it so that only the top 200 are in masters (aka grandmaster). theres no need for all these leagues. can diamond and platinum mean ur good again plz.
the noobs already know they suck cus theyre in anything below masters league ALREADY. what the point of hiding the losses? just the fact ur not in masters means u alrdy know u suck so who cares about displaying ur losses? completely useless measure instilled by blizz who make the most irrelevant and illogical decisions.
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I actually play ladder a lot more now they have disabled showing losses.
I have been very busy in the new year and I was formerly ranked middle diamond (about 1500 pts) but without constant practice I'd go on get walloped and I psychologically seeing my w:l ratio go down the toilet just put me off laddering.
Nonsense of course, it's just a number, but it had an effect.
Obviously a new season and all that, but I feel less concerned about playing casual games here and there as time permits and not worrying too much about my stats.
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I agree with the OP. Also, even Diamond players are close to 50/50, so there is no big reason to show losses until Masters.
The key point here is e-Sports. One can easily watch a game of soccer or tennis, have never played these before, and still enjoy the match. But Starcraft is a bit hard to understand for someone that never played. Even if you play other RTS, you may not really get to understand what kind of skills are on the table here. That said, the more people they can get to play, the more potential spectators we have.
About Bob, if he is stuck on Bronze and decides to play for points to get to 1st on his division, there is a *tendency* here for him to improve and end up being promoted to Silver. Repetition can get you better.
And one more thing: If you work on a match for several minutes, try hard to win, and lose, it feels like you are "producing evidence against yourself", because the final product of your work is a negative thing (+1 loss displayed on your profile). This could get people to feel desencouraged to keep playing, specially when they feel they were placed a bit above their skill level on the ladder (i.e. just been promoted because of a lucky win). If you hide losses, it feels like "ok, I lost, but let's pretend it never happened". That's the kind of spirit that keeps millions playing WoW, because you can never lose nothing important like XP or items there.
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I think they should have made it so you are able to set your profile as "private" or "public", and choose whether you want others to see it or not. And also that you can choose whether you want your stats to be saved or deleted after every game, so YOU can not see them aswell. Also this option would be denied for masters league (and diamond league in my opinion), leaving their profile always public. Also, when you install the game, your profile is by default set to "private" and saves your stats, and then from there u can choose what u want.
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Sorry if I destroy anyone's day, but win/loss ratio is worthless, because you don't know your own MMR and the MMR you're being matched again. The only thing you know if you have a winrate of 50% is that the ladder system is doing a good job. If you suddenly start to win more, the ladder system will give you harder opponents to compensate, until you're back at 50%.
There is no possible way to measure skill on the ladder. Yes, if you played 2000 games and you're still in bronze, you probably belong there or you are keeping yourself there to stomp newbs. Yes, masters is probably better then gold. But there is no way of knowing for sure. That master league player may be facing gold players all the time because a demote is coming. That bronze player may have a promotion upcoming, facing better opponents all the time, but his MMR didn't stabilize yet. There is absolutely no way to see how good you are doing. And I think it is a good thing, because now if you want to know if you're improving, you gotta study your own games. Witch is already one step into improving.
TLRL: You can't measure your progress by w/l anyway. So it doesn't matter. Now stop crying please.
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I'm casual and am on TL every day for at least an hour.
Last night I played my first 2 placement matches ever for sc2. Turtled, got fun upgrades like neosteel and turret range, didn't expand (sc2 is too choppy to macro well on a 3 y/o macbook), didn't even really attack except for running my raven around the perimeter of the map and harassing his third with autoturrets, just kind of explored the tech tree before 80 banelings killed me.
I want to know my losses. It's retarded that I can't.
It doesn't matter if it's worthless, I still want to know it.
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i do agree with a few of the op's points but they should at least show the losses for diamond players, no? those players are clearly putting an effort in becoming better and are probably near master level anyways.
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Nice write-up bob [wink, wink]
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On April 07 2011 00:41 Mr_Kyo wrote:
Blizzard has their reasons, as described by you. But the fact remains: there is a large population of players that care about improving and gauging improvement. These players will play SC2 for a long time. However, inability to see win/loss and the lack of a system that truly displays your rank makes gauging your improvement difficult. I can be #1 in a masters league and not even be in the top 50% of masters players. As a result, a player may decide to stop playing SC2 because games become meaningless if he has no idea if he's better or weaker a month ago.
The best of both worlds would just make the current system apply to bronze/silver/gold players and have a real ladder for those in higher leagues.
Exactly. I think it should be gold or below that can't see losses. Maybe even Platinum and below. I placed into Gold to start and then quickly jumped to plat then diamond all in less than 100 games. Now I THOUGHT I was a fairly competitive player. I don't play against masters consistently but I do occasionally. Even still, I think I could be considered a competitive player. I like to see my win ratio because it IS a good number to have/know for higher leagues.
I can definitely see why it's not necessary for bronze silver gold and maybe not platinum but diamond too? Come on. Maby make it so platinum and diamond have an option thats hidden where they can see it.
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On April 07 2011 02:42 da_head wrote:
i do agree with a few of the op's points but they should at least show the losses for diamond players, no? those players are clearly putting an effort in becoming better and are probably near master level anyways.
If a diamond player who is working to improve doesn't know that sc2gears exists, then they have had their head in the sand for the last 6 months.
SC2gears saves every replay for you (assuming you have it loaded) and can pull all of your auto-saved replays in for anaysis. Including winrate as a whole or against a certain race.
If you are serious about getting better at this game you will likely have SC2gears to help you look at what openings you have used produce the highest winrate, which race you have the worst winrate against, how long on average your matches last etc.
Blizz may have removed the losses from your profile but thats a long way from making it so you can't calculate your winrate, you just have to put some effort in and download 1 program.....
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I agree with OP wholeheartedly, his point is quite logical. The less people "scared" to play, the better.
However, I think there should be an on/off button to see YOUR OWN losses, for those who really care about it. They should also add a button to see your own MMR, huh?
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On April 07 2011 02:51 Tracedragon wrote:
I agree with OP wholeheartedly, his point is quite logical. The less people "scared" to play, the better.
However, I think there should be an on/off button to see YOUR OWN losses, for those who really care about it. They should also add a button to see your own MMR, huh? Blizzard hides the MMR probably to avoid fiddling with it. You could share MMR values and try to somehow influence yours. There will be a tournament I think with the Top-8 ladder players. MMR must be kept hidden.
Also Blizzard does not always sets you against exact equal skills to avoid to get always exhausting games because the opponent is of exact equal skill. Showing MMR would lead to complains "my MMR is 1500 but I was paired against someone with 1600, Blizzard is evil and their AMM does not work, no wonder why I lose many games and don't get promoted."
Sirlin's Blog entry (http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2010/7/24/analyzing-starcraft-2s-ranking-system.html) is not up-to-date and contains some wrong information, but it gives you an insight about the goal of the ladder system.
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Very nice post, i agree on all points exp one, " Anyway, he now thinks that he has improved while in fact he has not, he just gets opponents of equal skill" That is not true, and i think everyone can agree, bc just playing the game you are improving, say you do ONLY 1 build. M-m-m, every time you do you try to max units or hit a perfect timing, getting a drop in the min-ling while attacking the front etc etc. Just saying its good to go Vs bad players so u get the chance to "fuck up" and learn.
Anyway gr8 post ow.
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No, No, No. I cannot be the only on that feels this way. As far as im concerned, "Bob" can go F*** himself. changing the game because of the fragility bronze players egos is simply a bad business decision. Do it for the bronze leaguers only, but saying attracting more noobies to the game will produce more pro players i think is false. "Bob" is the kind of player that will play the campaign, maybe a few multiplayer matches, and give up because he sucks and he knows it. Not knowing his ratio wont keep him invested in the game the way the players who already know and care about the game are. The players who blizzard SHOULD be catering to with sc2. If people really are going to get into sc2, they will do it because of the complexity and beauty of the game. Blizzard does not need to dumb the game down to attract the "masses" because they are not the heart of the sc2 community. They will play the game until the next new game comes out, and move on. Blizzard needs to do more to embrace the people who will give their game longevity, and those are the players who enjoy the competitive and difficult aspects of the game. Once again, I understand the thought process behind this decision, but applying it all the way up to diamond is f**ing asinine. People who are "scared" to play need to nut up and improve, not run away because they get beat.
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iNfeRnaL
Germany1908 Posts
Nice writeup.
Wouldn't expect anything different from a Fragster, tho. 
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It has proven to be a pretty genius move from Blizzard to remove the W/L ratio. They need people to keep playing their game until they release the last expansion pack. If people become frustrated and quit or just plain lose interest, they aren't as likely to spend 50 bucks to buy an expansion for a game they don't really care about anymore. There was a thread recently with a poll that showed more people who voted watch the game than play it. Someone who never plays is more likely to buy a NASL or GSL ticket than the expansion pack, and that's not great for Blizzard.
I have yet to see anyone say they're going to play less because they removed the W/L count, but I have seen several people say they will play more. Someone so invested in the game that they actually care about their diamond league W/L ratio to whine about the change will probably play the game regardless of what Blizzard does. It's like people who make "I quit" threads on the WoW forums; they never quit for long because they're so emotionally invested in the game that they felt the need to make a long post. Blizzard cares less about those people and more about the casual player who gets bored quickly and tempted to play other games easily. In WoW, they might add in a new dungeon every couple of months to keep people's interest up. In SC2, where unlike a static dungeon every game is different, they just made a little tweak to the UI to nudge people to play more.
All in all, I agree with the OP. More people playing the game is generally a good thing.
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I absolutely agree with the topic.
I´m a bronze player and I just play some games a week. And I am absolutely happy with my ranking, I have a lot of fun with the game on low level, exactly like Bob. Besides I follow the game and the community relatively active. As much as my job allows... ;-)
And I really like it, that there are no more losses. I often play no games for 1-2 weeks and honestly it is easier to play again, if you´re not afraid of bad stats. I know that there is no reason for that. Absolutely nobody cares for my stats in bronze. But thats the way people think...
I think Blizzard should just show the stats in Diamond again. Diamond+ are good players, they want to play competitive and therefor no reason not to show it. Perhaps even Platin.
But for Bronze-Gold it is a great idea to not show the losses. Before I only played when I was not tired etc. Now I just play more often and don´t care about some losses.
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Blizzard is just pleasing the noobs to sell more copies.
and
We need people who play, or we will run out of fresh blood. Blizzard is doing the right thing to ensure new blood for any league. Blizzard is right awarding activity with a good placement in the division. If you want to see your win ratio, you can earn this honor by getting in Master. If you want to see your real skill with no bonus pool adjustment, you can sign up for a tournament and see who you can beat.
kinda contradicting?
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even if i kinda think its dumb, in the grand scheme of things it should be the right decision. we just gotta look @ the big picture
good post
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exactly the way i feel 
kinda contradicting?
.... did you read the whole thing? The first one was a statement from the community, and he said that to mock them, not quote them.
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Apparently what you really want is to play unranked matchmaking games with your current MMR. There's no reason to ruin the competitive experience for everyone with a ladder that is meaningless from a competitor's perspective just so you can have your carebear rainbow land where losses magically don't matter.
despite having lots of words, an awful post
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On April 07 2011 03:11 Gheed wrote:
I have yet to see anyone say they're going to play less because they removed the W/L count, but I have seen several people say they will play more.
That´s it. Bronze-boys like me will play more games, you all play the same. And more games are good. If Blizzard earns a ton of money, they will create more great games. :-)
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On April 07 2011 00:28 Xism wrote:
... even though it's still kind of pathetic that losses had to be removed so that noobs wouldn't feel bad... But I get it, it's good business ...
This is silly. It's in the SC2's best interest to have as a big playerbase as possible playing the game, so if removing the losses for diamond and down, sweet.
This of it like this:
For every 10.000 player, one of them has the skill and/or determination as the likes of MVP/MC/etc, limiting the playerbase is then counterproductive. I for one love watching good players play the game.
It's really simple, the more people you stack, the higher the ones on top will reach.
So with that point made, my question back is then: Does removing the win/loss ratio for diamond and below REDUCE or INCREASE the likelihood of a flash (or insert favorite player) spawning?
I for one promote the loss aversion for diamond and down, but more importantly; stop using degrading terms for players working their way up (read: noobs). Don't get my wrong, there are noobs (definition is another discussion), but every player below top 1-3 places in masters isn't a noob. We want people to play ladder!
Ladder is a great place to farm good players, don't piss on people playing it. It's counter productive...
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On April 07 2011 02:39 Blasts wrote:
Sorry if I destroy anyone's day, but win/loss ratio is worthless, because you don't know your own MMR and the MMR you're being matched again. The only thing you know if you have a winrate of 50% is that the ladder system is doing a good job. If you suddenly start to win more, the ladder system will give you harder opponents to compensate, until you're back at 50%.
There is no possible way to measure skill on the ladder. Yes, if you played 2000 games and you're still in bronze, you probably belong there or you are keeping yourself there to stomp newbs. Yes, masters is probably better then gold. But there is no way of knowing for sure. That master league player may be facing gold players all the time because a demote is coming. That bronze player may have a promotion upcoming, facing better opponents all the time, but his MMR didn't stabilize yet. There is absolutely no way to see how good you are doing. And I think it is a good thing, because now if you want to know if you're improving, you gotta study your own games. Witch is already one step into improving.
TLRL: You can't measure your progress by w/l anyway. So it doesn't matter. Now stop crying please.
Following this, recorded wins are worthless as well, because you don't know your own MMR and the MMR you're being matched against. The only thing you know if you have a number of wins is that the ladder system is doing a good job. If you suddenly start to win more, it just means that you have played more, because the ladder system will keep you at 50% win rate.
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On April 07 2011 03:29 nutnut wrote:
This is silly. It's in the SC2's best interest to have as a big playerbase as possible playing the game, so if removing the losses for diamond and down, sweet.
I don't understand how it's in the best interest of the playerbase to make the multiplayer experience as shallow as the single player.
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The closest analogy that comes to my mind are people that set their clocks minutes ahead to wake up earlier. Which leads to that these people start to calculate every morning how much time is left if they didn't change their clock. Not only about the losses, but also about division tiers, hidden MMR, bonus pool and what not.
Whenever I look at a profile page of a Diamond player I feel that I only know half the story. It is unlogical to have wins listed but not losses (the more I think about it, the more does Incontrols mockery of this in SotG make sense).
I think many people here try to think as a casual player. If you read this post right now here on TL, it is very likely that you are not a casual player. The mindset is "Yeah, casual players are like us only inferior and can't deal with losses. In reality, they don't want to play the game but just want achievements". But no such people exist (everyone must deal with losses in other games and real life). A very small minority is serious about the game, but everyone expects from a game that you can either win or lose.
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I think Platinum and above should be able to see their losses if they want to.
If you're above Gold, you're probably trying to actively get better at the game, and seeing your win/loss record is a good way to see if you're improving. Hell, hide it to the world - but let them see it if they go looking.
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This is really well written/thought out. It makes sense, universal ladder with something for players of all calibers.
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The removal of losses is the trigger that has made me actually start to ladder. I was in gold league before the patch with a 26/19 W/L but ive always been afraid to ladder as between me and my friends w/l has always been a big deal. The minute i heard losses had been removed i went straight to the ladder and played game. I have went 10wins 5losses since the patch and actually managed to get promoted to platinum as well as now being matched against a mixture of plats and diamond players.
I agree that it should be an opt in/out where i can choose whether to show or see my stats but this change has allowed me and a few of my friends to chance to enjoy laddering which is surely what blizzard intended.
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Could not agree more!
I have been thinking about this alot since 1.3 and your well spoken words is spot on.
GREAT post, much appriciated =)
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On April 07 2011 01:08 marvellosity wrote:
Kinda missing the point, Excalibur. I don't want W/L because I'm desperate to gauge my progress by it, I want it because there's no reason for me not to have it and I enjoy knowing what my W/L is.
Other users have already rebuked this. Here's Excalibur's post about ladder analysis for additional evidence which is still valid. WL would be relevant if BNet 2.0 was a "round robin" based system -- it isn't. I won't dive into this unless someone provokes me.
Also, to rage, all of you users who replied to the OP w/o also reading the discussion are potentially wasting your and everyone else's time.
Please read Zatic's experimental strategy forum purge and you'll find nice rules like this:
4 Reply without reading the OP or the following discussion.
Plenty of redundant posts because someone else said what you said first. Why not quote someone and say "This" like Excalibur and Kiichol did. Threads wouldn't be a pain in the ass to swim through if people just followed that. Make a note of posts you wanna rage on -- perhaps someone responds to it later and you can either rally behind them or piss on that parade as well.
On April 07 2011 03:29 nutnut wrote:
I for one promote the loss aversion for diamond and down, but more importantly; stop using degrading terms for players working their way up (read: noobs). Don't get my wrong, there are noobs (definition is another discussion), but every player below top 1-3 places in masters isn't a noob. We want people to play ladder!
Agreed. I'm going to be bold and say "noob" is like the word "retard," which is degrading to those it is applicable to. Like me, I suck as CecilSunkure would say.
And yes, I am an asshole. If it makes you feel better, I'm currently Gold after the reset and having switched to Z; I'm probably much worse than you or only a little better, whichever applies.
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On April 07 2011 02:28 stephls wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 00:38 Achaia wrote:
While I don't really care that they've hidden the losses for players below masters I do think it's kind of silly. For instance, yesterday I was off my game and got crushed all day. I ended the day 4 - 9 overall I think. From what I understand Blizzard wants to hide the fact that I suck so I keep playing lol. The funny thing is that I'm painfully aware of how bad I was yesterday (not that this will keep me from playing). Does hiding losses from players really make them think they're better than they are?
The other reason that I think Blizzard may have hidden losses that isn't really discussed much from what I've seen is to help reduce flaming because of records. If someone has more losses than wins it seems that they are more likely to get flamed after a game when someone is able to see their record. It still seems to me though that this is unnecessary for Diamond and maybe even Platinum.
Again, I'm not really against it because I'm generally aware of how bad/good I'm playing because I don't forget losses easily but maybe that's just me. Has hiding the losses really had a positive effect on lower level players though? I would be interested to hear from some Bronze/Silver/Gold players on the change. Instead of making yourself aware that you suck, I think its more so to keep your "suckiness" hidden from other people, so that someone isn't embarrassed to play if they lost many games. That way, a person will be more inclined to play, even if they lose often, cause no one has to know about it. Blizzard is a business and will of course do anything that will help them sell more copies of the game. Many starting off players aren't going to be instantly good, so this is a way to keep the new players to keep on playing. I agree with what other said about the option to display losses and/or only hiding loss records for bronze to gold players, since higher level players below masters can tend to be proud of their matches and would prefer to have the losses shown.
Yeah I totally understand where you're coming from. The whole thing I mentioned about people being flamed for their WLR is kinda what I was talking about with the whole being embarassed to play because of your losses point that you had made. I also understand that Blizzard is a company trying to make money and like I said I'm not really against it. My main point was that I just don't understand it and I'm really curious to see what the gold level and below players have to say about it. I get the feeling that platinum and above would like to still have it there, or at least have an option to show/hide it but for those that this is really targeted towards I would like to see exactly what impact this has had on them.
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This has probably already been addressed in the thread (and I claim no novelty), but some players are greatly overvaluing the usefulness of a win/loss ratio statistic. If you understand anything about the matchmaking system, you will know that it intentionally tries to bring you close to a 50% winrate, so unless you are either end of skill distribution (that is, a place where a 50% winrate is not necessarily possible), your current winrate does not indicate skill.
If you want to accurately judge how well you are doing in Starcraft you are much better off using some sort of a ranking or point system (such as a Bnet point system). Looking at chess as an example, I have never once heard a Chess player talk about his general winrate. It is such a meaningless statistic as it only describes how often you win, but not what class of players you win against. Chess players always talk about their Elo rating, as it captures far more information and does a much better job of describing the skill of the player.
I am quite happy they removed winrate stats, because even though I know it is meaningless, I was still bothered by seeing that number on my profile (due to having uncontrollable irrational tendencies like most humans).
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How the hell can some oh you argue that seeing your win/loss ratio will actually help make you better? I don't care how good/bad you are at Starcraft but 95% of us will never see win/lose ratios outside of 45-55% range. Is it really going to change your personal meta-game when you see your record is 50-45 instead of 50-55?
Blizzard ladder is much improved from BW and who gives a shit about wins and loses.
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GG. God post. I have been going around in these thoughts for a while, but you did write it down perfectly.
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On April 07 2011 04:18 Ghost-z wrote:
How the hell can some oh you argue that seeing your win/loss ratio will actually help make you better? I don't care how good/bad you are at Starcraft but 95% of us will never see win/lose ratios outside of 45-55% range. Is it really going to change your personal meta-game when you see your record is 50-45 instead of 50-55?
Blizzard ladder is much improved from BW and who gives a shit about wins and loses.
I don't think that anyone here is arguing that seeing the WLR helps to make you better but some people do like to see that so they can know what their win percent is. Everyone values their position in the community differently.
Some value their position based on what profile pics they have unlocked, some based on what league they are in and some their WLR. Everyone likes to gauge themselves differently and taking the losses away eliminates one of the ways that people like to look at their profile stats. That's not to say that there's people out there who do in fact like that to be hidden.
The discussion here seems to be more around whether or not we like the change and how it affects us as a player personally. I don't really care either way myself.
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I still don't get the problem. To calculate my win ratio I use two very simple tools: a pen and a piece of paper. I really don't care if it's displayed in bnet, because I can keep track of my progress without the software. of course it would be better to include the option "display lost games" into the game.
@OP: well written, I pretty much agree with you. noobs are the beginning of everything - even mondragon was a noob once.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 07 2011 03:33 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 02:39 Blasts wrote:
Sorry if I destroy anyone's day, but win/loss ratio is worthless, because you don't know your own MMR and the MMR you're being matched again. The only thing you know if you have a winrate of 50% is that the ladder system is doing a good job. If you suddenly start to win more, the ladder system will give you harder opponents to compensate, until you're back at 50%.
There is no possible way to measure skill on the ladder. Yes, if you played 2000 games and you're still in bronze, you probably belong there or you are keeping yourself there to stomp newbs. Yes, masters is probably better then gold. But there is no way of knowing for sure. That master league player may be facing gold players all the time because a demote is coming. That bronze player may have a promotion upcoming, facing better opponents all the time, but his MMR didn't stabilize yet. There is absolutely no way to see how good you are doing. And I think it is a good thing, because now if you want to know if you're improving, you gotta study your own games. Witch is already one step into improving.
TLRL: You can't measure your progress by w/l anyway. So it doesn't matter. Now stop crying please. Following this, recorded wins are worthless as well, because you don't know your own MMR and the MMR you're being matched against. The only thing you know if you have a number of wins is that the ladder system is doing a good job. If you suddenly start to win more, it just means that you have played more, because the ladder system will keep you at 50% win rate.
While that is true, your wins at least have a direct impact upon your progress toward unlocking portraits, decals, and achievements.
Also, to the rest of the thread who are still posting about "WL was removed for noobs", I want this earlier point acknowledged:
Another thing to consider: think about why they made losses visible only for Master players and above. If it was to protect fragile newbie egos, losses would only be hidden for Bronze, or maybe Silver. Blizzard knows how skill is distributed, that's why there are different tiers of divisions, that's why some leagues are larger than others. Statistically, there will always be plenty of competition around your level unless you're around that top 2%ish part of the ladder. In that sense, a win ratio is not relevant.
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I agree wholeheartedly with OP. My only complaint with the system is the inability to off race conveniently, I really wish you could have a separate MMR for each race...
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At the end of the day unless your in masters your win ratio is going to be around 50%. You can still get an indication of your skill from whichever league you are in. If you move up in your division that is an indication of improving.
On the other hand i do think that losses should be shown in diamond. I just feel like when i was in diamond i spent a lot amount of time watching trying to improve, and learn strategies. By the time i was in diamond it was all about improving, i don't really think the losses effected me a ton.
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I agree with you, it's not really a bad thing. And really good move by them to keep the masters losses showing, as it pleases the guys at the top.
Still, you could still guesstimate a person's win:loss ratio based on their win:point ratio 
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This is the sorta thinking that made WoW terrible in the first place.
Why would you want to have a feeling of achievement when you haven't worked for it? Doesn't make sense.
Yeah it's nice that people are playing casually and stuff, but 5 years ago they didn't need to dumb down anything in games to get people to play them.
Besides, if players require this kind of incentive to play, then they won't go far because they lack the passion to excel at the game for their own benefit.
It might be a good business decision, but are we going to bow down to every business decision, at the expense of what we feel should be right?
Yeah it may not affect anything with regards to indicating skill, but the fact that Blizzard decided on this for us and at such an early stage of the game is scary.
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This post has become mostly about win/loss display; but it shouldn't be. That is only a small part of the issue. Its about Blizzard not giving us the opportunity to see how we progress (like our MMR).
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Here's why the ladder is bad: If you disconnect or crash from Starcraft 2 a lot, you only face retards who are way below your skill level. I'm easily a high diamond, low masters player in terms of my macro, micro and scouting as a Zerg, but I'm only in platinum because I auto-lose 1/3 of my games due to a hardware problem. Blizz Ladder sees these losses and throws gold league players at me, who generally do a 1-base all in and then GG when they can't kill my 15hatch. Now that losses are removed from the profile, I actually go and manually count through my match history and I keep the record - Win/Loss ratio for the day and what I lost to (mostly, disconnects).
Why should I have to keep the record instead of my profile doing it? Fuck you, Blizzard.
The ladder has pros and cons.
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On April 07 2011 04:59 IntoTheEmo wrote:
Yeah it may not affect anything with regards to indicating skill, but the fact that Blizzard decided on this for us and at such an early stage of the game is scary.
Exactly. And the fact that they have removed all other venues of competitive play couples with this to make an even scarier reality. Also, having Win/Loss shown as a choice made by the user would be the best of both worlds, IMO.
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On April 07 2011 04:43 enigamI wrote:
I agree wholeheartedly with OP. My only complaint with the system is the inability to off race conveniently, I really wish you could have a separate MMR for each race...
*HEAD EXPLODED!!!!!!*
You just blew my mind. I had never really thought of that lol. I thought about one day possibly rolling like Day9 and just having a copy of SC2 for each race but obviously there's significant financial investment in owning 3 copies. Why not have a separate ranking for each race? That's such a good idea. I'm guessing this idea has been tossed about for a while but this if the first time I've seen it for whatever reason. Too bad that Blizzard probably won't allow for this since it means that people like me won't actually go and buy extra copies of the game to have separate MMR for each race lol.
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On April 07 2011 00:23 [F_]aths wrote:
With Patch 1.3 and the removal of the total games played for leagues below Master, it is not possible to calculate the win ratio. Many users see this as the final proof that the ladder is good for nothing since it no longer has any meaning. Blizzard is just pleasing the noobs to sell more copies. Competitive play is not really promoted since anyone can get milestones or achievements while he still has no more than 12 drones at any given time in the match.
But let us look on a casual gamer with little RTS experience. Let’s him call Bob. Bob purchased Starcraft 2 because he likes military science fiction or because he was told that the game is good. Or he stumbled upon a Husky cast as a friend forwarded him the Baneling video and now Bob dreams of beeing a terran general to commandeer some battle cruisers.
Bob did play through the campaign on the easiest level and still had trouble with “All In”. He started the online mode and got crushed. He started another game and got crushed again. After practice league and placement matches he finds himself 0-5ed in Bronze. Five or ten games later his MMR adjusted and he fights other guys like him and he eventually gets close to a 50% win ratio, even though he cannot see it unless he digs up his match history. Anyway, he now thinks that he has improved while in fact he has not, he just gets opponents of equal skill. But the important thing here is that he has fun and that he plays. Bob will perhaps never get promoted, but he gets into Top-8 of his division and he tells a friend that this Starcraft thing is very fun and he should buy it, too. Now they can play custom 1v1 with no attack until 8:00 minutes or do a 2v2 with double sixpool.
Eventually, some players who got into the game will be interested to get actually better. This is my main point. Sir Taste-A-Lot and Striderdoom once were nubs, too. They nubbed probably for months, if not years, in an environment with no real competetive pressure. Everyone should have the chance to play online against players of equal skill without having to worry to get a poor ladder statistic. In SC1, everyone could create a new account at any time to hide the inglorious past. But this promoted smurfing, and it is not fair to let mid-skilled players bash noobs.
To have more players at pro level in the long term, Starcraft should attract the masses. It is not good to sort out the players who cannot stand the pressure before they had a chance to develop love for the game. Imagine a balance discussion between Bob and Jack, both bronzies. May be their views are horriblys wrong, but it is important that they talk about Starcraft. May be a friend overhears a conversation how imbalanced the Dark Templar is and purchases the game just for having a chance to feel great to crush someone with a DT rush.
It is also important that they watch some pro leagues because leagues need an audience to get sponsors. An elitist attitude regarding Starcraft will only drive away the masses, not letting the scene develop into mainstream.
We need people who play, or we will run out of fresh blood. Blizzard is doing the right thing to ensure new blood for any league. Blizzard is right awarding activity with a good placement in the division. If you want to see your win ratio, you can earn this honor by getting in Master. If you want to see your real skill with no bonus pool adjustment, you can sign up for a tournament and see who you can beat.
The Blizzard ladder is constructed to get people play the game and it does its job well. It rewards just playing the game, it keeps people playing because it removes the fear of getting below 50%. More players overall today = more pro-gamers overall tomorrow.
edit Technical note: With exception for the lowest and the highest league, if you keep playing, your ratio will be close to 50% regardless. If you have much more (or less) than 50%, you did not just play enough for the MMR do adapt. Having >50% in Diamond is no sign of skill. It's just a sign that you did not yet play enough games for the MMR do adapt.
Now let's say you had a bad day, you are a bit tired and afraid of playing 1v1 since you could lose a lot of games today. You could decide to rather not play to keep your 51% win statistic. Okay, a week or two weeks later you feel great but you are afraid that the strategies developed further and you would get crushed. Having not to worry about stats will make it easy to play regardless of your condition. The more players are hitting the search-game-button, the better the system works because it can match you to someone with similar skill very fast. This keeps the interest in actually playing instead of worrying about statistics.
atleast give us the OPTION of toggling it on or off. the ones who are scared can choose to not see it but some of us really want to know.
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Its easy, your W/L is very close to 50% unless you are high masters or very low bronze. Seeing the exact number doesn't change the fact that the MMR forces you to be around 50% W/L until you're in masters.
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On April 07 2011 04:18 Ghost-z wrote:
How the hell can some oh you argue that seeing your win/loss ratio will actually help make you better? I don't care how good/bad you are at Starcraft but 95% of us will never see win/lose ratios outside of 45-55% range. Is it really going to change your personal meta-game when you see your record is 50-45 instead of 50-55?
Blizzard ladder is much improved from BW and who gives a shit about wins and loses.
It doesn't help me feel better, but if I ladder hard some days it's nice to be able to see that you started on 70-60 and when you finished for the day you had 80-69.
Right now it's more like hey how much did you play today, "uh, HOLD ON I JUST NEED TO COUNT MY MATCH HISTORY".
It's not that I really want it that much or anything because I couldn't really care less, I just think the decision to remove it completely was awful and I hope they don't continue to "consolify" battle.net in the future.
No matter how much you argue that it doesn't really matter, it's pretty hard to figure out a valid reason to not even have it optional, or personal, only visible to you.
It's just plain retarded on the same level as WC3 showed map stats, SC2 doesn't but Blizzard clearly collects these stats so how hard would it be to let us see our stats as well, not being able to have custom game names on custom games, having no clue about our true MMR (unless you read excalibur's thread) etc., it's just BNET 2.0 taking one step forward and two steps backwards as usual.
Stop limiting our options when there's no need for it.
Someone needs to remind the battle.net developers that it isn't a console platform.
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I'm a guy who is highish diamond starting to get matched against masters (:D).
Anyway, this change pisses me off. I'd be fine if Blizz gave people an option or whatever, but as it is I read it as: "Hey, Blizzard here! We're gunna make some balance changes n stuff. Oh and btw, we don't think you can handle the emotional challenge of losses, so we'll take that away". And that offends me. Blizz can cater to casuals all they want, but when they start assuming everyone but less than 2% of their entire game is casuals that makes me mad.
It also makes me mad they assume anyone not in masters is casual.  . Hurts my feelings a bit.
I'd be fine with them having an option, but why limit our choices like this and basically flip off every non masters player? I just don't see the advantage of this over an option. In order for blizz to justify this move they have to show a positive impact it has over the option and I don't think they can.
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On April 07 2011 04:00 Achaia wrote:
I get the feeling that platinum and above would like to still have it there, or at least have an option to show/hide it but for those that this is really targeted towards I would like to see exactly what impact this has had on them. It's good that Blizzard removed the choice to have it because Platinum and Diamond also has players which are currently slightly above 50% and are afraid of playing the game since they could fall below 50%. It never will work to convince all players to not judge someone by his win ratio. Even if Blizzard manages to tell everyone that the system will get you close to 50% anyways, people will see >50% as a proof that they are good since they even tricked the system (while in fact they just did not play enough games yet.)
To remove the win ratio, also removes a lot of unnecessary discussions so people can focus on playing instead of talking.
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On April 07 2011 16:53 [F_]aths wrote:
To remove the win ratio, also removes a lot of unnecessary discussions so people can focus on playing instead of talking.
You mean like we are doing now?
On April 07 2011 16:53 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 04:00 Achaia wrote:
I get the feeling that platinum and above would like to still have it there, or at least have an option to show/hide it but for those that this is really targeted towards I would like to see exactly what impact this has had on them. It's good that Blizzard removed the choice to have it because Platinum and Diamond also has players which are currently slightly above 50% and are afraid of playing the game since they could fall below 50%. It never will work to convince all players to not judge someone by his win ratio. Even if Blizzard manages to tell everyone that the system will get you close to 50% anyways, people will see >50% as a proof that they are good since they even tricked the system (while in fact they just did not play enough games yet.)
You can still judge players by their division, rank and recent losses.
Sometimes (all the time) I wish people would just step it up when it comes to using logic. The posts in this thread are horrible, with a few of them making sense.
On April 07 2011 04:43 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 03:33 enzym wrote:On April 07 2011 02:39 Blasts wrote:
Sorry if I destroy anyone's day, but win/loss ratio is worthless, because you don't know your own MMR and the MMR you're being matched again. The only thing you know if you have a winrate of 50% is that the ladder system is doing a good job. If you suddenly start to win more, the ladder system will give you harder opponents to compensate, until you're back at 50%.
There is no possible way to measure skill on the ladder. Yes, if you played 2000 games and you're still in bronze, you probably belong there or you are keeping yourself there to stomp newbs. Yes, masters is probably better then gold. But there is no way of knowing for sure. That master league player may be facing gold players all the time because a demote is coming. That bronze player may have a promotion upcoming, facing better opponents all the time, but his MMR didn't stabilize yet. There is absolutely no way to see how good you are doing. And I think it is a good thing, because now if you want to know if you're improving, you gotta study your own games. Witch is already one step into improving.
TLRL: You can't measure your progress by w/l anyway. So it doesn't matter. Now stop crying please. Following this, recorded wins are worthless as well, because you don't know your own MMR and the MMR you're being matched against. The only thing you know if you have a number of wins is that the ladder system is doing a good job. If you suddenly start to win more, it just means that you have played more, because the ladder system will keep you at 50% win rate. While that is true, your wins at least have a direct impact upon your progress toward unlocking portraits, decals, and achievements.
Good point.
On April 07 2011 04:43 Excalibur_Z wrote:Also, to the rest of the thread who are still posting about "WL was removed for noobs", I want this earlier point acknowledged: Show nested quote +Another thing to consider: think about why they made losses visible only for Master players and above. If it was to protect fragile newbie egos, losses would only be hidden for Bronze, or maybe Silver. Blizzard knows how skill is distributed, that's why there are different tiers of divisions, that's why some leagues are larger than others. Statistically, there will always be plenty of competition around your level unless you're around that top 2%ish part of the ladder. In that sense, a win ratio is not relevant.
That assumes that the only value in a statistic is it's statistical meaning/significance. Many people would like to see this number purely for reasons of comfort (with the lack of that number, with Blizzard's decision to remove it and their [assumed] reasoning behind it, etc).
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Couldn't agree more! Awesome post
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On April 07 2011 00:52 mustache wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 00:48 [F_]aths wrote:
Icx, a diamond player who neither gots promoted nor demoted will have a win ratio close to 50% anyways. To show the losses (or the number of games played) is pointless. The AMM is engineered to match you against equal skill so you have to come out near 50% win ratio. Only very, very good or very, very bad players can be far from 50%.
If you want to put your skill to a test, you could play a Go4SC2, Zotac or any other open cup. if this system is so perfect whats wrong with showing someone a 50/50 win ratio. thats not discouraging..
Lol In most Asian Countries (at least Vietnam), 50% is a big fat FAIL.
for me, being raised in an asian culture, seeing 50% is not very encouraging.
Tbh, I was secretly happy about the whole hiding losses thing....until they said it was for diamond and below D=
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Nicely written, but it still doesn't really console me. I really want to be able to see my win/loss rating because it's important to me. I agree that if it makes people uncomfortable to see it displayed prominently then it shouldn't be there, but maybe it should be somewhere so that those of us who like to measure our progress (and you can indeed measure your progress; if you're winning a lot of games all of a sudden or over a specific period of time, your skill is indeed increasing). I appreciate your painful optimism, but there is an important minority, if not a majority of players who really miss it. I loved it while it was there, I miss it greatly now that it's gone.
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People are crazy about the w/l ratio. It has never meant anything, except maybe a summary of the people you played against. It certainly isn't related to skill in any way.
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but now no one can see my epic 70% winrate in diamond because i threw my placement matches
wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh blizzard caters to casuals wahhhhh
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Guess loads of people are like me never been through the noob stage, probaly due to the past RTS experience
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I have two friends (silver/gold-ish), both of them lost interest because of the complete lack of transparency. They don't see how "close" they are to promotions, also promotions happen very rarely, you just...play and don't see any progress at all. Divisions are a joke, not even my friends take these seriously. I honestly think very few people do.
Completely opposed to warcraft 3 where you'd achieve new "levels" much more often, since there were 50 of them. I'm sorry if I annoy people with my constant wc3-parallels, but wc3 was a million times more competitive LADDER-wise (NOT tourney-wise). And somehow it was still a huge success. Even with smurfs ruining much.
Currently, if there weren't such awsome sites like sc2-ranks, I don't know how we could even compare ourselves WITH bonus-pool taking into account.
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very well constructed post.
to be honest, i don't see why players shouldn't be able to see their own losses if they could toggle it with an interface option or the like, with no way for opponents ( pre masters) to see them.
i for example, am in the situation where after tanking my MMR to basement level in season one, i am currently 22-4 and sitting in bronze twiddling my thumbs grinding through games to get my MMR up, and its a long ass process.
by seeing my losses i wouldn't have to make a mental check every time i lose just to think, hmm i'm still on a pretty nice ratio, awesome maybe i can keep this going as my MMR rises and maybe get a promotion.
On April 07 2011 06:49 dmillz wrote:
Its easy, your W/L is very close to 50% unless you are high masters or very low bronze. Seeing the exact number doesn't change the fact that the MMR forces you to be around 50% W/L until you're in masters.
im rank 1 bronze 22-4 my MMR just got owned last season as it was the first time id played an RTS since i was about 11.
MMR can be a real pain in the ass.
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If you want to see your real skill with no bonus pool adjustment, you can sign up for a tournament and see who you can beat.
this is very true, and you managed to convince me why the ladder is great now.
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Good construction, but I have a hard time following some of your arguments. According to your logic, Starcraft 1 shouldn't be good for the masses because its too hard core, but how does that explain that in Korea so many people play the game to become pro at it? You say that you get lots of players to get a audience, but as you may see in some other poll about the rate of watching/actually playing, there are lots and lots of people out there who don't play at all and just watch pro-games..and also, many of the players who started playing the game at the beginning are still playing, even though the win-loss stats were still enabled.
I would suggest that loss-statistics are disabled by default, but that it's possible to toggle them, so if you want to see your losses, you can do so. Also, add functions for off-racing please
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I think it's a great change. I honestly wouldn't view a bronzie with a 40% win rate any different from a bronzie with a 60% win rate.
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On April 07 2011 20:19 IntotheNorth wrote:
Guess loads of people are like me never been through the noob stage, probaly due to the past RTS experience
Oh yeah? SC2 was my first RTS and I got placed in Plat. Wat up.
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Why does everyone claim that w/l ration means nothing until you are at the highest level of play?
That is complete crap..
Here's my story that explains why:
When I started playing, I was bronze with a 50% winrate. I stopped playing for some time and followed alot of pro starcraft.
After about a month I started playing again. Having seen alot of professionals do their thing, I had gotten a much better insight into the game. This meant that I suddenly had a massive winstreak.
I had a ratio of about 80-80 before I stopped, and later on I was in platinum with ~180-100.
This may not indicate skill, but it sure indicated something to me: as I was still winning far more than losing, I knew I was still in the wrong league. Knowing that, I had alot of motivation to play and keep going, to see in which league my W/L ratio will even out to the 50%, so I know in which league I belong.
This, however, is when the patch hit. and I know have no clue wether or not my W/L ratio is approaching 50% or not.
Not knowing wether it has or not, really pulled down my motivation to keep playing and see in which league I below, and because of that I have hardly played since the patch, and am still in platinum.
It may not indicate skill directly, but it is a great motivation to keep playing for me, and I'm sure for many others aswell.
For this reason, I really think making the losses hidden should be optional. And please, for the love of god, or for the love of whatever u love or beleive in, do not make the comment that people will start hating on people for hiding their losses or whatever, because people will hate regardless of it being optional or not.
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On April 07 2011 20:37 drsnuggles wrote:
Good construction, but I have a hard time following some of your arguments. According to your logic, Starcraft 1 shouldn't be good for the masses because its too hard core, but how does that explain that in Korea so many people play the game to become pro at it? Starcraft Broodwar was fine at its time. It did not however had a world wide appeal to the masses. Just one country cought it.
On April 07 2011 20:37 drsnuggles wrote:You say that you get lots of players to get a audience, but as you may see in some other poll about the rate of watching/actually playing, there are lots and lots of people out there who don't play at all and just watch pro-games..and also, many of the players who started playing the game at the beginning are still playing, even though the win-loss stats were still enabled. I would suggest that loss-statistics are disabled by default, but that it's possible to toggle them, so if you want to see your losses, you can do so. Also, add functions for off-racing please ... so you can hide your losses if you play an offrace? Why's that? Because you like to brag around with your stats. Everyone likes it, if he admits it or not. In SC1 and WC3 it was common to create a new acc upon improvement to bash some noobs and get a high ratio. You only showed the current acc to your online friends who not knew about the old accounts where you dropped to 48%.
The ladder system as of patch 1.3 is engineered to allow every active player to have something to show. It can be single player achievements. It's not a competetive league, may be with exception of Grand Master. It's a playground.
The display of losses induces a mindset to avoid losses. But the mindset should be to learn from losses.
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I really like the OP. Articulate and persuasive. Thanks for the effort.
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On April 07 2011 20:30 Belligerentz wrote:
by seeing my losses i wouldn't have to make a mental check every time i lose just to think, hmm i'm still on a pretty nice ratio, awesome maybe i can keep this going as my MMR rises and maybe get a promotion. I don't remember the exact wording at Blizzcon 2010, where someone from Blizz explained a bit about promotion. (System promotes you only when you are ready, meaning when your MMR stabilized.) In an extreme case this could mean you should intentionally throw some games to get promoted soon (to stabilize your MMR confidence interval.) Blizzard does not want you to throw games. Eventually the MMR will adapt to your real skill level and then you get into a new league. Blizzard's intention is that you just play and don't worry about win ratio.
I think, your mental check should not be to avoid losses. It should be to learn from losses. In a real tournament of course you will seek to avoid losses by all means. Not so in the ladder.
In fact, there are cases where I am somewhat happy that I lost someone because I have the replay and can analyze how he managed to win.
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That blizzard got rid of displaying losses was a dumb move, but it really doesn't matter because your win percentage is only a rough indicator of ladder success. The exact indicator of ladder success is your MMR, which no one can know. If you want to know your relative skill level, play a ton of games and then go to blizzard headquarters and threaten to hang yourself on one of the WOW statues unless they tell you how your MMR compares to others.
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On April 07 2011 20:46 Marksel wrote:
Why does everyone claim that w/l ration means nothing until you are at the highest level of play? Because the ladder system is designed that way. Unless you are on the very top, any big deviation from 50% results from too few games played yet.
On April 07 2011 21:25 Hypatio wrote:
That blizzard got rid of displaying losses was a dumb move, but it really doesn't matter because your win percentage is only a rough indicator of ladder success. Wrong. Win ratio is no indicator of success. It is just a sign that the MMR for you has not yet properly adapted.
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On April 07 2011 21:28 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 20:46 Marksel wrote:
Why does everyone claim that w/l ration means nothing until you are at the highest level of play? Because the ladder system is designed that way. Unless you are on the very top, any big deviation from 50% results from too few games played yet. Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 21:25 Hypatio wrote:
That blizzard got rid of displaying losses was a dumb move, but it really doesn't matter because your win percentage is only a rough indicator of ladder success. Wrong. Win ratio is no indicator of success. It is just a sign that the MMR for you has not yet properly adapted.
Funny how you contradict yourself
First you say it means nothing, and now you say it means that your MMR has not yet properly adapted.
This is exactly what I pointed out in my post, of which you quoted the point and gave a counter-argument based on the point, while completely ignoring the explenation around it, which does show that w/l ration does have quite a significant point, which is telling you wether or not your MMR has stabalised or not.
If it hasn't, I want to keep playing until it has, so I see what league I belong in.
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excellent you said what i was thinking if someone wants to show off there win ratio they best be in masters anyway otherwise whats the point? if they have a big enuf win ratio in the lower leagues soon they will be promoted. if it did show win ratio's in lower leagues and someone said "i have a 70% win ratio in diamond" i would just wonder why they wernt in masters. its only in masters once there is no where to go that we can measure skill by win ratio's and so is the only place it need be shown.
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Personally, I don't really care about anything else, I just want to know how close or far away I am from a division promotion =/
It just gives me a lot more motivation to play when I see some sort of a target (finish line) that I can aim for.
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On April 07 2011 00:48 mustache wrote:
the "casuals" that just play for some fun are probably never going to get platinum or even diamond. so why not block the losses only for those below gold or soemthing?
and tbh, im not sure how many pro gamers evolve from this system. a progamer will become a pro gamer because he loves playing the game. and if he's not having fun because his win/loss ratio isnt good at the start, chances are he'll never amount to anything anyway.
also even though there are more players im not sure how many progamers are actually new. most progamers are existing progamers that transfered from broodwar or warcraft 3. It seems the amount of noob casual players compared to the amount of actual new progamers is relativley low.
I don't accept the premise here... I and many of my friends are very casual, playing for fun a few hours a week, and we are all top 8 diamond players.
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I'm sort of liking the removal of the losses. It takes away some of the stress of laddering.
Besides, the ladder system is making sure everybody has an approximately 50% loss ratio anyway. If you want to find out the losses for any given player, just divide their wins by two.
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On April 07 2011 21:47 DeCoder wrote:
I'm sort of liking the removal of the losses. It takes away some of the stress of laddering.
Besides, the ladder system is making sure everybody has an approximately 50% loss ratio anyway. If you want to find out the losses for any given player, just divide their wins by two.
It doesn't work that way unless the person has been placed correctly. But it's no big deal, since you can tell if a person has been placed correctly or not by seeing if they're fighting against higher ranked players.
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Nice read, I also agree with you.
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Good OP. I have been vocal in the past against this chance, but maybe it is sensible to keep it for the bronze and silver players.
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Good points, and the real issue is that ladder/online play has really never been that competitive in any game. Cups and especially LAN play are where competition actually matters (remember in my CS days the cool meme was just "do it on LAN"). Blizzard's main responsibility to the competitive scene is to keep the game balanced, and keep the map pool fresh.
Bare in mind, most high level players use ladder for experimenting in the same way that new players use it for learning the game. It's a tool, if you want to use it, but as a measure of skill it is only slightly applicable.
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On April 07 2011 21:30 Marksel wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 21:28 [F_]aths wrote:On April 07 2011 20:46 Marksel wrote:
Why does everyone claim that w/l ration means nothing until you are at the highest level of play? Because the ladder system is designed that way. Unless you are on the very top, any big deviation from 50% results from too few games played yet. On April 07 2011 21:25 Hypatio wrote:
That blizzard got rid of displaying losses was a dumb move, but it really doesn't matter because your win percentage is only a rough indicator of ladder success. Wrong. Win ratio is no indicator of success. It is just a sign that the MMR for you has not yet properly adapted. Funny how you contradict yourself First you say it means nothing, and now you say it means that your MMR has not yet properly adapted. This is exactly what I pointed out in my post, of which you quoted the point and gave a counter-argument based on the point, while completely ignoring the explenation around it, which does show that w/l ration does have quite a significant point, which is telling you wether or not your MMR has stabalised or not. If it hasn't, I want to keep playing until it has, so I see what league I belong in.
I don't think W/L can even really tell you whether MMR has stabilised. It's just noise.
Consider tossing a fair coin 10 times and looking at the heads to tails ratio. Sometimes you'll get the 5/5 split but certainly not always. Does a 7/3 split really say the coin is unfair? Or even a 10/0 split? Not really. It's variance. If you do this experiment a thousand times, you'll get a normal around 5/5. Probably the same for the league. If you plot all the W/L ratios on the ladder, you'll get a normal-ish distribution on 50%.
If you happen to be at 70%, it's hard to distinguish from variance without knowing anything else.
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On April 07 2011 21:30 Marksel wrote:
First you say it means nothing, ... in a sense that in means nothing one should persuade.
On April 07 2011 21:30 Marksel wrote:and now you say it means that your MMR has not yet properly adapted.
This is exactly what I pointed out in my post, of which you quoted the point and gave a counter-argument based on the point, while completely ignoring the explenation around it, which does show that w/l ration does have quite a significant point, which is telling you wether or not your MMR has stabalised or not.
If it hasn't, I want to keep playing until it has, so I see what league I belong in. W/L ratio still has no point, not even for promotion. You need to beat better players, not just many players to get promoted. (Of course there is a correlation since when you beat many players, there are probably some better players in there, too.) You can even get promoted directly after you lost a game because that loss then stabilized your MMR confidence and qualified you for the promotion.
If you played some hundred games, a skill increase or decrease will not affect the total ratio very much anyway. The average distance of a series of 5 losses or wins is just 62 games. Assuming the matchmaking works perfect and gives you exact 50% win chance every time, you will still have win- or loss streaks and therefore a non 50% ratio (unless you played alot) but this means nothing.
The second issue with this is that many guys still consider the number of games, not percentage. With an increasing number of games played, the absolute distance to the exact 50% ratio will likely increase, too. You should not pay attention to the win ratio (or absolute difference to the 50% ratio.)
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On April 07 2011 22:01 theSAiNT wrote:
Not really. It's variance. If you do this experiment a thousand times, you'll get a normal around 5/5. Probably the same for the league. If you plot all the W/L ratios on the ladder, you'll get a normal-ish distribution on 50%.
This assumes that everyone plays against people that are exactly as skilled as they are. Which just isn't the case anymore if you IMPROVE while your opponents DON'T.
This is exactly what the poster has pointed out and where he is completely correct. If you spend a lot of time studying replays, working on your play and stuff, then a rising win-% can tell you that you in fact ARE better than your current MMR indicates. Which means you will start playing against better players and ultimately get promoted.
Without that you have to keep track of W/L basicly "on paper" to see if you indee win more than you lose...otherwise you have no way of telling if you are, in fact, "improving" relative to your opponents.
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So, actually Blizzard should show you a page with a graph displaying your MMR rate? That's the only way to see how you're doing exactly right?
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I have to say I have started play way more now thanks to the new system.
Back in the days I was afraid of playing in bad conditions. E.g. If a was hungry/tired I didn't play because if was afraid it might effect my game play.
Now i don't care anymore and it's a great feeling.
I play in diamond.
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i agree, but it is a pitty that the human being is so retarded.
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On April 07 2011 22:12 Ketch wrote:
So, actually Blizzard should show you a page with a graph displaying your MMR rate? That's the only way to see how you're doing exactly right?
Yes, would indeed be the best solution.
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On April 07 2011 22:13 QuickStart wrote:
I have to say I have started play way more now thanks to the new system.
Back in the days I was afraid of playing in bad conditions. E.g. If a was hungry/tired I didn't play because if was afraid it might effect my game play.
Now i don't care anymore and it's a great feeling.
I play in diamond. Exactly the same here.
When I was climbing the ladder, I've never used my ratio as a way to know I was about to be promoted, I watched the "slightly favored" tab or the number of points I gained after each match and looked at my opponent's rank after the game. It is much more reliable than wondering "I'm 24-20, does it mean I'm going up?"
I'm not counting my "wins minus losses" anymore, and that changed my mindset a lot. The only thing I could wonder is whether or not I could be dropped, but since I'm diamond ~15th, this is not a very serious concern.
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Even though losses don't show, you still lose points for them. So i don't see the difference?
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On April 07 2011 00:23 [F_]aths wrote:
edit Technical note: With exception for the lowest and the highest league, if you keep playing, your ratio will be close to 50% regardless. If you have much more (or less) than 50%, you did not just play enough for the MMR do adapt. Having >50% in Diamond is no sign of skill. It's just a sign that you did not yet play enough games for the MMR do adapt.
I quote this because I think this is the most important point. Many players hide behind their "good" win/loss ratio when in fact the reality is that they just haven't played enough games. Unless you're the top of Masters everyone should have a roughly 50% win/loss.
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At first I really disagreed with the not being able to see my win/lose ratio. It felt like I was being punished for being in the lower leagues, I was gold with about 10 games played and a high enough ratio 7-3 I think. Every time I laddered I got that horrible feeling of I must win and as a result I played tons of 2v2's and 3v3's because they were more fun with less responsibility.
Since the new patch I played 1 or 2 games. No stress at all , I felt completely comfortable playing. Now I've been promoted to platinum and i am in the top 8 for that. I've improved lots in 2v2's and 3v3's but I never had the desire to ladder 1v1 because of taking all the responsibility for a loss.
In conclusion I think its a great way for players to build confidence in the lower levels, the more you play the more you will gain confidence in your abilities and if you ever do LAN or do online comps you will be a stronger player.
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Overall, I support the change. But i think once you get to diamond, that represents enough competence in order for you to see your losses. I agree that people in diamond can still be terrible, but the top of diamond can be as good as a low masters.
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without reading through the thread (sorry) I wonder what good it is to remove losses if you're supposed to have a 50% ratio anyways.
But ok, fact that masters see it is fair enough I guess.
...and Telenil: you can easily be dropped from diamond even when ranked 15th. No problemo.
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I want to see how many games I've lost. I don't care if others can't, but it should at least be visible for myself in my profile. This is just frustrating.
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I don't like the removal of losses. I have played the game since early beta (oh how I miss the copper league :D). I made my way from copper to high plat/low diamond in the beta with terran and since the release of the game I play zerg witch was really hard to get used to and thus my placement in bronze. But I have to see my win/loss ratio (ofcourse there is sc2ranks for that but it is nicer to have it in the game) It helps you know easier how are you going with your skills. When I had 20-30% win ratio in bronze I was motivated to play more and harder to get better. Although now I have no real time to play as much as I like to the lack of this ratio demotivates me (since I know that with 5 hours playtime a week there is no chance to get to masters so that I can follow my progress) Besides if you're in master league you know already that you have some sort of skills xD
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On April 07 2011 22:06 sleepingdog wrote:
This is exactly what the poster has pointed out and where he is completely correct. If you spend a lot of time studying replays, working on your play and stuff, then a rising win-% can tell you that you in fact ARE better than your current MMR indicates. You can keep track of that via match history.
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Great article, enjoyable read and made some good points.
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On April 07 2011 22:40 ClockToweR wrote:
Overall, I support the change. But i think once you get to diamond, that represents enough competence in order for you to see your losses. I agree that people in diamond can still be terrible, but the top of diamond can be as good as a low masters. Yes, but the cut had to be made somewhere. The upside is that the master league is at least somewhat exclusive. Out of 50 active players, just one is supposed to play in the master league. Whoever achieved that feat, has something to be proud of.
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On April 07 2011 22:25 Telenil wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 22:13 QuickStart wrote:
I have to say I have started play way more now thanks to the new system.
Back in the days I was afraid of playing in bad conditions. E.g. If a was hungry/tired I didn't play because if was afraid it might effect my game play.
Now i don't care anymore and it's a great feeling.
I play in diamond. Exactly the same here. When I was climbing the ladder, I've never used my ratio as a way to know I was about to be promoted, I watched the "slightly favored" tab or the number of points I gained after each match and looked at my opponent's rank after the game. It is much more reliable than wondering "I'm 24-20, does it mean I'm going up?" I'm not counting my "wins minus losses" anymore, and that changed my mindset a lot. The only thing I could wonder is whether or not I could be dropped, but since I'm diamond ~15th, this is not a very serious concern.
The W/L ratio only says if you are really good or really bad since it should average out to 50%. The exclusion of losses made be check the league of the opponent more and I think thats a more reliable way to see my improvement.
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Why the Blizzard ladder is great:
The Blizzard ladder is great because it provides an effortless mechanism for finding and playing a player of approximately your caliber. The fact that you know nothing about this player and likely have not played him many times before, if any, means that you can focus on improving your own game against his race without getting in your own head thinking about what that player's tenancies are.
This anonymous, impersonal matching also allows you to try out new strats, and if you lose, nobody will remember. The elimination of losses helps that, but not in an important way. Unless you're really worried that you will be demoted soon if you continue losing, and that matters to you, you can play ladder without worry, and get good practice, even if none of your friends are available at the time.
The showing of losses is not very relevant to why the ladder is great. As a statistician, I can say with confidence that with such a matchmaking system, W/L has little meaning. A good ratio may indicate that you have improved faster than the average player, as your MMR has not been able to keep up with your improvement, but that is not what people generally assume it means.
Unless you are in the bottom of bronze or the grandmaster league, your W/L says nothing about your absolute skill level. This has been said before, but seems not to have sunk in.
If you are a plat/diamond player and you want to see your number of losses because you want to guage how good you are, then Blizzard has done you a favor. You are no longer getting irrelevant and misleading information.
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the ladder is retarded, or better the mmr, i ve to play vs people who ve played thousands of games and are far better than me and the game says i am favoured and get utterly destroyed, no, this aint fun and lowering the mmr takes ages, leaving games since 30 minutes ago and still get 3,6k master league players...great fun
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I agree 100%.
Makes me want to play more not having to worry about W/L ratio.
Although I was told "You shouldn't worry about your win/loss in your opening games, but just about learning", the fact is that I always was thinking about it trying to keep it always above 50% which sometimes made me play less to the fact that "If I lose my next game I will have a NEGATIVE ratio so I won't play"
GJ Blizz, GJ
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Now I understand. I had a little loss streak about 6 ladder losses and then I just stopped playing for a month. I played about 10 games in last days and they were 90% ZvZs (my best matchup) to balance it. Or is it stupid?
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If you just want to see if you're improving you can compare your points - bonus pool. You can use sc2ranks for that or just remember that they generate at a rate of 90 per week.
If your points - bonus pool increase over time you're improving faster than the "average" active ladder player.
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I'm a 300 point diamond player, and a 68 point platinum player was 'favored' against me. I rolled him hard. The favored was consistent in the score screen. This was not ok.
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On April 08 2011 00:06 Misanthrope wrote:
I'm a 300 point diamond player, and a 68 point platinum player was 'favored' against me. I rolled him hard. The favored was consistent in the score screen. This was not ok.
Please, PLEASE search up Comprehensive Ladder Guide, give that read, and then you'll understand the system was working PERFECTLY.
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If you're hyper-competitive, just make sure you've exhausted your bonus pool and keep playing. You'll get to a point rating that is exactly representative of your MMR and your true skill, because your losses will have the effect they're supposed to on the hardcore people.
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I disagree with the removal of the losses and I 100% disagree with the reason offered.
It's pretty clear to me the reason was 100% designed to make the ladder less "scary"
The reason offered of "well, W/L can be misleading" is complete bunk.
the total # of wins is just as misleading but it remains, why is that?
Achievement points are about the most worthless and meaningless thing, but when I log on I see them displayed on the front page, largely and prominently.
Division points are meaningless because they are a mix of real points (earned from wins) and fake welfare points, yet that's what the whole ladder is based around.
The only number with any real meaning is the MMR but that's not shown anyway.
So Blizz's reason "oh it was misleading" is basically a lie. They have to say that because they know they'll get torn to shreds if they just come out and say "We want a fake ladder designed to make people feel good and keep playing" when it's pretty clear that's what they've wanted the whole time.
TL;DR Cliff Notes
Fake ladder is fake.
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On April 08 2011 00:54 Zaqwert wrote:
I disagree with the removal of the losses and I 100% disagree with the reason offered.
It's pretty clear to me the reason was 100% designed to make the ladder less "scary"
The reason offered of "well, W/L can be misleading" is complete bunk.
the total # of wins is just as misleading but it remains, why is that? To let the player see some progression so that he continuous to play.
The win percentage is misleading as this thread proves. Many guys want an option to see their losses because they don't see how pointless the number of losses ist.
On April 08 2011 00:54 Zaqwert wrote:
Achievement points are about the most worthless and meaningless thing, but when I log on I see them displayed on the front page, largely and prominently. Yes, why not?
I currently try to work out some vs. AI strats just to get some vs. AI achievements. This will not help me in multiplayer competition in any way but I still have fun.
Why would you set a non-pro gamer into a real competetive environment? For most guys, playing a game should be relaxing and no proof of your gosu über skills.
On April 08 2011 00:54 Zaqwert wrote:
Division points are meaningless because they are a mix of real points (earned from wins) and fake welfare points, yet that's what the whole ladder is based around. This is a good thing. Otherwise, ladder promotion would not be satisfying. Imagine your skill is about 40% of the total active playerbase, so you were top-rank silver but now got promoted to gold. With unbiased divisions you would keep a bottom position in gold. You would feel stuck and abandon the game. With the currend ladder you would be stuck in gold, too; but you would get a top rank in your season. You end with a milestone which rewards your for your activity. Battle.net only works well if enough people are online at any time.
If you seek real competition, you can participate in a tournament. The ladder is a service that allows you to play the multiplayer mode, not a system to see that your are the 72.844th best in your region.
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On April 07 2011 22:06 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 22:01 theSAiNT wrote:
Not really. It's variance. If you do this experiment a thousand times, you'll get a normal around 5/5. Probably the same for the league. If you plot all the W/L ratios on the ladder, you'll get a normal-ish distribution on 50%. This assumes that everyone plays against people that are exactly as skilled as they are. Which just isn't the case anymore if you IMPROVE while your opponents DON'T. This is exactly what the poster has pointed out and where he is completely correct. If you spend a lot of time studying replays, working on your play and stuff, then a rising win-% can tell you that you in fact ARE better than your current MMR indicates. Which means you will start playing against better players and ultimately get promoted. Without that you have to keep track of W/L basicly "on paper" to see if you indee win more than you lose...otherwise you have no way of telling if you are, in fact, "improving" relative to your opponents.
Actually, by construction, Battlenet matches you with people that are as skilled as you are. If you are improving, you will get matched with stronger and stronger opponents.
As I said before, it's very hard to say anything about a rising W/L because it is probably just noise.
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I am going to be honest..
First, I am not terribly good. I was very good in beta but have had little time to play since and my skill level has certainly taken a huge fall. I am ranked plat, but honestly consider myself marginal gold at best.
I utterly hate the recent changes to the ladder. I have zero method now to tell how much I am improving as my play schedule has opened up some. Furthermore the argument that more people playing because they don't fear losses is complete bunk. Any player that is going to become a future pro is not going to quit the game just because they racked up a bunch of losses early. Players that become pro have a completely different mentality, one that your average casual player simply cannot comprehend. This applies too all games and why there will always remain a disparity between your casual player and your core gamers. The ladder change accomplished nothing.
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I agree with the OP about the general ladder. It should be a place where you can click a button and get matched up with an equally skilled player and go, pressure free. Blizzard definitely should allow for custom ladders though, say an iccup ladder, where your games will count towards an elo system. All the competitive players would then be able to hammer out strats and practice on Blizz ladder, and compete in the ranked one.
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A ladder by it's very nature is competitive, this whole "we're going to have a ladder system that caters to everyone" is just not workable.
Trying to rig a ladder to trick everyone into thinking they are actively competing for something just wrong. Lying to people, no matter how well intentioned, is something I'm just against.
The idea that a bronze player really cares whether or not they are 1st in their division or 90th is laughable. The first thing anybody says to him is "HAHA, bronze noob"
People play becaue they just enjoy playing.
SC1 had no match making and a ladder that as completely worthless (due to no match making and win trading and bots and that sort of crap) but people still played tons of games.
You don't need a carebear ladder system to get casuals to play, they don't care about the ladder, they just hit "Find Match" and play the game.
No sense in polluting the ladder with a bunch of non-sense to appeal to people who don't care about it.
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On April 08 2011 02:28 Zaqwert wrote:
A ladder by it's very nature is competitive, this whole "we're going to have a ladder system that caters to everyone" is just not workable.
Trying to rig a ladder to trick everyone into thinking they are actively competing for something just wrong. Lying to people, no matter how well intentioned, is something I'm just against.
The idea that a bronze player really cares whether or not they are 1st in their division or 90th is laughable. The first thing anybody says to him is "HAHA, bronze noob"
People play becaue they just enjoy playing.
SC1 had no match making and a ladder that as completely worthless (due to no match making and win trading and bots and that sort of crap) but people still played tons of games.
You don't need a carebear ladder system to get casuals to play, they don't care about the ladder, they just hit "Find Match" and play the game.
No sense in polluting the ladder with a bunch of non-sense to appeal to people who don't care about it.
Even bronze players enjoy moving up the ladder, have you ever actually talked to any people in lower leagues?
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I agree with you on some parts, however the game is still competitive for people who are not able to view there losses below masters. When you are below masters I feel that your W/L ratio really doesn't even matter, if you are not playing the best competition than your stats really don't matter because it is not against the top players or even in the top division. People who are in master league for example have no where to go but up in points, until the grand master league comes out that is. So if I am in the high division possible, then I know I am going to be able to play against the best of the best on the ladder and that is where my wins and losses should go towards.
If you are competing in the lower leagues and you are not able to view your loses I can see how that would take away one competitive aspect but in reality you are just playing the game against other players who are also trying to get higher leagues, If you are in the lowest league and you are happy about a W/L ratio against low level players than it would suck for those people to not be able to see loses. But If you want to truly get better you should take pride in each game that you play whether it be a win or loss. Take pride in executing a strategy well and winning with it, or holding off a timing push. I remember when before I was in masters my most proud moment was holding off my first 4 gate as a zerg.
I think that overall hiding loses really is a good thing and let's people in lower leagues be excited about more important things than a meaningless W/L record on an online ladder. Be proud of winning a game by executing a build you practiced or having solid macro.
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Idk, I think it is useful for practicing, idk about going this indepth.
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The problem is Blizz's philosophy of protecting people from the ugly truth.
Why does SC2 have so few stats?
Look at a WC3 player's profile. You see a very detailed statistical break down, W/L record with reach race against each race. Furthermore you can see it broken down by individual map if you want to.
Look at SC2 stats... wait there are none, no stats whatsoever. All you have is total number of wins and "most played race"
How ridiculous is that? If a guy has 1000 wins I don't know if he has 1000 wins as a Terran or 501 as Terran and 499 as Protoss, it appears the same.
Post WoW/Activision Blizz has adopted the philosophy that they know best and giving players information is bad, it's up to them to decide what sort of information is best to give to protect people from themselves.
It's insulting and dishonest IMO.
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On April 08 2011 02:31 PJA wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 02:28 Zaqwert wrote:
A ladder by it's very nature is competitive, this whole "we're going to have a ladder system that caters to everyone" is just not workable.
Trying to rig a ladder to trick everyone into thinking they are actively competing for something just wrong. Lying to people, no matter how well intentioned, is something I'm just against.
The idea that a bronze player really cares whether or not they are 1st in their division or 90th is laughable. The first thing anybody says to him is "HAHA, bronze noob"
People play becaue they just enjoy playing.
SC1 had no match making and a ladder that as completely worthless (due to no match making and win trading and bots and that sort of crap) but people still played tons of games.
You don't need a carebear ladder system to get casuals to play, they don't care about the ladder, they just hit "Find Match" and play the game.
No sense in polluting the ladder with a bunch of non-sense to appeal to people who don't care about it. Even bronze players enjoy moving up the ladder, have you ever actually talked to any people in lower leagues?
I would say that people in bronze who play this game casually actually enjoy moving up the ladder more than the more competitive players who understand the MMR system and bonus pool. My bronze/silver friends just want to be able to go OMG im now top 20 in my league which really doesnt mean much in terms of "true" rating.
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In SC1, everyone could create a new account at any time to hide the inglorious past. But this promoted smurfing, and it is not fair to let mid-skilled players bash noobs.
This is a really good point that a lot of people sometimes overlook. I remember Day9 talking about how he acted as a kid playing Starcraft for the first time and a lot of it struck home for me, too -- and one of those things was recreating battle.net IDs to make my win/loss ratio look good, disconnecting instead of taking losses, etc.
A lot of the things that were wrong with that system are taken care of. While I do like being able to look at my record and see a positive win/loss ratio these days, I also realize that, deep down, as a high diamond (and not masters) it really doesn't matter. That ratio would TANK if I played mostly masters players anyway, so what information does it really tell me at the end of the day?
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United States12235 Posts
On April 08 2011 02:46 Zaqwert wrote:
The problem is Blizz's philosophy of protecting people from the ugly truth.
Why does SC2 have so few stats?
Look at a WC3 player's profile. You see a very detailed statistical break down, W/L record with reach race against each race. Furthermore you can see it broken down by individual map if you want to.
Look at SC2 stats... wait there are none, no stats whatsoever. All you have is total number of wins and "most played race"
How ridiculous is that? If a guy has 1000 wins I don't know if he has 1000 wins as a Terran or 501 as Terran and 499 as Protoss, it appears the same.
Post WoW/Activision Blizz has adopted the philosophy that they know best and giving players information is bad, it's up to them to decide what sort of information is best to give to protect people from themselves.
It's insulting and dishonest IMO.
Well it didn't help that the Bnet SC2 web team was like 2 people (based on what I've heard), and the main guy who pulled all those awesome War3 stats is doing something else now. They still want to add detailed stats but they're going to want to pick and choose what is most relevant. Something like "TvZ win %" or "TvZ win % on Shakuras" would be relevant, so maybe that's an example of something they'll eventually update the website to accommodate.
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there is no competetive play below masters just room for improvement!
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I have to agree with the OP on this one, and while this will probably get me flamed, the assertion that you can use your win/loss ratio as a measure of improvement at levels of play up to diamond is fundamentally flawed.
While I have nothing to back this up with other than first hand observation, it seems quite clear to me that your average platinum player quite easily has a game count approaching 1k at this point. As such, the sample size becomes so large that you would need a significant win streak just to increase your ratio by a single percentage point.
Even if you win 10 - 20 games in a row, your MMR will constantly be adjusting so you will be matched against more difficult opponents and your win percentage will start to drop again.
It's only at the highest/lowest levels of play that your win ratio will ever be anything other than 50%.
tl:dr: While it may fluctuate slightly, MMR will keep your win ratio at roughly 50%. You want to know how many games you have lost... just take the number of games you have won and you won’t be very far off.
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I see the point in removing w/l,but why cant I just see my own and no one else?Im not master in every leauge,and I would like to see my 2v2 stats.
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On April 08 2011 00:54 Zaqwert wrote:
I disagree with the removal of the losses and I 100% disagree with the reason offered.
It's pretty clear to me the reason was 100% designed to make the ladder less "scary"
The reason offered of "well, W/L can be misleading" is complete bunk.
the total # of wins is just as misleading but it remains, why is that?
Achievement points are about the most worthless and meaningless thing, but when I log on I see them displayed on the front page, largely and prominently.
Division points are meaningless because they are a mix of real points (earned from wins) and fake welfare points, yet that's what the whole ladder is based around.
The only number with any real meaning is the MMR but that's not shown anyway.
So Blizz's reason "oh it was misleading" is basically a lie. They have to say that because they know they'll get torn to shreds if they just come out and say "We want a fake ladder designed to make people feel good and keep playing" when it's pretty clear that's what they've wanted the whole time.
TL;DR Cliff Notes
Fake ladder is fake.
pretty much on point
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On April 08 2011 02:31 PJA wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 02:28 Zaqwert wrote:
A ladder by it's very nature is competitive, this whole "we're going to have a ladder system that caters to everyone" is just not workable.
Trying to rig a ladder to trick everyone into thinking they are actively competing for something just wrong. Lying to people, no matter how well intentioned, is something I'm just against.
The idea that a bronze player really cares whether or not they are 1st in their division or 90th is laughable. The first thing anybody says to him is "HAHA, bronze noob"
People play becaue they just enjoy playing.
SC1 had no match making and a ladder that as completely worthless (due to no match making and win trading and bots and that sort of crap) but people still played tons of games.
You don't need a carebear ladder system to get casuals to play, they don't care about the ladder, they just hit "Find Match" and play the game.
No sense in polluting the ladder with a bunch of non-sense to appeal to people who don't care about it. Even bronze players enjoy moving up the ladder, have you ever actually talked to any people in lower leagues?
get rid of ALL THE divisions. have ladder like wc3 where its just ladder points and a corresponding rank for your realm. Sure ill be around rank #1,000 instead of #5 in my division but ID RATHER HAVE THAT. I can work on laddering to stay top 1,000; i feel it's more of an accomplishment that being rank #5 in my division which means NOTHING to me. let the bronze players have fun from going rank 12,000 to 11,000 with just a few wins. they can think "i jumped up 1,000 ranks!" i want to see my REAL RANK, why do i have to go to sc2 ranks for this WTF BLIZZ?
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On April 08 2011 02:46 Zaqwert wrote:
The problem is Blizz's philosophy of protecting people from the ugly truth.
Why does SC2 have so few stats?
Look at a WC3 player's profile. You see a very detailed statistical break down, W/L record with reach race against each race. Furthermore you can see it broken down by individual map if you want to.
Look at SC2 stats... wait there are none, no stats whatsoever. All you have is total number of wins and "most played race"
How ridiculous is that? If a guy has 1000 wins I don't know if he has 1000 wins as a Terran or 501 as Terran and 499 as Protoss, it appears the same.
Post WoW/Activision Blizz has adopted the philosophy that they know best and giving players information is bad, it's up to them to decide what sort of information is best to give to protect people from themselves.
It's insulting and dishonest IMO.
when i played wc3, i went to the wc3 bnet site multiple times DAILY. I would see whose on the front page of the top 20, check my statistics (some of the best/most interesting statistics ever ie. win % vs time duration, win% for each type of hero, win% for each matchup and map, etc)
i've gone to the sc2 bnet site maybe once to vote for implementation of LAN. LOL. blizz u failed.
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On April 08 2011 00:54 Zaqwert wrote:
So Blizz's reason "oh it was misleading" is basically a lie. They have to say that because they know they'll get torn to shreds if they just come out and say "We want a fake ladder designed to make people feel good and keep playing" when it's pretty clear that's what they've wanted the whole time.
TL;DR Cliff Notes
Fake ladder is fake.
"We want a ladder that will make people feel good and keep playing"
That sounds like a perfectly reasonable and respectable goal for a game company?
If you are decent player and only care about getting better and improving, removing the loss counter doesn't really affect your improvement. Since you are all about self improvement and not the results of individual games, you shouldn't have cared about W/L anyways If you are improving a lot, rapidly, you are quickly going to hit really good players and get stomped a few times because of how the matchmaking works, invalidating W/L anyway. W/L is a pretty terrible way of "evaluating your improvement."
It seems more likely to me that there a bunch of plat/diamond players who had +.500 W/L and now they can't point at everyone who has a worse ratio then them and claim they are better, which was never a valid mechanism anyway.
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On April 08 2011 03:00 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 02:46 Zaqwert wrote:
The problem is Blizz's philosophy of protecting people from the ugly truth.
Why does SC2 have so few stats?
Look at a WC3 player's profile. You see a very detailed statistical break down, W/L record with reach race against each race. Furthermore you can see it broken down by individual map if you want to.
Look at SC2 stats... wait there are none, no stats whatsoever. All you have is total number of wins and "most played race"
How ridiculous is that? If a guy has 1000 wins I don't know if he has 1000 wins as a Terran or 501 as Terran and 499 as Protoss, it appears the same.
Post WoW/Activision Blizz has adopted the philosophy that they know best and giving players information is bad, it's up to them to decide what sort of information is best to give to protect people from themselves.
It's insulting and dishonest IMO. Well it didn't help that the Bnet SC2 web team was like 2 people (based on what I've heard), and the main guy who pulled all those awesome War3 stats is doing something else now. They still want to add detailed stats but they're going to want to pick and choose what is most relevant. Something like "TvZ win %" or "TvZ win % on Shakuras" would be relevant, so maybe that's an example of something they'll eventually update the website to accommodate.
Wow, if this is still the case with the BNET web team, then that's really telling of Blizzard's priorities/perspective. For one thing, there hasn't been any major improvements to the sc2 site since launch even if the team is composed of just 2 people. Moreover, I find it surprising that Blizzard can't hire one more guy to add a bunch of statistics to the sc2 site.
There is a real possibility that what you're hearing from Blizzard is the "PR" answer to devoted fans - "more stats coming soon".
To clarify, I don't think Blizzard is under the influence of activion mentality, i.e. it's not that they are being lazy/cheap about providing proper support for their product. I think they're interested in keeping their MMR formula secret while trying to balance what information they provide to keep new players engaged. Unfortunately their efforts have led to a slew of largely meaningless statistics on ladder and no real metric of skill other than league.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 08 2011 04:19 c0ldfusion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 03:00 Excalibur_Z wrote:On April 08 2011 02:46 Zaqwert wrote:
The problem is Blizz's philosophy of protecting people from the ugly truth.
Why does SC2 have so few stats?
Look at a WC3 player's profile. You see a very detailed statistical break down, W/L record with reach race against each race. Furthermore you can see it broken down by individual map if you want to.
Look at SC2 stats... wait there are none, no stats whatsoever. All you have is total number of wins and "most played race"
How ridiculous is that? If a guy has 1000 wins I don't know if he has 1000 wins as a Terran or 501 as Terran and 499 as Protoss, it appears the same.
Post WoW/Activision Blizz has adopted the philosophy that they know best and giving players information is bad, it's up to them to decide what sort of information is best to give to protect people from themselves.
It's insulting and dishonest IMO. Well it didn't help that the Bnet SC2 web team was like 2 people (based on what I've heard), and the main guy who pulled all those awesome War3 stats is doing something else now. They still want to add detailed stats but they're going to want to pick and choose what is most relevant. Something like "TvZ win %" or "TvZ win % on Shakuras" would be relevant, so maybe that's an example of something they'll eventually update the website to accommodate. Wow, if this is still the case with the BNET web team, then that's really telling of Blizzard's priorities/perspective. For one thing, there hasn't been any major improvements to the sc2 site since launch even if the team is composed of just 2 people. Moreover, I find it surprising that Blizzard can't hire one more guy to add a bunch of statistics to the sc2 site. There is a real possibility that what you're hearing from Blizzard is the "PR" answer to devoted fans - "more stats coming soon". To clarify, I don't think Blizzard is under the influence of activion mentality, i.e. it's not that they are being lazy/cheap about providing proper support for their product. I think they're interested in keeping their MMR formula secret while trying to balance what information they provide to keep new players engaged. Unfortunately their efforts have led to a slew of largely meaningless statistics on ladder and no real metric of skill other than league.
Naw, I know more detailed stats are in the pipeline, I have that on pretty good authority. As far as what those will actually be, that's a guess. I also don't know whether they've allocated more people to the SC2 web/tools side.
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On April 08 2011 04:07 Mr. Daisy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 00:54 Zaqwert wrote:
So Blizz's reason "oh it was misleading" is basically a lie. They have to say that because they know they'll get torn to shreds if they just come out and say "We want a fake ladder designed to make people feel good and keep playing" when it's pretty clear that's what they've wanted the whole time.
TL;DR Cliff Notes
Fake ladder is fake. "We want a ladder that will make people feel good and keep playing" That sounds like a perfectly reasonable and respectable goal for a game company? If you are decent player and only care about getting better and improving, removing the loss counter doesn't really affect your improvement. Since you are all about self improvement and not the results of individual games, you shouldn't have cared about W/L anyways If you are improving a lot, rapidly, you are quickly going to hit really good players and get stomped a few times because of how the matchmaking works, invalidating W/L anyway. W/L is a pretty terrible way of "evaluating your improvement." It seems more likely to me that there a bunch of plat/diamond players who had +.500 W/L and now they can't point at everyone who has a worse ratio then them and claim they are better, which was never a valid mechanism anyway.
No, it is more of a complete disagreement with the "Everyone is a winner" Philosophy. As a parent I completely resent that they are teaching this garbage to our kids. Sorry but everyone is not a winner, the person who came in second..Lost along with everyone else who wasn't in first. Seeing this philosophy creep into the one refuge I had from this garbage (games) has been a constant sore point with me for years.
For that matter and to be perfectly clear, I hate the achievement system as well. I am utterly and completely opposed to systems that reward mediocrity like it is some kind of accomplishment. We don't need to shelter people from everything. Some of the best memories I have as a gamer are games that kicked my ass long hard and unmercifully until I surmounted it. Why was SC so wildly successful? Well it certainly wasn't because it had all this "don't feel bad, everyone is a winner" garbage in it.
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If I'm laddering up I want to see if the guy I beat was 25-10 or 296-287. It tells a much different story that is now taken away from me.
What Blizzard should have done is removed losses, but allow us to view them via an option we can enable on battle.net.
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On April 08 2011 03:58 Bluerain wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 02:31 PJA wrote:On April 08 2011 02:28 Zaqwert wrote:
A ladder by it's very nature is competitive, this whole "we're going to have a ladder system that caters to everyone" is just not workable.
Trying to rig a ladder to trick everyone into thinking they are actively competing for something just wrong. Lying to people, no matter how well intentioned, is something I'm just against.
The idea that a bronze player really cares whether or not they are 1st in their division or 90th is laughable. The first thing anybody says to him is "HAHA, bronze noob"
People play becaue they just enjoy playing.
SC1 had no match making and a ladder that as completely worthless (due to no match making and win trading and bots and that sort of crap) but people still played tons of games.
You don't need a carebear ladder system to get casuals to play, they don't care about the ladder, they just hit "Find Match" and play the game.
No sense in polluting the ladder with a bunch of non-sense to appeal to people who don't care about it. Even bronze players enjoy moving up the ladder, have you ever actually talked to any people in lower leagues? get rid of ALL THE divisions. have ladder like wc3 where its just ladder points and a corresponding rank for your realm. Sure ill be around rank #1,000 instead of #5 in my division but ID RATHER HAVE THAT. I can work on laddering to stay top 1,000; i feel it's more of an accomplishment that being rank #5 in my division which means NOTHING to me. let the bronze players have fun from going rank 12,000 to 11,000 with just a few wins. they can think "i jumped up 1,000 ranks!" i want to see my REAL RANK, why do i have to go to sc2 ranks for this WTF BLIZZ?
No, you see the smaller leagues are intended to make you think your marginal trip from mid-silver to high-silver is actually improvement rather than the result of you winning a few games more then normal or just spending your bonus pool if you have one (and almost all players have a bonus pool). If you've managed to spend your bonus pool and still aren't in a league where that's the case with the majority of players (so anything below masters, likely) then your rank isn't even comparable to most of the rest of your league.
The ladder was very carefully designed to look as though you were always improving so long as you played a few games. This is true all the way up to top masters as anyone who hasn't entirely spent their bonus pool doesn't even have an "accurate" position on the ladder. Bonus pool is a self-perpetuating tool, as it's set well above the bell-curve in terms of amount of games the average person plays. Hiding losses just tried to close another possibly "negative" thing the ladder could say about you.
Blizzard is trying to make the ladder a legitimate way to practice for top level players. That's why masters devision gets to actually see their losses. It's crap however, because the ladder is a terrible practice device as only half it's maps are seen in large tournaments at this point.
TL:DR
- Your ladder ranking is effectively worthless. MMR is what determines match ups on the ladder and that's kept from view for no reason.
- Bonus pool allows you to have something like a 25% winrate and still maintain a ladder position. Hiding games lost prevents you from figuring out you have a 25% winrate unless you track your match history manually.
- Bonus pool + MMR matching means you always maintain about a 50% winrate against similar players, showing improvement when there actually isn't any.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 08 2011 06:12 Offhand wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 03:58 Bluerain wrote:On April 08 2011 02:31 PJA wrote:On April 08 2011 02:28 Zaqwert wrote:
A ladder by it's very nature is competitive, this whole "we're going to have a ladder system that caters to everyone" is just not workable.
Trying to rig a ladder to trick everyone into thinking they are actively competing for something just wrong. Lying to people, no matter how well intentioned, is something I'm just against.
The idea that a bronze player really cares whether or not they are 1st in their division or 90th is laughable. The first thing anybody says to him is "HAHA, bronze noob"
People play becaue they just enjoy playing.
SC1 had no match making and a ladder that as completely worthless (due to no match making and win trading and bots and that sort of crap) but people still played tons of games.
You don't need a carebear ladder system to get casuals to play, they don't care about the ladder, they just hit "Find Match" and play the game.
No sense in polluting the ladder with a bunch of non-sense to appeal to people who don't care about it. Even bronze players enjoy moving up the ladder, have you ever actually talked to any people in lower leagues? get rid of ALL THE divisions. have ladder like wc3 where its just ladder points and a corresponding rank for your realm. Sure ill be around rank #1,000 instead of #5 in my division but ID RATHER HAVE THAT. I can work on laddering to stay top 1,000; i feel it's more of an accomplishment that being rank #5 in my division which means NOTHING to me. let the bronze players have fun from going rank 12,000 to 11,000 with just a few wins. they can think "i jumped up 1,000 ranks!" i want to see my REAL RANK, why do i have to go to sc2 ranks for this WTF BLIZZ? No, you see the smaller leagues are intended to make you think your marginal trip from mid-silver to high-silver is actually improvement rather than the result of you winning a few games more then normal or just spending your bonus pool if you have you (and almost all players have a bonus pool). If you've managed to spend your bonus pool and still aren't in a league where that's the case with the majority of players (so anything below masters, likely) then your rank isn't even comparable to most of the rest of your league. The ladder was very carefully designed to look as though you were always improving so long as you played a few games. This is true all the way up to top masters as anyone who hasn't entirely spent their bonus pool doesn't even have an "accurate" position on the ladder. Bonus pool is a self-perpetuating tool, as it's set well above the bell-curve in terms of amount of games the average person plays. Hiding losses just tried to close another possibly "negative" thing the ladder could say about you. TL:DR - Your ladder ranking is effectively worthless. MMR is what determines match ups on the ladder and that's kept from view for no reason. - Bonus pool allows you to have something like a 25% winrate and still maintain a ladder position. Hiding games lost prevents you from figuring out you have a 25% winrate unless you track your match history manually. - Bonus pool + MMR matching means you always maintain about a 50% winrate against similar players, showing improvement when there actually isn't any.
33%. Against even opponents, 2 losses offset one win.
The part about showing improvement where there isn't any is an interesting one. It causes some confusion because people will post threads like "I was rank 6 in my division and I've been winning more than I'm losing lately and I got demoted wtf" not realizing that a) the 94 people below him just aren't playing at all which keeps their points low, and b) he's probably only been winning against people in lower leagues and it's probably been that way for a while. It's a little unfortunate that you have to read between the lines and understand how the ladder operates on a deeper level than is presented in order to figure out why things like promotions and demotions happen, but that's the way the ladder is (for now).
I still don't think psychology was the main reason for removing losses. It may have been a secondary reason, but the official explanation of "it doesn't really have much relevance" has merit.
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It makes total sense from a business perspective, but I hate it. I'd much rather have full match up stats. Big ladder or divisions doesn't matter, but I at least want that
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I agree with what you're saying, but there should still be an option to allow you to see YOUR OWN w/l ratio. Fine if it's not public, but I HATE not knowing my w/l ratio. It's stupid to hide it from literally everyone.
I also personally think it's babying for Blizzard to hide losses because Jimmy is influenced by silly little numbers. "Oh no if i lose one more game i'll go down to a 55% w/l ratio! D:"
Personally I feel that people like that need to just suck it up, but that's a little irrelevant.
Tbh, my only complaint is that we can't see our MMR, the TRUE value of our skill, but that's a whole other topic.
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On April 08 2011 06:21 genius_man16 wrote:
I agree with what you're saying, but there should still be an option to allow you to see YOUR OWN w/l ratio. Fine if it's not public, but I HATE not knowing my w/l ratio. It's stupid to hide it from literally everyone.
I also personally think it's babying for Blizzard to hide losses because Jimmy is influenced by silly little numbers. "Oh no if i lose one more game i'll go down to a 55% w/l ratio! D:"
Personally I feel that people like that need to just suck it up, but that's a little irrelevant.
Tbh, my only complaint is that we can't see our MMR, the TRUE value of our skill, but that's a whole other topic.
You can still see your win ratio if you save all your replays, there's some cool tools (SC2Gears is the best, imo) floating around these boards that'll extract all that information, plus some other neat stuff. But I agree that we shouldn't need a workaround to do that.
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On April 08 2011 06:20 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 06:12 Offhand wrote:On April 08 2011 03:58 Bluerain wrote:On April 08 2011 02:31 PJA wrote:On April 08 2011 02:28 Zaqwert wrote:
A ladder by it's very nature is competitive, this whole "we're going to have a ladder system that caters to everyone" is just not workable.
Trying to rig a ladder to trick everyone into thinking they are actively competing for something just wrong. Lying to people, no matter how well intentioned, is something I'm just against.
The idea that a bronze player really cares whether or not they are 1st in their division or 90th is laughable. The first thing anybody says to him is "HAHA, bronze noob"
People play becaue they just enjoy playing.
SC1 had no match making and a ladder that as completely worthless (due to no match making and win trading and bots and that sort of crap) but people still played tons of games.
You don't need a carebear ladder system to get casuals to play, they don't care about the ladder, they just hit "Find Match" and play the game.
No sense in polluting the ladder with a bunch of non-sense to appeal to people who don't care about it. Even bronze players enjoy moving up the ladder, have you ever actually talked to any people in lower leagues? get rid of ALL THE divisions. have ladder like wc3 where its just ladder points and a corresponding rank for your realm. Sure ill be around rank #1,000 instead of #5 in my division but ID RATHER HAVE THAT. I can work on laddering to stay top 1,000; i feel it's more of an accomplishment that being rank #5 in my division which means NOTHING to me. let the bronze players have fun from going rank 12,000 to 11,000 with just a few wins. they can think "i jumped up 1,000 ranks!" i want to see my REAL RANK, why do i have to go to sc2 ranks for this WTF BLIZZ? No, you see the smaller leagues are intended to make you think your marginal trip from mid-silver to high-silver is actually improvement rather than the result of you winning a few games more then normal or just spending your bonus pool if you have you (and almost all players have a bonus pool). If you've managed to spend your bonus pool and still aren't in a league where that's the case with the majority of players (so anything below masters, likely) then your rank isn't even comparable to most of the rest of your league. The ladder was very carefully designed to look as though you were always improving so long as you played a few games. This is true all the way up to top masters as anyone who hasn't entirely spent their bonus pool doesn't even have an "accurate" position on the ladder. Bonus pool is a self-perpetuating tool, as it's set well above the bell-curve in terms of amount of games the average person plays. Hiding losses just tried to close another possibly "negative" thing the ladder could say about you. TL:DR - Your ladder ranking is effectively worthless. MMR is what determines match ups on the ladder and that's kept from view for no reason. - Bonus pool allows you to have something like a 25% winrate and still maintain a ladder position. Hiding games lost prevents you from figuring out you have a 25% winrate unless you track your match history manually. - Bonus pool + MMR matching means you always maintain about a 50% winrate against similar players, showing improvement when there actually isn't any. I still don't think psychology was the main reason for removing losses. It may have been a secondary reason, but the official explanation of "it doesn't really have much relevance" has merit.
I can think of numbers in other Blizzard games that have no meaning but completely dominate what would be considered the "casual" aspect of the game. Just sayin'
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On April 08 2011 02:46 Zaqwert wrote:
The problem is Blizz's philosophy of protecting people from the ugly truth. From meaningless truth. To know that you got place 51.642 in your region is just a big number. It gives you no real goal. You feel like a raindrop in an ocean.
Getting one or even ten places up? What does it man? "Hey man, last week I was rank 51.642 but I laddered so hard this weekend and managed to get 51.632". Through the constant up and down movements of your ladder neighbors your rank would also widely go up and down without you doing anything. But many guys would still credit or blame themselves for the wrong reasons.
Having a division of just 100 guys you are ranked against gives you a goal you can reach for. Just 31 points needed to move up one position? (Falsely perceived as 1% improvement since you have 100 guys in the division) – hit the search-game-button at use the bonus pool climb that ladder!
There is no problem in hiding truth like using the division modifier. People who are playing really competitive and ranked Master anyway. Master divisions have no modifier.
Humans are not very good handling group with sizes greater than 100 or 150. 200 guys in the grand master league are already over the top. This is of course the only really prestigious place in the ladder. It will be prominently featured.
TL;DR If you want the truth not to be hidden from you, get in Master and use Sc2ranks.com. You don't need to tell everyone else at the login screen "YOU SUCK! Your rank has no meaning, noob! YOU SUCK!"
On April 08 2011 02:46 Zaqwert wrote:
Post WoW/Activision Blizz has adopted the philosophy that they know best and giving players information is bad, it's up to them to decide what sort of information is best to give to protect people from themselves. As this proves, there are more guys liking it instead of hating it.
Starcraft is just published by ActivionBlizzard. It is made by Blizzard only.
On April 08 2011 03:52 Bluerain wrote:
pretty much on point So you are another one who still not understood that win ratio has no meaning from bronze up to diamond. Win ratio should be 50% regardless. To show it gives you the wrong mindset of trying to avoid losses. It also concerns you with wrong thoughts when a deviation from 50% is just pure random noise.
On April 08 2011 03:49 GiftPflanZe wrote:
I see the point in removing w/l,but why cant I just see my own and no one else?Im not master in every leauge,and I would like to see my 2v2 stats. You cannot see your losses because your losses have no meaning because if you keep playing, the system will get you to 50% anyways.
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On April 08 2011 19:19 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 02:46 Zaqwert wrote:
The problem is Blizz's philosophy of protecting people from the ugly truth. From meaningless truth. To know that you got place 51.642 in your region is just a big number. It gives you no real goal. You feel like a raindrop in an ocean. Getting one or even ten places up? What does it man? "Hey man, last week I was rank 51.642 but I laddered so hard this weekend and managed to get 51.632". Having a division of just 100 guys you are ranked against gives you a goal you can reach for. Just 31 points needed to move up one position? (Falsely perceived as 1% improvement since you have 100 guys in the division) – hit the search-game-button at use the bonus pool climb that ladder! There is no problem in hiding truth like using the division modifier. People who are playing really competitive and ranked Master anyway. Master divisions have no modifier.
Personally I would prefer the 51642 or whatever system, showing overall ranks. Since it feels more meaningful than the rank within your own division.
The division idea is only good if you consistently play against those in your division. People care about the relative skill level of those they play against. And that is hard to measure currently unless they come from the same division.
At the moment it's just a reasonably arbitrary set of 100 people above or below you, doesn't really give you a sense of scale, or how anyone is actually doing.
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On April 08 2011 04:42 Dekoth wrote:
For that matter and to be perfectly clear, I hate the achievement system as well. I am utterly and completely opposed to systems that reward mediocrity like it is some kind of accomplishment. We don't need to shelter people from everything. Some of the best memories I have as a gamer are games that kicked my ass long hard and unmercifully until I surmounted it. Why was SC so wildly successful? Why is SC2 even more successful?
Why would you "hate" achievements? If you don't care about them, don't care about getting them, but please let other people have fun in their achievement hunting.
SC2 offers something for everyone. The largest userbase is mediocre by the very definition of that word. They have to have fun to keep the game on and rolling. The pros can try to get a shot for GSL Code-B or participate in a western online tournament to proof their worth.
SC2 awards even the nubbiest casual weekend sunshine happy-go-lucky zeroskill gamers with portraits, decals and an achievement showroom. If you don't like it, you can keep the Kachinsky portrait like many GSL pros do.
Starcraft 2 is not just about competition. It is an online gaming platform with a great soloplayer campaign and countless quality funmaps already. The new Blizzard funmaps even have their own sets of achievements. Time to play some Left2Die again!
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On April 08 2011 06:20 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It may have been a secondary reason, but the official explanation of "it doesn't really have much relevance" has merit.
Just on that. While this is true, this would've justified not implementing it...but actively taking it away can't be explained by a lack of relevance. Why not keep it in, nobody would've gotten hurt by having an "irrelevant" number in the game. Just my 2 cents.
Also we have Division-rankings, which are irrelevant by definition. [/sarcasm]
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On April 08 2011 05:27 bruteMax wrote:
If I'm laddering up I want to see if the guy I beat was 25-10 or 296-287. It tells a much different story that is now taken away from me. You can still see the wins of your opponent. While you cannot see his losses, this removes no real information. If he has very few wins yet he could have very few losses or many losses, you don't know. But you also don't need to know because with few games played, the win ratio is affected by much random noise anyway. With a larger number of games won you can assume that his loss count will be close to the number of games won. (Exceptions for lowest tier bronze because you can intentionally throw games.)
On April 08 2011 05:27 bruteMax wrote:
What Blizzard should have done is removed losses, but allow us to view them via an option we can enable on battle.net. Blizzard only removed a misleading piece of information.
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On April 08 2011 04:04 Bluerain wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 02:46 Zaqwert wrote:
The problem is Blizz's philosophy of protecting people from the ugly truth.
Why does SC2 have so few stats?
Look at a WC3 player's profile. You see a very detailed statistical break down, W/L record with reach race against each race. Furthermore you can see it broken down by individual map if you want to.
Look at SC2 stats... wait there are none, no stats whatsoever. All you have is total number of wins and "most played race"
How ridiculous is that? If a guy has 1000 wins I don't know if he has 1000 wins as a Terran or 501 as Terran and 499 as Protoss, it appears the same.
Post WoW/Activision Blizz has adopted the philosophy that they know best and giving players information is bad, it's up to them to decide what sort of information is best to give to protect people from themselves.
It's insulting and dishonest IMO. when i played wc3, i went to the wc3 bnet site multiple times DAILY. I would see whose on the front page of the top 20, check my statistics (some of the best/most interesting statistics ever ie. win % vs time duration, win% for each type of hero, win% for each matchup and map, etc) i've gone to the sc2 bnet site maybe once to vote for implementation of LAN. LOL. blizz u failed.
lol omg......
I just realized I forgot there even was a starcraft 2 community site,
brb to see if it has even changed from release....
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On April 08 2011 21:15 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 04:42 Dekoth wrote:
For that matter and to be perfectly clear, I hate the achievement system as well. I am utterly and completely opposed to systems that reward mediocrity like it is some kind of accomplishment. We don't need to shelter people from everything. Some of the best memories I have as a gamer are games that kicked my ass long hard and unmercifully until I surmounted it. Why was SC so wildly successful? Why is SC2 even more successful? Why would you "hate" achievements? If you don't care about them, don't care about getting them, but please let other people have fun in their achievement hunting. SC2 offers something for everyone. The largest userbase is mediocre by the very definition of that word. They have to have fun to keep the game on and rolling. The pros can try to get a shot for GSL Code-B or participate in a western online tournament to proof their worth. SC2 awards even the nubbiest casual weekend sunshine happy-go-lucky zeroskill gamers with portraits, decals and an achievement showroom. If you don't like it, you can keep the Kachinsky portrait like many GSL pros do. Starcraft 2 is not just about competition. It is an online gaming platform with a great soloplayer campaign and countless quality funmaps already. The new Blizzard funmaps even have their own sets of achievements. Time to play some Left2Die again!
I don´t think you got what he meant.
He is talking about a generall direction we take when conditioning our kids in a way that tells them "you did okay . . . you are a winner hurray".
It basically robs them of any kind of motivation to put more work into something than absolutely necessary.(The same reason why our school system is failing btw but that´s another topic)
Oh and btw i was D- back in the Iccup days and i did not feel miserably or ashamed.
/gaminghipster
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On April 08 2011 04:04 Bluerain wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 02:46 Zaqwert wrote:
The problem is Blizz's philosophy of protecting people from the ugly truth.
Why does SC2 have so few stats?
Look at a WC3 player's profile. You see a very detailed statistical break down, W/L record with reach race against each race. Furthermore you can see it broken down by individual map if you want to.
Look at SC2 stats... wait there are none, no stats whatsoever. All you have is total number of wins and "most played race"
How ridiculous is that? If a guy has 1000 wins I don't know if he has 1000 wins as a Terran or 501 as Terran and 499 as Protoss, it appears the same.
Post WoW/Activision Blizz has adopted the philosophy that they know best and giving players information is bad, it's up to them to decide what sort of information is best to give to protect people from themselves.
It's insulting and dishonest IMO. when i played wc3, i went to the wc3 bnet site multiple times DAILY. I would see whose on the front page of the top 20, check my statistics (some of the best/most interesting statistics ever ie. win % vs time duration, win% for each type of hero, win% for each matchup and map, etc) i've gone to the sc2 bnet site maybe once to vote for implementation of LAN. LOL. blizz u failed.
Thanks for reminding me....these stats were awsome. They were also really helpful for improving your play, because you could easily see were your weaknesses lie.
No offense to the BW-community at all, but I think the fact that many here have never played warcraft 3 competitively is the reason why they are not much, much more upset about the huge, epic fail which is the current ladder. SC2-ladder is ages behind wc3 VANILLA, not even talking about frozen throne-add-on....and many people accept it, since SC2-ladder is better than BW (hurr, durr).
By the way, why are there no weekly online tournaments, like in wc3? Where each and everyone would play against each other without regarding MMR....and where you'd play against more succesful players after you win? Meaning you go 1-0 and play against another 1-0-player. Then you play against another 2-0. Then against another 3-0...until you lose. Best 16 play in bracket, also created automaticly online. Is it really that hard to make a copy-paste of this code and implement it in the oh so improved bnet 2.0?
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Yeah I miss automated tournaments aswell, they were awesome. Especially because Archimonde is the best pic by far :p
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On April 08 2011 21:40 clusen wrote:
Yeah I miss automated tournaments aswell, they were awesome. Especially because Archimonde is the best pic by far :p
They are indeed missing out on so much stuff they could've done....I mean, they could have made a different "ladder-system" where only tournament-wins/losses were counted. In the end, if these tournemants were held on a regular basis, it could even resemble iccup.
Just for the record, for those who didn't play wc3: of course the tournament-wins were counted seperately there, for me it became even the "real" indicator of skill later on, since everybody was smurfing around anyways.
Notice that this is no "I want xyz introduced" since this stuff has been EXISTING already in warcraft 3 FOR YEARS. All I'm QQing about is, why bnet 2.0 can't have all the amazing stuff too that wc3 has had for such a long time.
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On April 08 2011 21:46 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 21:40 clusen wrote:
Yeah I miss automated tournaments aswell, they were awesome. Especially because Archimonde is the best pic by far :p They are indeed missing out on so much stuff they could've done....I mean, they could have made a different "ladder-system" where only tournament-wins/losses were counted. In the end, if these tournemants were held on a regular basis, it could even resemble iccup. Just for the record, for those who didn't play wc3: of course the tournament-wins were counted seperately there, for me it became even the "real" indicator of skill later on, since everybody was smurfing around anyways. Notice that this is no "I want xyz introduced" since this stuff has been EXISTING already in warcraft 3 FOR YEARS. All I'm QQing about is, why bnet 2.0 can't have all the amazing stuff too that wc3 has had for such a long time.
Beacuse streamlining the experience is the #1 priority for all developers nowadays. The less complicated things are, the more mouthbreathers they can draw in to play the game. People get intimidated by numbers, for some reason. That's why there's less number crunching in almost every game nowadays.
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i also would prefer being rank 34934034 rather than being rank20 in any division because i personally would think of a) how many similar leagues are there and b) how are the points distributed in other leagues
sure it is a huge number but i dont see why it wouldnt let you set goals - if you are rank 53596 your next goal could be top 40k; the only thing i have been interested in leagues is to leave them as fast as possible and get promoted
also as the point system is insanely flawed atm nothing but grandmaster leagues will be a good indicator
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On April 08 2011 21:54 Alphasquad wrote:
i also would prefer being rank 34934034 rather than being rank20 in any division because i personally would think of a) how many similar leagues are there and b) how are the points distributed in other leagues
sure it is a huge number but i dont see why it wouldnt let you set goals - if you are rank 53596 your next goal could be top 40k; the only thing i have been interested in leagues is to leave them as fast as possible and get promoted
also as the point system is insanely flawed atm nothing but grandmaster leagues will be a good indicator
WC3 also managed this brilliantly by 50 levels. Yes you might have been #25302759 but you were in fact level 15. Getting to 16 or 14 was WAY more easier and transparent than moving from silver to gold.
You are exactly right, only the grandmasters get a "real" ladder after all. Since I'm nowhere near achieving that....well, I'll just have to shit TL up with my QQ some more. JK don't worry, I'm gonna stop now, don't want to annoy you any longer.
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The reason why there is little common with a game appealling to both elites and the noobs is because of the learning curve. what the elite cherishes is difficult gameplay, allowing for fine tuning of the process, giving a complex artistic result. the noobs also cherish this result, but are unable to achieve it through difficult gameplay, hence the necessary automation must be added to please them.
The critical point is, is it possible to design a game that has both the mechanisms of achieving an artistic result through simple gameplay and through complex gameplay. My experience in gaming seems to suggest that they are mutually exclusive. Hence the goal described by OP cannot be achieved due to the problem.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 08 2011 21:19 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 06:20 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It may have been a secondary reason, but the official explanation of "it doesn't really have much relevance" has merit. Just on that. While this is true, this would've justified not implementing it...but actively taking it away can't be explained by a lack of relevance. Why not keep it in, nobody would've gotten hurt by having an "irrelevant" number in the game. Just my 2 cents. Also we have Division-rankings, which are irrelevant by definition. [/sarcasm]
I think that for most players, division rankings aren't completely irrelevant. For people whose MMR has stabilized, divisions do a pretty decent job of showing you where you stand among 99 other players who are around your skill level (they're in the same tier as you). Division rankings just don't have much meaning for people who are outperforming or underperforming in their league, which is pretty rare after playing enough games, which is where you'll usually plateau.
About not implementing it at first, I don't think Blizzard expected such a heavy community focus on W/L ratios. I sure didn't. When you look at posts from people who are talking about the ladder, the vast majority of them say something like "when am I getting promoted, I've won X games and lost Y" with a complete disregard for the quality of their opponents. Hey, congratulations, you're a Silver player who's won 9 out of your last 10 games... oh but they've been against Bronze players because you're not Silver material. Stuff like that is extremely common and can be blamed on how confusing the ladder is for the layman to understand, and the focus is always on getting promoted as though leagues were levels in War3. People need to reinterpret what they're seeing from the ladder, and there are ways to do that, we just don't have anything that's exact (though hopefully that will be changing in the not too distant future).
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On April 09 2011 00:14 xarthaz wrote:
The critical point is, is it possible to design a game that has both the mechanisms of achieving an artistic result through simple gameplay and through complex gameplay. My experience in gaming seems to suggest that they are mutually exclusive. Hence the goal described by OP cannot be achieved due to the problem. SC2 proves that it can be achieved. SC2 attracts both korean gosu players as well as the guys who play with a friend vs. AI.
I would go so far and saying that everone with exception of Top-Diamond or above is not actually playing Starcraft. He plays a game with the same UI and graphics. But he plays a strategy where he think that it might work. True understanding of the game is hard to achieve. But it still is fun for the rest of us.
I admit that I suck hard. As I began to grasp very few basics of the game, I realized that I know nothing really. I lived and still live in a world with my interpretation how Starcraft works. The real game is still beyond me. Repeating the "macro" mantra does not prove any understanding of the game.
I am a nub. I still want to climb that ladder.
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On April 08 2011 21:29 Clamev wrote:
I don´t think you got what he meant.
He is talking about a generall direction we take when conditioning our kids in a way that tells them "you did okay . . . you are a winner hurray". Not even in SC2 everyone is a "winner", only skilled and/or active people are.
On April 08 2011 21:29 Clamev wrote:
It basically robs them of any kind of motivation to put more work into something than absolutely necessary.(The same reason why our school system is failing btw but that´s another topic)
Oh and btw i was D- back in the Iccup days and i did not feel miserably or ashamed.
/gaminghipster Solid D-? Yeah I know the feeling, I was D- too.
The SC2 ladder however does give the normal guy something to put some work in. You want to be in Top-25 from place #30? You can do that if you play. If you play, you will get better somehow. It should not be the goal of a gaming service to tell the folks how to play (ie practice micro, learn to macro, analyze your replays, watch Day[9], discuss strategies on TL, ...) If someone catches the fire or if he suddenly realizes that playing on a higher level is more fun than keeping the all-in-gimmicks, he will put some efforts into it. The other guys who paid the money for SC2 just want to play around. Get to some fancy tier 3 units and blame the loss to imbalance.
There is nothing wrong with that. There is not the only one way to enjoy Starcraft. We absolutely don't need the elitists who say "So you want to play this game, nub? Well, quit your job and practice 6 hours per day, and you may be get at least mediocre, nub! SC2 is only for the guy who live for the game, not for you, nub, for which Starcraft is just one game out of many."
We need it the other way round. "So, you still playing minesweeper when you feel bored? Did you saw the last TSL match where [put in an upset]? Here, *starting VOD* is how [Pro #1] pulled off this strategy versus [Pro #2]. What that is? A buggy car with a flamethrower, ready to roast some zerg. Oh this is zerg creep. Zerg are a bunch of distugsting bugs like in Starship Troopers. That line? That indicates the rally point. The user interface is very neat, you can change where the units rally before you attack."
Show the beginner some love for the game. "You did not manage the second mission in the campaign? Oh yeah, I had some troubles, too. How many SVCs did you build? May be five?" (Here him out.) "Ok, you can try to build some more SVCs and collect some marines before you move out. Wait until you get 15 marines and 5 medics. Then move out and roll over Arcturus's puppets!"
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On April 09 2011 00:31 Excalibur_Z wrote:
About not implementing it at first, I don't think Blizzard expected such a heavy community focus on W/L ratios. I sure didn't.
I think the problem comes down to people wanting to know the statistics without having the tools to understand what they mean. I see a lot of people who actually read your well-written threads and come away clearly not understanding what they've read, instead substituting alternative interpretations that usually serve some goal of self-image preservation. I say this from the point of view of being a silver-league player with no ego to preserve.
As you point out, for players who play a lot and are in similarly active divisions, division ranking does correlate roughly to performance. One tweak to the system I might like to see would be consolidating active players into active divisions as the season goes on, but then you'd have people asking why they went from 2nd in their inactive division to 55th in their active one.
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ye blizzard should start making decent macro achievements, make xx Workers before xx Time, expand x times before x minute mark, be maxed in xx minutes, etc x]. instead of warping in a twiclight council, or encouraging a freaking 6pool D:
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On April 08 2011 21:35 sleepingdog wrote:
No offense to the BW-community at all, but I think the fact that many here have never played warcraft 3 competitively is the reason why they are not much, much more upset about the huge, epic fail which is the current ladder. SC2-ladder is ages behind wc3 VANILLA, not even talking about frozen throne-add-on....and many people accept it, since SC2-ladder is better than BW (hurr, durr).
Should probably remind people that BW-era bnet had more functionality then Bnet2.0 does. Although it's nice to know that they included things like chat channels and LAN in the past, everyone used Iccup anyway. Third-party ladders would be the greatest thing SC2 could get, because there are problems with the current ladder that won't be going away anytime soon.
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Whether it be flawed or not, this is an excellent write up
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On April 08 2011 02:28 Zaqwert wrote:
Trying to rig a ladder to trick everyone into thinking they are actively competing for something just wrong. Lying to people, no matter how well intentioned, is something I'm just against.
The idea that a bronze player really cares whether or not they are 1st in their division or 90th is laughable. The first thing anybody says to him is "HAHA, bronze noob"
Try being in bronze for a while.
Seriously, there's no lying going on in the system. How it works is pretty much laid out there for everyone to see at this point. It's simply presented in a way that gives people realistic, achievable, and somewhat satisfying goals to work toward: Play more actively to climb to the level in the division that's set by using up all one's bonus points. Beyond that, improve a little bit to get a higher ranking. Beyond that, get promoted to the next league.
Nothing is stopping the bronze player from setting a goal of hitting the top 200 someday, but a system where the only realistic NEAR TERM goal is to get from position 191,000 to 190,000 on the ladder would mean the same thing as what we have now but make the experience of getting there a lot less rewarding.
Edit: These are not arguments for omitting loss information, but instead for why the division system has value, particularly for lower-level players.
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On April 08 2011 03:43 Lumpybd wrote:
tl:dr: While it may fluctuate slightly, MMR will keep your win ratio at roughly 50%. You want to know how many games you have lost... just take the number of games you have won and you won’t be very far off.
Actually, your win/loss ratio will permanently deviate from 50% if you have in the past had any periods where your MMR has been shifting rapidly up or down. So, for example, take a break and lose some games in a row and you'll be below 50% until you have a winning streak, which the system will do its best not to give you.
The matchmaking system makes its best effort to match you with an equal opponent for each individual game, but it does not try to bring your season-wide ratio to 50%.
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Win ratio means nothing when your match-ups are dependent upon a volatile, changing rating, unless you are tip top masters. People who are concerned with win ratios in such an environment are most likely pretentious snobs. The only measure of skill is your league, as it gives you a window in which your MMR falls. Unless you use low skill cheese strategies in every game, but then you know that you're not actually good at the game anyway.
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On April 09 2011 04:40 funkybovinator wrote:
The only measure of skill is your league, as it gives you a window in which your MMR falls.
Even that shifts over time, as the population changes, either because people drop out or because they improve.
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I'd have to disagree that it's not fair to let smurfs crush new players. Hell, you'd have a lot more to learn from a replay of you getting your face mashed in by Jaedong than by someone just as bad as you. Being smashed to pieces in a game isn't a bad thing, you can see what better players are doing.
The best thing Blizzard could do to the ladder for me is completely drop any form of visual ranking, and just let you mash the button to find a game blindly. Many a time I've anxiously looked at the multiplayer screen as it glares out at me with "HEY BY THE WAY THIS IS YOUR RANKING, THIS IS HOW YOU COMPARE TO OTHER PLAYERS, WOULDN'T IT BE AWFUL IF SUDDENLY YOU LOST AND IT WENT DOWN", hesitant to actually play.
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On April 09 2011 04:51 branflakes14 wrote:
I'd have to disagree that it's not fair to let smurfs crush new players. Hell, you'd have a lot more to learn from a replay of you getting your face mashed in by Jaedong than by someone just as bad as you. Being smashed to pieces in a game isn't a bad thing, you can see what better players are doing.
The problem with this is that it drives new players away from the multiplayer game, which isn't in the interest of Blizzard or the community.
You may wonder why Blizzard cares about retaining player interest when they're not charging for a subscription? One word: sequels.
Edit: Based on the sc2ranks stats, as a high silver player who wins some matches vs. gold players, I'd probably have 50/50 wins to losses if matchmaking were completely random. However, many, many more of those games would be one side completely dominating the other, and that's not really that fun on either side.
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in a ladder system like this, W/L doesn't matter until you're towards the top, which is why blizzard kept loss visibility in masters. the entire experience is supposed to challenge the player to play to the point where he'll break even against other players. someone in the top 10 having a 66% win ratio is great, because he has overcome the vast majority of players in his region and has yet to plateau (still isn't entirely indicative of his future in the top 10).
if you're sitting in lower leagues, even diamond, with a 70-35 W/L record, then you either don't have enough time to be active to push yourself further, or you're sitting on those stats to look good compared to others in your league or division. the latter isn't very conducive to actually getting better at sc2, so i don't see why it's even argued as a point.
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On April 07 2011 02:11 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 00:50 Chronald wrote:
I like your points OP, I think that you really put some time into this post, and that is much appreciated.
I think that Blizzard has done exactly as you said, made a ladder that encourages people to play. However the main gripe that many community members have with the ladder is that it doesn't encourage you to get better. Even casual players want to be better than they were yesterday, that is the nature of any game. They claim they want to get better, but they don't do the right things to improve. Tell a casual newbie he should focus on mechanics and macro. He will think you just burden him with tiresome practice work while in fact a better strategy (or a better cheese) would just do fine. I think we should not try to convert those guys. It is up to them if they do the right steps to actually improve. There don't have to. I do want to give all types of players free quarter unless they are unfriendly and do shittalk to others. The Elo system would not work well for Starcraft. Elo uses just one single number, but the MMR system uses two, if not three numbers ("skill" and "confidence in that skill" are indirectly confirmed through Blizzcon Q&A.) If you like real competition, you can sign up to an open tournament. The SC2 ladder is a playing environent, no tournament or real league. Also the bonus pool is great. I did not mention it in the OP because it would be too long then. But the bonus pool with the point inflation rewards activity. Having mediocre players active is better than having good players inactive. Real competitive players don't give a damn to the ladder anyways, they seek their success in tournament where they could earn some money.
This!
What people don't seem to understand îs that the "ladder" of sc2 îs not a real ladder in the true se sense of the word.. icCup was a true ladder. The blizz "ladder" îs just a playing ground that facilitates finding games faster. Just like the war3 ladder..
On iccup, to get from D to C you Had to be able to beat C level players, in sc2 to get from silver to gold you just have to play more games.. Last season, i got promoted to Diamond by just pummeling plat players; I actually lost 80% of the va Diamond games that i played..
Ladder ranking and all this bullshit does not matter at all! The ladder îs good only at finding games for you to play, withouth the hassel (sp?) of asking someone to play via chat..
And for people that say that it's not the "Bob" players that become the next GSL winners, you are wrong! The more people that play the game, good or bad, the more geniuses will rise.. Plus, the more mainstream attention the game recives, the more sponsors it will attract, for those players that will actually excell.. I doubt Samsung îs interested in only Masters players to see and buy their products..
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On April 09 2011 06:32 Dagon wrote:
in sc2 to get from silver to gold you just have to play more
This is not accurate. Bonus pool or activity do not influence promotion. You have to improve faster than your peers (and thus move up in the population in terms of whom you're beating) to get promoted.
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Bob won't win the GSL if he sees his win/loss ratio.
How bout we let Bob decide whether or not he wants to practice and get better instead of adjusting shit around so homeboys can feel better about themselves. I don't want to sugar coat this but you guys are sugar coating this. Ladder ranking doesn't matter to you if your playing tournaments but for those of us who aren't as good we kind of like it, and we like to see our stats and see how we're doing.
Heres my point, if you really want this make it an option. i say this about everything in games just make a little checkbox and people who want to see how many games they've played against how many they've won let them. It serves everyone's purpose and who could have a problem with that?
i don't think the question is whether or not its a good idea and should be whether or not anyone really cares. If you think w/l doesn't actually matter and that the ladder isn't real competition and that if you want "real competition" you should play in a tournament, then theres no reason not to show losses or games played. The people that want to be good will practice and those who don't won't.
Ladder for me is personal competition i like to know and im sure there are more people who feel the same. If your competitive you won't care about ratio, and if you're not competitive you won't care about getting better. Let natural selection take its course and do it for esports
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Good write up mate. Completely agree with your post. I just love being able to jump on and get a match of about equal skill going without too much hassle like in BW days
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Pree good stuff here. I have to agree. Even myself i feel more motivation to ladder because of how it hides my losses and there's less fear of "trashing your record"
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On April 09 2011 07:25 Sixears wrote:
i don't think the question is whether or not its a good idea and should be whether or not anyone really cares.
Blizzard would probably not have made this change without specific evidence (probably from focus groups) that the losses column was causing people not to play. They have an interest in continued play because they want to sell licenses for expansions, and multiplayer is the way to keep people playing for long enough to get there.
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The reason I DON'T like to ladder is because they hold my hand. If I lose to a better player, I want to play another player of the same level so I can learn and adjust my builds, not play someone worse. Sure, maybe for people with 0 competitive nature who just want to feel good about themselves the system works. For people who actually care about improving / learning / getting a chance to play people who are actually big names in Starcraft, the ladder system sucks. It deters growth.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 09 2011 07:47 Xyik wrote:
The reason I DON'T like to ladder is because they hold my hand. If I lose to a better player, I want to play another player of the same level so I can learn and adjust my builds, not play someone worse. Sure, maybe for people with 0 competitive nature who just want to feel good about themselves the system works. For people who actually care about improving / learning / getting a chance to play people who are actually big names in Starcraft, the ladder system sucks. It deters growth.
If you've been playing games for a while, there's no wild swings like you might think. Your MMR doesn't radically change after a single game if you've previously shown that you belong at a particular level. Many of the people who wanted to drop from Master to Bronze were still playing Master players even after going 0-10 because they had played so many games in Master that the system was almost sure that was where they belonged.
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If you need to see your W/L ratio to see if you're improving, you're lying to yourself. You really just want it to feel better about yourself in the FPS mindset. You should KNOW if you're improving by what games you are winning and losing. I'm one of those Diamond noobs (season 1) that isn't in bronze but I'm not the worst. I, for one, welcome our new NoLossViewing Overlords.
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good post, put lots of work into it, but I much prefer the BW style, if you never played BW I could understand the attraction to SC2 style, andd it does give a more even playing field, but having all the choices in your hands was what made BW so great
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On April 09 2011 07:39 Lysenko wrote:
Blizzard would probably not have made this change without specific evidence (probably from focus groups) that the losses column was causing people not to play.
I have no doubt thats blizzards motivation, i won't deny that. What i mean by that is that blizzard might have some reasons why its good for them, but people are gonna play or not play as much as they want. My problem is the attempts to control how you feel about your losses. I think its a creepy way to improve replayability, this abstract idea that is there to pat you on the back when your losing, and with bonus points to lift you higher when your winning. its strangely manipulative no? i mean we're talking about bronze player motivation like they aren't here.
People know they are losing, they just don't get hard numbers:
Player - "hey sc2ladder can i see my how many losses i have?"
The Invisible Hand of the Ladder - "nah, we think its better if you don't know"
Player - "well im just kind of curious how i've been doing"
The Invisible Hand of the Ladder - "trust me, if you knew what we know it would DESTROY you!"
I'm half facetious but i do think its a bit disconcerting. That all said, personally its just making me work harder to get into diamond or masters :D
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I just want to see my ratio >.< I don't do anything with that number (unless it's significant); I just want to know what it is for curiosity's sake.
Require a registry edit, for all I care. Just let me see it.There is no point in not having it available in some way that doesn't require saving all of your replays and/or manually tracking it after every game. That's like removing a public K/D from a FPS and saying it's because you don't want people to get a false sense that they're getting better, without any way (no matter how obscure) to find out at all unless you're at the top.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 09 2011 08:16 Zeke50100 wrote:
I just want to see my ratio >.< I don't do anything with that number (unless it's significant); I just want to know what it is for curiosity's sake.
Require a registry edit, for all I care. Just let me see it.There is no point in not having it available in some way that doesn't require saving all of your replays and/or manually tracking it after every game. That's like removing a public K/D from a FPS and saying it's because you don't want people to get a false sense that they're getting better, without any way (no matter how obscure) to find out at all unless you're at the top.
That analogy is so far off the mark and is a perfect example of why W/L isn't shown. Read the rest of the thread because this has been covered a bunch.
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While I agree with the reasoning of the op, I believe Blizzard can probably satisfied more people if they make showing the win/loss ratio an option. I think the best solution is to make the default show no loses while those that want to see their lost can turn it on manually themselves.
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I have kind of warmed up to the new hidden losses, but I think Diamond should be the cutoff for who gets to see their complete statistics, not Masters. It's a little odd that only the top 2% of active ladder players (below 0.5% of the total player pool I believe) are deemed worthy of this. I can see the utility in preventing super casual Bronze/Silver players from seeing how bad they are, but before the reset, basically every Diamond player had a positive record and was likely someone who was fairly into the game already (or played BW), not a casual player that has to be wooed by Blizzard in order to stay with the franchise.
Also, give us matchup win rates. I don't think sc2 gears can separate ladder from non-ladder in its matchup stats yet (can it?).
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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)
just look at your match history
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Just thought I'd share my personal experience laddering and how this affects me...
I thought the removal of losses would encourage me to ladder more, and while I admit I was happy with Blizzard's decision to remove them, I realized I was afraid to play again for some reason. I realized that its just the very prospect of laddering which is scary...I don't know why. Even playing FFA is scary. This isn't true in any other game, unless that game has a system in place where you're playing with a team and you don't respawn immediately - i.e. other players watch you play, so there's pressure on you (such as counter-strike source).
In addition I'm tense about losing my place in platinum league (relatively speaking, its kind of important to me), which adds to it all.
So I do appreciate Blizzard's decision to do this, as in it does help a little bit, but even if they did want to address the fear factor, I wonder if there isn't a deeper problem with how the game was designed at a fundamental level that instills fear in people. Maybe its just the complexity of the game relative to others - the fact that you always have to be doing something, you need to know what your opponent is building, etc. etc., that just having that foreknowledge of what you're up against gives you a sense of uneasy paranoia. As a zerg player I'm always freaking out about making the wrong move...what if he comes in with banshees...what if he rushes me with marines...what if he does a tank drop.
Anyways, I think as many people have posted before (particularly Excalibur), the primary reason for removing W/L is because it is misleading information. The fact that it is misleading, and can never be used as an absolute indicator of skill, is a good enough reason to remove it.
And if you want to make this an argument of "its still nice to see an irrelevant number"; consider the broader issue; that a lot of players are making invalid judgements based on W/L which can only be detrimental.
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I totally agree that the win to loss ratio means very little. I don't agree that it's right to take away my right to see it, as it's still something to consciously track. It's fun and encouraging to defend a win to loss ratio. It can spur you on to be more than you are.
I'm only silver, but i do track my wins to losses. I'm playing golds and platinums and I think I'm going to get promoted and i'm on 25-30 at the moment, i've lost to platinums and gone from 20-15 to what I'm at now, but i know that it's giving me harder games to place me, so it doesn't matter.
What i find is that people don't get the MMR system. They don't realise that being 1st in your ladder is nothing more than a worthless title. If people understood it more perhaps the w/l ratio would become less relevant.
It should at least be viewable from your own stats. If it was hidden you could hide your shame. Besides, people still make remarks like 'Oh you should be higher in the ladder than you are with your wins'. They don't get i'm playing people of a much higher skill level than me.
Doh.
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Why does everybody think W/L matters? If your W/L is deviating from 50%, its not because of you, its because the matchmaking system screwed up. The real reason to remove it is because its a fake statistic, something that seems like it matters but doesn't. They already have a system to tell you how skilled you are, the league/point system. W/L is pretty much a worse gauge of skill in every possible way. The only people who should care about it are nubs who don't understand how matchmaking works, removing this number is actually GOOD for competition. It will focus people's natural competitiveness in the right direction, and stop tricking them into thinking W/L actually matters somehow.
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How is not having lost in your record good? If you are only rewarded (an increase number in win) and are not punish when you lose (having a lose point) then the win is meaningless. Having lost makes people more motivated to get better and gets more win than loss.
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On April 09 2011 04:39 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2011 03:43 Lumpybd wrote:
tl:dr: While it may fluctuate slightly, MMR will keep your win ratio at roughly 50%. You want to know how many games you have lost... just take the number of games you have won and you won’t be very far off. Actually, your win/loss ratio will permanently deviate from 50% if you have in the past had any periods where your MMR has been shifting rapidly up or down. So, for example, take a break and lose some games in a row and you'll be below 50% until you have a winning streak, which the system will do its best not to give you. The matchmaking system makes its best effort to match you with an equal opponent for each individual game, but it does not try to bring your season-wide ratio to 50%. Actually, it does try – over time.
When you took a break, the confidence in the MMR widens and you get opponents from a greater range until the match making has a fairly good probability to predict the outcome of the match.
When the MMR does reflect your skill, you still sometimes get better or poorer players. Overall it will come out to 50%. If you have a small loss streak, it has no meaning since it is random noise. After a period of many games lost with only very few games won, you have an easy time to keep up until the MMR adapted to you true skill. Smaller series of losses and wins are noise anyways.
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On April 09 2011 10:56 Coolzx wrote:
How is not having lost in your record good? If you are only rewarded (an increase number in win) and are not punish when you lose (having a lose point) then the win is meaningless. Having lost makes people more motivated to get better and gets more win than loss. It is good because it don't let you get in the wrong mindset. If you play a tournament, you want to avoid losses. If you play ladder, you want to learn from losses.
Given enough games played, the loss counter will be similar to the win counter anyway regardless of your skill (unless you play in the top league or when you intentionally throw games.) If you have not played enough games yet, the win ratio is still giving no information about your skill because the influence of randomness is greater than your skill.
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As I'm certain has been stated many times, the W/L ratio really doesn't mean a thing if you aren't at the top or bottom of the ladder. At the top of the ladder (masters) it cannot find opponents who can beat you reliably, so you acquire a win rate above 50%. At the bottom of the ladder (bronze) it cannot find opponents who will lose to you reliably. As such, you'll acquire a win rate below 50%.
If you go on a winning streak in a mid-league, the system re-evaluates where it believes you should be. In the short term, it will try and ensure your W/L is 50% (as opposed to overall). For example, if you win 10 games in a row in Platinum and get promoted to Diamond, chances are your W/L ratio will always be n+10/n (or at least until you have a bad lose streak). Unless you are actively improving, your W/L should remain relatively 50%. If you are actively improving, it will be above 50% up until you hit your new skill level, when it will return to 50%.
Honestly, although it is annoying, they really don't hurt anyone by removing it. It's fairly obvious to a player when they're actively playing if they've been winning a very large portion of their recent games (and hence improving). Masters players (the top of the ladder) can already see their W/L. The only players this really effects are Bronze players who actually cannot win 50% of their games.
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On April 09 2011 04:51 branflakes14 wrote:
I'd have to disagree that it's not fair to let smurfs crush new players. Hell, you'd have a lot more to learn from a replay of you getting your face mashed in by Jaedong than by someone just as bad as you. Being smashed to pieces in a game isn't a bad thing, you can see what better players are doing. You still can see that. You can watch Day[9] with insightful commentary. Or you can play a tournament, you may be get lucky and play a pro.
To keep people playing in the ladder, you should give them opponents which they can beat. Giving them much too strong opponents would be considered unfair. No-one keeps playing a game which is obviously unfair. Also a Jaedong probably would not like to waste time to crush some noobs. He wants opponents, not victims.
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Thank you. That was very nice reading with a lot of thought behind it.
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On April 09 2011 07:47 Xyik wrote:
The reason I DON'T like to ladder is because they hold my hand. If I lose to a better player, I want to play another player of the same level so I can learn and adjust my builds, not play someone worse. Then you need better players as your friends to play a custom game. Or do you think, better players would like to constantly bash noobs instead of getting a worthy opponent?
Even if you just lost a game, you still can get a player next time who easily beats you. The system intentionally allows a range of opponents and will not try too hard to match the exact skill. The reason behind is that if you always get someone of complete same skill level, any game tends to be exhausting. This also would drive away players. A little randomness here and here will sometimes let you crush a lesser skilled player but sometimes also let a player with more skill crush you.
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I'm a Plat player and my goal is to improve.
My w/l ratio doesnt really interest me because it will be around 50% anyway until i may be get some day into masters.
Anyway, for now is my goal to get promoted to diamond (I get already games with low lvl diamonds).
If you really want to now your game history. Get a peace of paper and write it down( or if you forgot how to write with a pen, create a dow file)
I do it myself and it is fine...
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Good write-up, feel better about laddering
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On April 09 2011 08:06 Sixears wrote:
My problem is the attempts to control how you feel about your losses. I think its a creepy way to improve replayability, this abstract idea that is there to pat you on the back when your losing, and with bonus points to lift you higher when your winning. its strangely manipulative no? i mean we're talking about bronze player motivation like they aren't here.
People know they are losing, they just don't get hard numbers:
Player - "hey sc2ladder can i see my how many losses i have?"
The Invisible Hand of the Ladder - "nah, we think its better if you don't know"
Player - "well im just kind of curious how i've been doing"
The Invisible Hand of the Ladder - "trust me, if you knew what we know it would DESTROY you!"
I'm half facetious but i do think its a bit disconcerting.
This. A hundred times this. Even if their reasons deviate from this, it is still the feeling I get, and it is an utterly disgusting thought. Honesty and clarity are virtues.
There is only one reality. It needs to be visible and it needs to be addressed.
On April 09 2011 04:40 funkybovinator wrote:
The only measure of skill is your league, as it gives you a window in which your MMR falls.
That window is too blurry to be of use in sufficiently determining where you stand. That is our whole criticism.
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On April 09 2011 21:06 enzym wrote:
That window is too blurry to be of use in sufficiently determining where you stand. That is our whole criticism. What do you know if you would know that you are ranked between RandomZerg and NoobToss, two random noname players? The ranking would only have any meaning if you compare yourself to someone with a name. You can find out who you can beat in many open tournaments.
If you are good enough, you can even use the ladder (Grandmaster League.) If you are just a random player, like >99% of all SC2 players, it has no meaning to know that you are ranked 65.535 in your reagion.
There is less "truth" in a statistics like #65.535 than one may be thinks. There is much random noise which will change your rank since the surrounding players go up and down. But many players would consider a rank-up by +4 or -5 to be meaningful.
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i have a post-it note stuck to my monitor with my losses tallied on it.
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On April 09 2011 10:56 Coolzx wrote:
How is not having lost in your record good? If you are only rewarded (an increase number in win) and are not punish when you lose (having a lose point) then the win is meaningless. Having lost makes people more motivated to get better and gets more win than loss.
It is only meaningless if all you care about is your w/l ratio. If you plan on playing this game long-term, the only thing that matters is improvement.
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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)
if "lcx" was smart enough, he would just check up on SC2ranks and compare is rank to his previous rank
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I think I have a right to know what my win/lose ratio is whenever I want to. It was fine before the patch...
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On April 10 2011 05:25 protoss_machine wrote:
I think I have a right to know what my win/lose ratio is whenever I want to. It was fine before the patch... The win/loss ratio is meaningless when you are not playing in Master or higher because the system tries to get you to 50% regardless. If you have deviations from 50%, the only reason is that you did not yet play enough. Win/loss in Diamond and below says nothing about your current skill. The ladder now hides an irrelevant statistics to you to prevent you from falsely putting any meaning in it.
There are some statistics one would like to have and we hope that Blizzard will implement. Win ratio is not one of them.
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On April 10 2011 05:28 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2011 05:25 protoss_machine wrote:
I think I have a right to know what my win/lose ratio is whenever I want to. It was fine before the patch... The win/loss ratio is meaningless when you are not playing in Master or higher because the system tries to get you to 50% regardless. If you have deviations from 50%, the only reason is that you did not yet play enough. Win/loss in Diamond and below says nothing about your current skill. The ladder now hides an irrelevant statistics to you to prevent you from falsely putting any meaning in it. There are some statistics one would like to have and we hope that Blizzard will implement. Win ratio is not one of them.
You do not get to dictate the meaning of that statistic for other people.
User was temp banned for this post.
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I completely agree. Blizzard knows what they are doing and I hate to see or hear people bashing on them. Blizzard thinks about the big picture and not just on what some elitest players want.
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On April 10 2011 05:33 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2011 05:28 [F_]aths wrote:On April 10 2011 05:25 protoss_machine wrote:
I think I have a right to know what my win/lose ratio is whenever I want to. It was fine before the patch... The win/loss ratio is meaningless when you are not playing in Master or higher because the system tries to get you to 50% regardless. If you have deviations from 50%, the only reason is that you did not yet play enough. Win/loss in Diamond and below says nothing about your current skill. The ladder now hides an irrelevant statistics to you to prevent you from falsely putting any meaning in it. There are some statistics one would like to have and we hope that Blizzard will implement. Win ratio is not one of them. You do not get to dictate the meaning of that statistic for other people. Right, because Blizzard does.
Again:
Blizzard constructed the match making in a way that win ratio will be 50% regardless (+- random noise) with enough games played. The only reason why this is not true for very top players is, that there are too few of the same caliber online at the same time, so they get more often opponents which are weaker to keep game search short.
The win ratio has no meaning by design.
Some folks put a wrong meaning in there, for example "If I stay >50%, I am better than someone in the same league with <50%." But this is not true. It is only a sign that you either had luck (when you have a small deviation from 50%) or that you did not play enough games yet (for any greater deviation.)
The only way you can get >50% is to play people who are worse than you. That does not mean that you are better, that only means that the match making system is currently not giving you appropriate opponents. This can happen if you had a recent skill increase and your MMR did not properly adjust yet. But your happiness regarding the >50% will be short because when your MMR plateaus, you will get back to 50% (+- random noise).
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well written. its clear that you put some time in there and i think this post will post some people understanding the system (and i also got some new points ).
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On April 10 2011 05:25 protoss_machine wrote:
I think I have a right to know what my win/lose ratio is whenever I want to. It was fine before the patch... The win ratio does not indicate how good you perform. Why would you like to know the win ratio?
On April 09 2011 19:31 Aequos wrote:
As I'm certain has been stated many times, the W/L ratio really doesn't mean a thing if you aren't at the top or bottom of the ladder. At the top of the ladder (masters) it cannot find opponents who can beat you reliably, so you acquire a win rate above 50%. At the bottom of the ladder (bronze) it cannot find opponents who will lose to you reliably. As such, you'll acquire a win rate below 50%. This is true.
On April 09 2011 19:31 Aequos wrote:
If you go on a winning streak in a mid-league, the system re-evaluates where it believes you should be. In the short term, it will try and ensure your W/L is 50% (as opposed to overall). For example, if you win 10 games in a row in Platinum and get promoted to Diamond, chances are your W/L ratio will always be n+10/n (or at least until you have a bad lose streak). This however is not true. Your league depends on your MMR, but the MMR is independent from your league. MMR determines the skill level of your opponent, the confidence interval determines the skill range around the MMR where the match-maker looks first. (You still can get better or poorer opponents.) The confidence is also needed to know when you skill plateaus and enables the system to determine the tier of the league (the hidden division modifier) when your are moving up or down.
Every new season you are replaced anyway. Chances are that you stay in your league but get into another tier.
Promotion and demotion does not have an influence regarding the search for the opponent.
On April 09 2011 19:31 Aequos wrote:
Honestly, although it is annoying, they really don't hurt anyone by removing it. It's fairly obvious to a player when they're actively playing if they've been winning a very large portion of their recent games (and hence improving). Masters players (the top of the ladder) can already see their W/L. The only players this really effects are Bronze players who actually cannot win 50% of their games. This is true only for the lowest tiers of bronze players. Most bronze players also get 50% after they play for some time.
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As someone who has hated the Blizzard ladder system since the beta I have to say, very well written, sir.
You have completely changed my opinion of the ladder system. You raised a lot of interesting points.
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I agree with this but still think it would be nice to be able to see your own win/loss ratio if you choose and maybe just start with it toggled off so that people who don't want to see it or don't care don't have to deal with it but those of us who do have the option to take a look.
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On April 09 2011 19:22 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2011 04:39 Lysenko wrote:
The matchmaking system makes its best effort to match you with an equal opponent for each individual game, but it does not try to bring your season-wide ratio to 50%. Actually, it does try – over time.
That's simply not the case. I took a break of a couple of months and returned to a 17-game losing streak. My MMR stabilized after about 7 net wins over losses, and at that point I was going 50/50 in new matches, but I never made up those extra 10 games lost -- my losses exceeded wins by about 10 games plus or minus a few until the end of Season 1 about eight weeks later.
The matchmaking system attempts to make the chance of the *next game* 50/50. If there were excess wins or losses from streaks in the past, they simply don't have an impact on matchmaking.
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On April 10 2011 21:42 [F_]aths wrote:
will be 50% regardless (+- random noise) with enough games played.
To put my earlier comments on this another way: nonrandom streaks (that is to say, streaks with a cause, like being initially rated very low or high, or a loss streak from a break) also add deviation from the 50% statistic.
It is important to note that deviations from 50% can persist indefinitely because the system attempts to find 50/50 short-term matches, a tendency which encourages the persistence of win/loss streaks from the past in the statistics.
Win/loss ratio, of course, would be a good way to estimate one's skill standing in the population if matching were completely random and without regard to skill.
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On April 11 2011 18:43 Lysenko wrote:
The matchmaking system attempts to make the chance of the *next game* 50/50. Yes.
Blizzard did not implement a bad habit like "oh you need a win to get 50%, lets look for a noob" or "you naughty boy already have >50%, lets look for a pro to crush you." I hope that I was not misunderstood that way. Battle.net just looks for a worthy, yet beatable opponent like you said.
Almost every player sometimes has a cause for a nonrandom loss. Those freewins are spread, you will likely get some of them.
Even without this, it gets to the same outcome if you play enough games. In the end, your 10 "net losses" will be not discernible from random statistic noise and get meaningless. There will be no way to tell if you still have 10 net losses or if it is random coincidence. The greater the number of total games played, the greater the probable absolute difference from exact 50%, but the relative deviation should tend to get closer to 50%.
On April 11 2011 18:51 Lysenko wrote:
It is important to note that deviations from 50% can persist indefinitely because the system attempts to find 50/50 short-term matches, a tendency which encourages the persistence of win/loss streaks from the past in the statistics. I agree when you count in intentionally thrown games. You could throw 1000 games in a row and than ladder up to anywhere while still having a horrible win ratio.
Otherwise, the win-loss-ratio is a zero-sum-game. There are reasons for a loss streak, but also for a win streak. Other players have loss streak reasons, too. You will probably get some easy wins you normally should not get, but the match making system could not know that your opponent really had a bad day, he is ill and tired and playing his first game after being 6 month in a coma. Overall, it gets you to 50% (within bounds of random noise) even when there are nonrandom causes.
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On April 07 2011 00:41 oGsTheStD wrote:
they should make it optional (only player can see it not others), but have the default show no losses. That way if your troubled enough to want the losses you will find it, but you can also remain blissfully ignorant
QFFN
(Quoted for fantastic name)
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I don't get the fuss over being able to see W:L ratio. As other people have already explained it means nothing when you are evenly matched. The thing that annoyed me most about the ladder (and contributed a lot to my decision to stop playing) was that you can't see your ELO rank (aka MMR).
While hiding stats might seem like a good idea to get people involved I don't think we are seeing much difference in percentage of players who ladder vs those who just play custom games compared to WC3. The percentage of people who actually ladder is still very low. I see ladder as the competitive component of the game. Some people are just not interested in competition - they only want to have fun.
The lack of stats just gave me the feeling that the whole thing was fake so I found it extremely hard to care and take pride in my "rank". I never had any concrete way of telling if I improving and lost all motivation to play ladder games.
If you could see peoples MMR or even filter by MMR it would be fantastic for setting up custom games to practice against people of even skill.
The matchmaking system is absolutely great at matching you against someone of relatively even skill. Blizzard really did a great job there. It's just a real shame the ladder has so little information and is still impossible to browse.
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A lot have been said in this topic already so I will just broadcast my experience with this change especially regarding W/L ratios.
I bought this game right after it was released. I was a C zerg on iccup before and I was really excited about sc2. Being sort of experienced with RTS games and have pretty good mouse accuracy (played a game called osu! where I am probably the top Canadian player), I was able to get into platinum, promote to diamond, and have a 60-70% win ratio. However, even then, I felt uncomfortable about my skill. Unlike BW, I had no build order, weaker mechanics, and was lost in a lot of situations.
Then I stopped playing for a long long time until only roughly a month ago when I started to ladder again.
I came back with 2300 bonus pool still in my league and felt like improving and having a good time. I got stomped so hard at first for some reason that it was disgusting. I remember going from my previous win ratio to around 40 percent win ratio having streaks of 10 loses at occasions. But that didn't really bother me at all because I only cared about improving rather than my win ratio. I kept playing and eventually started winning again, ending up with a near 50% win ratio near the end. Being a BW player, I knew that mechanics meant everything, and that playing standard, improving mechanics, was the way to improve. Yes there were times where I would get cheesed every game and lose often but I kept trying to improve so I can become cheese-proof.
Then ladder reset and after I started winning, I wanted to see how I can promote into masters. I read threads about MMR and learned that in order to be in masters, you probably have to beat masters. This worried me at first because I was only versing diamond players, but I know that if I just keep improving via mechanics then I can make it. Watching replays after loses, following strict build orders, scouting properly, macroing and watching pros etc, allowed me to continuously vs stronger players and improve. At first, I was versing mid-diamond, then it was high-diamond, eventually masters. Sitting at around 100 points above rank 2 in my division and consistently beating masters, I finally saw the promotion sign and got into masters.
After all that, I just have to say that it is your own responsibility to improve. If you are truly competitive and want to be good, screw win ratios and instead focus on improving. There are tons of threads on Teamliquid on how to gauge your improvement and how to get better. Doesn't matter if you are a bronze or diamond, if you want to improve, why do you even care about win ratios? You should only feel good when you know you are improving and are good rather than having a beasty win ratio against weaker opponents.
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On April 11 2011 19:17 [F_]aths wrote:
But this eventually gets to the same outcome if you play enough games. In the end, your 10 "net losses" will be not discernible from random statistic noise and get meaningless. There will be no way to tell if you still have 10 net losses or if it is random coincidence. The greater the number of total games played, the greater the probable absolute difference from exact 50%, but the relative deviation should tend to get closer to 50%.
Admittedly, if a 10-game losing streak were the entire deviation from an otherwise 50/50 record, after 100,000 games it would be lost in the noise.
The problem is that each individual game is not statistically independent of the one preceding it. I believe that if you analyze a long period of any player's games, you'll find that a loss is more likely to be followed by a loss than 50%, and a win is more likely to be followed by a win. There are several practical reasons for this:
* A losing player's more likely to get upset in a way that screws up their play in subsequent games.
* A fundamental change in strategy or insight can yield a winning streak that's sustained until the player settles in at a new MMR level.
* Players at a given MMR are more or less challenging at certain times of day and days of the week, and multiple games at a given time are likely to lean toward winning or lean toward losing for this reason.
* Playing multiple games under transient conditions that affect results, like during network problems, on a laptop while traveling, or when playing conditions like heat/cold are more or less optimal will tend to introduce correlations between games.
Because there are game-to-game correlations in results, convergence on the mean happens a LOT more slowly than for a statistically-independent random process, and under some conditions (say, a player who improves very rapidly over a long period of time) there will not be a convergence on the mean at all.
I should point out that I agree with the basic premise that win/loss ratios are not meaningful in evaluating skill, but my point is that they lack meaning not because they always converge on 50%, but because they deviate from 50% for reasons that may have nothing to do with a player's actual skill at the game.
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*sigh* While I generally agree with the OP, discussions like this will always be irrelevant because win/loss ratio on the ladder is irrelevant. If your ladder w/l ratio is not roughly 50:50, it means the ladder is broken. A >50% win ratio is not a sign of skill, it's a sign that the ladder is failing to match you against the correct opponents. The only indicators of skill in SC2 is League placement and tournament performance. It was pointless to put loss statistics in your profile in the first place, and I'm guessing Blizzard only put it in there for a "why not?" reason. It was only when people started completely misunderstanding how the ladder works, and started thinking that a 50/50 ratio was bad - or good - that they decided "Aw shucks, I guess we'd better remove it".
While it would be nice to have, for those who understand how the ladder works, the reality of it is, probably 90% of players don't fully understand how the ladder works, and adding irrelevant information just fuels complaints and confusion.
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I still don't understand the MMR system. I don't mind not being able to see my losses. What irks me mostly is the way it picks my matches. I was playing 4v4 AT with my friends, we did our placement matches. First two matches we stomped the opponents, then we took 2 losses against Diamond players and then won our last match against Platinum players. It placed us in the Gold league. However, when I did my season 2 placement match, I lost and it placed me in Platinum, while I was Gold last season and did not really play so many matches.
It just doesn't make much sense o_O
Also, I got plenty matches against Diamond players, while we were in bronze league, with my 2v2 AT team. Really makes me wonder...is the MMR system like "These guys are on a win streak, time to crush them. Let's hit them with players that are 4 leagues higher than them!". Hell, I've even played against Master league players, when being nowhere near their league.
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@Fryght, if your MMR was in Platinum range (which it probably was) before Season 2, it would place you in Platinum in Season 2. The only reason it didn't promote you in Season 1 was that you have to stabilize within that league range. Essentially, the ladder needs your opponent baseline (the highest skilled opponents you will almost never lose to), and your opponent ceiling (the lowest skilled opponents you will almost never beat). Once it identifies that this range is in a different league than the one you are currently in, it will place you in that league. However, since - as you say yourself - you didn't play many games, it never got the complete set of information to place you higher. However, once Season 2 rolled around, it discarded all such information and simply placed you against someone of a similar MMR. If you beat them, you get placed above them in the league, if you lose, you get placed below. It decides which league to put you in, eg Platinum, based on a preset MMR range determined on the MMRs of players in that league the season before.
This is how I understand it to work, however I may be wrong.
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Yea but this also means that everyone who is not in masters has to calculate their win/loss stats manually which I imagine would be a pain in the ass... Good post though you bring up some valid points!
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I totally agree with this post. I am a high platinum player at the moment and I am playing more than before they made this change.
Also I find myself trying out the other races and trying new / different strategies. Also because of MMR your win / loss will be about 50% anyhow so who cares about the actual number.
Also the matchmaking is awesome. 1v1 in BW was terrible imo, it was almost always a one-sides slaughter fest. Now I get so much interesting and fun games. But yeah, some people are just afraid of change.
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On April 11 2011 19:41 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2011 19:17 [F_]aths wrote:
But this eventually gets to the same outcome if you play enough games. In the end, your 10 "net losses" will be not discernible from random statistic noise and get meaningless. There will be no way to tell if you still have 10 net losses or if it is random coincidence. The greater the number of total games played, the greater the probable absolute difference from exact 50%, but the relative deviation should tend to get closer to 50%. Admittedly, if a 10-game losing streak were the entire deviation from an otherwise 50/50 record, after 100,000 games it would be lost in the noise. Much fewer games are sufficient to make a deviation of 10 indiscernible to noise. I will try to figure out how to calculate the amount of games where a deviation of 10 cannot be told from noise. (From intuition, it is 100 or 200 games.)
edit: Now I believe its more like 2000 games you need to have to explain a deviation of 10 with pure noise, I still try to get the formula. I am confident though the numer of games needed is lower than 10.000. Probably much lower.
On April 11 2011 19:41 Lysenko wrote:The problem is that each individual game is not statistically independent of the one preceding it. I believe that if you analyze a long period of any player's games, you'll find that a loss is more likely to be followed by a loss than 50%, and a win is more likely to be followed by a win. There are several practical reasons for this: + Show Spoiler +
* A losing player's more likely to get upset in a way that screws up their play in subsequent games.
* A fundamental change in strategy or insight can yield a winning streak that's sustained until the player settles in at a new MMR level.
* Players at a given MMR are more or less challenging at certain times of day and days of the week, and multiple games at a given time are likely to lean toward winning or lean toward losing for this reason.
* Playing multiple games under transient conditions that affect results, like during network problems, on a laptop while traveling, or when playing conditions like heat/cold are more or less optimal will tend to introduce correlations between games.
I made the same observations. For example if I play Sunday evening, I feel I get much worse opponents than other days. Recently I got some insight to zerg play which got me to a winning streak, but then I got opponents who just outplayed me.
On April 11 2011 19:41 Lysenko wrote:
Because there are game-to-game correlations in results, convergence on the mean happens a LOT more slowly than for a statistically-independent random process, and under some conditions (say, a player who improves very rapidly over a long period of time) there will not be a convergence on the mean at all.
I should point out that I agree with the basic premise that win/loss ratios are not meaningful in evaluating skill, but my point is that they lack meaning not because they always converge on 50%, but because they deviate from 50% for reasons that may have nothing to do with a player's actual skill at the game. Nonrandom reasons work both ways. When you came back from a break, you essentially gave free wins to others. But it is likely that you sometimes get easy wins from other players, too. Most of the times, you don't know that. You cannot tell nonrandom reasons of other players from noise.
I normally fuck up the first game I play in a session. I forget drones, get supplystuck, don't click at the right positions and so on. The probability I lose that game is >50% regardless of my current MMR or win ratio. But that loss lowers my MMR, I probably get a somewhat easier opponent the next game so that I can probably win. Such short-term nonrandom causes are evening out very fast.
Every player is affected by the same MMR formula. Let's say you rage after a loss and will lose the next game with 55% probability versus someone with same MMR. But you may be now get an opponent who also just lost, so it evens out.
Longer-term causes (like taking a break from Starcraft for months) of course have a greater impact. It still evens out since other players take breaks from the game, too. You're right of course that the AMM tries his best to offer 50% win chance for the next game, it does not consider the current win ratio to skew the player search.
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I agree that the ladder generally works well.
I really think they should show losses for diamond at least though maybe even platinum. If i was high diamond it would feel to me like they were disrespecting my achievement still not showing losses the same as people in bronze.
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i strongly disagree on some points
1. ladder outside of masters isnt competive .
a LADDERs whole point is competive play. this is always the case at all levels. if its not for competive play then get rid of points/rank/leagues as well and just make it a huge matchmaking pool. but that isnt a ladder then cause its not competive right?
also i know gold players that fight for evry point/rank and constantly compare themselves to others. and your "bob" does too since apparently he cares about getting to the top of his division.
2. winrate is the end all what people care about (as in the "guy scared to play cause of his 51% winrate" example).
if people are positively affected by that change they already had the wrong mindset. if someone is scared of ladder cause of demotion, losing points/rank etc it doesnt change ANYTHING.
i dont get how you can talk about "bob" caring about getting top8 in his division but at the same time completly ignore all the ladderfear connected to losing ranks/points. it makes no sense.
what do you think will piss "bob" more off? going from 51% to 50.89% winratio or losing 17 points that make him lose 2 ranks and puts him further away from his top8 goal?
3. ladder is/should be a playground
it shouldnt and only is as a result of the poor custom game system. its almost impossible to find a custom game where the players are evenly matched for obvious reason.
if we could name our games ("1v1 master 3k+ join!" ) / have a nonladder matchmaking/sort them by skill of the player in the lobby etc there would be no need to wash down the competive aspects of the ladder since evrybody could play all day fine without even touching the ladder.
overall i plain disagree with taking away the most basic statistical info from 99% of the playerbase (yeah im masters but only diamond in most team brackets) just because some people focus on the wrong things.
i still see it as a huge slap in the face for evryone with a somewhat competive mind below masters and a immensly stupid thing to do.
bronze only? maybe. optional and made standart setting so the super noobs wont even know they can change it?sure why not. but forcing this on almost evry player out there is just a big no.
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On April 11 2011 20:36 Sanchez_ wrote:
I agree that the ladder generally works well.
I really think they should show losses for diamond at least though maybe even platinum. If i was high diamond it would feel to me like they were disrespecting my achievement still not showing losses the same as people in bronze. In Diamond (and even in the lower and middle regions of master), the win ratio will be around 50% when you play enough games. It is pointless to show the losses in Diamond. It only leads people to consider the win ratio – while that ratio says nothing about their skill. Cutting the losses out, allows Diamond league players to focus on the game, not on a statistic value which does not tell you anything about your skill. If you check the league of the opponents you beat, you get an impression where you really are.
Blizzard displays the win ratio for all masters because some of the top master players, who will not be able to get ranked to Grand Master, are still so good that the AMM cannot properly work in time and therefore matches them against a weaker opponent to finally get a game.
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On April 11 2011 20:41 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
i strongly disagree on some points
1. ladder outside of masters isnt competive .
a LADDERs whole point is competive play. this is always the case at all levels. if its not for competive play then get rid of points/rank/leagues as well and just make it a huge matchmaking pool. but that isnt a ladder then cause its not competive right?
also i know gold players that fight for evry point/rank and constantly compare themselves to others. and your "bob" does too since apparently he cares about getting to the top of his division. A Top-8 placement in a bronze devision is something everyone can aim for. Of course, only 12.5% of the players can reach that goal, but if you continue play in Bronze, you pass all the inactive guys and finally get to your Top-8 placement. You get the impression that you achieved something.
You feel that you could get promoted to Silver. This gives you the next goal: Get promoted for Silver. This is probably the hardest step in the gaming career: When you originally are a true bronze player to leave that league and play in Silver. Once you get in there, you "only" need more practice to get higher.
I like that Blizzard gives you possible goals you actually could reach. In this way, the ladder is competitive. But it is not the same sort of competition you get in a tournament.
A Gold player will not get better if he knows exactly where he stands in the gold league. His goal is probably the next league promotion. Knowing the win ratio will not help to get a faster promotion.
On April 11 2011 20:41 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
2. winrate is the end all what people care about (as in the "guy scared to play cause of his 51% winrate" example). And wrongly so. Because this irrational care about a statistics which is designed to be close to 50% regardless, some people are scared away to play. Other people are unwilling to experiment with new strategies or races because they fear the other players will laugh about them if they drop below 50%.
On April 11 2011 20:41 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
if people are positively affected by that change they already had the wrong mindset. if someone is scared of ladder cause of demotion, losing points/rank etc it doesnt change ANYTHING. Many folks voiced their experience in this thread, that the loss removal encourages them to play more often.
On April 11 2011 20:41 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
i dont get how you can talk about "bob" caring about getting top8 in his division but at the same time completly ignore all the ladderfear connected to losing ranks/points. it makes no sense.
what do you think will piss "bob" more off? going from 51% to 50.89% winratio or losing 17 points that make him lose 2 ranks and puts him further away from his top8 goal? As long as the bonus pool is filled, a single win makes up for two losses. To fully use up the bonus pool, you need to play about 2 games per day (14 per week.) Bob plays may be 10 1v1 ladder games per week. The rest of the time he plays 4v4 RT or Nexus Wars.
On April 11 2011 20:41 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
3. ladder is/should be a playground
it shouldnt and only is as a result of the poor custom game system. its almost impossible to find a custom game where the players are evenly matched for obvious reason.
if we could name our games ("1v1 master 3k+ join!" ) / have a nonladder matchmaking/sort them by skill of the player in the lobby etc there would be no need to wash down the competive aspects of the ladder since evrybody could play all day fine without even touching the ladder. Right. You need to start a ladder game. Blizzard does want you to ladder, to make the match making work. It only can match you against similar skill if a similar skilled player is waiting to get a ladder match, too.
If you want to have that service of automatically getting an opponent of similar skill, you must agree that this match counts. Otherwise, many guys would practice in unranked matches to get more wins in the ladder than losses. The ladder would dry out.
On April 11 2011 20:41 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
overall i plain disagree with taking away the most basic statistical info from 99% of the playerbase (yeah im masters but only diamond in most team brackets) just because some people focus on the wrong things. As this match making currently works, the win ratio is not the "most basical", but the "most irritating and pointless" info for every player below Master.
Every player who tries to get better needs losses to have something to learn from. It is the wrong mindset to avoid losses in the ladder. This is the tournament mindset where you try to avoid losses to stay in the tournament.
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On April 10 2011 04:58 vol_ wrote:
i have a post-it note stuck to my monitor with my losses tallied on it. Are you just counting your losses or do you review the games to learn from the losses?
On April 09 2011 04:54 Lysenko wrote:
Edit: Based on the sc2ranks stats, as a high silver player who wins some matches vs. gold players, I'd probably have 50/50 wins to losses if matchmaking were completely random. However, many, many more of those games would be one side completely dominating the other, and that's not really that fun on either side. You must be mid gold to have 50% with random game matching. But even then you probably would get less than 50% because most lower players would abandon the game when they get bashed most of the time. So with fewer players of lesser skill, the population would consist of more players with higher skill, resulting in a ratio <50% for you.
But this underlines the reason behind the 50% design. If you have (close to) 50% winning chance, you consider it a fair game. Providing a fair match for every skill level is obviously a good task.
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But the important thing here is that he has fun and that he plays. Bob will perhaps never get promoted, but he gets into Top-8 of his division and he tells a friend that this Starcraft thing is very fun and he should buy it, too. Now they can play custom 1v1 with no attack until 8:00 minutes or do a 2v2 with double sixpool.
Its called business. put yourself in their shoes, you want 100 elitist pros that know everything about the game in and out?
or do you want 40,000 nubs that throw cash at you. Same thing happened to WoW during the first expansion. they started to get rid of everything that was hard about the game and made everything easy and accessable for the casual.
WoW, now SC2, and based on most of the blue posts, D3 is heading this way too.
Im not siding with Blizzard, or scolding them.... They are an entertainment company whos primary focus is revenue.
My advice for you, Just roll with it. Whining and crying on a forum isn't going to change anything.
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On April 13 2011 01:33 Mantikor wrote:Show nested quote + But the important thing here is that he has fun and that he plays. Bob will perhaps never get promoted, but he gets into Top-8 of his division and he tells a friend that this Starcraft thing is very fun and he should buy it, too. Now they can play custom 1v1 with no attack until 8:00 minutes or do a 2v2 with double sixpool. Its called business. put yourself in their shoes, you want 100 elitist pros that know everything about the game in and out? or do you want 40,000 nubs that throw cash at you. Same thing happened to WoW during the first expansion. they started to get rid of everything that was hard about the game and made everything easy and accessable for the casual. WoW, now SC2, and based on most of the blue posts, D3 is heading this way too. Im not siding with Blizzard, or scolding them.... They are an entertainment company whos primary focus is revenue. My advice for you, Just roll with it. Whining and crying on a forum isn't going to change anything.
And people still think that Blizzard cares about e-sports and designed SC2 with e-sports in mind? It's obvious they don't understand it and are only paying lip service to it.
Professional leagues exist because it's fun to watch pros to play the game, whether its baseball, soccer, American football or basketball. They don't exist because noobs find the game fun to play themselves.
Getting people to play the game and getting people to want to watch pros play the game will usually be opposite of each other. It's obvious which side Blizzard is leaning to and which market they will be ignoring when push comes to shove.
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Personally I don't really care. The more games you play the closer you'll get to a 50% win rate, in theory. If you lose, you end up losing ladder points which drops your position in your division, so having 3000 wins or 20 wins but being #70 in your division ought to tell anyone with basic math skills that you are where you belong.
And.. If you want to find out who's better than who, play a Bo3.
On the other hand if this makes newbs play more because they aren't worried about the # of losses they have, that's wonderful for them.
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[B]
Professional leagues exist because it's fun to watch pros to play the game, whether its baseball, soccer, American football or basketball. They don't exist because noobs find the game fun to play themselves.
Getting people to play the game and getting people to want to watch pros play the game will usually be opposite of each other. It's obvious which side Blizzard is leaning to and which market they will be ignoring when push comes to shove.
No, just no. Pro league sport exist because they have a player base, same thing as starcraft. I enjoy watching basketball because I used to play b-ball, I enjoy watching baseball because I used to play baseball.
Your analogy of designing a game catering to the pro is akin to designing a soccer match that either has the field the size of manhattan to penalize those without the running ability (akin to SC1, unnecessarily mechanically diffcult) or design a soccer match that has rules on scoring base on the angle of the goal made and other obscure mathmatical facts (overly complicated strategic game diffcult to pick up).
Neither of those type of soccer game "designed for pros" I mentioned above will be able to garner a viewer ship.
It does not pay to design a game that exhibit most amount of competitive depth but new players cannot pick up.
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meh, hand-holding doesn't really promote competitiveness. Sure they might have fun playing the game, but they'll never be good until they get owned and get shit talked. That's how it is before and that's how you can tell who gives up and who seeks to improve their play and one day become gosu.
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On April 13 2011 02:20 jstar wrote:
meh, hand-holding doesn't really promote competitiveness. Sure they might have fun playing the game, but they'll never be good until they get owned and get shit talked. That's how it is before and that's how you can tell who gives up and who seeks to improve their play and one day become gosu.
Not everyone play this game to become "gosu". For some of us, especially those who have other obligations, duties and aspirations in life, a game is just a game, to relax.
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On April 13 2011 02:24 Protoss_Carrier wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2011 02:20 jstar wrote:
meh, hand-holding doesn't really promote competitiveness. Sure they might have fun playing the game, but they'll never be good until they get owned and get shit talked. That's how it is before and that's how you can tell who gives up and who seeks to improve their play and one day become gosu. Not everyone play this game to become "gosu". For some of us, especially those who have other obligations, duties and aspirations in life, a game is just a game, to relax.
Of course, but I'm referring to the OP's main argument, which is that a more casual system brings in more pro-gamers. I disagree on that regard.
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On April 13 2011 02:30 jstar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2011 02:24 Protoss_Carrier wrote:On April 13 2011 02:20 jstar wrote:
meh, hand-holding doesn't really promote competitiveness. Sure they might have fun playing the game, but they'll never be good until they get owned and get shit talked. That's how it is before and that's how you can tell who gives up and who seeks to improve their play and one day become gosu. Not everyone play this game to become "gosu". For some of us, especially those who have other obligations, duties and aspirations in life, a game is just a game, to relax. Of course, but I'm referring to the OP's main argument, which is that a more casual system brings in more pro-gamers. I disagree on that regard.
Let's say Bob is a very intelligent young adult (they are the demographics who progamers are likely to emerge from), who likes perfection and hate to lose. How much more likely would he play continuously if he got a horrendous record and people on forum blast him about it everyday?
Imagine, that our young bob has an innovative idea about a build, he post it on TL, and people blast him with personal comments like "Your WL sucks LOLOLOL"
To give you an analogy, this would be the equivlent of playing soccer with a jersey that has how many times you scored your own team's goal, starting from the age that you first started playing. Sure, you may become a brilliant player, but your n00b days stay with you.
I wonder how many aspiring young players would continue to play that game.
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Good read. You really have some solid points
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On April 13 2011 01:33 Mantikor wrote:Show nested quote + But the important thing here is that he has fun and that he plays. Bob will perhaps never get promoted, but he gets into Top-8 of his division and he tells a friend that this Starcraft thing is very fun and he should buy it, too. Now they can play custom 1v1 with no attack until 8:00 minutes or do a 2v2 with double sixpool. Its called business. put yourself in their shoes, you want 100 elitist pros that know everything about the game in and out? or do you want 40,000 nubs that throw cash at you. That is the wrong question. It's not about "or". It's about "and". To attract casual players for a long time, you need a hardcore player base. Making a game more accessible does not mean to make it worse.
You cannot have a constant interest in casual game with no core player base. Blizzards game design philosophy is "easy to learn, hard to master". SC2 is still hard to master. But easy to learn at the same time.
On April 13 2011 01:33 Mantikor wrote:
Im not siding with Blizzard, or scolding them.... They are an entertainment company whos primary focus is revenue. Of course. But they consider long-term revenue. They could have rushed SC2 to market. But they took the time until it was ready. They campaign is widely praised (with some critique of course, you cannot please everyone at the same time.) The multiplayer is praised, too. The success of SC2 proves that Blizzard managed what other companies did not: Making a PC-only game which gets wide attention. Establishing an e-sports title which actually helps e-sport to get recognized in the western hemisphere. All these things will of course generate long-term revenue. And rightly so! I am sick of 3D-shooters with an 8-hour-campaign and multiplayer which I use one or two times a month.
On April 13 2011 01:33 Mantikor wrote:
My advice for you, Just roll with it. Whining and crying on a forum isn't going to change anything. I don't whine. I like it.
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On April 13 2011 02:20 jstar wrote:
meh, hand-holding doesn't really promote competitiveness. Sure they might have fun playing the game, but they'll never be good until they get owned and get shit talked. That's how it is before and that's how you can tell who gives up and who seeks to improve their play and one day become gosu. What happens when you try out a game and you notice, that everone who played this game longer than you and therefore is better, looks down to you? Do you want to be part of that group which likes to look down and shittalk to noobs?
Isn't it up to them to decide to try to get actually somewhat good? Who defines what "good" is anyway?
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On April 13 2011 02:30 jstar wrote:
Of course, but I'm referring to the OP's main argument, which is that a more casual system brings in more pro-gamers. I disagree on that regard. Why that? What happens when you scare everyone away who did not start the game with real competition in mind? Everyone here once was a noob. A noob who would like to play with "no attack the first 10 minutes" or similar rules. A noob who sticks his loss to 'obvious' imbalance / unfairness / bug abusing of the opponent. A noob who said "Ahh, if I only would have more time to practice mechanics, I would be as good as the kid who just owned my. My rank does not reflect my true skill". A noob who could not stand that he was outplayed, and makes up excuses for the loss.
If we assume that 5% of the players (number totally made up) actually wants to improve and accepts that he must do practice, that some casual play will not make him better (at least not as the other players improve in the same time) then we just should get as many players as possible into this game. If we further assume, that 5% of those 5% (again I made this number up, of course) are considering to turn pro, we still should get as many players as possible into Starcraft.
The master ladder is already somewhat competitive. The ladder does honor your efforts – if you are good enough to be ranked above Diamond.
It also works the other way: Lets say, none of the new casual players would be pro material. (Which is hard to believe, but lets consider it.) But they play a bit and watch a bit. The money for streams or the pure presence, which attracts sponsors, allows others good gamer to get a salary. The more pro gamers can get some money, the more good players have the option to be a pro. No matter how do you look at it: A large playerbase enables the existence a healthy professional base.
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On April 13 2011 02:24 Protoss_Carrier wrote:
Not everyone play this game to become "gosu". For some of us, especially those who have other obligations, duties and aspirations in life, a game is just a game, to relax. Indeed. While I am already have some thoughts to elaborate on this further, I did have a slightly different focus in this thread. The Blizzard does encourage to improve. However it does not tell you that you should aim to become a pro when you just got promoted to Silver.
Some diamond players think quite high of themselves just because their diamond status means that they are better than 80% of the active players. But the skill in Diamond differs widely. According to Excalibur's analysis, Diamond covers as many skill level tiers as Bronze. This is understandable if one imagines the Gaussian distribution of skill. This means, even though a Diamondie outplays 80% of the rest, there are probably many players who still could beat him mouse-only.
Good gold players are only slightly better than bad gold players. Good Diamond players are way better than bad Diamond players. The focus at this point should be on further skill improvement.
The divisions in Diamond ensure that the player in there still can get a top placement if your are active. When he manages that, the skill hopefully improved through practice and one day you finally reach the Master league.
Bronzies of course cannot just commit to practice to get a recognized name anytime soon. The SC2 ladder still has some awards, medals and milestones in store to keep them interested in logging in and roast some zerg.
There is a Nuubcast youtube channel for low level players who like to see low-level games casted. Bronze and Silver level games can be entertaining. SC2 delivers at any skill level.
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On April 13 2011 01:10 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 09 2011 04:54 Lysenko wrote:
Edit: Based on the sc2ranks stats, as a high silver player who wins some matches vs. gold players, I'd probably have 50/50 wins to losses if matchmaking were completely random. However, many, many more of those games would be one side completely dominating the other, and that's not really that fun on either side. You must be mid gold to have 50% with random game matching.
The MMRs of top-5 silver (in an active division) and mid-gold are similar because of overlap between the two leagues. Most of my opponents are mid-gold, but I would have to do slightly better than that for a promotion. Still, it's a reasonable guess that my MMR is about 50th %-ile based on whom I'm playing.
(Also, according to sc2ranks.com, 55% of people who have played in the last 7 days are in bronze and silver, so high silver is pretty darn close to 50th percentile.)
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On April 13 2011 02:20 jstar wrote:
meh, hand-holding doesn't really promote competitiveness. Sure they might have fun playing the game, but they'll never be good until they get owned and get shit talked. That's how it is before and that's how you can tell who gives up and who seeks to improve their play and one day become gosu.
It's not like removing the loss statistic actually makes the games easier. If it did, that would be "hand-holding."
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On April 08 2011 01:21 theSAiNT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 07 2011 22:06 sleepingdog wrote:
This assumes that everyone plays against people that are exactly as skilled as they are. Which just isn't the case anymore if you IMPROVE while your opponents DON'T.
This is exactly what the poster has pointed out and where he is completely correct. If you spend a lot of time studying replays, working on your play and stuff, then a rising win-% can tell you that you in fact ARE better than your current MMR indicates. Which means you will start playing against better players and ultimately get promoted.
Without that you have to keep track of W/L basicly "on paper" to see if you indee win more than you lose...otherwise you have no way of telling if you are, in fact, "improving" relative to your opponents. Actually, by construction, Battlenet matches you with people that are as skilled as you are. If you are improving, you will get matched with stronger and stronger opponents. As I said before, it's very hard to say anything about a rising W/L because it is probably just noise.
As someone who's studied probabilistic modeling (which is what this is, because it's predicting the probability you win based on comparing your MMR with that of your opponent) this is a good step toward the correct interpretation, but is missing one point. It takes some time for the system to actually hone in on your "real" skill level, and if you go on a winning or losing streak, it will get off. So you can only really say that battle.net matches you against people it thinks are as skilled as you are.
If you are actually getting better consistantly, it's assessment of you will lag behind a little, because it's designed not to get *too* far off when you go on a winning streak. Therefore, you can work up a high win/loss ratio by constantly improving. This means that yes, there is relevant information you can get from W/L. However since most people interpret the statistic wrong, I'm in favor of it being removed because it's doing more harm than good.
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This descision by blizzard makes me rage SO hard, its hard to believe.
This thing is pretty simple over all:
If you dont get over losing some games, its your problem no one elses. And its not only your problem it even is your fault.
I can not believe that im missing information, because some people cant stand seeing their loses. Thats ridiculous. That is a shame. What do 100 wins mean if i dont know how much i lost to win this 100 games ? Its worth NOTHING. Blizzard actually could randomly generate a number that shows you how awesome you are. What should i tell friends of me to compare ? I have 100 wins ? I can better say nothing at all its the very same thing.
The argument everyone who wants to play competitve is master anyway is disgusting. I cant even describe how unbelievably dumb this is. If you dont see this, you have serious problems.
Seriously, by any means how can this be considered a good thing by any human beeing with at least a bit of a mind ?
Now im really honest: If the person who decided this would be seriously harmed, i wouldnt mind at all..would be a step in the right direction for mankind.
This descision reflects what this world has come to i a very distinct way. And this isnt even something to discuss about. Its absolutley obvious whats right and whats wrong. That i live in a world in which this isnt only a stupid idea but reality and even considered a good thing by some people makes my brain explode. Almost. Really.
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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)
This is where I disagree. I don't believe your win/loss ratio is ANY sort of proof or indication of how much you have improved. I think too many people hold themselves back because they are trying to improve their win/loss ratio, as to them, that is what signifies that they are a good player or that they are improving. At first I didn't like this change, but now I think it is fine. I don't need to see my ratio. You should be able to point out the weaknesses of your play, and if you aren't willing to try new things, or NOT CARE about your ratio, it can hurt your progress in improving. All your ratio really represents, is how far away you are currently deviating from your hidden MMR. The fact is, you are going to end up near a 50/50 win/loss ratio and thinking that since you have won a string of games and now have a 55% winning percentage, doesn't necessarily mean you are improving or have increased in skill. Players need to judge that for themselves by analyzing their own play and analyzing why they won or loss the games they have played.
You don't need to know your w/l ratio to judge how much you are improving. You should focus on analyzing your play and knowing your weak points. Boasting about your 60% w/l ratio is meaningless or thinking you are good because of it, is purely detrimental IMHO.
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+ Show Spoiler +On April 14 2011 02:42 skipdog172 wrote:Show nested quote +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) This is where I disagree. I don't believe your win/loss ratio is ANY sort of proof or indication of how much you have improved. I think too many people hold themselves back because they are trying to improve their win/loss ratio, as to them, that is what signifies that they are a good player or that they are improving. At first I didn't like this change, but now I think it is fine. I don't need to see my ratio. You should be able to point out the weaknesses of your play, and if you aren't willing to try new things, or NOT CARE about your ratio, it can hurt your progress in improving. All your ratio really represents, is how far away you are currently deviating from your hidden MMR. The fact is, you are going to end up near a 50/50 win/loss ratio and thinking that since you have won a string of games and now have a 55% winning percentage, doesn't necessarily mean you are improving or have increased in skill. Players need to judge that for themselves by analyzing their own play and analyzing why they won or loss the games they have played. You don't need to know your w/l ratio to judge how much you are improving. You should focus on analyzing your play and knowing your weak points. Boasting about your 60% w/l ratio is meaningless or thinking you are good because of it, is purely detrimental IMHO.
Ok, why display the number of wins then ? Cut it out too.
edit: Im envious that the person above me has twice as much wins as me. How embarrassing !
Is this next ?
edit2: Oh, and yes i hate losing. I love a good WL ratio. Yes i am scared of playing ladder because i dont want to ruin my stats. It stresses me. It worries me. Sometimes it keeps me from playing. But, all these things are my personal problems. I need to get over it. I dont need to be soothed artificialy, cause thats just lying to yourself. Its no solution for the actuall problem. It like vomiting on the floor and putting a carpet above it rather than cleaning it..
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On April 14 2011 02:46 creepcolony wrote:
Ok, why display the number of wins then ? Cut it out too.
They removed the losses because they were finding people avoided playing because of the number. That didn't apply to wins, so why would they remove that?
I think it's kind of a loopy move to remove losses regardless of that reason, but the more people whine about their meaningless win/loss ratios being uncorrelated with their promotions, the more I get behind it.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 14 2011 02:46 creepcolony wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On April 14 2011 02:42 skipdog172 wrote:Show nested quote +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) This is where I disagree. I don't believe your win/loss ratio is ANY sort of proof or indication of how much you have improved. I think too many people hold themselves back because they are trying to improve their win/loss ratio, as to them, that is what signifies that they are a good player or that they are improving. At first I didn't like this change, but now I think it is fine. I don't need to see my ratio. You should be able to point out the weaknesses of your play, and if you aren't willing to try new things, or NOT CARE about your ratio, it can hurt your progress in improving. All your ratio really represents, is how far away you are currently deviating from your hidden MMR. The fact is, you are going to end up near a 50/50 win/loss ratio and thinking that since you have won a string of games and now have a 55% winning percentage, doesn't necessarily mean you are improving or have increased in skill. Players need to judge that for themselves by analyzing their own play and analyzing why they won or loss the games they have played. You don't need to know your w/l ratio to judge how much you are improving. You should focus on analyzing your play and knowing your weak points. Boasting about your 60% w/l ratio is meaningless or thinking you are good because of it, is purely detrimental IMHO. Ok, why display the number of wins then ? Cut it out too. edit: Im envious that the person above me has twice as much wins as me. How embarrassing ! Is this next ? edit2: Oh, and yes i hate losing. I love a good WL ratio. Yes i am scared of playing ladder because i dont want to ruin my stats. It stresses me. It worries me. Sometimes it keeps me from playing. But, all these things are my personal problems. I need to get over it. I dont need to be soothed artificialy, cause thats just lying to yourself. Its no solution for the actuall problem. It like vomiting on the floor and putting a carpet above it rather than cleaning it..
The wins are at least somewhat relevant because they can be used in tracking portrait or achievement unlocks. I think they also had to show something or it would look even more barren than it does.
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When I came to Starcraft 2 I was completely new to gaming, as a result I dropped below bronze zero MMR-wise during my first 70-ish games with a win percentage <20%. Then something clicked - there were enough minerals on the map that building an extra barracks was definitely worth it to get more units faster and wouldn't cause me to be disadvantaged, these things called control groups existed and I could set multiple buildings to them. It took until I was at 80W80L before I started getting points but I knew I was improving, not just having a couple of good days because my win percentage was changing so quickly. Edit: I went from ~10W60L to 80W80L in the first week of summer break, it wasn't just match-making working out where I was.
I liked being able to see my stats, and those of people I played against. If Blizzard wants the default to be that you can't see it to save a few egos that's fine, but we should have the option to see our own/display it.
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Russian Federation396 Posts
wheres the tl;dr
hah
User was warned for this post
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i disagree
User was temp banned for this post.
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Blizzard should make it optional. Options are always awesome. Awesomeness represents options. Only if the new Deus Ex will follow the path of enlightenment...
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On April 14 2011 00:55 Lysenko wrote:
The MMRs of top-5 silver (in an active division) and mid-gold are similar because of overlap between the two leagues. Most of my opponents are mid-gold, but I would have to do slightly better than that for a promotion. Still, it's a reasonable guess that my MMR is about 50th %-ile based on whom I'm playing.
(Also, according to sc2ranks.com, 55% of people who have played in the last 7 days are in bronze and silver, so high silver is pretty darn close to 50th percentile.) As I understand the system, mid-gold cuts the active players in half. May be the system does not count anyone who plays some games every week-end as active, so one may be need X games per week to be considered active. I don't know the "active" criterion. May be its directly related to the unspent bonus pool.
Your mid-gold opponents are may be they are on the way down to silver and get demoted soon and their division standing is just a bonus pool effect. As I understood the game, you would be promoted to gold if you stabilize in one of the two gold level tiers. Since active players get better, you must of course get better faster than the rest to be promoted.
I don't claim to know all the ladder details though.
On April 14 2011 01:01 Lysenko wrote:
It's not like removing the loss statistic actually makes the games easier. If it did, that would be "hand-holding." Yes. And one still loses points after a loss. The removal of the total games counter does not help to get any nooby or mediocre medals.
The more I think about the ladder, the more I like several decsions about what you can not see or do. It keeps the focus on the game – where it should be. We don't need an MMR improving metagame.
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On April 14 2011 02:39 creepcolony wrote:
This descision by blizzard makes me rage SO hard, its hard to believe.
This thing is pretty simple over all:
If you dont get over losing some games, its your problem no one elses. And its not only your problem it even is your fault.
I can not believe that im missing information, because some people cant stand seeing their loses. Some folks probably can't stand to see their losses. But this is only a part of the reason why Blizzard removed it. While only some people can't stand a big loss counter, most people still misinterpret the win ratio. Removing it is not just pleasing the guys who can't stand to see how n00by they are. It gets everyone below Master out of the mindset to keep a good win ratio. Before you improve, you normally get into a small slump. With no win ratio displayed, you are not afraid of that slump. It underlines that the ladder below master league is a large playground where you find people to play against. It encourages you to improve the right way. Just playing it safe every time to avoid losses will not help anyone in the long term.
On April 14 2011 02:39 creepcolony wrote:
Thats ridiculous. That is a shame. What do 100 wins mean if i dont know how much i lost to win this 100 games ? Its worth NOTHING. For 100 wins below Master League you can expect to get about 100 losses. This is how the match-making system is designed. Since it is designed for a win ratio close 50%, a win ratio display just indicates how good the match making system works. It does not indicate a particular skill (unless you are a pro on the way to master, but in master you see your losses anyway.)
On April 14 2011 02:39 creepcolony wrote:
This descision reflects what this world has come to i a very distinct way. And this isnt even something to discuss about. Its absolutley obvious whats right and whats wrong. Sorry, but the only thing which is obvious is that you did not understand the purpose of the match making for any non-extreme skill level. Given you play enough games, the match making will you get close to 50% regardless. This renders a loss counter meaningless.
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On April 14 2011 02:42 skipdog172 wrote:
You don't need to know your w/l ratio to judge how much you are improving. You should focus on analyzing your play and knowing your weak points. Boasting about your 60% w/l ratio is meaningless or thinking you are good because of it, is purely detrimental IMHO. Quoted for great justice!
How would a win ratio metagame work? I could play customs versus friends until I feel ready. Then I could brag around with a good win ratio. If I would just play on ladder, I still would be close to 50% but my skill would be on the same level. There is no way to avoid losses, given a fair matchmaking in place. But many guys are having the mindset that it would be good to hide losses (making a new account in BW or WC3, practice in custom games in SC2.)
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Great OP, some good points raised there :D
I feel like Diamond league should be permitted to view their W-L as well, simply because that league definitely features a group of players who are most likely quite dedicated to reaching the master league, and would appreciate being able to see their progress. But for lower-level players, hiding the W-L is an acceptable decision, not one I entirely agree on, but one I can see good points in as well as bad.
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On April 14 2011 18:12 GGPope wrote:
Great OP, some good points raised there :D
I feel like Diamond league should be permitted to view their W-L as well, simply because that league definitely features a group of players who are most likely quite dedicated to reaching the master league, and would appreciate being able to see their progress. But for lower-level players, hiding the W-L is an acceptable decision, not one I entirely agree on, but one I can see good points in as well as bad.
How would seeing either 45-55 or 60-50 tell you anything about your own progress? There's an easy way to check if you are close to masters, just look at the profiles of the people you faced.
Edit: I have the feeling most people who complain about the removal of the losses just don't like to accept change. So far most of the negative points brought up have been rebutted or am i wrong?
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On April 14 2011 18:12 GGPope wrote:
Great OP, some good points raised there :D
I feel like Diamond league should be permitted to view their W-L as well, simply because that league definitely features a group of players who are most likely quite dedicated to reaching the master league, and would appreciate being able to see their progress. But for lower-level players, hiding the W-L is an acceptable decision, not one I entirely agree on, but one I can see good points in as well as bad.
I'm in diamond, and my goal is masters, and I track my progress like this - win streaks and when i meet a masters and lose I know im not good enough, when I meet a masters and win I know I'm getting better. And as the above said what diffrence would w/l ratio do for your progress? I mean if you are winning against higher ranked opponents you are improving.
And since my goal is masters the only thing I need to do, is win every game.
Even if I have 100% win ratio and still in diamond it doesn't matter -> I'm still not in masters.
Even if I have 10% win ratio and still in diamond it doesn't matter -> I'm still not in masters.
Even if my win ratio has increased with 4% it doesn't matter -> I'm still not in masters.
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On April 14 2011 02:39 creepcolony wrote:
I can not believe that im missing information, because some people cant stand seeing their loses. Thats ridiculous. That is a shame. What do 100 wins mean if i dont know how much i lost to win this 100 games ? Its worth NOTHING. Blizzard actually could randomly generate a number that shows you how awesome you are. What should i tell friends of me to compare ? I have 100 wins ? I can better say nothing at all its the very same thing.
Win loss ration DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING unless you are so good or so bad that the match maker can't find enough equally skilled opponents for you to play against. If your w/l ratio is not 50% that can only be because:
1. Your sample size of played games is not big enough..
2. The match engine is wrong about your skill.. For example, you have improved by playing a ton of non ladder games and the match engine has to catch up.
It wont be because of your skill, because your skill == opponent skill untill you are very very good.
If you like to see the losses count, thats fine, but please do not act like it means anything..
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the new ladder thing is great if you're not happy about it how about make a .txt and write all the losses that you have..? not everyone in starcraft are as educated and as so call "brave" as TL.... there is nothing to lose basically and when u win u can acutally see it and for people who say win dont matter etc etc skill is the same is not correct because not everyone is like you and as smart as you, they just want to play. If you want to be pro you can just play and get better not look at your win/lose ratio OMG i have 70% win ratio i must be very very very good
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Games like this only live for years after release because the fan-base and community is large and commited - and if making the ladder more gentle achieves this - how can anyone explain?
Your efforts in the game are for fun only, unless you are a pro-gamer. And if you are a pro-gamer the ladder means very little to you, you pay your bills by winning tournaments, and if you are aspiring to be a pro-gamer you make your name by winning smaller cups and tournaments.
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On April 14 2011 19:58 resilve wrote:
Games like this only live for years after release because the fan-base and community is large and commited - and if making the ladder more gentle achieves this - how can anyone explain?
Your efforts in the game are for fun only, unless you are a pro-gamer. And if you are a pro-gamer the ladder means very little to you, you pay your bills by winning tournaments, and if you are aspiring to be a pro-gamer you make your name by winning smaller cups and tournaments.
True for many but weak-minded people (who account for most of the population, IMO) also pay the bills and Blizzard wants to keep them around.
I miss the W:L ratio a lot but I think ultimately it's less important than looking at someone's recent games and the caliber of the opponents in those games.
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I understand the noob idea, but people that are in diamond aren't really noobs anymore and have probably had the game for a fair while and like it enough to recommend it to others, I think it should have only had been for bronze-gold, but still was a good idea and I like the top 8 and top 50 things.
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Taking a small part of something, reviewing that specific part, then stating "this is why [entire part] is good/bad" is easy fault to do but might get you flak. I agree with your points, but I still think blizzard failed larger than they ever had with any game doing bnet 0.2 ladder. a simple "fitness" level would suffice, all the divisions and points and wins really clog it up for newbies not make it better.
I also don't understand why anyone would compare it to the scbw ladder and not the wc3 ladder, I would think that can be classified as ignorant. Wc3 ladder might not have been superduper, but in that game you could create a new account any time, which is a better solution and should be in this game too.
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On April 14 2011 12:55 DigitalisDestructi wrote:
Blizzard should make it optional. Options are always awesome. This option would still be used by a lot of folks and they would continue to stay in the wrong mindset.
To care about avoiding losses in the ladder always means to play less ladder. You may be play some customs instead or not at all. This cannot be the goal for a match making system.
At first, it sounds good: Give the player the option. It sounds also good: Offer match-making for unranked custom games. But at the end of the day it would be counterproductive to the ladder.
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On April 14 2011 20:53 osten wrote:
Taking a small part of something, reviewing that specific part, then stating "this is why [entire part] is good/bad" is easy fault to do but might get you flak. I agree with your points, but I still think blizzard failed larger than they ever had with any game doing bnet 0.2 ladder. a simple "fitness" level would suffice, all the divisions and points and wins really clog it up for newbies not make it better.
I also don't understand why anyone would compare it to the scbw ladder and not the wc3 ladder, I would think that can be classified as ignorant. Wc3 ladder might not have been superduper, but in that game you could create a new account any time, which is a better solution and should be in this game too. If you can make new accs, you can bash some newbs. This may be is fun for the smurfer, but who wants to get bashed by smurfers?
WC3 then tried to avoid this with setting ELL (expected ladder level) for new accounts to 25. What happened? The smurfer first left many games in a row, getting down this ELL and then began to bash noobs. There was no punishment as everone could start a new acc any time.
To get consistent skill rating, any game key should be bound to one account. This of course requires 1 key per player, so a shared key use of two gamers with different skill is not feasible. While some see this as Blizzards plan to increase sales, I think it is still the overall better system because it prevents a lot of smurfing.
The Bnet 2.0 does have its drawbacks, but overall I think it is superior to any previous Blizzard ladder system. The WC3 system for example never really managed to get me enough opponents who as bad as I am. WC3 did provide some statistics but they did not make me a better player. Arrange team handling in WC3 is not done well. I did not see my ELL (MMR) either, I just saw my level and XP.
The new system is overall better for most players. You don't have to handle accounts when you login, you just have the account. The same one is used for WoW and any future Blizzard games. Account security concerns can be solved with an authenticator.
After a match you can chat to the opponent, I missed this feature in WC3. You also have some data and diagrams to analyze. The system even tells you the BO of the opponent! You also have the replay functions. While shared replay viewing (provided in BW but not WC3) is still missing, the detailed information tabs and even 1st-person-camera allow you to analyze all mistakes you made. I don't see the SC2 online service integration as a letdown.
Why do people worry about statistics like win ratio if they have much more useful data at their hands?
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On April 14 2011 21:22 [F_]aths wrote:
The Bnet 2.0 does have its drawbacks, but overall I think it is superior to any previous Blizzard ladder system.
I think the point that people need to take away is that all the changes, the changes people like and the ones they don't, were put in place because of specific goals on the part of the developers, and retaining lower-league players is a big one.
That said, most of the people who have been upset about this or that feature (or lack of a feature) have had desires for the system that differ from those of the developers. That's normal, but it doesn't mean it's a bad system, it just means it's not optimized for you.
Honestly, given what the devs said their goals were up-front at Blizzcon 2009, I'd say they pretty much nailed them.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 15 2011 00:05 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2011 21:22 [F_]aths wrote:
The Bnet 2.0 does have its drawbacks, but overall I think it is superior to any previous Blizzard ladder system. I think the point that people need to take away is that all the changes, the changes people like and the ones they don't, were put in place because of specific goals on the part of the developers, and retaining lower-league players is a big one. That said, most of the people who have been upset about this or that feature (or lack of a feature) have had desires for the system that differ from those of the developers. That's normal, but it doesn't mean it's a bad system, it just means it's not optimized for you.Honestly, given what the devs said their goals were up-front at Blizzcon 2009, I'd say they pretty much nailed them.
A major difficulty on the part of the developers and community team is accurately explaining the reasons for these changes and identifying why they are improvements over the old system, while at the same time being upfront about bugs in the system so players are aware of what their ultimate vision is.
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wait did they seriously take out your total losses? I thought they were still visible in your division ladder?
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On April 15 2011 00:57 War Horse wrote:
wait did they seriously take out your total losses? I thought they were still visible in your division ladder?
It only lists wins and the amount of points now. The only way you can view loses now is if you're in Master league and up.
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On April 15 2011 00:45 Excalibur_Z wrote:
A major difficulty on the part of the developers and community team is accurately explaining the reasons for these changes and identifying why they are improvements over the old system, while at the same time being upfront about bugs in the system so players are aware of what their ultimate vision is.
I agree to some extent. Blizzard has a culture of not committing to any future changes in public, on the principle that it avoids disappointing people if they miss a promised delivery date. Arguably, though, they sometimes take this so far that it can become counterproductive.
That said, I know you and I both attended sessions at Blizzcon over two years that covered their broad design goals with their ladder system pretty clearly, sessions which are available unedited, including Q&A, on Youtube. It's not that this information isn't out there for everyone to see, it's that there's a tendency for people who have different personal desires for the system than those goals dictate to tune out what they see and hear about why the system is the way it is.
I'd like to see my loss count on the ladder, because I know that when that number increases, I personally play more. However, they explained straight-out in their own forums why they were making that change (because some players find it intimidating) and simply because my experience is different, I'm not going to call them "stupid" for it, as some people have.
(Edit: To put it another way, it makes no sense to equate "this system isn't primarily designed to serve the interests of me and my immediate peers" with "this system is broken.")
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Well written story imho. You are talking mostly about MMR and not taking into account the flows (which are flows in my opinion) for example you cant see your MMR nor can your see your losses or even how many games you have played in total which is very frustrating atleast for me and many many other people.
e: im not really interested in my winratio
The display of losses makes you want to avoid losses. This is the tournament mindset, where you show off what you are capable of. The ladder is a playground. You should not try to avoid losses, but to learn from your losses.
I get pressure of ladder from the loss itself and getting -points and lower MMR and chance of BM. Couldn't care a shit about the statistics.
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On April 15 2011 01:58 Ryndika wrote:
Well written story imho. You are talking mostly about MMR and not taking into account the flows (which are flows in my opinion) for example you cant see your MMR nor can your see your losses or even how many games you have played in total which is very frustrating atleast for me and many many other people.
e: im not really interested in my winratio I think there are a few reasons to hide MMR, for example to avoid an MMR-optimizing meta-game.
Knowing from the MMR that you could get promoted soon results in a loss-avoiding mindset. Anything which incites you to want avoid losses, results in playing less ladder because you increase the portion of practice before you ladder again. This is not how Blizzard intended the ladder to work. You should just login and play ladder, not practice in customs and play ladder just for wins.
You can know your standing (at least in your region) if your are grand master, even if you are just in master since the Battle.net shows the unspent bonus pool. Players in Diamond and below should just not worry about the MMR, they should focus entirely on learning from mistakes.
Hiding the number of games played may looks like a flaw in Diamond and below, but this is the only way to show the wins but not the win ratio.
On April 15 2011 01:58 Ryndika wrote:Show nested quote +The display of losses makes you want to avoid losses. This is the tournament mindset, where you show off what you are capable of. The ladder is a playground. You should not try to avoid losses, but to learn from your losses. I get pressure of ladder from the loss itself and getting -points and lower MMR and chance of BM. Couldn't care a shit about the statistics. Yes, laddering can be stressful. A loss counter confuses some gamers because they think they should have a win ratio >50% to show off they are skilled.
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On a personal note: I am currently fighting about the top 1 rank in my division. Sometimes I am ranked #1, sometimes my nearest competitor logs in and wins some games and has more points than me. What do I do? I play more games than my bonus pool offers me free points because this is currently the only way to keep up in the ranking. Since of course implies that I must show some skill to win my games, so I try to improve beyond my casual-play improvement.
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unless u are masters or GM, the only reason why u are still in the top 8 is because u consistently beat the divison below u, u average about 50% win loss with the division ur playing in, and u get consistently beaten by the divison above you.
other wise the only reason why u both are stuck in ur ranks and trading ranks, (both being you and your nearest competitor), is because u guys have about the same win/loss.
its stupid advice but the only one that makes sense, stop losing, win more
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I get what you're saying, but I personally think it is ridiculous to hide players from their own losses. I don't think it should shove the losses in your face, but you should be able to look up your own W:L if you want.
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TLADT24920 Posts
While I see your point, I think the route they took is unfair to other players including myself. I'm only in silver but I really want to see my losses, shouldn't have to check sc2ranks or sc2gears, etc.... to see it. Either way, I'm well aware of when I'm losing so hiding my losses isn't going to boost my moral when I'm on a tilt. I think giving you the option to turn your loss record on or off would be a much smarter idea and would give all players the same opportunity. I just don't think it's fair that only players in masters can see their losses :/
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the only ones who complain about 1 account per key is those kids who love to bash noobs like in sc1,
i remember when i played sc1 BGH the home team would always be stacked with high stats players and the away team would have to play with stangers.
so i m rly happy with this matchmaking, people will always find reason to complain about
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On April 18 2011 03:47 Nemuru wrote:
unless u are masters or GM, the only reason why u are still in the top 8 is because u consistently beat the divison below u, u average about 50% win loss with the division ur playing in, and u get consistently beaten by the divison above you. Yes so far I rarely get even opponents from the league above me.
On April 18 2011 03:47 Nemuru wrote:
its stupid advice but the only one that makes sense, stop losing, win more I must win where it matters. In the end I will have about 50% win ratio anyways, but if I win versus better players my MMR rises and I get better players so I start to lose again. If I have 50% win ratio versus players in the league above me, I get promoted as long as I also have 50% loss ratio versus them. If I still lose to low-ranked players my wins versus better players don't help me. But I can afford losses versus better players. One can even get a promotion right after a loss (when this loss stabilized the MMR.)
Of course I need wins which raise my MMR enough I actually get better opponents. Then I must beat some of them, too. It is still more important to learn from the losses than to play with a mindset that a loss a bad and will hinder my promotion. It's ok to lose as long as you don't lose too much versus players with smaller MMR than you.
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On April 18 2011 03:58 BigFan wrote:
While I see your point, I think the route they took is unfair to other players including myself. I'm only in silver but I really want to see my losses, shouldn't have to check sc2ranks or sc2gears, etc.... to see it. Those sites cannot display your total losses either because they grab the data from battle.net ladder and profile sites.
On April 18 2011 03:58 BigFan wrote:
Either way, I'm well aware of when I'm losing so hiding my losses isn't going to boost my moral when I'm on a tilt. I think giving you the option to turn your loss record on or off would be a much smarter idea and would give all players the same opportunity. I just don't think it's fair that only players in masters can see their losses :/ If you caóuld turn it on, you still would be in the mindset to keep your winratio above 50%. This is counterproductive to skill improvement. Since the match making system is designed to match the skill level, your loss counter will be close to the win counter anyway (unless you throw games or if you are in a real slump.)
You still lose ladder points for losses. The removal of the loss counter (or to be more precise, of the total games counter) just removes the wrong mindset about that win ratio.
On April 18 2011 03:57 Ruibarian wrote:
I get what you're saying, but I personally think it is ridiculous to hide players from their own losses. I don't think it should shove the losses in your face, but you should be able to look up your own W:L if you want. The only information you get from it is how good the battle.net can estimate your skill. You cannot see how skilled your actually are. But you would probably still measure your skill including the win ratio. To keep you from this false assumption, it is actually an advantage no longer see your losses.
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How many have noticed that win/lose ratio is still partially visible?
There's this blue bar that represents total wins and losses, so if there's any consistency to it, we can determine a player's win/lose just by glancing at said bar.
Example of 0% win and 100% win.
+ Show Spoiler +
(You can add me on EU server to verify that I my win/lose ratios are in fact 0% and 100%, character code is 938)
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I was one of these old guys that loved the SC universe and wanted to play ladder, but was afraid to loose. "Just need one more practice against the AI".
Good thing that I finally got over this after hearing what Day9 said... "The most important thing is that you play and have fun".
I said, to hell with loosing. Started my placement matches after being away from SC for a while. I ofc lost 4 of them and ended in bronze (1 guy disconnected). But man I had fun!
I don't mind not being able to see the looses, but now I wouldn't mind seeing them. But I agree 100% with the reasons outlined by the OP.
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On April 17 2011 18:18 [F_]aths wrote:
On a personal note: I am currently fighting about the top 1 rank in my division. Sometimes I am ranked #1, sometimes my nearest competitor logs in and wins some games and has more points than me. What do I do? I play more games than my bonus pool offers me free points because this is currently the only way to keep up in the ranking. Since of course implies that I must show some skill to win my games, so I try to improve beyond my casual-play improvement.
IMO this is the flaw with the current division system: The points do not actually reflect how high up you are in your division (in other words your hidden MMR). In platinum and lower it essentially means how well you where able to deplete your bonus pool which is a matter of playing enough games.
If you start winning more you'll eventually move up, so you cant really focus on becomming first in your division (< masters)..
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On April 18 2011 20:29 Blurb wrote:How many have noticed that win/lose ratio is still partially visible? There's this blue bar that represents total wins and losses, so if there's any consistency to it, we can determine a player's win/lose just by glancing at said bar. Example of 0% win and 100% win. + Show Spoiler +(You can add me on EU server to verify that I my win/lose ratios are in fact 0% and 100%, character code is 938)
Hey,
I;ve checked a few profiles and i think the bars are actually representing the % of wins per leage..
For example: 5 1v1 wins and 5 2v2 wins means they are both 50%
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On April 18 2011 21:01 Lizarb wrote:
I was one of these old guys that loved the SC universe and wanted to play ladder, but was afraid to loose. "Just need one more practice against the AI".
Good thing that I finally got over this after hearing what Day9 said... "The most important thing is that you play and have fun". I find it strange that many players like to play vs. AI. I only did so (in AoE for example) because I had no mates to play against. Then I found the online gaming service and played there.
Vs. AI it's mostly to learn how to abuse AI weaknesses. I did like to play the campaign, though.
While I never recommend to practice vs. AI for mulitplayer, if someone likes to do so, he should of course do so.
On April 18 2011 21:01 Lizarb wrote:I said, to hell with loosing. Started my placement matches after being away from SC for a while. I ofc lost 4 of them and ended in bronze (1 guy disconnected). But man I had fun! I don't mind not being able to see the looses, but now I wouldn't mind seeing them. But I agree 100% with the reasons outlined by the OP. Of course, high-level play is more fun that low-level play. Highly skilled players probably pity us noobs since we never know the real joy the game can provide. But one can improve.
In 2004, I purchased a Playstation 2 just for Gran Turismo 4, later I also purchased a driving wheel controller. I just bought it for fun. I knew how a bad driver I am (with even no driving licence in RL.) I played and it WAS fun. That kept me playing. As I once needed to remake my licences, I notices how easy they were. I improved a lot even though I played only for my pleasure. I fine tuned my cards and turned driving aids OFF – to have more control over my car, even though I need to avoid any mistake. It was now even more fun as it got harder because I had more control over it.
I never played GT4 for any achievement, I just like to drive a car in a game.
This is also true for Starcraft. I want to build my favourite units. I want to test my new strategies. I never will be able to compete in a tournament but I will have fun and eventually improve somewhat.
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On April 18 2011 22:09 [F_]aths wrote:
I find it strange that many players like to play vs. AI. I only did so (in AoE for example) because I had no mates to play against. Then I found the online gaming service and played there.
Vs. AI it's mostly to learn how to abuse AI weaknesses. I did like to play the campaign, though.
While I never recommend to practice vs. AI for mulitplayer, if someone likes to do so, he should of course do so.
When I play against AI it is because I either want to warmup after being away from SC for a week or two, to test out a build, but also with the mindset from time to time that "if I can't beat a very hard AI, how can I ever win on ladder then?".
Properly not that smartest way to train I know, but I am trying to change that.
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On April 10 2011 05:33 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2011 05:28 [F_]aths wrote:On April 10 2011 05:25 protoss_machine wrote:
I think I have a right to know what my win/lose ratio is whenever I want to. It was fine before the patch... The win/loss ratio is meaningless when you are not playing in Master or higher because the system tries to get you to 50% regardless. If you have deviations from 50%, the only reason is that you did not yet play enough. Win/loss in Diamond and below says nothing about your current skill. The ladder now hides an irrelevant statistics to you to prevent you from falsely putting any meaning in it. There are some statistics one would like to have and we hope that Blizzard will implement. Win ratio is not one of them. You do not get to dictate the meaning of that statistic for other people. User was temp banned for this post.
Let me explain what I meant here and why I expressed myself like I did.
Your post assumes that there can be no other meaning to the w/l statistic for other people than the one which you can see for yourself and have addressed in that post, despite several people in this thread explaining why they would like to see this statistic for different reasons. I am one of these people, but there are more.
But throughout the majority of the discussion, if not all of it, and with the post which I quoted and replied to you managed to ignore such explanations and did not recognize criticism and opinions running counter to your own.
To me my response appeared to make an objectively correct statement with its reasoning having been established more specifically by previous posts in the thread.
Additionally I did not want to express myself as especially respectful towards you because I was under the impression that you were not respecting your own discussion and its participants. I understand that this is unacceptible in a majority of social environments and must admit that I made a mistake by expressing myself in such a harsh and condescending manner.
Nevertheless I hope that my criticism of your statement has now been explained in a way that allows it to be more well understood.
On April 18 2011 22:09 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 21:01 Lizarb wrote:
I was one of these old guys that loved the SC universe and wanted to play ladder, but was afraid to loose. "Just need one more practice against the AI".
Good thing that I finally got over this after hearing what Day9 said... "The most important thing is that you play and have fun". I find it strange that many players like to play vs. AI. I only did so (in AoE for example) because I had no mates to play against. Then I found the online gaming service and played there. Vs. AI it's mostly to learn how to abuse AI weaknesses. I did like to play the campaign, though. While I never recommend to practice vs. AI for mulitplayer, if someone likes to do so, he should of course do so.
Here I have to disagree again. Many players like to practice vs AI for different reasons.
LiquidTyler for example likes to practice buildorders vs AI (or rather in absence of an opposing player) in order to make corrections, adjustments, to test and to flesh out very precise timings.
I like to practice vs AI in order to improve my mechanics, because I am out of shape and I see that it greatly impacts my ability to efficiently learn the game.
I have played Broodwar in the past so I know how fast I can be and carry some knowledge of Starcraft basics. I have barely played SC2, so I don't know anything about SC2 matchups at all, but continuously get placed into Diamond regardless of the race I play
SC2 is a strategy game. I want to learn SC2. My knowledge of SC2 matchups doesn't live up to the knowledge of other people in Diamond. Yet I can't focus on learning the game because executing what I know from Broodwar alone still consumes a majority of my focus.
The most easily improved limiting factor for me are mechanics. I can't focus on learning strategies, but at the same time most of my losses will come from more knowledgable people. I can't practice mechanics, because unknown or unprepared for buildorders catch me by surprise and throw me off my game. So I like to practice mechanics vs AI.
Like for LiquidTyler, it allows me to focus on a specific thing while ensuring a distraction free environment. This also works for people wanting to practice one matchup in many consecutive games, which ladder does not allow for.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 18 2011 21:19 Timm wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 20:29 Blurb wrote:How many have noticed that win/lose ratio is still partially visible? There's this blue bar that represents total wins and losses, so if there's any consistency to it, we can determine a player's win/lose just by glancing at said bar. Example of 0% win and 100% win. + Show Spoiler +(You can add me on EU server to verify that I my win/lose ratios are in fact 0% and 100%, character code is 938) Hey, I;ve checked a few profiles and i think the bars are actually representing the % of wins per leage.. For example: 5 1v1 wins and 5 2v2 wins means they are both 50%
I can't figure out where it's pulling the data anymore since they removed the "total games" counter, because now you get situations like this: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1251071/1/sjArtosis/ That's a perfect 50% ratio but the green bar is the same length as the blue one.
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On April 07 2011 00:23 [F_]aths wrote:
Now let's say you had a bad day, you are a bit tired and afraid of playing 1v1 since you could lose a lot of games today. You could decide to rather not play to keep your 51% win statistic. Okay, a week or two weeks later you feel great but you are afraid that the strategies developed further and you would get crushed.
This actually happened to me (or a very similar scenario) and then I got hooked on another game for a while and now it's been like a month or two and it's definitely nerve-wracking to try to come back to playing regularly. What if I can't adjust to the way the game has developed, or the new maps? Overall I think the way the ladder is will probably help me get over this hump.
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On April 18 2011 23:48 enzym wrote:
Let me explain what I meant here and why I expressed myself like I did.
Your post assumes that there can be no other meaning to the w/l statistic for other people than the one which you can see for yourself and have addressed in that post, despite several people in this thread explaining why they would like to see this statistic for different reasons. I have been ignorant about it because I consider it a matter of facts, not of opinions.
Since Blizzard designed the AMM (automatic match making) to give you a fair match, it tries to give you an opponent you can beat with a 50% chance. Deviations in win ratio from 50% only prove that the AMM cannot always be 100% correct in estimating the player's skill. The more games you play, the more data the AMM has about you and the more correct it can work. As I checked via sc2ranks.com the ratio of players with many games, I found no unusual high deviations, save for very top-players or inactive / extremely poor players.
I admit that my tone is may be a bit more aggressive/ignorant than it should be. However I see no real point to continue the discussion about win ratio meaning until someone proves that the aforementioned argument is wrong.
In this thread we had some discussions about short-term as well as long-term influence of certain actions regarding the win ratio. Overall I never saw a proof that skill can be measured in win ratio because this AMM is designed to get you to 50%.
Some users still think "here, i have a positive win ratio. I crush other people more than I get crushed.", implying "This has to say something". But it don't. If you buy a new account, smurf yourself to bronze league and intentionally lose 5-10 more games to get on a streak where you stomp 20 guys in a row, what does it prove?
If you not smurf, but somehow were considered too week comparing to your true skill and therefore have a positive ratio for some times (it eventually will even out unless you are really pro) what does it say about your skill?
If you were on a perfect 50% ratio but had a skill boost and stomp 10 or 20 guys with few losses inbetween, what does the >50% ratio tell about your absolute skill level?
Nothing. Someone in a higher league which currently is in a slump and has <50% win, will probably still crush you.
On April 18 2011 23:48 enzym wrote:
Here I have to disagree again. Many players like to practice vs AI for different reasons. Yes, you can use the AI mode as sandbox to practice build orders or other mechanical stuff. I meant to actually play against AI to beat it to prepare for multiplayer. Even if someone never played any RTS before, I would advise him to practice that in real games. He will lose a lot in the beginning, but eventually his MMR adapts. He also needs that low MMR to get points and ladder ranking later.
I play a few vs AI games for another reason – achievements. Completely useless for my skill but I still want to have some easy achievement points.
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i think the league system as it is now, is pretty unnessesary because of that matchmaking rank you cant see, for whatever reason that might be
i, myself, am a bronze league player, atleast from what it shows to me, top 1 there with like 200 points more than the 2nd one, and still i dont get promoted to silver
now if i would have to play against bronze league players i could understand that, but if i check my opponents after the matches, they are atleast top10 silver, mostly gold and sometimes plat
i havent played against a bronze for ages, so what is the use of those leagues? and why cant you see how long it takes you to finally get promoted to the next one
its like, start of season 2, i made my placement stuff and got silver, thought i could go zerg for 5 matches, lost all of them, went down to bronze, went back to terran, won 22 out of 27 matches and have to stay bronze for the rest of my live
a mate of me instead got placed in silver, lost 1 match won 2 got promoted to gold, i think thats pretty random for a "system"
so 1 lose 2 wins is more than 5 lose 22 wins for that league thingy?
one thing i would like to see is having all bronze players in 1 division and stuff, so you can really see how good you are compared to the rest of the league, 100 players each division is kinda poor and doesnt show you anything
but well i guess even tho the ladder system has some problems, its probably a little cooler than just playing random games without any kind of points to get
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On April 19 2011 02:12 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 23:48 enzym wrote:
Let me explain what I meant here and why I expressed myself like I did.
Your post assumes that there can be no other meaning to the w/l statistic for other people than the one which you can see for yourself and have addressed in that post, despite several people in this thread explaining why they would like to see this statistic for different reasons. I have been ignorant about it because I consider it a matter of facts, not of opinions. Since Blizzard designed the AMM (automatic match making) to give you a fair match, it tries to give you an opponent you can beat with a 50% chance. Deviations in win ratio from 50% only prove that the AMM cannot always be 100% correct in estimating the player's skill. The more games you play, the more data the AMM has about you and the more correct it can work. As I checked via sc2ranks.com the ratio of players with many games, I found no unusual high deviations, save for very top-players or inactive / extremely poor players. I admit that my tone is may be a bit more aggressive/ignorant than it should be. However I see no real point to continue the discussion about win ratio meaning until someone proves that the aforementioned argument is wrong. In this thread we had some discussions about short-term as well as long-term influence of certain actions regarding the win ratio. Overall I never saw a proof that skill can be measured in win ratio because this AMM is designed to get you to 50%. Some users still think "here, i have a positive win ratio. I crush other people more than I get crushed.", implying "This has to say something". But it don't. If you buy a new account, smurf yourself to bronze league and intentionally lose 5-10 more games to get on a streak where you stomp 20 guys in a row, what does it prove? If you not smurf, but somehow were considered too week comparing to your true skill and therefore have a positive ratio for some times (it eventually will even out unless you are really pro) what does it say about your skill? If you were on a perfect 50% ratio but had a skill boost and stomp 10 or 20 guys with few losses inbetween, what does the >50% ratio tell about your absolute skill level? Nothing. Someone in a higher league which currently is in a slump and has <50% win, will probably still crush you.
I like to base arguments around facts rather than opinions as well. Opinions are then built upon these arguments.
I will try to explain how I see the situation according to the above mentioned principle.
Regarding the issue at hand there are at least two camps.
Camp 1 is of the opinion that the only meaning of the w/l statistic lies with its statistical meaning, with its statistical significance. Its statistical significance is a fact which is, as I see it, uncontested. It is a fact that w/l ratio loses significance the less close you are to either the very top or the bottom of the ladder and the more games you play. You are part of that camp.
Camp 2 is of the opinion that there can be other meaningul ways to interpret w/l ratio, that there are valid reasons to value the visibility of it other than for its statistical significance. Reasons by which this statistic has meaning for people were given in this thread:
-as an indicator of proximity to a stabilized MMR (how far are you from approaching your true, current skill and is it going up or down)
-as an indicator of the perceived Blizzard opinion about the use/function of the ladder and its representation of certain ideological values (competitiveness, honesty/transparency, completeness, others)
I am part of that camp.
There are indisputable facts which are made into arguments and around which opinions are based.
You are of the opinion that the meaning of w/l lies with its statistical significance. That is a valid opinion.
I, and others, are of the opinion that there can be and in fact are other reasons for people to value the visibility of that statistic. This is a valid opinion.
I cannot force you to find meaning in it for yourself in the same way we do. I acknowledge that your opinion is different from my own but is valid.
You cannot force others to find meaning in it for themselves only in the way you do. You cannot argue that there is only one meaningful way to interpret w/l, because evidently as by this thread there are people who do find it meaningful in other ways. This is a fact. You should acknowledge that our opinion is different from your own but is valid.
On April 19 2011 02:12 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 23:48 enzym wrote:
Here I have to disagree again. Many players like to practice vs AI for different reasons. Yes, you can use the AI mode as sandbox to practice build orders or other mechanical stuff. I meant to actually play against AI to beat it to prepare for multiplayer. Even if someone never played any RTS before, I would advise him to practice that in real games. He will lose a lot in the beginning, but eventually his MMR adapts. He also needs that low MMR to get points and ladder ranking later.
I understand what you mean, but doubt that the differentiation between "practicing against the challenge which the AI poses" and "practicing AI unrelated things in a game with an AI" is useful in this context. Both of them have the AI in the game and both of them prepare you for multiplayer play.
Of course you can't practice matchup strategies against the AI other than the way LiquidTyler does it. It is possible that I am missing the forest through the trees here though. Right now it seems strange to me.
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On April 18 2011 21:11 Timm wrote:
IMO this is the flaw with the current division system: The points do not actually reflect how high up you are in your division (in other words your hidden MMR). In platinum and lower it essentially means how well you where able to deplete your bonus pool which is a matter of playing enough games.
If you start winning more you'll eventually move up, so you cant really focus on becomming first in your division (< masters).. Yes the current system has several flaws. But one can approximate the current rating with the average of the opponents (regardless if one won or lost those games.)
If one often gets opponents from a higher league, it is probable that the MMR is comparable to the MMR of a higher division tier within that league. I see how I am improve with the opponents I get. Even with the tier obfuscation it is possible to roughly guess where I stand.
You need just to win a game per day (roughly 7 per week or just play 14 games per week if we assume 50% win ratio) to use up the bonus pool. The bonus pool advantage awards an active player a free win every day for the ladder ranking (of course not for MMR skill ranking.) This is not too much I think.
Excalibur somewhere mentioned the league mindset. To somewhat combat this, Blizzard introduced the division rankings with top-8 and so on but of course this is still inaccurate because we don't know the division modifier. But it does give anyone something to work for. Even if you suck, Top-50 can be achieved with activity and you can tell yourself that just 50% of the players will be ranked Top-50. It still does not really describes the skill but it is a goal one can work for.
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On April 18 2011 23:48 enzym wrote:
I understand what you mean, but doubt that the differentiation between "practicing against the challenge which the AI poses" and "practicing AI unrelated things in a game with an AI" is useful in this context. Both of them have the AI in the game and both of them prepare you for multiplayer play.
Of course you can't practice matchup strategies against the AI other than the way LiquidTyler does it. It is possible that I am missing the forest through the trees here though. Right now it seems strange to me. Sandbox play like versus AI is of course good to practice build orders since you can setup a sandbox game fast and with no need of having another player available.
While I don't think one should play too much versus AI in the sense of playing full games versus AI and not just for mechanical practice, I LIKE that Blizzard gives the option even for teamplay versus AI. That is great for casual players who don't like the pressure of facing real humans as opponent. While those players will not improve very much, they still have fun. Blizzard even awards this mode with some achievements, making it one of the officially approved ways to enjoy starcraft. Elitist gamers may be look down to vs AI players but in my opinion, it's upon them to decide how to experience the game.
On April 19 2011 03:04 enzym wrote:
Camp 2 is of the opinion that there can be other meaningul ways to interpret w/l ratio, that there are valid reasons to value the visibility of it other than for its statistical significance. Reasons by which this statistic has meaning for people were given in this thread:
-as an indicator of proximity to a stabilized MMR (how far are you from approaching your true, current skill and is it going up or down) To see if your MMR stabilized, you can check your match history and check win/loss ratio for the last 50 or so games. You don't need the total win ratio. The total win ratio will get you in the wrong mindset. Lets say you have 49% and are afraid of getting even lower. So you play less ladder overall. This is not how ladder should work.
There is also more statistical noise than one initially assumes. The average distance of a 4-streak series (wins or losses) is just 30 games. You will have winning or losing streaks even with no skill improvement or degradation. How can you know that you lost 5 or 6 games in a row is due to being in a slump or due to random noise? You cannot know, you can just assume. You can still have your assumptions without an overall loss counter.
But you can compare the opponent's level you get. This gives you an idea about your true standing. It also gives you an idea about your skill plateauing or not. This is meaningful information. The win ratio is not.
There are even more factors. Assume you are good versus terran but bad versus protoss. That means you lose MMR rating because of your losses versus protoss and therefore get terrans below your overall skill. If you by coincidence gets 6 terrans in 10 games, you will probably win a lot. But this says nothing about your overall skill.
On April 19 2011 03:04 enzym wrote:
-as an indicator of the perceived Blizzard opinion about the use/function of the ladder and its representation of certain ideological values (competitiveness, honesty/transparency, completeness, others)
Originally I was against win ratio removal, too; even though I already knew that it is meaningless. I felt that Blizzard takes something away from me. Even though it is not useful, I don't like a patch where I have less afterward than I had before. omgwtfbbq, just let it how it was! That were my thoughts.
But are those toughts right? A win ratio display does not do anything good for Diamond or below. While some people would consider it more competitive, there would be less ladder games overall. Ladder match search therefore would be longer and less accurate. This should not be a design goal.
It is no sign of honesty to show the win ratio when whe win ratio is meaningless by the very design of the AMM. It is also not more complete when irrelevant data is shown. Having data visible which leads you into the trap that it would mean something while in fact it does not, leads to a wrong mindset.
Therefore it is acceptable to remove irrelevant data.
With few games played, the expected deviation of the data is high of course. With more games played, you get closer to 50% regardless no matter what (unless you are really pro.) But the absolute distance from exact 50% will still rise. Since few people have the statistical education to understand those data, it is good to hide it. Otherwise they will put meaning in what is nothing than random noise. Showing statistical noise has nothing to do with ladder transparency. It distracts from real skill improvement since you put your thoughts on the ratio while you should not.
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On April 19 2011 02:50 xRivoNx wrote:
i think the league system as it is now, is pretty unnessesary because of that matchmaking rank you cant see, for whatever reason that might be i, myself, am a bronze league player, atleast from what it shows to me, top 1 there with like 200 points more than the 2nd one, and still i dont get promoted to silver Because you are not winning versus silver players consistent enough. Either you don't get much silver opponents in the first place, or you are still too much losing versus bronze players. Because you are active, you gets the full bonus pool advantage and can be top in your division.
This is one of the things which confuses people, that especially in bronze with a big lead in points, you are not necessarily eligible for league promotion. Blizzard should explain the ladder a bit better. Excalibur's ladder guide explains it very good. It's a shame that the community must do the work for Blizzard.
You say that you sometimes play versus "top" silver players. Those players could from the lowest silver tier (there are 3 tiers in silver which one cannot see however) and have the issue that they just win versus bronze players like you. Since they are active, they are ranked quite high.
On April 19 2011 02:50 xRivoNx wrote:
its like, start of season 2, i made my placement stuff and got silver, thought i could go zerg for 5 matches, lost all of them, went down to bronze, went back to terran, won 22 out of 27 matches and have to stay bronze for the rest of my live No-one has to, because there are always at least 20% more lazy than you. (So by definition of bronze, 20% have to stay in there, but I guess that more than 20% of the active players don't really want to improve.)
Coming myself from gold, you can believe me that I know from first-hand experience how it is to feel to be a bronze league hero. But it is a lesson to learn. You are free of any angst that you could get demoted further. You suddenly can focus on the game without worrying to lose because you have to experiment a lot.
On April 19 2011 02:50 xRivoNx wrote:
a mate of me instead got placed in silver, lost 1 match won 2 got promoted to gold, i think thats pretty random for a "system"
so 1 lose 2 wins is more than 5 lose 22 wins for that league thingy? It is not how much you win (hence the meaningless of win ratio.) It's about against who you win. If your friend lost 1 to gold but also won 2 to gold, he belongs in gold league.
On April 19 2011 02:50 xRivoNx wrote:
one thing i would like to see is having all bronze players in 1 division and stuff, so you can really see how good you are compared to the rest of the league, 100 players each division is kinda poor and doesnt show you anything It is even worse because Excalibur found out that bronze consists of 7 skill tiers. So you hardly can know your real standing within bronze. But you should check the opponents you get (regardless if you won or lost.) When you get only bronze players, you have to improve a lot to finally get promoted. If you win versus Silver and you don't get promoted, you win only versus sucking silver players which are close to be demoted to bronze or you are not playing consistent enough yet (meaning that you still lose too much to bronze players.)
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On April 19 2011 04:04 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 03:04 enzym wrote:
Camp 2 is of the opinion that there can be other meaningul ways to interpret w/l ratio, that there are valid reasons to value the visibility of it other than for its statistical significance. Reasons by which this statistic has meaning for people were given in this thread:
-as an indicator of proximity to a stabilized MMR (how far are you from approaching your true, current skill and is it going up or down) To see if your MMR stabilized, you can check your match history and check win/loss ratio for the last 50 or so games. You don't need the total win ratio. The total win ratio will get you in the wrong mindset. Lets say you have 49% and are afraid of getting even lower. So you play less ladder overall. This is not how ladder should work. There is also more statistical noise than one initially assumes. The average distance of a 4-streak series (wins or losses) is just 30 games. You will have winning or losing streaks even with no skill improvement or degradation. How can you know that you lost 5 or 6 games in a row is due to being in a slump or due to random noise? You cannot know, you can just assume. You can still have your assumptions without an overall loss counter. But you can compare the opponent's level you get. This gives you an idea about your true standing. It also gives you an idea about your skill plateauing or not. This is meaningful information. The win ratio is not. There are even more factors. Assume you are good versus terran but bad versus protoss. That means you lose MMR rating because of your losses versus protoss and therefore get terrans below your overall skill. If you by coincidence gets 6 terrans in 10 games, you will probably win a lot. But this says nothing about your overall skill.
None of this invalidates the opinion against which you are arguing. This is the case because you base your counter-argument on very specific scenarios instead of basing it on all of them.
You speak of streaks of 5 or 6 games, but Camp 2 never defined any streak length to base their argument on. Statistical expressiveness of streaks increases with growing number of wins/losses making up that streak, and the validity of Camp 2's argument increases with it. Larger streaks can occur when players return to the ladder after a break in which their skill either deteriorated or increased, while their MMR did not get any of that information.
Yes, displaying streaks would be more meaningful in that regard than displaying w/l, but gauging it by w/l is still better than not being able to gauge it at all, at least according to Camp 2.
Yes, you can check your match history for that. Or you can express a desire to have a dedicated stat displaying it better (w/l, streak).
Yes, differing proficiency in different matchups reduces the meaningfulness of overall MMR for gauging a trend. But gauging a trend by overall MMR is preferable to not being able to gauge it at all, according to Camp 2. Furthermore the matchup breakdown argument calls for the inclusion of more/better statistics (matchup specific ones), like some people in this thread have asked for, instead of the removal of information, which you are defending.
Lastly, the claim that w/l will get you into the wrong mindset is purely anecdotal and is not applicable to everyone. People will stop playing for fear of losing w/l, and people will play more because of a desire to restore or achieve a better w/l, just like you pointed out in a different thread: "Yesterday I needed 8 games to get mere six points to get back my old division placement. If I would have fail at that I just would play more games today. I think I will play today anyway even if I risk my rank."
On April 19 2011 04:04 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 03:04 enzym wrote:
-as an indicator of the perceived Blizzard opinion about the use/function of the ladder and its representation of certain ideological values (competitiveness, honesty/transparency, completeness, others) Originally I was against win ratio removal, too; even though I already knew that it is meaningless. A win ratio display does not do anything good for Diamond or below. While some people would consider it more competitive, there would be less ladder games overall. Ladder match search therefore would be longer and less accurate. This should not be a design goal. It is no sign of honesty to show the win ratio when whe win ratio is meaningless by the very design of the AMM. It is also not more complete when irrelevant data is shown. Having data visible which leads you into the trap that it would mean something while in fact it does not, leads to a wrong mindset. Therefore it is acceptable to remove irrelevant data. With few games played, the expected deviation of the data is high of course. With more games played, you get closer to 50% regardless no matter what (unless you are really pro.) But the absolute distance from exact 50% will still rise. Since few people have the statistical education to understand those data, it is good to hide it. Otherwise they will put meaning in what is nothing than random noise. Showing statistical noise has nothing to do with ladder transparency. It distracts from real skill improvement since you put your thoughts on the ratio while you should not.
How can it be more honest to provide less information?
How can the removal of a statistic lead to increased completeness of the statistical framework?
Lastly, the claim that there would be less ladder games overall is purely anecdotal again.
Even if it was true it does not invalidate the argument presented by Camp 2.
On top of that plenty of ladders in plenty of games have seen great activity despite having w/l and other statistics displayed.
To complete the round of doubt: What if the psychological effect of w/l on ladder activity is true, but only acts on ladder activity and anxiety in the short term while shifting that fear level and orientating it towards a different reason in the long term? I.e., assuming that this psychological effect is real and significant, what if that fear shifts from an orientation to w/l to an orientation to a different stat which will then replace it?
I don't see how you are going to resolve this issue to beyond it being an issue of opinion vs opinion, which means that it will be hard to defend the removal of that statistic over an option which would allow people to choose for themselves.
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On April 19 2011 01:44 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 21:19 Timm wrote:On April 18 2011 20:29 Blurb wrote:How many have noticed that win/lose ratio is still partially visible? There's this blue bar that represents total wins and losses, so if there's any consistency to it, we can determine a player's win/lose just by glancing at said bar. Example of 0% win and 100% win. + Show Spoiler +(You can add me on EU server to verify that I my win/lose ratios are in fact 0% and 100%, character code is 938) Hey, I;ve checked a few profiles and i think the bars are actually representing the % of wins per leage.. For example: 5 1v1 wins and 5 2v2 wins means they are both 50% I can't figure out where it's pulling the data anymore since they removed the "total games" counter, because now you get situations like this: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1251071/1/sjArtosis/ That's a perfect 50% ratio but the green bar is the same length as the blue one.
That does look strange indeed. However, when you look here: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1251071/1/sjArtosis/ladder/ it turns out he does in fact have equal wins an losses.
So, on the profile overview page the bar represents wins, but the label next to it represents total games. Could be a bug for the masters league, since in all other leagues the bar and the label both represent wins..
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On April 19 2011 03:31 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2011 21:11 Timm wrote:
IMO this is the flaw with the current division system: The points do not actually reflect how high up you are in your division (in other words your hidden MMR). In platinum and lower it essentially means how well you where able to deplete your bonus pool which is a matter of playing enough games.
If you start winning more you'll eventually move up, so you cant really focus on becomming first in your division (< masters).. Yes the current system has several flaws. But one can approximate the current rating with the average of the opponents (regardless if one won or lost those games.) If one often gets opponents from a higher league, it is probable that the MMR is comparable to the MMR of a higher division tier within that league. I see how I am improve with the opponents I get. Even with the tier obfuscation it is possible to roughly guess where I stand. You need just to win a game per day (roughly 7 per week or just play 14 games per week if we assume 50% win ratio) to use up the bonus pool. The bonus pool advantage awards an active player a free win every day for the ladder ranking (of course not for MMR skill ranking.) This is not too much I think. Excalibur somewhere mentioned the league mindset. To somewhat combat this, Blizzard introduced the division rankings with top-8 and so on but of course this is still inaccurate because we don't know the division modifier. But it does give anyone something to work for. Even if you suck, Top-50 can be achieved with activity and you can tell yourself that just 50% of the players will be ranked Top-50. It still does not really describes the skill but it is a goal one can work for.
Yeah, I try to find my real skill level as well by looking at opponent levels, and try to end as high as possible in my league.
The funny thing is though that the people that are at the top of for example platinum with a big amounth of games are just not better than people in platinum with less games.The people with fewer games maybe just didnt reach their true skill level yet.
Meanwhile everybody is talking about being high platinum or whatever like it means something.
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United States22883 Posts
Honestly, I agree with the OP. The ladder does exactly what it should do, from Blizzard's end. There are some faults, but they're not particularly relevant to the vast majority of people using the ladder, and those are the people Blizzard really needs to sell the multiplayer aspects to. Pro gamers don't need a good ladder from Blizzard in order to find games.
That said, I don't think the ladder is a very good practice tool and it's unfortunate that it carries all the weight when Blizzard picks candidates for their tournaments. The random match up and map selection means that you really can't refine your play particularly well. You can't keep track of subtle adjustments to a build or aggression, because similar matches are often so far apart.
It can be useful for basics or as a warm up, but with hardcore improvement as the goal, rather than winning as the goal, Custom games are a much better system, and it's a shame we don't have iCCup style channels to find games.
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I hate that losses were removed. I now can't calculate my win/loss ratio. If they wanted to appeal to the noobs, they should leave an option to display losses or not, and be selective of who to display losses to. Such as, Bob is ashamed of his losses, so he decides to opt into not showing them to others, but Rick over here isn't entirely proud of his losses but would like to see his progression, so he opts to see his losses but not share them. Jeff over here wants people to see his win/loss ratio, and have his friends check out his progression through his win/loss ratio changing. That is how I'd like it, I personally wouldn't show my losses to others until I'm above 50% which I am sure I am at this point, because in season 1 I was at 60% or higher by the time it was done. But still trapped in bronze, facing silvers and golds without a huge loss if I do lose...this is where the Blizzard matchmaking system fails hard. You can beat people way better than you, and still not progress because you may have done something stupid (like me) and skipped practice league out of boredom, considering that it's played at "normal" speed. I didn't get into WC3 because of how slowly it was played at.
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On April 19 2011 03:04 enzym wrote:
-as an indicator of proximity to a stabilized MMR (how far are you from approaching your true, current skill and is it going up or down)
This isn't an accurate interpretation of win/loss ratios, because the matchmaking system doesn't try to stabilize a long-term win/loss ratio at 50% -- it's looking to find individual player matchups with a 50/50 likelihood of each player winning. A high or low win/loss ratio can simply memorialize some MMR excursion from the past when current games are 50/50. (Eventually, if the total number of games greatly exceeds the length of such an excursion, the long-term w/l will approach 50%, but the system isn't trying to make that happen faster than it would by optimizing the short term likelihood of a win.)
-as an indicator of the perceived Blizzard opinion about the use/function of the ladder and its representation of certain ideological values (competitiveness, honesty/transparency, completeness, others)
The only "ideology" involved in a system that strives for a 50/50 likelihood of a win in matching is that individual games shouldn't be one-sided if it can be avoided. Beyond that (honesty? really?), you're talking nonsense, sorry.
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On April 19 2011 17:04 Lysenko wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 03:04 enzym wrote:
-as an indicator of proximity to a stabilized MMR (how far are you from approaching your true, current skill and is it going up or down) This isn't an accurate interpretation of win/loss ratios, because the matchmaking system doesn't try to stabilize a long-term win/loss ratio at 50% -- it's looking to find individual player matchups with a 50/50 likelihood of each player winning. A high or low win/loss ratio can simply memorialize some MMR excursion from the past when current games are 50/50. (Eventually, if the total number of games greatly exceeds the length of such an excursion, the long-term w/l will approach 50%, but the system isn't trying to make that happen faster than it would by optimizing the short term likelihood of a win.) Show nested quote +-as an indicator of the perceived Blizzard opinion about the use/function of the ladder and its representation of certain ideological values (competitiveness, honesty/transparency, completeness, others) The only "ideology" involved in a system that strives for a 50/50 likelihood of a win in matching is that individual games shouldn't be one-sided if it can be avoided. Beyond that (honesty? really?), you're talking nonsense, sorry.
How am I talking nonsense exactly? I wasn't sure how else to call it. But people perceive the removal of that statistic as being part of Blizzard's catering to less competitive, more "fragile" and more casual players by obfuscating an accurate display of your match history and derived stats. That counts as dishonesty to me. It counts as promoting feel good aspects over the competitive ones. And removing the display of a stat makes the framework of available information less complete.
Ideological is probably not the right word, but I don't know how else to call it and honesty, completeness and competition do represent virtues/values to some people.
Regarding the first part - you already acknowledged that it will get closer to 50/50 the more games you play, and I already addressed the issue of its inaccuracy in a post right befor yours. So I don't know why you would mention it again.
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On April 19 2011 05:00 enzym wrote:
You speak of streaks of 5 or 6 games, but Camp 2 never defined any streak length to base their argument on. Statistical expressiveness of streaks increases with growing number of wins/losses making up that streak, and the validity of Camp 2's argument increases with it. Larger streaks can occur when players return to the ladder after a break in which their skill either deteriorated or increased, while their MMR did not get any of that information. Some weeks ago I had a streak of 9 or 10 games won (1v1 ladder) in a row. This can happen. Day[9] once told he had lost 14 games in a row, and he is a pro. There is less meaning in quite large streaks than one would normally assume.
To combat the uncertainty of a player's skill when he was inactive for a while, it is believed that the confidence interval for the MMR is automatically widened. This means you get opponents from a greater skill range to allow the MMR to adapt faster. Once you get back from a larger break, the win or loss streak should not be too large.
On April 19 2011 05:00 enzym wrote:
Yes, displaying streaks would be more meaningful in that regard than displaying w/l, but gauging it by w/l is still better than not being able to gauge it at all, at least according to Camp 2. At this point, this camp is wrong. W/L counter should not be compared to estimate improvement. The quality of the opponents you get provides a real hint about the current MMR ranking.
If we assume a theoretically perfectly working AMM (which of course can never be made) your win chance will be 50% every game. The AMM is not perfect of course. This means, deviations from 50% winratio are signs of an imperfect AMM.
The trick is to provide 50% for any current match. If you would get a pro when you are >50% and a noob when you are <50%, the ratio would be very close to 50% but the games would not be much fun because you either get stomped or you get a victim instead of a worthy opponent. Since the AMM wants to provide 50% chance for any new game, there are some side effects which can lead to deviations from a 50% win ratio. But those side effect don't inform you about your skill. It only informs you how good the AMM works.
Getting more wins than losses can even delay your league promotion. Since you win so much, you get opponents which are not strong enough. What you want is to get about 50% because then you get opponents of your true skill. If you want to get up to gold, you should not be happy to bash many silver players in a row. What you want is that the AMM throws the gold players at you since only this qualifies you for the promotion.
Removing information which causes more trouble than insight is a good thing I guess. While there are some players who still don't like the change, overall I see more players voicing that they play more once the loss counter was removed. This alone justifies it.
One cannot expect from everyone to get a competitive mindset just because he wants to play Starcraft multiplayer matches. There is a thread on TL about being nervous when searching a ladder match. Many players admit that they still are nervous. With the removal of the loss counter, the ladder takes some pressure away.
In this thread, I only heard people who stated that they play more now. No-one said that he play less since he cannot see his loss counter.
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On April 19 2011 16:42 Creegz wrote:Such as, Bob is ashamed of his losses, so he decides to opt into not showing them to others, but Rick over here isn't entirely proud of his losses but would like to see his progression, so he opts
To bash bob for not man-ing up and showing losses. This is the life of the internet.
In a sense, i like what alot of what OP wrote because it applies to me, a guy who bought sc2 day one, threw 20 matches in, then havent touched 1v1 since.
I, myself, honestly want all leagues besides diamond+ to be toned down a bit. Not that placing gold was bad or anything, i hate having to enter a "tryhard" mode to win games for "fun"
Little irrelevant steps in the way dont bother me, ill be unphased by the removal of losses, but i enjoy the lightheartedness that comes from it.
When i go ladder, i find myself to 4gates, timed zerged rushes, proxy terran buildings with abusive pronged attacks at the 8 min mark.
Not that its hard to deal with, and a bit of effort i could leave this, I just want to play to enjoy.
I wanna play long macro games, test unit comps, enjoy myself for 15-30 min a game but the people around me look for the fastest win to the next match.
Hopefully everyone lightens up so i can get some care-free matches in.
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On April 19 2011 18:02 [F_]aths wrote:
Removing information which causes more trouble than insight is a good thing I guess. While there are some players who still don't like the change, overall I see more players voicing that they play more once the loss counter was removed. This alone justifies it.
[...]
In this thread, I only heard people who stated that they play more now. No-one said that he play less since he cannot see his loss counter.
After all your knowledge about the AMM and about statistics, one would expect that you are aware of the ambiguity of such a display. Seeing more people stating that they play more because of this change can have several reasons, only one of which is an actual overall increase in ladder activity.
It could also appear this way because of a perceptual bias (you pay more attention to them), it could be because these people are somehow more likely to express their opinion or because they are overrepresented on this website, forum or thread in general.
But most of all, even if a majority of people was happy about that change, it still doesn't mean that removing w/l is a better choice than providing an option, because without the option you are screwing other players over, as evidenced by this thread.
I know that I am showing negligible activity on the SC2 ladder and that the meaninglessness of that ladder with all its shenanigans is one reason for it. I did not state that earlier though, because it does not contribute to the discussion and because it has one additional reason (albeit one that is linked to it) as well.
On April 19 2011 18:02 [F_]aths wrote:
One cannot expect from everyone to get a competitive mindset just because he wants to play Starcraft multiplayer matches. There is a thread on TL about being nervous when searching a ladder match. Many players admit that they still are nervous. With the removal of the loss counter, the ladder takes some pressure away.
Nobody is expecting a competitive mindset from everyone. That's why most people who are opposing the removal of w/l are advocating an option to hide/show it.
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On April 19 2011 18:16 Snackysnacks wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 16:42 Creegz wrote:Such as, Bob is ashamed of his losses, so he decides to opt into not showing them to others, but Rick over here isn't entirely proud of his losses but would like to see his progression, so he opts To bash bob for not man-ing up and showing losses. This is the life of the internet. In a sense, i like what alot of what OP wrote because it applies to me, a guy who bought sc2 day one, threw 20 matches in, then havent touched 1v1 since. I, myself, honestly want all leagues besides diamond+ to be toned down a bit. Not that placing gold was bad or anything, i hate having to enter a "tryhard" mode to win games for "fun" Little irrelevant steps in the way dont bother me, ill be unphased by the removal of losses, but i enjoy the lightheartedness that comes from it. When i go ladder, i find myself to 4gates, timed zerged rushes, proxy terran buildings with abusive pronged attacks at the 8 min mark. Not that its hard to deal with, and a bit of effort i could leave this, I just want to play to enjoy. I wanna play long macro games, test unit comps, enjoy myself for 15-30 min a game but the people around me look for the fastest win to the next match. Hopefully everyone lightens up so i can get some care-free matches in.
I understand and feel your pain, I was in a similar place as you where, but i noticed the following from my jounry from gold to plat.
If you keep on wining and carry on wining then you will stay where you are until your MMR balance's out. I.e when I was top gold about 200 points above everyone else I was playing people in plat and wining. I then reached a point when my MMR got to high above my skill and I lost 6 games on the bounce. This then lowered my MMR back down and I started to play people mid to high plat and once i won/lost a few then I was promoted. This was done during 1 day.
The only conclusion that I can come to from this is you wont get promoted until your MMR is balanced to the level of your skill. If you are constantly wining all the time then your MMR is only going up and not able to balance out and give you your well earned promotion.
This is only my conclusion basied on the games and experance that I have and found playing on the EU ladder from silver to plat.
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On April 19 2011 18:16 Snackysnacks wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 16:42 Creegz wrote:Such as, Bob is ashamed of his losses, so he decides to opt into not showing them to others, but Rick over here isn't entirely proud of his losses but would like to see his progression, so he opts To bash bob for not man-ing up and showing losses. This is the life of the internet. Yes. An option to show losses could lead to trash talk if someone decides to hide his losses.
On April 19 2011 18:16 Snackysnacks wrote:
In a sense, i like what alot of what OP wrote because it applies to me, a guy who bought sc2 day one, threw 20 matches in, then havent touched 1v1 since. Did you play the campaign at least?
On April 19 2011 18:16 Snackysnacks wrote:
Hopefully everyone lightens up so i can get some care-free matches in. If you beat players who would have mop the floor with you just four weeks ago, feels great. Recently I survived things like 4gate or proxy-2-gate and turned it into a victory. They left without gg. That also changed my mind from "omgwtfbbq the sucker pushes me hard" into "lolol I just need to survive and even if I lose some drones I still outproduce him later."
Feeling improvement as a way to have more control over the game flow, is just great. While I have one-sided games from time to time, overall I get opponents which I could beat as well as I could get beaten, depending on who manages to make less mistakes. Blizzard does a great job matching the players.
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On April 19 2011 18:23 enzym wrote:
After all your knowledge about the AMM and about statistics, one would expect that you are aware of the ambiguity of such a display. Seeing more people stating that they play more because of this change can have several reasons, only one of which is an actual overall increase in ladder activity.
It could also appear this way because of a perceptual bias (you pay more attention to them), it could be because these people are somehow more likely to express their opinion or because they are overrepresented on this website, forum or thread in general. Normally a change gets more bashed than something established being not changed. Also negative comments normally are more prominent than positive comments. Blizzard did get some heat about the loss counter removal but at least as I perceive it, those critique came mostly from guys with no understanding that the win ratio is meaningless by design.
On April 19 2011 18:23 enzym wrote:
But most of all, even if a majority of people was happy about that change, it still doesn't mean that removing w/l is a better choice than providing an option, because without the option you are screwing other players over, as evidenced by this thread. You "screw" them to protect them from false assumptions. An option to show it could lead to trash talks "Hey nub, afraid to show your shitty win ratio?" You would not care about your losses if nobody else wouldn't care, too. Since other people could make fun of you, you feel pressure. An option to hide means an option to show and does not remove the pressure.
The player profile should provide more statistical data, but the overall win ratio is not one of the useful statistics. To offer an option to show/hide it does not remedy the issue of having a false impression about the meaning of the win ratio. To have an option to show it would imply that the win ratio would have a meaning – while in truth it does not.
You still can say that you want to see your losses anyway, of course. But as I perceive it, Blizzard did the overall right thing here in not allowing for Diamond and below. It is not possibly to create a system everyone agrees with anyway.
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On April 19 2011 16:29 Jibba wrote:
It can be useful for basics or as a warm up, but with hardcore improvement as the goal, rather than winning as the goal, Custom games are a much better system, and it's a shame we don't have iCCup style channels to find games. I think any good player has friends around his skill level to play a custom match against.
Having too good options for custom matches (effectively to play custom anytime you want, against opponents of the same skill level) would lead to practice there and only start a ladder game when one feels prepared. In my opinion, this is not how ladder should work.
The normal game should be a ladder game, even though you cannot train one map only for 7 days in a row. Blizzards own tournament with inviting the top ladder players should not hurt the pro who says "ladder doesn't matter" because there are many other tournaments. If I look at the ladder, I see that many pros don't take ladder too seriously.
For my part, I like how the ladder works because I like surprises in a game. I never know which map and which race I get to play agains. I also don't know if he will try to cheese me. I have to learn quickly about his style to exploit any weakness I can find.
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On April 19 2011 19:32 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 18:16 Snackysnacks wrote:On April 19 2011 16:42 Creegz wrote:Such as, Bob is ashamed of his losses, so he decides to opt into not showing them to others, but Rick over here isn't entirely proud of his losses but would like to see his progression, so he opts To bash bob for not man-ing up and showing losses. This is the life of the internet. Yes. An option to show losses could lead to trash talk if someone decides to hide his losses.
I've had an issue with that stance from the beginning but couldn't figure out why that is. I think I've finally realized it. You say that we can't expect everyone who wants to play SC2 multiplayer to have a competetive mindset, so we have to go along with catering to sensitive people. But if I turn that around (the ladder is a competitive environment and we expect other people to go along with us being able to experience it as such) it suddenly becomes wrong. I think that this is a double standard and inconsistent and therefor not justifiable.
On April 19 2011 19:58 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 18:23 enzym wrote:
After all your knowledge about the AMM and about statistics, one would expect that you are aware of the ambiguity of such a display. Seeing more people stating that they play more because of this change can have several reasons, only one of which is an actual overall increase in ladder activity.
It could also appear this way because of a perceptual bias (you pay more attention to them), it could be because these people are somehow more likely to express their opinion or because they are overrepresented on this website, forum or thread in general. Normally a change gets more bashed than something established being not changed. Also negative comments normally are more prominent than positive comments. Blizzard did get some heat about the loss counter removal but at least as I perceive it, those critique came mostly from guys with no understanding that the win ratio is meaningless by design.
Regardless of whether this is perceptional bias or hearsay it is not a solid base for an argument.
I also just spent several extensive posts explaining why w/l is not meaningless in all circumstances, as well as trying to point out why a complete removal of it might be a bad choice independent of that.
On April 19 2011 19:58 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 18:23 enzym wrote:
But most of all, even if a majority of people was happy about that change, it still doesn't mean that removing w/l is a better choice than providing an option, because without the option you are screwing other players over, as evidenced by this thread. You "screw" them to protect them from false assumptions. An option to show it could lead to trash talks "Hey nub, afraid to show your shitty win ratio?" You would not care about your losses if nobody else wouldn't care, too. Since other people could make fun of you, you feel pressure. An option to hide means an option to show and does not remove the pressure. The player profile should provide more statistical data, but the overall win ratio is not one of the useful statistics. To offer an option to show/hide it does not remedy the issue of having a false impression about the meaning of the win ratio. To have an option to show it would imply that the win ratio would have a meaning – while in truth it does not. You still can say that you want to see your losses anyway, of course. But as I perceive it, Blizzard did the overall right thing here in not allowing for Diamond and below.
I don't think that it has been sufficiently established that all of the reasoning in favour of w/l or an option brought forth in this discussion is based on false assumptions.
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On April 19 2011 18:23 enzym wrote:
Regardless of whether this is perceptional bias or hearsay it is not a solid base for an argument. Correct. The same applies to your objection. I can back up my conclusion with some examples while there still is no-one who states he will play less ladder since he must count his losses manually. This may be not counts as a mathematical proof but it is enough for me to judge Blizzard's decision to be a good one. The real mistake Blizzard did was to show the loss counter in the first place.
On April 19 2011 20:04 enzym wrote:
I also just spent several extensive posts explaining why w/l is not meaningless in all circumstances, as well as trying to point out why a complete removal of it might be a bad choice independent of that. While there are effects which can lead to a positive or negative win ratio, this only proves the imperfections of the current MMR calculation. The MM-rating relies on incomplete information and therefore can never be completely correct. Since the AMM is designed to get you to 50% in the long run, one should not look at the "real" win ratio because it is distorted by several imperfections as well as random noise.
The ladder is largely designed for nonprofessional players since they are the largest part of the SC2 player base. Especially Bronze-to-Diamond is made for nonprofessional players. I argued that Blizzard's goal is not to turn them to pro but to encourage them to play a lot. They implemented several goals for us non-pros, including achievements, milestones, portraits, decals, a ladder ranking. It also tries to provide fair matches (which means that you have 50% chance to win.) What do you learn from a deviation from 50%? Only that the MMR is lagging behind the real skill.
And this is something you don't want. If you are in a slump, you want get easier opponents fast. If you are on a killing spree, it may be would good for your ego to let you continue to stomp lesser players. But since you are not learning from those games, you want to get better opponents fast.
In real life, many players would actually like to stomp lesser-skilled playes as many SC1 or WC3 players made smurf accounts to bash noobs and then brag around with their good win ratio. Blizzard now "screws" them to provide fair matches for everyone because you have only one account per game.
The ladder system from Bronze up to Diamond includes intentional misunderstandings. If you are a bad player and the MMR finally adjusted, you have the impression you improved while in fact you have not. This sounds so wrong to tell a real noob "No, you are not that bad. Here, look, you won some games already !" But this will keep him playing and eventually he can improve if he wants to. If not, he still had fun and Blizzard has his money. Good for both sides.
The intentional false ranking within the division also keeps folk playing. Lets say you are top in platinum and finally get promoted. If any division in each league would be equal and span the full league range, you would now either accept a very low diamond ranking forever or improve really a lot. With the invisible division modifier however, you can still get a good ranking in your division. This artificially will show you some progress while in fact there is may be no skill improvement at all, you are just using up your bonus pool. This also sounds so wrong, simulating progress where is none!
The upside is that the promoted player feels encouraged to play more. The more players in the ladder, the faster and more accurate the game matching. Division modifiers hurt the skill comparison but also mean less time waiting and less one-sided matches.
If you want to get in the competitive part of the ladder, you need to earn it with become a master league player. At this level you have shown a nice understanding of the game. Many gold and above players also consider themself quite good and make excused why their league does not reflect their true skill. Those players are not ready yet to get in the really competitive ladder part because they are not good enough yet. (For the record: I am currently placed in Bronze and know that I suck big-time.)
Both things (perceived improvement where is none due to MMR adjusting, invisible division modifiers) are hurting competitive play much more than the removal of the loss counter. It still is a good thing considering the goal for this part of the ladder which is to keep them playing. Players who take skill improving seriously enough will eventually get to Master level anyway. All master divisions are equal, there are no different modifiers so you can compare division rankings.
In the end, you have to accept that Blizzard does not consider you a really competitive player unless you are in Master. It sounds harsh, but it is the truth considering the facts (like division modifiers.)
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I believe all of this is highly irrelevant because a simple look up on sc2 ranks will reveal all losses anyway if you are"hardcore"enough to care.
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On April 19 2011 22:10 MusiK wrote:
I believe all of this is highly irrelevant because a simple look up on sc2 ranks will reveal all losses anyway if you are"hardcore"enough to care. Sc2ranks.com does not display my losses because the site does not have access to that data. It can pull the losses only for master and grand master player.
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As a casual SC2 player who mostly plays team games, let me say that the ladder does not always do a good job. I currently am on something like a 15 game 4 v 4 losing streak where I've been the top guy in points on my team for over half. I swear my allies are -bronze. Just had a game last night where I was toss, went 3 base mass blink stalkers, and single handedly destroyed 2 entire opponents. The last two meanwhile completely raped all three of my allies, and then double teamed me for the win. I was a beast in 4 v 4 last season, with something like a 70 - 40 record or something stupid like that, so maybe it's matching me up vs a bunch of really good players now this season? I dunno.....but it's getting to the point of ridiculous for me. And bear in mind I'm only in platinum.....so i don't really understand. But 4 v 4 should be easier to balance for ladder I think. Looking at who I'm facing, and then looking at my allies...I don't understand wtf the ladder is doing unless maybe there just aren't enough people playing 4 v 4.
I also know most people here don't care about 4 v 4, but it's still ladder and it's kind of broken for me right now.
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If I remember correctly, Blizzard already improved ranked team play with a patch. I agree that it is not perfect yet. But some players including me often play 4v4 when they are too tired for 1v1 and don't show the best game. The system cannot know if you play 4v4 to win or to relax.
Blizzard also still sometimes match random teams versus arranged teams or partly arranged teams. This obviously gives an edge to the arranged team. I don't know if the Battle.net balances this with a skill difference of the teams.
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On April 19 2011 22:31 Sm3agol wrote:
I also know most people here don't care about 4 v 4, but it's still ladder and it's kind of broken for me right now.
4v4 doesnt have many players in it. So if you are masters you cant expect 8 masters found in 15 seconds, the same applies to diamond. So the solution is it mixes up the teams trying to make the teams equal on average MMR. So if you are high masters expect to have gold partners vs all diamond team, and it will be even teams despite your frustration.
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nice written i agree in nearly every point
people should stop flaming blizzard for everything they do on a level they not understand.
for my friends, only masters and TOP diamonds cry about not seeing loses anymore, all gold and lower are quite happy with it
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On April 19 2011 21:53 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 18:23 enzym wrote:
Regardless of whether this is perceptional bias or hearsay it is not a solid base for an argument. Correct. The same applies to your objection. I can back up my conclusion with some examples while there still is no-one who states he will play less ladder since he must count his losses manually. This may be not counts as a mathematical proof but it is enough for me to judge Blizzard's decision to be a good one. The real mistake Blizzard did was to show the loss counter in the first place.
There have been many voices in this thread (and others, as you yourself stated: "Also negative comments normally are more prominent than positive comments. Blizzard did get some heat about the loss counter removal")
expressing that they are disappointed with the removal of w/l and that the ladder appeals less to them because of it and other, partially related, issues.
I have stated that the removal of w/l is one reason for which I do not engage in ladder activity more frequently. So this passage of your post is an outright lie.
On April 19 2011 21:53 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 20:04 enzym wrote:
I also just spent several extensive posts explaining why w/l is not meaningless in all circumstances, as well as trying to point out why a complete removal of it might be a bad choice independent of that. While there are effects which can lead to a positive or negative win ratio, this only proves the imperfections of the current MMR calculation. The MM-rating relies on incomplete information and therefore can never be completely correct. Since the AMM is designed to get you to 50% in the long run, one should not look at the "real" win ratio because it is distorted by several imperfections as well as random noise.
Despite its imperfection w/l was providing additional information which people value, without an alternative source of that information of comparable quality. People also expressed opposition to the removal of w/l for reasons of comfort, the same reason you use as basis for its removal.
On April 19 2011 21:53 [F_]aths wrote:
The ladder is largely designed for nonprofessional players since they are the largest part of the SC2 player base. Especially Bronze-to-Diamond is made for nonprofessional players. I argued that Blizzard's goal is not to turn them to pro but to encourage them to play a lot. They implemented several goals for us non-pros, including achievements, milestones, portraits, decals, a ladder ranking. It also tries to provide fair matches (which means that you have 50% chance to win.) What do you learn from a deviation from 50%? Only that the MMR is lagging behind the real skill.
Unless Blizzard has stated that their intention with the ladder is exactly that, what you are saying here is just your personal opinion/speculation. Additionally, having designed the ladder for nonprofessional players would not exclude it from having features with appeal for more competitive players, at least as an option.
If it is Blizzard's stance and if they think that competitive players must be screwed over in order to ensure an active casual player base then that is tragic and disrespectful towards all of these competitive players.
And, as has been repeatedly stated in this thread, the information that MMR is lagging behind their real skill is valuable information for some people.
And this is something you don't want. If you are in a slump, you want get easier opponents fast. If you are on a killing spree, it may be would good for your ego to let you continue to stomp lesser players. But since you are not learning from those games, you want to get better opponents fast.
In real life, many players would actually like to stomp lesser-skilled playes as many SC1 or WC3 players made smurf accounts to bash noobs and then brag around with their good win ratio. Blizzard now "screws" them to provide fair matches for everyone because you have only one account per game.
I don't understand what you are saying here. A lot of what is written in this passage comes down to personal preference.
This thread is not about the AMM trying to give you equally good opponents and nobody is complaining about that.
The ladder system from Bronze up to Diamond includes intentional misunderstandings. If you are a bad player and the MMR finally adjusted, you have the impression you improved while in fact you have not. This sounds so wrong to tell a real noob "No, you are not that bad. Here, look, you won some games already !" But this will keep him playing and eventually he can improve if he wants to. If not, he still had fun and Blizzard has his money. Good for both sides.
The intentional false ranking within the division also keeps folk playing. Lets say you are top in platinum and finally get promoted. If any division in each league would be equal and span the full league range, you would now either accept a very low diamond ranking forever or improve really a lot. With the invisible division modifier however, you can still get a good ranking in your division. This artificially will show you some progress while in fact there is may be no skill improvement at all, you are just using up your bonus pool. This also sounds so wrong, simulating progress where is none!
I don't understand what you are saying here either. The ladder system is full of intentional "misunderstandings" (deception) even beyond bronze to diamond. That is the whole purpose of divisions and the removal of w/l. Are you arguing for or against that, and what does that have to do with where the discussion has been at previously? I can't tell.
The upside is that the promoted player feels encouraged to play more. The more players in the ladder, the faster and more accurate the game matching. Division modifiers hurt the skill comparison but also mean less time waiting and less one-sided matches.
Does the AMM match you according to your division and not according to your MMR? How would that reduce waiting time? Isn't an additional division of the player pool with divisions reducing the number of possible matches for you and thereby increasing waiting time, and what does that have to do with where the discussion has been at previously?
If you want to get in the competitive part of the ladder, you need to earn it with become a master league player. At this level you have shown a nice understanding of the game. Many gold and above players also consider themself quite good and make excused why their league does not reflect their true skill. Those players are not ready yet to get in the really competitive ladder part because they are not admitting that they suck. (For the record: I am currently placed in Bronze and know that I suck big-time.)
Both things (perceived improvement where is none due to MMR adjusting, invisible division modifiers) are hurting competitive play much more than the removal of the loss counter. It still is a good thing considering the goal for this part of the ladder which is to keep them playing. Players who take skill improving seriously enough will eventually get to Master level anyway. All master divisions are equal, there are no different modifiers so you can compare division rankings.
In the end, you have to accept that Blizzard does not consider you a really competitive player unless you are in Master. It sounds harsh, but it is the truth considering the facts (like division modifiers.)
Why would you need to be excluded from the competitive aspect of the ladder until masters, isn't that just your personal opinion? Several people in this thread have expressed desire to have access to the competitive aspect of it despite not being in masters...
What about the "Many gold and above players also consider themself quite good and [don't] make excused why their league does not reflect their true skill", do they not deserve equal consideration?
Do you have a source for Blizzard not considering you as a competitive player unless you are in masters, or is that your personal opinion/speculation again?
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I am at a loss as to why people complain about the removal of the W/L ratio from lower leagues. As pointed out in the OP, but perhaps not emphasized enough:
*W/L ratio in lower leagues is a meaningless gauge of skill and progress. Removing it is thus good.*
I repeat: *meaningless*. Attempting to use it will lead players who don´t understand the matchmaking system astray. People in lower leagues who understand the matchmaking system don´t use W/L ratio as a measure of progress.
This is because of the matchmaking system actively attempting to keep you at a 50% W/L ratio. For any lower-league player who wants to be competitive, your league and score will give a perfectly good picture of your position - especially when used in combination with Sc2ranks, etc.
The exception is that score is less meaningful if you play so little that you have a large bonus pool. Big whoop - either mentally take this into account, or play a few more games.
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On April 19 2011 22:41 Cheerio wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 22:31 Sm3agol wrote:
I also know most people here don't care about 4 v 4, but it's still ladder and it's kind of broken for me right now. 4v4 doesnt have many players in it. So if you are masters you cant expect 8 masters found in 15 seconds, the same applies to diamond. So the solution is it mixes up the teams trying to make the teams equal on average MMR. So if you are high masters expect to have gold partners vs all diamond team, and it will be even teams despite your frustration.
I understand that, I just don't think they keep teams very even. I also definitely think they should factor in 1 v 1 ranking when matching people up. I've had several games where my opponents were a clear team of 3 gold 4 v 4'ers......and all of them were masters 1 v 1. Obviously that isn't fair in any way possible.
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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.
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I thought not seeing losses would bother me. But really, it doesn't at all. It actually makes me happier that I don't check my ratio like some kind of obsessive compulsion. Because we all know that ratio means nothing, your skill level is determined by WHO you play, not what your win loss ratio is.
So thank you blizzard, I know this is a way to keep noobs happy and to keep them playing the game, and it was a good idea. Thanks.
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On April 19 2011 19:32 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2011 18:16 Snackysnacks wrote:On April 19 2011 16:42 Creegz wrote:Such as, Bob is ashamed of his losses, so he decides to opt into not showing them to others, but Rick over here isn't entirely proud of his losses but would like to see his progression, so he opts To bash bob for not man-ing up and showing losses. This is the life of the internet. Yes. An option to show losses could lead to trash talk if someone decides to hide his losses.
As if anyone below masters should be trash talking anyway. Put the option to show losses into the game, set it to default off, bronze-gold league won't even notice.
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On April 20 2011 03:26 Offhand wrote:
As if anyone below masters should be trash talking anyway. Put the option to show losses into the game, set it to default off, bronze-gold league won't even notice. After the release of SC2, I told a friend who still has no computer able to run this game, that the SC2 ladder actually manages to provide fair matches opposed to WC3 where I sucked so hard that I maintained my negative ratio even after 1000+ games.
He asked me about my win ratio in SC2. I told him and explained why it does not matter in SC2.
Some weeks later he asked me again about my ratio. Since he cannot value leagues (I was gold at that time) he wanted to derivate my skill from the ratio. I know him from university, he is not dumb but still failed to understand the meaningless of the ratio.
This alone (people not understanding that in means nothing) is a reason to hide it.
The second reason is emotion. Though I knew that I should not care about it, I was always concerned if I can ever get back to 50%. I allege that I am not the only person who was in this false mindset which promotes play without experiments.
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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![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/kPKLu.png)
