|
On July 16 2011 03:50 BlizzrdSlave wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2011 20:29 ggrrg wrote:
Actually, blizzard did a lot to minimize ladder fear:
- remove loss display in all leagues to combat demotivation by weak players
- the league-division system allows positive experience by as many players as possible
- bonus pool and the subsequent points' inflation so players have the feeling that they grow constantly
- achievements for extra incentive
All of those are steps to combat ladder fear and I'd say that the situation is better than it was in sc:bw and wc3. However, blizzard certainly won't implent the option you suggest. They have made it pretty clear that they want as many people as possible to actually compete in the ladder (one of the reasons why they removed smurf accounts). If the MMR is supposed to achieve 50/50 w/l, how will removing loss display combat demotivation? Since players will always hover around 40-60%? That doesnt make sense.
It's a simple matter of psychology. If the page says "123 wins" it looks better than "123 wins, 123 losses". Anyone who knows how the ladder works knows that the W/L ratio is very close to 50% for all but a few extreme cases (mostly GM league and bottom of the bronze league), but for the uninformed player it's a positive feedback.
bonus pool is a joke because someone who plays every day gets 130% gain from 50/50 win loss, while someone who plays every 4 days gets 200% gain for 50/50. the player that loses more points overall is the one who plays more consistently, so the person who plays less gets more points from the BP and keeps them.
The bonus for not playing to keep up system works in WoW because you dont lose XP. In a game where you trade your points to and from other players consistently, bonus pools favor people who play less.
At the level where rankings actually start to matter, pretty much everyone will play enough for their bonus pools to never pile up. For the average Silver leagueer, his actual ranking is not important, just the illusion that he is improving. This is exactly what the bonus pool provides.
The measures that Blizzard takes to promote laddering for lower level players aren't things that change the mechanics of the ladder at the higher level. They're mostly psychological things that make the lower level players feel better when they play, which means they keep on playing.
|
"Ladder Anxiety" doesn't have anything to do with the stats, it has to do with feeling like you're absolutely terrible because of the matches you've lost.
The solution is, as has been said, to just play. It'll go away/lessen eventually.
Like Sean Plott's mother once said: it's just chemicals in your brain.
|
I think ladder game speed hurts it more than anything else with casuals. They played whole campaign on Normal most likely which is slow speed then they get flustered on ladder at faster speed. Least that's what a couple casual friends have said to me. "it's too fast" All it takes is some getting used to but they just quit having already "finished the game" and move on to next title.
|
Ladder fear is KILLING E-SPORTS!
|
I think every account should be able to make at least two users, just don't let them be signed in simultaneously. Being able to have a sort of smurf account within your account would surely ease the fear some players are experiencing when laddering. Especially if they want to play around with other races.
I've started to lose interest simply because I want to try playing other races on ladder, not just my main. But my off-races are significantly worse than my main. I'm not going to pay another 60€ for a game that I've already purchased.
I have no interest in team games, so playing random there doesn't make it any better for me.
|
I am masters and I really would wan't this. I have no way of practising without ladder. What I would love is a option to only play against people your same rank in customs. I can not custom because all you play is silver-diamonds.
|
I would play more ladder, if I could see the number of losses and my actual rating, instead of that stupid division rank. Ladder fear is bullshit, it's just that playing random opponents all the time that most of the time go for some all-inish strategy is not that fun.
|
Just because losses are hidden doesn't mean you are 'safe'. Without losses people just look at your number of wins vs your ladder points. A high number of wins and a low ladder score would mean you mass alot of games (assuming you aren't smurfing and therefore have a 50ish win percentage) but still are mediocre.
|
I can add my own experience here:
5 out of 5 of my real-life friends who purchased Starcraft 2 quit playing within the first week because they did not like being forced to play ranked matches. The fact that the ability to play custom games that are not at the top of the popularity list (or any melee map other than the top 3 or so at that time) is virtually nonexistent, and the fact that you can't make "noobs only" custom games, facts that have STILL not been remedied in any way, basically make the game unplayable for people who want a more casual experience, unless they happen to really like playing the same few custom maps forever.
|
i feel like a ladder fear PSA with DJWheat and day9 could be pretty awesome
|
On July 19 2011 01:15 RoKetha wrote:
I can add my own experience here:
5 out of 5 of my real-life friends who purchased Starcraft 2 quit playing within the first week because they did not like being forced to play ranked matches. The fact that the ability to play custom games that are not at the top of the popularity list (or any melee map other than the top 3 or so at that time) is virtually nonexistent, and the fact that you can't make "noobs only" custom games, facts that have STILL not been remedied in any way, basically make the game unplayable for people who want a more casual experience, unless they happen to really like playing the same few custom maps forever.
I also have 5 real life friends who purchased SC2 besides myself.
One got placed into platinum, learned to 5/7 roach rush, rushed his way to diamond (when that was the top league) and once he found his strategy no longer worked and he was abysmally behind on actually learning to play he quit.
One got placed into platinum as terrnan and once again was able to bunker/marine rush his way to diamond. he had no mechanics and at the time never even used hotkeys. He also gave up. However due to some encouragement from me he switched to zerg deranked and now continues to play.
One got placed into bronze and has slowly worked his way up to gold and continues to play.
One was determined to learn to play well but when i saw that he was a hunt and peck typist i told him to go play mario teaches typing and that i would help him learn to play after he learned to type.
One got placed in platinum from 4 gating his placement matches, proceeded to get owned back to silver and then slowly gave.
TLDR; people who were placed into leagues higher than they should have been because of placement matches quickly lost interest as they were completely outmatched. Those who were placed low and worked their way up continue to play.
Moral of story: People obsess over rank and hate the feeling of being deranked.
|
I have been affected by this fear sometimes, however, I am no longer afraid since i played 300 4v4 games... I started out losing all my 1v1 placement matches when I got the game (since I sucked), then I realized I sucked and patiently palyed 4v4's while my teammates showed me the way. I observed what counters what and I watched slayersdragon stream to see how to use hotkeys.
Then, I downloaded typingmaster pro to learn how to not look at the keyboard while I type. This allowed me to get my APM to 100. (Also I got up to 55 words per minute)
The final step was to watch sterling's stream ( terran guy) to see the thought process behind my decisions in game (didnt wanna rely on prethought builds).
And now I am in Gold after going 52 - 10 in my last 62 games.
I anticipate making diamond when I start laddering again, but sometimes I just ask myself whats the point. I mean, this game is not relaxing AT ALL once you play diamonds and masters players.
( i have played a few )
After a day of work its so much more relaxing to do customs/monobattles/mods
Does anyone get what Im saying?
1v1 is about mentality... if you want to win so bad, you gotta really want it and its draining mentally
so yeah back to the fear aspect, it does exist, but its mostly people that dont want to put in the work to get better and kick ass, because anyone (like me) can do it with some time investment
|
On July 19 2011 01:25 Snorkle wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2011 01:15 RoKetha wrote:
I can add my own experience here:
5 out of 5 of my real-life friends who purchased Starcraft 2 quit playing within the first week because they did not like being forced to play ranked matches. The fact that the ability to play custom games that are not at the top of the popularity list (or any melee map other than the top 3 or so at that time) is virtually nonexistent, and the fact that you can't make "noobs only" custom games, facts that have STILL not been remedied in any way, basically make the game unplayable for people who want a more casual experience, unless they happen to really like playing the same few custom maps forever. I also have 5 real life friends who purchased SC2 besides myself. One got placed into platinum, learned to 5/7 roach rush, rushed his way to diamond (when that was the top league) and once he found his strategy no longer worked and he was abysmally behind on actually learning to play he quit. One got placed into platinum as terrnan and once again was able to bunker/marine rush his way to diamond. he had no mechanics and at the time never even used hotkeys. He also gave up. However due to some encouragement from me he switched to zerg deranked and now continues to play. One got placed into bronze and has slowly worked his way up to gold and continues to play. One was determined to learn to play well but when i saw that he was a hunt and peck typist i told him to go play mario teaches typing and that i would help him learn to play after he learned to type. One got placed in platinum from 4 gating his placement matches, proceeded to get owned back to silver and then slowly gave. TLDR; people who were placed into leagues higher than they should have been because of placement matches quickly lost interest as they were completely outmatched. Those who were placed low and worked their way up continue to play. Moral of story: People obsess over rank and hate the feeling of being deranked.
You deserve a medal. The people who are scared of laddering is because they don't want to lose a rank that they don't deserve in the first place.
EDIT: I think the reason, all boils down to maturity. There are 2 types of people, those who realize this is just a game, and those who don't.
|
Doesn't feel worse than solo queuing in League of Legends.
|
On May 28 2011 01:57 djWHEAT wrote:
I know there are Custom Games, but I think BNET could benefit from one of the things that many console games have introduced. Basically they have Ranked matches and Public matches. Obviously ranked matches will count towards your rising rank, while Public matches would still PIT you against people of your skill level, without having a direct effect on your rank.
If there was an easier way to present this to the masses, it might help solve some of those problems.
The "fear" of hitting Find Match may be reduced if it didn't actually count towards anything.
I like this. ^ I have the fear. I havent laddered in ages, and the laddering I did in the past was mostly 2v2s, 3v3s. I dont know why its such a big deal, but I hate laddering 1v1. I guess part of it is like others, hating getting cheesed every other game, and then the games that arent cheese, and I think I play pretty well overall, happen to be against someone waaay better than me and I lose those "good" games. Thats my fear I suppose. Getting cheesed and getting beat down by ppl I shouldnt be matched up against yet. djWheat makes a good point with Ranked and Public matches.
|
On July 19 2011 01:56 garlicface wrote:
Doesn't feel worse than solo queuing in League of Legends.
Actually it kinda does for most ppl since it's hard to make up an excuse for the loss and blame teammates on an 1v1 ladder.
I'm kinda in that bucket too. I've laddered to 130 wins master league in season 1.
I played 5 match in season 2, got master again but I have not really played sc2 for months so my skill level is like platinum so I know that if I play now, I'll be matched against masters and lose badly.
|
I also suffer from ladder anxiety. I bought the game, played around 100 games in two weeks and had to quit because it was causing me too much stress. I was placed in the gold league from the very beginning and I've been there for all my games except a quick relegation to silver.
I don't blame the game at all and I'm aware the solution lies within me, but it's not so easy. I get stressed over the rhythm of the game, which is very fast and any mistake can be punishable. I need to spend minerals, watch the upgrades, use chronoboost, warp in more units, scout, look at the minimap, move my army, etc. Then comes the "We can not hold!" alarm and the battle arises.
15 minutes of this is too much for me. On top of this, I really dislike losing, so the result is that I can't enjoy the game. I want, but right now I feel unable.
|
On May 28 2011 01:57 djWHEAT wrote:
I know there are Custom Games, but I think BNET could benefit from one of the things that many console games have introduced. Basically they have Ranked matches and Public matches. Obviously ranked matches will count towards your rising rank, while Public matches would still PIT you against people of your skill level, without having a direct effect on your rank.
If there was an easier way to present this to the masses, it might help solve some of those problems.
The "fear" of hitting Find Match may be reduced if it didn't actually count towards anything.
Would love blizzard to introduce this Ranked and Public matches system, I and my lower level friends will surely play a lot more 1v1 if this get introduced.
|
On July 19 2011 02:43 Edevus wrote:
I also suffer from ladder anxiety. I bought the game, played around 100 games in two weeks and had to quit because it was causing me too much stress. I was placed in the gold league from the very beginning and I've been there for all my games except a quick relegation to silver.
I don't blame the game at all and I'm aware the solution lies within me, but it's not so easy. I get stressed over the rhythm of the game, which is very fast and any mistake can be punishable. I need to spend minerals, watch the upgrades, use chronoboost, warp in more units, scout, look at the minimap, move my army, etc. Then comes the "We can not hold!" alarm and the battle arises.
15 minutes of this is too much for me. On top of this, I really dislike losing, so the result is that I can't enjoy the game. I want, but right now I feel unable.
Sounds like you should play another game, yeah? I mean, all those things are what makes SC2 (and Blizz RTS games in general) such a beautiful, complex, punishing experience. It's the crack that keeps me coming back.
|
I like the points of the OP and I agree to a large extent.
I'm a masters-player and TL even found me worthy of having strategy forum highlighting....and still I didn't ladder in season 2 because I could only play a couple of games every other day due to work. I KNEW that I couldn't handle losing these games on ladder (I would've stayed up all night trying to recover the lost points) so I played customs with friends.
Also I constantly tried different build orders. Normally I do this too, but when I have much more time then this doesn't influence my rating. If I have only very little time to play I can't "risk" fooling around with these strategies on ladder since I would inevitably lose more than I win against players of my skill-level.
The solution would be to set up a custom-game-system that would match you up against people of your MMR....but where MMR WOULDN'T CHANGE so you wouldn't have to worry about getting demoted.
Also this would help me and probably others who want to "create" build orders immensely. Because you could immediately quit once you screw up a certain part of the newly designed build and retry without risking your MMR.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
