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The ladder is essential for a competitive multiplayer game like StarCraft II but some of its promise is unrealized. Problems arise when an experienced player wants to switch races or simply experiment.
A Platinum Terran player, LiquidMule, wants to expand his horizons by experimenting with Zerg. His skill with Zerg is merely Silver level but Blizzard continues to pair him with high ranking players. Since LiquidMule has a lot of experience, it takes dozens of crushing losses for his ladder opposition to adjust to his level. Getting an accurate ladder ranking with the new race takes both a lot of figurative tears and wasted time. Until then, his opponents cruise to victory and get inflated ratings. Similarly, if LiquidMule suddenly decides to play Terran again, his Silver opponents will be a eaten alive by someone that's supposedly an even match. Both of these cases hurt the integrity of the rating system and lead to frustration for both sides.
In fact, some players ease the pain by just auto-surrendering until they get into Bronze or Silver to try a new race. After all, playing a bunch of Diamond and Platinum players while barely knowing how to spawn larva on time isn't going to teach you much about the game. It would be akin to a tennis novice playing with Roger Federer. The game would consist of Federer hitting decisive shots nearly every time. The novice would be lucky to even touch the ball outside of his own serve. Clearly this isn't how one learns to play tennis and it's also not how one should learn a new race. That some would resort to auto-surrendering countless games just highlights the problem.
Besides the practical problems, for those who love StarCraft II and eagerly follows its developments, the thought of having a hard earned ranking marred by race switching is enough to dissuade many from trying. With Blizzard's encouragement, eSports have blossomed and the competitive scene relies on Blizzard's ranking system. Even the forums show this by dismissing the opinions of weaker players, rightly or wrongly. Players invest a great deal of effort at getting better and probably even invest emotionally too because of the prestige associated with some levels. Thus, the most natural solution is to buy the game game again or fail to explore its other races in full. StarCraft II is first and foremost, a multiplayer game and one shouldn't have to buy it three times to get everything out of it. While it may line Blizzard's coffers, it's logically indefensible and clearly not a realistic solution.
However, there are many simple and elegant solutions. Ladder rankings by race selection would neatly solve the issue. Having the option to reset one's ladder four times would also be easy enough. It's not rocket science and I'd be shocked if Blizzard didn't anticipate everything from the start. Of course, without an uproar from customers, why should Blizzard pass on the chance that its most dedicated fans will buy the game more than once? I hope Blizzard will prove my cynicism wrong by fixing this situation. After trying and failing to get a ladder reset from support, I'm not particularly optimistic
TL;DR: The Ladder doesn't adjust for experience with individual races and it's annoying as hell.
Crossposted here.
User was warned for this post
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
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I agree, there's really no reason for why there isn't a separate laddering ranking for each race. I guess bnet 2.0 is so good we don't need it.
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Eh, I don't see the problem with a single ladder. Your overall skill is your overall skill, and if you want to race switch, why not practice with it in customs before you ladder with it?
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the technology isnt there yet
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This has been a problem that people have been asking for for a long time, not much you can do except give feed back to Blizzard and just wait. If you want to race switch and still play ladder then yeah people need to be aware of the fact that you'll still be playing as if you were playing with your better race. Sucks? Yeah, but not much can be done.
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not enough competitive people switch races for such a ladder ranking system to be necessary.
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Basically the system punishes for trying new things. Also if you reached dia/plat long ago, but your skill has dropped leagues, but haven't actually got demoted the system punishes you for starting to practise and getting your skill back by demoting you. The system rewards inactivity and monotonious play.
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United States97277 Posts
The same thing happened with me when I decided to start playing protoss but you just have to kind of tough it out. Another thing is you should have pretty strong game knowledge from your time with the first race and you can just look up some build orders to start out. Also practicing with friends in custom games helps you learn things especially if you have friends that know what they are doing. Once you get the hang of it in a couple of custom games you can start laddering
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On February 27 2012 05:55 Zennith wrote:
Eh, I don't see the problem with a single ladder. Your overall skill is your overall skill, and if you want to race switch, why not practice with it in customs before you ladder with it?
I think the OP was clear on what the problem was. You say overall skill is overall skill. Are you suggesting that most people are equally skilled with the 3 races? It wouldn't be that hard to give everyone 4(t,p,z,r) different ratings. There's a different rating for 2v2 so why not for the different races.
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This feature is planned in cooperation with a detailed stats window that shows your win&loss ratio of every race once Legacy of the Void gets released (or maybe in a patch approximately 1-3 years after Legacy of the Void is released). But I'M SURE they are working on it all the time, it's just not ready yet.
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I really see your point, and I agree but they won't change anything because it will cost money. Furthermore, you shouldn't be concerned about ladder. I've often switched between races and purposely lost 50 games in a row to be in an adequate ladder position.
Btw, I wouldn't recommend custom games if you want to switch, since almost nobody plays customs for real. I won against Master players when I offraced Zerg at Platinum level.
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Sorry for the title guys. I copied it from the other forum and it was strangely all caps there.
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On February 27 2012 06:02 Bommes wrote:
This feature is planned in cooperation with a detailed stats window that shows your win&loss ratio of every race once Legacy of the Void gets released (or maybe in a patch approximately 1-3 years after Legacy of the Void is released). But they are working on it all the time, its just not ready yet.
I actually think Blizz plans on releasing those key features with the furutre expansions. Its so simple changes and they would make the game so much better. Save function for custom games when 1 player drops, seperate ladder for each race, good custom-map system, better friend & chat systems, etc. At least i hope this will be in the game when HotS gets released.
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Well out of everything B.Net needs to fix, this is one of the last things I am worried about! I do wish this would happen though, luckily I have a few friends who only play 2v2's and rarely, so I can use there accounts, I have my main as toss, one as gold zerg and one as gold terran, so I can bounce around.
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Blizzard's response:
Hello Alex,
It is good to hear that you have made a post regarding this issue. At this point since customer service can not facilitate your request you will need to find fellow players who feel the same way. If you can get enough constructive feedback on this post it hopefully will catch the eye of our development team and get you a response.
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I've also wondered this problem and it would be much appreciated if Blizzard would do something about this.
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On February 27 2012 06:01 Shellshock1122 wrote:
The same thing happened with me when I decided to start playing protoss but you just have to kind of tough it out. Another thing is you should have pretty strong game knowledge from your time with the first race and you can just look up some build orders to start out. Also practicing with friends in custom games helps you learn things especially if you have friends that know what they are doing. Once you get the hang of it in a couple of custom games you can start laddering
it would be nice to have different leagues for different races but in the meantime i agree with shellshock: just play custom until you have your b/o's down; your mechanics should be comparable to your main race once you learn b/o's and unit comps.
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On February 27 2012 06:00 Snettik wrote:
Basically the system punishes for trying new things. Also if you reached dia/plat long ago, but your skill has dropped leagues, but haven't actually got demoted the system punishes you for starting to practise and getting your skill back by demoting you. The system rewards inactivity and monotonious play.
So what should the system do? Leave you in a league above your level to avoid 'punishing' you? No, of course not, that's silly. The system demotes you....because it is placing you in the proper league for your skill level. You said it yourself, "...but your skill has dropped leagues..." Not sure the problem you see here.
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On February 27 2012 06:10 Mutown wrote:Blizzard's response: Show nested quote +Hello Alex,
It is good to hear that you have made a post regarding this issue. At this point since customer service can not facilitate your request you will need to find fellow players who feel the same way. If you can get enough constructive feedback on this post it hopefully will catch the eye of our development team and get you a response.
LOL Hopefully it will catch the eye...? Great staff over at blizzard, can't even talk between themselves apparently.
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EPT
