most people think they're a bigger baller than they actually are, and team games provide easy ways for everyone to gesture over at someone else doing something wrong and go "THERE'S the problem"
You have to not only be improving, but improving faster than everybody else at your rank, doing it consistently, and doing it A FUCKING LOT. Because if you play 100 games and win 60 of them, that's still really noisy data. And meanwhile, the system sees that it has 100 games of you performing approximately how it thinks you should at the level you're already at, so you're going to be sticky to that spot, even if you could get similar results up (or down) multiple ranks.
And all that assumes that the metrics being used to weight things are even good ones, which is frequently in doubt. Especially for Blizzard. There's something to be said for eschewing SBMM and going with pure result based instead, though that has its own issues.
I guess I just don't understand Bronze. It feels like every time I provide any feedback, the immediate and overwhelming response ends up being, "doesn't matter; it's Bronze". I guess my only question at this point is just, I mean, if draft and match-ups don't matter, because nobody is considering them or bothering to hold abilities to counter; if soak doesn't matter because your team is just going to hurl themselves headlong into the enemy 4v5 on cooldown; if coordination is impossible because everyone's so irredeemably toxic; etc ... then what are you supposed to do?
People get out of Bronze all the time. It isn't impossible, and it certainly can't just be chalked up to folks being randomly chosen by the Claw so that they might ascend to a higher purpose in Silver or whatever.
It feels like folks have committed themselves to this "Forget it, Jake; it's Chinatown" mentality about the whole thing, and I'm running out of advice at this stage, lol.
What feedback/advice are you talking about here? The current discussion thread was literally spawned from you boggling at Dover's team comp beating the other team comp, and the response was "lol bronze chaos." I mean that's the only real lesson in this particular case.
I mean there have been other times where people have solicited advice and your suggestions have been good, but that isn't really what happened here?
When you truly know you've lost in draft even before the first pick has been selected. This group was literally some of the worst players I've ever seen. We lost all 3 of the first towers, Arthas and Jaina would go in 1v4 and throw out all their abilities instantly (often times missing), and nobody was soaking or even bothering to look at camps.
What a dreadful fucking experience from start to finish.
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Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
You think Blizzard wants everyone to climb out of Bronze, Silver, Gold, Plat...? Is that the actual goal, that all the player move up?
I'm reasonably certain all Blizzard wants is to be able to harass and denigrate women and minorities without financial repercussions, but to be more fair to your question, I honestly believe the answer is Yes.
But I think we're scraping at the edge of a really interesting conversation at this point, so maybe it's worth unpacking a little more.
No. The goal of the ladder is to get people roughly playing against people at a similar skill level. Your personal goal may be to move up, but the ladder/Blizzard doesn't care to facilitate that.
We're coming up against some really fundamental differences between us as players, and I think that's neat. Because, I'll be honest: no part of me even partially understands the argument that competitive ladders weren't created to be climbed. Like, I'll literally never believe that, lol. But I also don't think you're wrong -- we must simply view the system and engage with it on fundamentally different levels.
And I don't mean that as like, a "right way" and a "wrong way" at all; just different ways.
I'll try to write more this evening when I get home. I have to leave for work in just a few minutes so I can't get into it much more, unfortunately. But I do think this is a really interesting conversation, if only because it would never even occur to me that some people might not view the ladder in the same way that I do.
It's a ladder. Literally called a ladder. What do you do with a ladder? You climb it, to reach new heights (ranks!). Now some people could have a harder time climbing that ladder. And maybe they get stuck and can't progress up. That's OK! That's just how it is sometimes. Maybe you just can't reach the top. But just because you can't reach the top yourself doesn't mean that that ladder wasn't there to be climbed.
Which seems like a design flaw if you ask me if you have one system that tries to serve two contradictory goals, progression and matchmaking.
For your progression system, players want a number to keep going up. Players like numbers and seeing results of their efforts reflected in some kind of measurement. It's partly why the season rewards are given out for wins rather than some MMR threshold.
For your MMR, you want the system to quickly find a number and stay stable, only changing if the player dramatically increases in skill relative to the rest of the player base. This is already hidden from the player and should be. They don't need to know it for the game to work and give them good matches.
If I was in charge of designing a ladder system, I would make it so that everyone starts low and slowly climbs over the course of a season. People who win a lot of games would climb faster, people who lose a lot would climb slower but there still would be a sense of forward progress. Their actual MMR would be used to create matches but people who play a lot (which is what you're trying to encourage as a designer) would have a shinny icon next to their name.
So after a few months of 16hr/day play, that Diablo from Dover's game still doesn't know about charging someone into a wall but is considered a "grand Master"? How does that make sense?
0
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I will also point out, kime, that it’s impossible for the system to pair you with other equivalently skilled players unless you have the capacity to climb.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
So after a few months of 16hr/day play, that Diablo from Dover's game still doesn't know about charging someone into a wall but is considered a "grand Master"? How does that make sense?
Because he'll be happy and still playing with other people at his skill level who also don't know basic mechanics. He also might only be gold or silver instead of being GM. Think about a ladder like Heartstone where it boosts you up the ladder the lower you are and then slows down as you reach higher ranks or Starcraft which gives you a pool of bonus points for a win. A player that stays the same skill level will slowly see their progression increase, a player that gets better will see it happen faster.
I will also point out, kime, that it’s impossible for the system to pair you with other equivalently skilled players unless you have the capacity to climb.
Good: some people can climb
Bad: everyone can climb
It's a ladder. Literally called a ladder. What do you do with a ladder? You climb it, to reach new heights (ranks!). Now some people could have a harder time climbing that ladder. And maybe they get stuck and can't progress up. That's OK! That's just how it is sometimes. Maybe you just can't reach the top. But just because you can't reach the top yourself doesn't mean that that ladder wasn't there to be climbed.
It's called a ladder to trigger a competitive response and increase engagement. It's a ranking system to make games that feel more balanced than not
Which seems like a design flaw if you ask me if you have one system that tries to serve two contradictory goals, progression and matchmaking.
For your progression system, players want a number to keep going up. Players like numbers and seeing results of their efforts reflected in some kind of measurement. It's partly why the season rewards are given out for wins rather than some MMR threshold.
For your MMR, you want the system to quickly find a number and stay stable, only changing if the player dramatically increases in skill relative to the rest of the player base. This is already hidden from the player and should be. They don't need to know it for the game to work and give them good matches.
If I was in charge of designing a ladder system, I would make it so that everyone starts low and slowly climbs over the course of a season. People who win a lot of games would climb faster, people who lose a lot would climb slower but there still would be a sense of forward progress. Their actual MMR would be used to create matches but people who play a lot (which is what you're trying to encourage as a designer) would have a shinny icon next to their name.
Overwatch's Devs straight up explicitly said that at some point, their placement system took where it thought you belonged, removed a few hundred points, and then gave boosted point gain until you were in your 'proper' spot to make people feel good about supposedly ranking up at the start of each season. Companies definitely put their fingers on the scale to manipulate the player base.
So after a few months of 16hr/day play, that Diablo from Dover's game still doesn't know about charging someone into a wall but is considered a "grand Master"? How does that make sense?
Because he'll be happy and still playing with other people at his skill level who also don't know basic mechanics. He also might only be gold or silver instead of being GM. Think about a ladder like Heartstone where it boosts you up the ladder the lower you are and then slows down as you reach higher ranks or Starcraft which gives you a pool of bonus points for a win. A player that stays the same skill level will slowly see their progression increase, a player that gets better will see it happen faster.
Ok so it will take a year instead of a few month for that guy to be a "grand Master" in this plan, got it.
So after a few months of 16hr/day play, that Diablo from Dover's game still doesn't know about charging someone into a wall but is considered a "grand Master"? How does that make sense?
Because he'll be happy and still playing with other people at his skill level who also don't know basic mechanics. He also might only be gold or silver instead of being GM. Think about a ladder like Heartstone where it boosts you up the ladder the lower you are and then slows down as you reach higher ranks or Starcraft which gives you a pool of bonus points for a win. A player that stays the same skill level will slowly see their progression increase, a player that gets better will see it happen faster.
Ok so it will take a year instead of a few month for that guy to be a "grand Master" in this plan, got it.
Not if the ladder resets.
I get what @Korror is suggesting though. Having a ladder system where you gain points regardless of wins or losses could provide more of a “feel good” feeling. At the end of the season, players would get a rank icon and everyone’s point would decrease by a set amount and it all starts over.
Now if HotS still had a full team, I’d suggest having the players be able to spend the ladder points they earned in rewards like icons, skins, heroes, etc. Basically, the points would become one-time, use or lose Dorito triangle things.
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Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
+1
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
This goes back to a point I made years ago about how Blizzard was messing up player perception of the Ranked system by purposely conflating matchmaking rating with rank progression.
However, it isn't entirely their fault. People want their rank to represent their skill. They assign meaning to ranks precisely because they are supposed to indicate some underlying measure of skill.
But the reality is that pretty much all measures of skill have shown that over time, it stabilizes. There reaches a point at which most people can't or won't get better. And I'm not just talking about putting in the time/effort to improve. I'm talking about there being physical limits to performance, just like some people can't jump as high or run as fast or play chess as well as others - at some point everyone hits a ceiling, and that ceiling can be measured relative to everyone else. Similarly, beyond a slow/slight decline over time due to age, lack of play, etc. people generally don't magically lose their learned skills short of a catastrophic event (e.g., can't run if you don't have legs anymore).
As a thought experiment, imagine if there was simply a progression system that was divorced completely from skill. Would anyone care about it? Probably not, because they'd just call you a "no-lifer Masters" since all you did was "grind" to the top.
So after a few months of 16hr/day play, that Diablo from Dover's game still doesn't know about charging someone into a wall but is considered a "grand Master"? How does that make sense?
Because he'll be happy and still playing with other people at his skill level who also don't know basic mechanics. He also might only be gold or silver instead of being GM. Think about a ladder like Heartstone where it boosts you up the ladder the lower you are and then slows down as you reach higher ranks or Starcraft which gives you a pool of bonus points for a win. A player that stays the same skill level will slowly see their progression increase, a player that gets better will see it happen faster.
Ok so it will take a year instead of a few month for that guy to be a "grand Master" in this plan, got it.
Not if the ladder resets.
I get what @ Korror is suggesting though. Having a ladder system where you gain points regardless of wins or losses could provide more of a “feel good” feeling. At the end of the season, players would get a rank icon and everyone’s point would decrease by a set amount and it all starts over.
Now if HotS still had a full team, I’d suggest having the players be able to spend the ladder points they earned in rewards like icons, skins, heroes, etc. Basically, the points would become one-time, use or lose Dorito triangle things.
Dead By Daylight provides an interesting case study here. Until a couple months ago, it used a very strange matchmaking system. Basically, every game you played, you were scored in four categories. Regardless of if you won or lost (and what a win is in DBD is up for some debate), you had to score decently in all four categories in order to rank up.
In HotS terms, let's say there were four categories that you got 0-5 points for each in:
Experience (eg above 15k Exp = 5 points, 12.5k Exp = 4 points, etc)
# Deaths (eg 0-1 deaths = 5 points, 2-4 = 4 points, etc)
Kills/Assists (eg 20+ = 5 points, 15-19 = 4 points, etc)
Enemy towers remaining (0 = 5 points, 1 = 4 points, etc)
Score 18-20, rank up two slots. Score 15-16, rank up one. Score 9-15, no change. Score <8, rank down one slot. Once a month, everybody is slapped down a full rank level and given a reward based on what their rank was.
There are obviously an assload of problems with this approach. Those metrics sort of correlate with playing well and what would be considered a 'healthy' and desirable game from a matchmaking standpoint, but it's both easy to score badly in quick stomps, and score well when being stomped, not to mention create some perverse incentives. It does provide a visible atta-boy for losing games where you played well, but definitely bubbles players inevitably upwards based largely just on how much they play, creating a fuck-massive population at the top, with extremely disparate skill levels.
I'm no great shakes, the highest I've gotten is mid to high gold I think. But I tell you this, the potato factor is definitely more pronounced at bronze
In before Dibby's "man I saw all these posts and got excited y'all"
At this point, blizzard only wants its players to give them money. The next hots patch will likely uninstall hots and install hearthstone, with a special hots bundle pack that gives great cards such as etc, gazlowe, infested tauren, and more! (For an extra $19.99)
In before Dibby's "man I saw all these posts and got excited y'all"
At this point, blizzard only wants its players to give them money. The next hots patch will likely uninstall hots and install hearthstone, with a special hots bundle pack that gives great cards such as etc, gazlowe, infested tauren, and more! (For an extra $19.99)
Look @MMMig, you're APM is getting so bad that I'm afraid you're going to have to switch over to Protoss.
MNC Dover on
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Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Dibby’s asleep post pictures of the new hero
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Interesting selection of heroes they offer in the starter pack. Figured they'd want to give out one character of each role (Tank, Healer, Bruiser, Melee/Ranged Assassin) instead of doubling down on Bruiser and Ranged Assassin. It's weird not to include a Tank or Healer.
Then again, the roles weren't set in stone back then, so maybe it was just launch silliness.
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Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
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And all that assumes that the metrics being used to weight things are even good ones, which is frequently in doubt. Especially for Blizzard. There's something to be said for eschewing SBMM and going with pure result based instead, though that has its own issues.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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Nope. Nope. Every time. Like Charlie Brown and the football, man.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
We're allowed to talk about the game, Dibby
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I mean there have been other times where people have solicited advice and your suggestions have been good, but that isn't really what happened here?
Pretty sure this is already in place.
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wra
holy shit you actually did, what
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
When you truly know you've lost in draft even before the first pick has been selected. This group was literally some of the worst players I've ever seen. We lost all 3 of the first towers, Arthas and Jaina would go in 1v4 and throw out all their abilities instantly (often times missing), and nobody was soaking or even bothering to look at camps.
What a dreadful fucking experience from start to finish.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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I'm reasonably certain all Blizzard wants is to be able to harass and denigrate women and minorities without financial repercussions, but to be more fair to your question, I honestly believe the answer is Yes.
But I think we're scraping at the edge of a really interesting conversation at this point, so maybe it's worth unpacking a little more.
We're coming up against some really fundamental differences between us as players, and I think that's neat. Because, I'll be honest: no part of me even partially understands the argument that competitive ladders weren't created to be climbed. Like, I'll literally never believe that, lol. But I also don't think you're wrong -- we must simply view the system and engage with it on fundamentally different levels.
And I don't mean that as like, a "right way" and a "wrong way" at all; just different ways.
I'll try to write more this evening when I get home. I have to leave for work in just a few minutes so I can't get into it much more, unfortunately. But I do think this is a really interesting conversation, if only because it would never even occur to me that some people might not view the ladder in the same way that I do.
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There's a difference between the macro goals of what Blizzard wants for the entire player base, and micro goals of what individual players want.
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For your progression system, players want a number to keep going up. Players like numbers and seeing results of their efforts reflected in some kind of measurement. It's partly why the season rewards are given out for wins rather than some MMR threshold.
For your MMR, you want the system to quickly find a number and stay stable, only changing if the player dramatically increases in skill relative to the rest of the player base. This is already hidden from the player and should be. They don't need to know it for the game to work and give them good matches.
If I was in charge of designing a ladder system, I would make it so that everyone starts low and slowly climbs over the course of a season. People who win a lot of games would climb faster, people who lose a lot would climb slower but there still would be a sense of forward progress. Their actual MMR would be used to create matches but people who play a lot (which is what you're trying to encourage as a designer) would have a shinny icon next to their name.
Because he'll be happy and still playing with other people at his skill level who also don't know basic mechanics. He also might only be gold or silver instead of being GM. Think about a ladder like Heartstone where it boosts you up the ladder the lower you are and then slows down as you reach higher ranks or Starcraft which gives you a pool of bonus points for a win. A player that stays the same skill level will slowly see their progression increase, a player that gets better will see it happen faster.
Good: some people can climb
Bad: everyone can climb
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It's called a ladder to trigger a competitive response and increase engagement. It's a ranking system to make games that feel more balanced than not
Overwatch's Devs straight up explicitly said that at some point, their placement system took where it thought you belonged, removed a few hundred points, and then gave boosted point gain until you were in your 'proper' spot to make people feel good about supposedly ranking up at the start of each season. Companies definitely put their fingers on the scale to manipulate the player base.
Ok so it will take a year instead of a few month for that guy to be a "grand Master" in this plan, got it.
Not if the ladder resets.
I get what @Korror is suggesting though. Having a ladder system where you gain points regardless of wins or losses could provide more of a “feel good” feeling. At the end of the season, players would get a rank icon and everyone’s point would decrease by a set amount and it all starts over.
Now if HotS still had a full team, I’d suggest having the players be able to spend the ladder points they earned in rewards like icons, skins, heroes, etc. Basically, the points would become one-time, use or lose Dorito triangle things.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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However, it isn't entirely their fault. People want their rank to represent their skill. They assign meaning to ranks precisely because they are supposed to indicate some underlying measure of skill.
But the reality is that pretty much all measures of skill have shown that over time, it stabilizes. There reaches a point at which most people can't or won't get better. And I'm not just talking about putting in the time/effort to improve. I'm talking about there being physical limits to performance, just like some people can't jump as high or run as fast or play chess as well as others - at some point everyone hits a ceiling, and that ceiling can be measured relative to everyone else. Similarly, beyond a slow/slight decline over time due to age, lack of play, etc. people generally don't magically lose their learned skills short of a catastrophic event (e.g., can't run if you don't have legs anymore).
As a thought experiment, imagine if there was simply a progression system that was divorced completely from skill. Would anyone care about it? Probably not, because they'd just call you a "no-lifer Masters" since all you did was "grind" to the top.
Dead By Daylight provides an interesting case study here. Until a couple months ago, it used a very strange matchmaking system. Basically, every game you played, you were scored in four categories. Regardless of if you won or lost (and what a win is in DBD is up for some debate), you had to score decently in all four categories in order to rank up.
In HotS terms, let's say there were four categories that you got 0-5 points for each in:
Experience (eg above 15k Exp = 5 points, 12.5k Exp = 4 points, etc)
# Deaths (eg 0-1 deaths = 5 points, 2-4 = 4 points, etc)
Kills/Assists (eg 20+ = 5 points, 15-19 = 4 points, etc)
Enemy towers remaining (0 = 5 points, 1 = 4 points, etc)
Score 18-20, rank up two slots. Score 15-16, rank up one. Score 9-15, no change. Score <8, rank down one slot. Once a month, everybody is slapped down a full rank level and given a reward based on what their rank was.
There are obviously an assload of problems with this approach. Those metrics sort of correlate with playing well and what would be considered a 'healthy' and desirable game from a matchmaking standpoint, but it's both easy to score badly in quick stomps, and score well when being stomped, not to mention create some perverse incentives. It does provide a visible atta-boy for losing games where you played well, but definitely bubbles players inevitably upwards based largely just on how much they play, creating a fuck-massive population at the top, with extremely disparate skill levels.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
At this point, blizzard only wants its players to give them money. The next hots patch will likely uninstall hots and install hearthstone, with a special hots bundle pack that gives great cards such as etc, gazlowe, infested tauren, and more! (For an extra $19.99)
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Look @MMMig, you're APM is getting so bad that I'm afraid you're going to have to switch over to Protoss.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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I'm proxy hatching, yo.
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Interesting selection of heroes they offer in the starter pack. Figured they'd want to give out one character of each role (Tank, Healer, Bruiser, Melee/Ranged Assassin) instead of doubling down on Bruiser and Ranged Assassin. It's weird not to include a Tank or Healer.
Then again, the roles weren't set in stone back then, so maybe it was just launch silliness.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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