KingWhite
06-18-2012, 08:28 AM
This is a constructive thread, so read it as such. I'm not about complaing how bad the old system is, this is a proposal for a new one. If you disagree with what I dont like about the old system, dont post. If you disagree with my idea, discuss. If you dont like reading dont post (I do it here for you "yo, wtf, tl;dr"), if you have ideas on how to get this easier to read, s2 relevant or better in any other way, rewrite it or send me suggestions, I'm grateful for that.
And for clarification, I use the word 'smurf' for both high rated players who create new accounts to "pubstomp" as well as low rated players who create a new account to go back up to 1500, whereas I usualy refer to the former as smurfs and to the later as "smurfs" (the later aren't really smurfs, I know that).
And for clarification, when I first wrote this I guess I was making a wrong assumption, namely that 1200 is the lowest rating possible. To give this post any meaning the suggestion should be "make new accounts start at 1200 and 1200 the lowest possible rating" (or 1000 and 1000 or whatever).
___
I play hon since 3 years now. Not competitive and not on a very high skill level but I know all heroes in and out, I know how to pick and how to play. I haven't been < 1500 in more than two years. I have 5 accounts. Some close to 1700, on this account I'm on my very low 1550 atm. I don't have time or the the commitment for a clan, I solo tmm. I'm happy when getting seated with peops like me.
If you dont wanna read about why I think that the current system is "not-so-great", just skip the following part and jump right to the next section with a bold title.
And here's what bugs me about the current rating system:
Today I was seated with a guy who picked ss sidelane then said "wtf why you ward there" when I warded the pull. 2 games later I was seated with a valk that fed devo 5 death mid (unintentionally) in less than 5 mins. These are new players, less than 100 games of hon/dota played, obviously. Such games become almost unwinable. I played 3 games this week where I went mid, gone 6-0 within 10 mins (yeah with ganks), but the overall score was 6-9. I won two of these, but it was pure luck to get seated vs guys that let you win mid to the point where you go 6-0 10 mins in. Generally speaking, peops with way different skill levels are seated in the 1450-1650 range. And as 1550 one has to expect to be seated with everything, even below 1450.
I like to play 1v1 and I do it fairly often, using normal mode for that purpose only. On each and every account I have I'm above 70% wining in 1v1 (good example, alt account highanrising, 89 1v1 played, 75% winning, 1663 tmr). When creating a new account I can go for 15 win streak from 1500 to 1600 without any problems. 1500 is not my skill level. So here the rating system does work pretty well for me. I play 15 matches in the ~1500 range, win every one, go 1600 and then some good player shows up and stops my streak. I now can go a little further and might even lose a bit more but still I'll my win rate is way above 50% and I progress to 1700. At some point players rated higher than me would stop me and there I'd reach my final fair rating.
So the current elo rating system works very well for me - for 1v1 games.
Just hon is a team game. And that means in an actual tmm situation there's more factors than just me picking / playing good. We all know these games where peops pick and you know it's all wrong. We all know these games where teammates die 15 times in 15 mins. And these factors can become so huge that I can barely see any correlation between my rating (can lose 1550+, can win 1700+), my plays (can pick great, run a 10 min 6-0 mid with ganks on both lanes and lose), and the team I get seated with (can be the 1500 I get seated with is actually better than me, can be the 1600 runs mid and feeds). Sure there's a tendency and yeah it's almost impossible for me to drop < 1500 but the span is huge. Now remember it's not about me complaining about this, but some initial explanations on why I think the rating system can be improved and that I find the issue is not the system itself (works well for 1v1) but the rating system in conjunction with the teams one gets in 1500+.
I described the symptoms, now let me describe what I find to be the main reason for all of this.
In the current system, if an 1500 drops to 1350 what would he do? Create a new account! 1200 thinking he's always having to play with bads? New account! 1500 but dont like your kd? New account! 1300 but finally you got too many leaves? New account! Feel like trolling? New account! Account suspended? Create a new account and troll with it, you're unbanned in 2 days anway! Hey fun story, one day tmm decided to seat me vs some clowns from fnatic (they're 2000+). They felt like pubstomping and streaming it, yay. How's that possible they show up in 1500? Ah right, new account! It all ends up in the 1500 bracket.
It was little of an issue when an account was 30$. With f2p this became inflationary.
Take some evidence and watch stats in 1500 games, 70% of the players have less than 500 games played, some are autoattacking, dont know how to creep block or ward a pull, others know every hero, hero combos, strats, positioning, ward spots, juke spots etcetc. They're all smurfs and lowbie "smurfs"! The 1500-1700 are a huge mess of players of all different skilllevels. A huge part is actually < 1500 "smurfs" that try to get into the > 1500 bracket this way. F2p and massive tmr gain based on the first few games on a new account did NO good to that. Tmr-compression did NO good to that.
Now this is how I think it can be improved:
I propose each and everyone starting at 1200 (or whatever the lowest rating possible is). Unverified, faster initial tmr gain etc. can be left untouched in my opinion.
Let's imagine such a ladder. New players and smurfs would be seated in the lowest bracket. It would be more annyoing to smurf because initially there would only be very new players, very bad players and smurfs. It would make smurfing much less interesting as there's no average players. It would take more games to get to a decent tmr. Every ok player could move through it with some good plays. At least I know I can play a "1200+ pub" and win it with much more than 80% probability, an 1300 with 70% an 1400 with 60%. Maybe I'd get stuck at 50% in 1500 and that would be fine with me.
The advantages:
- There would be no more incentive for players to create a new account to get their rating back up to 1500! No more free stat resets for low rated players, feeders, leavers and suspended players and thus no more low rated players, feeders, leavers and suspended players in the 1500 bracket.
- There would be less incentive to smurf for higherrated players as they'd have to go through all the lower brackets and spend ~100 games just to get 1500.
- And thus the 1450-1650 (the tmr range with by far the most players in it im sure) would finally become a place where peops of equal skill level would end up in instead of it beeing the junkyard of newerth.
Regarding the concern that "1200 would become the new 1500 bracket" please read #4 (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?429348-Rating-system-change&p=15159221&viewfull=1#post15159221) in this thread.
Discuss.
And for clarification, I use the word 'smurf' for both high rated players who create new accounts to "pubstomp" as well as low rated players who create a new account to go back up to 1500, whereas I usualy refer to the former as smurfs and to the later as "smurfs" (the later aren't really smurfs, I know that).
And for clarification, when I first wrote this I guess I was making a wrong assumption, namely that 1200 is the lowest rating possible. To give this post any meaning the suggestion should be "make new accounts start at 1200 and 1200 the lowest possible rating" (or 1000 and 1000 or whatever).
___
I play hon since 3 years now. Not competitive and not on a very high skill level but I know all heroes in and out, I know how to pick and how to play. I haven't been < 1500 in more than two years. I have 5 accounts. Some close to 1700, on this account I'm on my very low 1550 atm. I don't have time or the the commitment for a clan, I solo tmm. I'm happy when getting seated with peops like me.
If you dont wanna read about why I think that the current system is "not-so-great", just skip the following part and jump right to the next section with a bold title.
And here's what bugs me about the current rating system:
Today I was seated with a guy who picked ss sidelane then said "wtf why you ward there" when I warded the pull. 2 games later I was seated with a valk that fed devo 5 death mid (unintentionally) in less than 5 mins. These are new players, less than 100 games of hon/dota played, obviously. Such games become almost unwinable. I played 3 games this week where I went mid, gone 6-0 within 10 mins (yeah with ganks), but the overall score was 6-9. I won two of these, but it was pure luck to get seated vs guys that let you win mid to the point where you go 6-0 10 mins in. Generally speaking, peops with way different skill levels are seated in the 1450-1650 range. And as 1550 one has to expect to be seated with everything, even below 1450.
I like to play 1v1 and I do it fairly often, using normal mode for that purpose only. On each and every account I have I'm above 70% wining in 1v1 (good example, alt account highanrising, 89 1v1 played, 75% winning, 1663 tmr). When creating a new account I can go for 15 win streak from 1500 to 1600 without any problems. 1500 is not my skill level. So here the rating system does work pretty well for me. I play 15 matches in the ~1500 range, win every one, go 1600 and then some good player shows up and stops my streak. I now can go a little further and might even lose a bit more but still I'll my win rate is way above 50% and I progress to 1700. At some point players rated higher than me would stop me and there I'd reach my final fair rating.
So the current elo rating system works very well for me - for 1v1 games.
Just hon is a team game. And that means in an actual tmm situation there's more factors than just me picking / playing good. We all know these games where peops pick and you know it's all wrong. We all know these games where teammates die 15 times in 15 mins. And these factors can become so huge that I can barely see any correlation between my rating (can lose 1550+, can win 1700+), my plays (can pick great, run a 10 min 6-0 mid with ganks on both lanes and lose), and the team I get seated with (can be the 1500 I get seated with is actually better than me, can be the 1600 runs mid and feeds). Sure there's a tendency and yeah it's almost impossible for me to drop < 1500 but the span is huge. Now remember it's not about me complaining about this, but some initial explanations on why I think the rating system can be improved and that I find the issue is not the system itself (works well for 1v1) but the rating system in conjunction with the teams one gets in 1500+.
I described the symptoms, now let me describe what I find to be the main reason for all of this.
In the current system, if an 1500 drops to 1350 what would he do? Create a new account! 1200 thinking he's always having to play with bads? New account! 1500 but dont like your kd? New account! 1300 but finally you got too many leaves? New account! Feel like trolling? New account! Account suspended? Create a new account and troll with it, you're unbanned in 2 days anway! Hey fun story, one day tmm decided to seat me vs some clowns from fnatic (they're 2000+). They felt like pubstomping and streaming it, yay. How's that possible they show up in 1500? Ah right, new account! It all ends up in the 1500 bracket.
It was little of an issue when an account was 30$. With f2p this became inflationary.
Take some evidence and watch stats in 1500 games, 70% of the players have less than 500 games played, some are autoattacking, dont know how to creep block or ward a pull, others know every hero, hero combos, strats, positioning, ward spots, juke spots etcetc. They're all smurfs and lowbie "smurfs"! The 1500-1700 are a huge mess of players of all different skilllevels. A huge part is actually < 1500 "smurfs" that try to get into the > 1500 bracket this way. F2p and massive tmr gain based on the first few games on a new account did NO good to that. Tmr-compression did NO good to that.
Now this is how I think it can be improved:
I propose each and everyone starting at 1200 (or whatever the lowest rating possible is). Unverified, faster initial tmr gain etc. can be left untouched in my opinion.
Let's imagine such a ladder. New players and smurfs would be seated in the lowest bracket. It would be more annyoing to smurf because initially there would only be very new players, very bad players and smurfs. It would make smurfing much less interesting as there's no average players. It would take more games to get to a decent tmr. Every ok player could move through it with some good plays. At least I know I can play a "1200+ pub" and win it with much more than 80% probability, an 1300 with 70% an 1400 with 60%. Maybe I'd get stuck at 50% in 1500 and that would be fine with me.
The advantages:
- There would be no more incentive for players to create a new account to get their rating back up to 1500! No more free stat resets for low rated players, feeders, leavers and suspended players and thus no more low rated players, feeders, leavers and suspended players in the 1500 bracket.
- There would be less incentive to smurf for higherrated players as they'd have to go through all the lower brackets and spend ~100 games just to get 1500.
- And thus the 1450-1650 (the tmr range with by far the most players in it im sure) would finally become a place where peops of equal skill level would end up in instead of it beeing the junkyard of newerth.
Regarding the concern that "1200 would become the new 1500 bracket" please read #4 (http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?429348-Rating-system-change&p=15159221&viewfull=1#post15159221) in this thread.
Discuss.