The New Point System

[RandyDogz]

I am liking the new system. I'd break down players between top 200 players and others. As CombatEX mentions, top 200 gauge progress by the list, and for all intensive purposes don't care about league points. League points don't work overly well for these players, but I don't see this as a big deal. Good casual Master top 200 players don't always rise to the top of the league, but I think these players are working towards a ST promotion not being top of their Masters league.

For the others, the biggest user base, this change encourages activity which is good. I don't think we want every league game to put the fear of dropping to the bottom of their league, which I believe was happening with the old system. Climbing the ranks was a huge grind, winning 12 points, losing 10, then another loss wipes out all points. And for this user base, they don't have a top 200 listing, and probably not getting promoted (I believe the vast majority are stuck in clever/gifted right?) so the only gauge they have is climbing the league ranking. How do they do that? Play a lot. I don't think encouraging activity is bad. If someone's to be frustrated, it should be the casual player not the active player. If you want to excel at anything in life, it's practice and hard work that does it - the attitude of I know I'm better and shouldn't need to work as hard doesn't cut it for me (UNLESS you've already proven yourself, in Outwitters that's making it to the top 200, where I completely agree it should NOT favor quantity over quality!)

I do agree with the point around the false sense of being promoted around being at the top of the league. I think adding an indicator if players are on the cusp of a promotion (or demotion :/) would be really cool and a good compromise between not disclosing hidden rating but giving players a better sense of how they are doing!

Not implying the current system is perfect, these are interesting conversations and we should continue to debate! I respect OML's hard stance on not disclosing hidden ratings. That's proprietary information, and they've obviously worked hard to develop it. But that means league points will never be perfect.

PS - I know some of these points have already been raised, it would have taken me a week to properly quote from those monster posts on my iPhone!