The New Point System

[jaxxinjr]

So I have won or lost about ten games since update, all with the lopsided spread: 20 pts for win, 2 or so for loss. All against other masters players at the top of their leagues.

Besides the strange dynamic of one win erasing TEN losses (!!), it creates an unusual side effect: there is little incentive to stick out a match where you are behind. Make a few mistakes? Just quit and only lose a measly point or two. Already had someone promptly quit when I was able to set up a powerful open.

Not seeing much good about the new points...


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Alex's posts on the issue, copy-pasted for this thread's benefit:

POST 1
As it stands right now, it's somewhat of a zero-sum game. Anyone lower than rank 50 typically has zero points. We're looking to improve this so it's a bit more reflective of how you've done against other players in your division.

The new change still works similarly, in that you get more points for beating a higher ranked player and stand to lose more if you beat a lower ranked player. The change is that your league points are now considered in that calculation along with your skill rating.
For example, if you're a master league player and you face another master leaguer and a Super Titan:
- If the master league player has a ton of points (typically in the top of their division), a win against him is weighed more against a Super Titan that has close to zero points. So you stand to win way more points against someone who is not only ranked in a higher league, but also has more points (and therefore has more wins).
- In short, we're hoping that your league and your division points become reflective of your skill and help differentiate players a bit more. A 1000 point Master Leaguer should be more skilled than a 300 point Master Leaguer (assuming similar time played).

Some interesting properties this change will bring about when facing similarly skilled players:
- Holding your #1 rank in your division will become more difficult. The reason being once you have a lot of points, you gain points more slowly due to being 'ahead of the pack' and you lose way more points for losses. Those at the bottom of the division with few points can gain points more quickly against those with more points than them.
- Should allow a bit more churn and therefore more lively competition in divisions. Since point gain/loss is inversely magnified the higher you go in divisions, those that got huge leads at the beginning of seasons are no longer 'safe' later in the season as new players join and quickly rise up the ranks if they have the win ratio to make it.

POST 2
We didn't have exactly much data to fall back on in the short beta (which was mostly focused on bramble changes). I'd like to give it a week or two, and see where point deltas are going and assess from there. When over 50% of the player population has 0 points or close to it I expected a lot of 'rocketing' to occur initially until the system finds an equilibrium....hopefully. The tests I ran during development on samples from top/middle/bottom showed the behavior I was looking for, but we'll have to see it play out. Maybe I'll just end up wearing a dunce cap while fixing it when it utterly fails.