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.

[daHsu]

5 starred this thread because this is really true... I don't think the devs meant for this to happen, but losses literally mean nothing. The last game I won gave me 23 points and dropped my opponent by ONE. wtf? This promotes playing as many games as you can, and basically ignoring all your losses.

[ImperialSun]

Wait, slow down there. I agree the new point system is probably not intended to work like this, however even if it is, you should never give up games just to boost your points. Your skill rating still goes down just as much as before fro, losing even if the points dont change much. If you stop caring about losing and forfeit early because it doesn't matter for your points, you'll be demoted in mo time.

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Oops, "mo time" aka "no time".

[joelduque]

Should this affect attitude and activity? I'm really interested as to the type of attitude and activity the devs want to develop among the player base by their application of such tweaks in the rankings and points system. Nevertheless, a win is a win and a loss is a loss, no matter how many points are awarded or deducted. Still, let's give it about 2-3 weeks to see how everything will shape up.

[jaxxinjr]

(01-30-2013 05:19 PM)ImperialSun Wrote:  Wait, slow down there. I agree the new point system is probably not intended to work like this, however even if it is, you should never give up games just to boost your points. Your skill rating still goes down just as much as before fro, losing even if the points dont change much. If you stop caring about losing and forfeit early because it doesn't matter for your points, you'll be demoted in mo time.

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Oops, "mo time" aka "no time".

Demoted for going UP in the league rankings?? Say I'm losing/forfeiting 8 out of 10 games -- I'm going UP in my master league (~45 pts up, ~20 down), but would get demoted to gifted? Counterintuitive to say the least...

[QuantumApocalypse]

(01-30-2013 05:53 PM)jaxxinjr Wrote:  

(01-30-2013 05:19 PM)ImperialSun Wrote:  Wait, slow down there. I agree the new point system is probably not intended to work like this, however even if it is, you should never give up games just to boost your points. Your skill rating still goes down just as much as before fro, losing even if the points dont change much. If you stop caring about losing and forfeit early because it doesn't matter for your points, you'll be demoted in mo time.

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Oops, "mo time" aka "no time".

Demoted for going UP in the league rankings?? Say I'm losing 8 out of 10 games -- I'm going UP in my master league (~45 pts up, ~20 down), but would get demoted to gifted? How does that make any logical sense??

League points are "fun" points and have no influence over your hidden ranking, which determines promotions, league placements and Top 200 placings.

People are falling into the mental trap that 1 point losses mean nothing. Your hidden rating will continue to plunge, and if you are losing much more than winning (but still gaining points) you can see yourself plunge from #1 in one league to #1 in the league below.

[CombatEX]

Well put QuantumApocalypse. But this is also why I think that having points which are not reflective of your actual rank is bad. They teach players these kinds of unfortunate lessons like losses not mattering. Players assume (and very reasonably so) that leagues are milestones and points mark how close you are to reaching the next milestone. However, this creates much unnecessary confusion. We already see this with jaxxinjr's posts here, but there are other examples I have seen in the past on the forum. Players who have many points because they play a lot of games are ranked highly in their division. However, often times (before the seasons and new point system was added) actually were not anywhere close to being promoted because their real skill wasn't very high. These players as a result were prone to the incorrect notion that they should be promoted but for some reason never are despite being at the top. Even worse is when you have a player get demoted despite being reasonably high in their division. Why did I get demoted?! I'm better than 75 out of the 100 people in my division! 'Fun' points are just unintuitive and teach bad lessons. Also, are they actually fun? I don't see why trying to increase my meaningless points is anywhere close to as fun as trying to improve my points that are reflective of my general progress as a player. I already addressed this aspect in more detail in my other post though so I won't say anything more regarding that.

[zoraster]

The reply to this:

If the secret rating is the one that matters, it shouldn't be secret. I understand that you want to create an atmosphere of "fun," but I find it so frustrating that I have little idea where I stand with regards to other players other than a vague sense given by what league I'm in. And if you aren't familiar with the forums (which I suspect the vast majority of players are not), then you'll have no idea that the "fun" points aren't the same ones that are designed to be a judgment of your skill.

"Fun" points are only fun if they mean something.

[CombatEX]

Precisely. Perhaps this is a case of the vocal minority, but I haven't seen a single advocate of "fun" points and only people voicing their desire for skill-based points. In fact, many even wish to go a step further and just display hidden-rating, though I think that's a bit too far. Either way though, the point stands that "fun" points don't seem to actually be all that fun for people. Instead they are unintuitive and do not provide useful information.

All that said, I think we should be a bit careful equating the new point system to a "fun" point system. Though initial results would suggest that this is indeed a "fun" point system, we need to give it a week or two to settle before we can really see whether the new system is skill-based or activity-based.

[zoraster]

Why would a couple of weeks change the fact that the points are net positive? Has anyone yet seen a game where someone's lost more points than the other person gained?

Assuming that it is net positive for playing a game, is there any other possibility than it's an activity-based system?