Posted on 11 July 2014 - 12:32 AM

Hey everyone. We have grown a lot recently, so I thought it would be a good idea to have a fast sit down talk and explain what's going on to all of our new comers. @Archybot and I started this project together about 13 months ago, and neither of us expected it to grow this much. Therefore a lot of the design decisions were not well thought out for our servers. We have done a lot of work to make it so our KitPvP and SoupPvP servers can handle 700 players on a single server instance. This is something that no other server in existence has accomplished. Let alone with such as high TPS.

One of the original design decisions was to use what is known as the ELO system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system), created originally for chess. It uses a basic formula to determine ranking differences and does some quick number math to change a persons "rating." If you feel like reading how it works completely, read the link. Seasons 1 - 4 all used this old ELO system, which many servers have copied from us at this point.

The main issue with this system, is it doesn't account for who is truly better. It just goes based off a number, not any averages or what not. So if a 2000 rating loses to a 1400 noob hacker, he loses 32 points, even though he has 200 games played and the 1400 newbie has 0 games played. This has created what is known "ladder anxiety". The high ELO players are scared to play and lose a bunch of points to someone who is not near their skill level.

Due to this, we have taken the time to craft a new rating system that accounts for this issue of ladder anxiety. We have also decided to get rid of rating all together. Ratings will now be hidden from the normal user, and instead the ladders will only be based on your rank. It doesn't matter if rank 1 is 2100 and rank 2 is 2000. rank 1 > rank 2 in the end, so that's what we've decided to do at the moment.

So if you have a player A who has 200 games and is rank 5 and then player B who has won 5 games and is rank 10824. Player A loses to Player B, player A's hidden rating will only go down a little bit, but player B's hidden rating will still go up a lot. This way both players are properly handled for the ratings. Please do note that if Player A goes on a losing spree, then he will start to lose more points.

EDIT (Now that we are showing you pure skill rank - NOT ELO)
Also, your first 10-50 games in each ladder the system is trying to find a good average rating to place you at (this can take a bit if you are very inconsistent). This means you can (not always) gain points in a loss, or possibly even lose points in a win. The system is directly trying to average you to a good starting point. Once it gets you there, points will seem more normal from that point on.

I hope this helps to explain the new rating/ranking system. Good luck in Season 5!

P.S. Unlimited Ranked Matches will be turned on Friday Morning and end Saturday night for the beginning and end of the new seasons.
P.S.S. Camping is a punishable offense in ranked matches in season 5. Running away is still allowed.

NOTE: If you are ranked #1 and then a few minutes later you check again and are ranked #5 in a ladder, it does not mean your rating dropped. It only means that 4 people managed to pass your skill level/rating in that time.

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 01:05 AM

Sounds great! Actually, this might actually bring me back to playing competitively.

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 01:08 AM

yay ^_^

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 01:35 AM

so hyped for this :D

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 01:57 AM

Wow! I am just so Pumped to play this, - Right @Pikoaku

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 03:00 AM

Thank you for doing this! The elo system seemed to bring out the worst in everybody, im glad that this is changing.

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 03:23 AM

hype

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 04:57 AM

What a great change! Can't wait to see it implemented.

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 05:27 AM

No more of this!

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 07:18 AM

bragging, I see.

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 02:58 PM

you don't know how it feels when christhenoob takes #1

Posted on 11 July 2014 - 10:00 PM

I think we all know how it feels.

Posted on 12 July 2014 - 08:06 AM

<3

Posted on 12 July 2014 - 05:20 PM

Yes we do. :(

Posted on 15 July 2014 - 04:08 AM

BUT - he's not playing this map anyway ^_^

Posted on 18 July 2014 - 09:28 AM

We have a new christhenoob though, camping at the top of the ladder. ;P

Posted on 19 July 2014 - 10:30 AM

I do understand this but i lost -33 to someone after winning LOADS of games :(

Posted on 19 July 2014 - 07:13 PM

aw yes, no more of THIS

Posted on 20 July 2014 - 05:51 AM

It seems perfect the work you did, I love to play 2v2, so I buy the rank donator, but I really feel bad you have to wait about 2 minutes per 1 fight, that is, when I press the sign to play 2v2 UHC I see more people come to this type of game, but the game does not start. In short: To play 1 game are about 2 minutes and I didn't like it at all

Posted on 20 July 2014 - 08:01 AM

So I just encountered something that I was a little confused by. I think I understand it as Metrais explained it to me, but with the new queuing, it's possible to lose rating after a win? From what I understand, matchmaking could not find me an opponent, so it gave me a low rating player, but still, shouldn't a win be a win. I understand the skill gap may be monumental, but is "punishing" a player for winning the best solution? Obviously this is not a major problem as I lost merely one rating point, but still something I wanted to discuss.

If I understand correctly, once I see this message I should leave the queue:

http://puu.sh/aj7hc/325d75ce65.png