5 ms·

You are right about sbmm, but it doesn’t make for a good progression system imo. If my hidden elo says I’m diamond or w/e I should cruise through early ranks in

You are right about sbmm, but it doesn’t make for a good progression system imo. If my hidden elo says I’m diamond or w/e I should cruise through early ranks instead of being matched with other diamond elo players climbing from bronze. It should only feel like a slog/be super competitive when the external rank matches the hidden elo. Not the entire time IMO. Some games get this right, others (looking at you Apex Legends Arenas Mode) does not and it just winds up being a terrible slog.

bick_nyers 4y ago
Lol so true. Why am I being matched up against top 500 players when I am quite literally making my way through bronze. Just double my queue time until we find a good match at that point.
cube2222 4y ago
Actually, I think matching you against equal players would be much better in such a situation, but you should gain much more visible elo for wins than you lose for losses (thus going up even with a 50% win rate).
dragontamer 4y ago
> If my hidden elo says I’m diamond or w/e I should cruise through early ranks instead of being matched with other diamond elo players climbing from bronze. Or maybe you should stop making new accounts and stop smurfing? I've been a beginner in plenty of games, and it sucks to be matched against someone far above your skill level in most games. ------ I get it. A lot of people want to be matched up against weaker players so that they have an easy win. That doesn't make it fair for the losers in this situation. Furthermore, it weakens the community and turns it more toxic. Expert players (or even advanced/intermediate players) shouldn't seek out weak players and stomp them. 50% win ratios, for everyone, should be the default goal. You climb the Elo to keep 50% win/loss, and as you lose, you fall to 50% win/loss as well, or so the ideal is. That way, everyone is on fair grounds. If you want someone to "feed you wins", maybe play a PvE game like MMOs or something? But a competitive game is zero-sum by default. Half the players lose, and half the players win each game. So community managers need to spread the wins and losses around in a fair way.
- arthurcolle 4y ago
  > If you want someone to "feed you wins", maybe play a PvE game like MMOs or something? Yeah this is easily solved - just go ratting in high sec in a nice specced out Drekavac or something.
- ianbutler 4y ago
  Or maybe you're new to ranked and hidden elo takes in to account quickplay? I've never smurfed in a game so shove it.
- grog454 4y ago
  > I've been a beginner in plenty of games, and it sucks to be matched against someone far above your skill level in most games. I used to think this way until I started to understand what it takes to become competitive at high levels. The most efficient way to improve is to play with and against people better than you. If you take your ego out of the equation and pretend everyone is there to teach you, it's hard NOT to learn something. Tangential to that, a lot of people would be honored to play against a GM in chess. Yet when placed against actual GMs doing some variation of a "3000 elo speed run", they throw a fit. What? Maybe its cultural. For a while in SC2 GSL, there was a side show where a random amateur for the audience got to play against a pro. You could clearly see the reverence most of the amateurs held for their opponent.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    > The most efficient way to improve is to play with and against people better than you. Unless the opponent is purposefully throwing a "teaching game" and/or giving an appropriate handicap of some kind, this is absolutely not the case. In Chess, games at the 1500 Elo level are won/lost due to a knight fork, a bishop pin, a skewer, and other such traps. GMs literally will give you _zero_ opportunities to find such mistakes from them, because they play nearly perfectly. Finding such mistakes (in yourself, and your opponent) requires an opponent who makes such mistakes at a roughly the same level as you. GMs who can see maybe 2 or 3 moves ahead of you will prevent such mistakes from even occurring, giving you no chance to learn. A "show match" vs a stronger player is to be honored, but its not a lesson learned. Its not a teaching game. ------ Sure, GMs make mistakes. But the mistakes they make are invisible to 1500 Elo players. There's no hope to ever see it, and no one expecting to learn to play the game studies GM-level chess. 1500 Elo players will improve far faster with skewer puzzles, fork puzzles, outposts, etc. etc.
ajuc 4y ago
For you to win more than 50% of the time requires that others lose more than 50% of the time. Which sucks. But what's more important, is that if you apply the same logic to other players from 1 league higher than your real ELO - you should be the one losing over 50% of the time to make them happier :)

bick_nyers 4y ago

Lol so true. Why am I being matched up against top 500 players when I am quite literally making my way through bronze. Just double my queue time until we find a good match at that point.

cube2222 4y ago

Actually, I think matching you against equal players would be much better in such a situation, but you should gain much more visible elo for wins than you lose for losses (thus going up even with a 50% win rate).

dragontamer 4y ago

> If my hidden elo says I’m diamond or w/e I should cruise through early ranks instead of being matched with other diamond elo players climbing from bronze. Or maybe you should stop making new accounts and stop smurfing? I've been a beginner in plenty of games, and it sucks to be matched against someone far above your skill level in most games. ------ I get it. A lot of people want to be matched up against weaker players so that they have an easy win. That doesn't make it fair for the losers in this situation. Furthermore, it weakens the community and turns it more toxic. Expert players (or even advanced/intermediate players) shouldn't seek out weak players and stomp them. 50% win ratios, for everyone, should be the default goal. You climb the Elo to keep 50% win/loss, and as you lose, you fall to 50% win/loss as well, or so the ideal is. That way, everyone is on fair grounds. If you want someone to "feed you wins", maybe play a PvE game like MMOs or something? But a competitive game is zero-sum by default. Half the players lose, and half the players win each game. So community managers need to spread the wins and losses around in a fair way.

arthurcolle 4y ago
> If you want someone to "feed you wins", maybe play a PvE game like MMOs or something? Yeah this is easily solved - just go ratting in high sec in a nice specced out Drekavac or something.
ianbutler 4y ago
Or maybe you're new to ranked and hidden elo takes in to account quickplay? I've never smurfed in a game so shove it.
grog454 4y ago
> I've been a beginner in plenty of games, and it sucks to be matched against someone far above your skill level in most games. I used to think this way until I started to understand what it takes to become competitive at high levels. The most efficient way to improve is to play with and against people better than you. If you take your ego out of the equation and pretend everyone is there to teach you, it's hard NOT to learn something. Tangential to that, a lot of people would be honored to play against a GM in chess. Yet when placed against actual GMs doing some variation of a "3000 elo speed run", they throw a fit. What? Maybe its cultural. For a while in SC2 GSL, there was a side show where a random amateur for the audience got to play against a pro. You could clearly see the reverence most of the amateurs held for their opponent.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > The most efficient way to improve is to play with and against people better than you. Unless the opponent is purposefully throwing a "teaching game" and/or giving an appropriate handicap of some kind, this is absolutely not the case. In Chess, games at the 1500 Elo level are won/lost due to a knight fork, a bishop pin, a skewer, and other such traps. GMs literally will give you _zero_ opportunities to find such mistakes from them, because they play nearly perfectly. Finding such mistakes (in yourself, and your opponent) requires an opponent who makes such mistakes at a roughly the same level as you. GMs who can see maybe 2 or 3 moves ahead of you will prevent such mistakes from even occurring, giving you no chance to learn. A "show match" vs a stronger player is to be honored, but its not a lesson learned. Its not a teaching game. ------ Sure, GMs make mistakes. But the mistakes they make are invisible to 1500 Elo players. There's no hope to ever see it, and no one expecting to learn to play the game studies GM-level chess. 1500 Elo players will improve far faster with skewer puzzles, fork puzzles, outposts, etc. etc.

ajuc 4y ago

For you to win more than 50% of the time requires that others lose more than 50% of the time. Which sucks. But what's more important, is that if you apply the same logic to other players from 1 league higher than your real ELO - you should be the one losing over 50% of the time to make them happier :)