Yes. They will do exactly this. Because degenerate people will be degenerate regardless of the cost in time. I think your biggest issue is that you fail to understand just how low some people are willing to go when it comes to cheating. If people want to break the rules, it doesn't matter if it takes them 2 hours or 100 hours, someone, somewhere will invest the time to cheat.

 

You have too much faith in people man

Cheating:

People will cheat yes, but with a point system I will not be personally affected. It took me 1100 matches to reach gold on 1 character back in season 9, and I had to reduce my queuing to late evening to bypass most of the wintraders and trolls. With a point system it would still be annoying, but it would not hamper my personal advancement in the same manner. Furthermore, I would find it hilarious if someone decided to dedicate all their time to 1 character merely to stick it to the ranked mafia

Population:

This has already been touched upon, so I will just echo what others what others are saying: If ratings are not affected by loss, then people will rage less and the whole thing will be more enjoyable. Personally I would feel more comfortable playing classes I suck at, if I knew it didn't mess with other peoples score.

Rewards:

Personally I don't care about rewards at all. The only thing I want is to test myself against others and see if I can improve. I do like the bronze / silver / gold system, as it gives me something specific to aim towards.

Points:

I would say 0 points for a loss, as we otherwise would have AFK-players in ranked all the time. Don't reward participation.

And...:

...what could it possible hurt at this point?

except high elo players dont play the queue. they login for 2 matchs a day until they get gold/top 3 then afk for the rest of the season unless someone beats their top 3 score. in which they login for another 2 matchs.

 

in fact many spend their time on dead end alts throwing on people that threaten their score. (this is a fact not an assumption, if you dont believe this happens you are dreadfully niave)

So I went ahead and checked this out for myself. I took the Top 50 ranked players in solo ranked (Front Page only since it's easy to extrapolate for the remaining 46 players in the Top 96) and collected the following data:

Total Wins for each Character

Games Played, assuming a 60% win rate (average for a top page player)

Total Characters who participated in Ranked for that Season

Here's the data: Spreadsheet of Top 50 player's wins and average games played, relative to participation for that season.

For reference, I won 510 games and lost 279 according to an old screenshot on my laptop, giving me a 65% win rate for that season, so 60% is a fair enough average.

As you can see, relative to the population who participated in Ranked for each season, S10 had the lowest total participation when compared to other seasons, however the ratio of wins per character is still pretty close to that of more populated seasons.

What we can conclude from this is that: Players who are cheating for their rank by playing a few games and quitting are actually an extreme minority relative to players who actually play 100+ games to achieve their rank. All the numbers are right there on the leaderboards if you'd like to conduct your own test if you believe my numbers are made up as well. Looking at this leads me to conclude that while there are people who are cheating the system, it is a grave minority relative to a total of 500 Top 50 players being analyzed across every PvP season to exist. Even if it's 50 people total, and they all happened to have cheated in the same season (S10 allegations), that's still only 10% of Front page players. That means at least 90% of Top 50 players achieved it fairly by playing on average, a whopping 501 games to achieve their rating, per season.

So in short, yes, ban the few cheaters. But don't push this assumption that even a majority of the top 96 cheat, because according to easily accessible data, it's not true. It's a minority who are cheating, and they should be punished accordingly.

Why change the present ELO system?

 

 

1. It's far too easy for a small group of shady players to manipulate and cheat the entire scoring system so they end up with top ELO.

 

2. The integrity of the ranked scene particularly the solo matches has been reduced to a toxic cesspool. Players rely on wins far too much and all it takes is one drop of a match, one win trader on your team, or one lowly skilled player to ruin all that was gained in ELO. This puts tons of pressure on honest participants to not cost the team a loss, and many players don't even bother playing ranked now because of the pressure players put on one another during matches.

 

 

 

How would a wins/losses rating system work?

 

 

Wins = 2 points

Losses = 1 point

 

100 points = Bronze

200 points = Silver

300 points = Gold

 

 

As you can see it's quite simple. Players will be rewarded for wins and losses, however wins are only slightly better than losses. This curtails players to win trade or drop matches, just due to the number of matches they'd need to drop or win trade to get points. It's simply not worth it.

 

I am just making up score numbers, if it seems too easy or too hard with the score numbers above the devs could do whatever they see fit.

 

I am just thinking of how to make solo ranked more appealing for players to want to participate, and also how to make it so it's not nearly as easy to cheat for ranked tier rewards.

 

This type of point system would also encourage people to participate for longer periods of time seeing it does have a bit of a time investment, just gaining the points necessary for the three tier rewards.

 

This type of wins/losses point system would also alleviate the hassles for BW having to investigate so many reports of potential cheaters.

 

This type of wins/losses point system would also alleviate the pressure and demand players put on other players to ensure a win. Many less skilled players refuse to even participate in solo ranked now just because of the pure toxicity this pressure creates.

 

 

The only drawback I see is it requires a time investment. That being said, these rewards ought to be hard to get! A time investment is better than having the rewards be easily accessible to cheaters while hard to get for honest players which is how it is now.

 

I think it's fair to say the present ranked rating system is broken and cannot be fixed. Over the years players have continued to cheat and ruin other ranked players experiences in the matches with cheating.

 

The amount of time BW must waste trying to sort out who is cheating and who is not has to be exhausting. The experience as a player trying to honestly gain ELO in solo ranked is exhausting, I personally lost all patience with it last year after a week of seeing the shenanigans going on.

 

I know I would consider trying ranked again if I seen a new system was put in place to calculate points up, a system that would be far harder to cheat.

 

I imagine others have some things they would add, or perhaps explanations on how to improve this system, I am curious to hear what others have to say.

 

 

EDIT:

 

ALTERNATIVE TO TOP 3 HIGHEST ELO TITLE REWARDS

 

An alternative to the exclusive top 3 ELO position rewards could be top 3 with most wins. It would be a lot harder to manipulate this kind of system versus the present ELO rating system which literally only takes a small number of matches to manipulate and cheat for a top ELO spot.

 

With a wins/losses point system at least the winners would be people who actually won matches. Granted, if someone has 24/7 to play and manages to out win someone else who is better than them it might not indicate who the top player of all is, but in reality does the top ELO rating system do that now? I don't believe so.

 

This also would give players even more reason to queue up and play more ranked.

stop spamming/copy same thread with a bit different words pls. Your system sucks since it destroys quality of ranked and switches it to quantity. Those jobless, basement freaks will sit 24/7 and get tonnes of wins while skilled decent players working/studying making families etc. And if you think your system can't be manipulated you are mistaken. Same mafia will wintrade for wins now to get the most number of wins possible.

Current system is ok and needs only small changes like better matchmaking which won't consider high elo players be put in teams with total noobs.

Your system will allow noobs to get a guaranteed gold by just queueing 24/7 during all season. It looks like a cry from unskilled players who dream about gold but can't afford it with their skill

stop spamming/copy same thread with a bit different words pls. Your system sucks since it destroys quality of ranked and switches it to quantity. Those jobless, basement freaks will sit 24/7 and get tonnes of wins while skilled decent players working/studying making families etc. And if you think your system can't be manipulated you are mistaken. Same mafia will wintrade for wins now to get the most number of wins possible.

 

Current system is ok and needs only small changes like better matchmaking which won't consider high elo players be put in teams with total noobs.

 

Your system will allow noobs to get a guaranteed gold by just queueing 24/7 during all season. It looks like a cry from unskilled players who dream about gold but can't afford it with their skill

I personally couldn't care less about how ratings are determined because ranked is both meaningless and toxic, leading me to have no desire to participate.

The problem fundamentally how do you deal with the fact that not enough "good" players are around to guarantee a fair match? This is the fundamental issue with swtor pvp in general.

I personally couldn't care less about how ratings are determined because ranked is both meaningless and toxic, leading me to have no desire to participate.

 

The problem fundamentally how do you deal with the fact that not enough "good" players are around to guarantee a fair match? This is the fundamental issue with swtor pvp in general.

Correct.

And does it even matter anymore if basement dwellers can play a 1000 matches to climb ratings vs no one wants to play ranked under the current toxic system?

Lhance’s idea may not be perfect or completely fleshed out. But the premise is something they could work around to change the ELO system for the better and encourage people to start playing solo ranked again.

Many don’t want to because of the toxicity, which gets really out of hand when someone newish causes people to lose ELO. As soon as that starts happening, people start getting really annoyed and go too far in what they say. It drives new and old players away from ranked because they don’t like the toxicity.

If Lhances idea were to help alleviate some of that toxicity, then maybe more people would hang around in solo ranked longer.

So I went ahead and checked this out for myself. I took the Top 50 ranked players in solo ranked (Front Page only since it's easy to extrapolate for the remaining 46 players in the Top 96) and collected the following data:

 

Total Wins for each Character

Games Played, assuming a 60% win rate (average for a top page player)

Total Characters who participated in Ranked for that Season

 

Here's the data: Spreadsheet of Top 50 player's wins and average games played, relative to participation for that season.

 

For reference, I won 510 games and lost 279 according to an old screenshot on my laptop, giving me a 65% win rate for that season, so 60% is a fair enough average.

 

As you can see, relative to the population who participated in Ranked for each season, S10 had the lowest total participation when compared to other seasons, however the ratio of wins per character is still pretty close to that of more populated seasons.

 

What we can conclude from this is that: Players who are cheating for their rank by playing a few games and quitting are actually an extreme minority relative to players who actually play 100+ games to achieve their rank. All the numbers are right there on the leaderboards if you'd like to conduct your own test if you believe my numbers are made up as well. Looking at this leads me to conclude that while there are people who are cheating the system, it is a grave minority relative to a total of 500 Top 50 players being analyzed across every PvP season to exist. Even if it's 50 people total, and they all happened to have cheated in the same season (S10 allegations), that's still only 10% of Front page players. That means at least 90% of Top 50 players achieved it fairly by playing on average, a whopping 501 games to achieve their rating, per season.

 

So in short, yes, ban the few cheaters. But don't push this assumption that even a majority of the top 96 cheat, because according to easily accessible data, it's not true. It's a minority who are cheating, and they should be punished accordingly.

kre'a you are directly refering to top 96. there was a gold sniper that I pointed out to everyone named queue tester with 10 wins and 1500 rating (gold solos)

as for whether the top 96 played a lot? I will admit they played a hellva lot this season than ever before do to how hrd it was to actually climb. but its doesnt change the fact that they didnt have to keep their rating high. swtor doesnt have rating decay so if someone got 1700 after the first 30 wins they could have sat on their hands for about 5 months and not had to worry about a thing.

I would 100% support the removal of elo loss. I think the best thing they could do is keep elo gain how it is, increase score threshhold (gold is say 2.5k) and remove elo loss, making a loss 0. this wont change anything except make your accompplishments your own. if you can win, you will, if you lose well you lost, better luck next time.

kre'a you are directly refering to top 96. there was a gold sniper that I pointed out to everyone named queue tester with 10 wins and 1500 rating (gold solos)

 

as for whether the top 96 played a lot? I will admit they played a hellva lot this season than ever before do to how hrd it was to actually climb. but its doesnt change the fact that they didnt have to keep their rating high. swtor doesnt have rating decay so if someone got 1700 after the first 30 wins they could have sat on their hands for about 5 months and not had to worry about a thing.

I targeted the top 96 because that appears to be the issue that people have the most with. It seems they care mostly about people cheating their way into top 96 and less about gold rewards since even a bronze player can get those if they really wanted to.

However I 150% support rating decay.

I would 100% support the removal of elo loss. I think the best thing they could do is keep elo gain how it is, increase score threshhold (gold is say 2.5k) and remove elo loss, making a loss 0. this wont change anything except make your accompplishments your own. if you can win, you will, if you lose well you lost, better luck next time.

This would be an improvement over the present ELO system.

The losses do way too much damage to someone's rating who is honestly trying to build ELO, and the fact is wintrading is so frequently done right now that everyone's rating/ELO suffers, on top of that the matches are terrible when these cheaters are in the queue.

I still don't see this curbing the cheating though, not one bit. It's too easy for a group of "friends" to win trade a handful of matches to get their ELO. The only thing is if losses had no impact on ELO, at least people wouldn't be as affected by the cheating, win trades, match drops, etc. You still would have ruined matches though due to the consistent flow of match droppers/wintraders.

I'd rather just ditch ELO, and make the contests about total wins personally only because there would be no quick and easy way to cheat for rewards as there is now with wintrading for ELO.

At least make the cheaters work hard and invest time into it if they are going to try to cheat the system. Having a scoring system based on wins also would make it easier to catch cheaters because there would be a much larger sample size of their wintrade activity.

Another added benefit to having a wins scoring system would be a more active queue. The need for wins plus the lack of toxicity created by lost ELO would contribute to more people queuing for ranked, especially solo ranked.

I made that suggestion before I found out the new ranked vendor is a grind.

peace yall, its been real.