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.

+1

Mr Musco, please look into this asap!

My motivation is purely selfish! I don't want tomorrow to come and bam...waiting 30 mins for SR pops again.

My enthusiasm for SR has been revitalized in the last two weeks. And it has nothing to do with getting rewards tomorrow or rating. I just like arenas in this game, I've always enjoyed this game mode. So I'm happy to change to whichever system gets me consistent SR pops.

By all means, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they already implement this? I distinctly remember this exact problem being discussed in Season 5 or 6, by players who stated that it was impossible to get end of season rewards because of the Elo system, so Bioware revamped the entire reward system so that even someone who placed in Bronze could still buy the Gold tier mount with enough games played using Ranked Tokens, which were rewarded at the end of every match now, instead of only at the end of the season.

If your method was implemented, what exactly would it fix? Players can already purchase Gold tier rewards even if they place in Bronze by just playing a lot. In fact, the only reward that's *not* obtainable by simply grinding out ranked season tokens is the Top 3 titles. I know this because I purchased a Rancor mount on my Powertech which placed in bronze, but i played a lot of games on.

So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying whether your idea is good or bad, but I am curious as to what problem it aims to fix, since all rewards are already obtainable by any tier of player. Would this system be solely implemented to change the method of obtaining a top 3 title? Or is there something that I'm missing? Honest, non sarcastic question.

At this point, anything beats the current state of Ranked. I would rather a casual who can play 24/7 and get a top 3 even if he lost every single match, than a guy who can bot his way to the top in less than an hour.

 

I'm in favor of whatever change gets rid of BioWare's hand in dealing with rating manipulation. They are useless.

So are most of these gripes then purely in regards to Top 3 titles and not ranked rewards, since anyone can get ranked rewards now? I'm trying to understand specifically what's being targeted here.

Edit: To clarify, I understand people's issue with the entirety of the Elo system. But what I'm trying to understand is what issue they are trying to remedy by swapping to a different system. If it's the issue of Ranked Reward accessibility, that was already fixed with the implementation of receiving season tokens at the end of each match instead of just at the end of the season. So with physical item rewards now being available to anyone, the only exclusive reward left is the titles. So then I ask, are these gripes purely in regards to who is getting a top 3 title? Or is there something else that I'm missing?

By all means, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they already implement this? I distinctly remember this exact problem being discussed in Season 5 or 6, by players who stated that it was impossible to get end of season rewards because of the Elo system, so Bioware revamped the entire reward system so that even someone who placed in Bronze could still buy the Gold tier mount with enough games played using Ranked Tokens, which were rewarded at the end of every match now, instead of only at the end of the season.

 

 

If your method was implemented, what exactly would it fix? Players can already purchase Gold tier rewards even if they place in Bronze by just playing a lot. In fact, the only reward that's *not* obtainable by simply grinding out ranked season tokens is the Top 3 titles.

 

So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying whether your idea is good or bad, but I am curious as to what problem it aims to fix, since all rewards are already obtainable by any tier of player. Would this system be solely implemented to change the method of obtaining a top 3 title? Or is there something that I'm missing? Honest, non sarcastic question.

My issue is having a ELO based scoring system. For the reasons I explained above. I could see ELO for team ranked, but in solo ranked all it does is create drama.

When one loss can wreck someone's ELO naturally people flip out over the losses. I really believe if you take out ELO and remove the fear people have of losing there would be more participation especially in solo ranked.

Exactly what does keeping ELO in do that enriches the game? If people were unable to cheat for ELO easily, if people didn't win trade, drop matches, and do all the other things they do to manipulate ELO I would view it more favorably.

All the shady stuff that occurs also ruins the experience of playing in ranked. I can speak from my own experience in 2018 my solo ranked matches were teeming with people who dropped matches. I only can assume they did it because they had pals on the other team. Regardless, it sucked... I had so many 3v4 fights and losses all due to nothing I did personally to lose ELO. I could see why some people rage, it was really frustrating.

Also, honestly does anyone think the top 3 ELO truly indicate who the best players are? I just think the problems ELO brings far outweigh the benefits. I think the carrot of having a top 3 best title isn't worth all the problems it causes. Just this one reward that requires top ELO creates a plethora of other issues and is the bane of ranked in my eyes. How is it worth it?

My issue is having a ELO based scoring system. For the reasons I explained above. I could see ELO for team ranked, but in solo ranked all it does is create drama.

 

When one loss can wreck someone's ELO naturally people flip out over the losses. I really believe if you take out ELO and remove the fear people have of losing there would be more participation especially in solo ranked.

 

Exactly what does keeping ELO in do that enriches the game? If people were unable to cheat for ELO easily, if people didn't win trade, drop matches, and do all the other things they do to manipulate ELO would view it more favorably.

 

All the shady stuff that occurs also ruins the experience of playing in ranked. I can speak from my own experience in 2018 my solo ranked matches were teeming with people who dropped matches. I only can assume they did it because they had pals on the other team. Regardless, it sucked... I had so many 3v4 fights and losses all due to nothing I did personally to lose ELO. I could see why some people rage, it was really frustrating.

 

Also, honestly does anyone think the top 3 ELO truly indicate who the best players are? I just think the problems ELO brings far outweigh the benefits. I think the carrot of having a top 3 best title isn't worth all the problems it causes.

I've edited my previous post with more info. I understand the issues with Elo. But I'm saying, if all rewards are available by even a bronze tier player, what issue are we attempting to remedy, specifically? The argument used to be that rewards weren't accessible. So that was fixed. So what is the current issue, if the all rewards are now available to anyone?

The only exclusive reward is Top 3 titles now. So is that what the heart of the issue is, who receives the titles?

By all means, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they already implement this? I distinctly remember this exact problem being discussed in Season 5 or 6, by players who stated that it was impossible to get end of season rewards because of the Elo system, so Bioware revamped the entire reward system so that even someone who placed in Bronze could still buy the Gold tier mount with enough games played using Ranked Tokens, which were rewarded at the end of every match now, instead of only at the end of the season.

 

 

If your method was implemented, what exactly would it fix? Players can already purchase Gold tier rewards even if they place in Bronze by just playing a lot. In fact, the only reward that's *not* obtainable by simply grinding out ranked season tokens is the Top 3 titles. I know this because I purchased a Rancor mount on my Powertech which placed in bronze, but i played a lot of games on.

 

So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying whether your idea is good or bad, but I am curious as to what problem it aims to fix, since all rewards are already obtainable by any tier of player. Would this system be solely implemented to change the method of obtaining a top 3 title? Or is there something that I'm missing? Honest, non sarcastic question.

Kre'a, you're correct in the sense that one could grind all season long and obtain a mount or a weapon set or an armor set even if they only achieved bronze. But, my theory is that the presence of the ELO rating system alone discourages people from queuing SR. A lot of people would have been chased out ranked previously for various reasons, regrettably by people like me. A lot of it has to do with protecting "precious" ELO.

However, in the last two weeks, the ELO system has been turned off during pre-season and weekly mat mission was added. This has caused a massive increase in SR pops on SS all times of day. It is amazing!! I don't think this is due to addition of mats alone because I see a lot of people in queue that either don't do pve or continue to queue long after finishing the weekly.

So this tells me that the interest in SR is still there. Its a lot easier for new players or players that dislike the ELO system to queue when they are not affecting others' ratings and not being shouted at by all the vets.

This is why I'm in favor of removing the ELO system altogether. Of course whatever replaces it should be simple and sensible! This is something I'm not sure BW are capable of doing.

Kre'a, you're correct in the sense that one could grind all season long and obtain a mount or a weapon set or an armor set even if they only achieved bronze. But, my theory is that the presence of the ELO rating system alone discourages people from queuing SR. A lot of people would have been chased out ranked previously for various reasons, regrettably by people like me. A lot of it has to do with protecting "precious" ELO.

 

However, in the last two weeks, the ELO system has been turned off during pre-season and weekly mat mission was added. This has caused a massive increase in SR pops on SS all times of day. It is amazing!! I don't think this is due to addition of mats alone because I see a lot of people in queue that either don't do pve or continue to queue long after finishing the weekly.

 

So this tells me that the interest in SR is still there. Its a lot easier for new players or players that dislike the ELO system to queue when they are not affecting others' ratings and not being shouted at by all the vets.

 

This is why I'm in favor of removing the ELO system altogether. Of course whatever replaces it should be simple and sensible! This is something I'm not sure BW are capable of doing.

So the aim of revamping the Elo system is to get rid of the anxiety people feel when they see their personal Elo number go up or down?

So the aim of revamping the Elo system is to get rid of the anxiety people feel when they see their personal Elo number go up or down?

Pretty much, yeah. By removing the ELO ratings, it will remove mental barriers for people and participation should improve, in theory. We'll never know if it's not tried. All we know is that with the current system, its not looking good for the SR scene.

I've edited my previous post with more info. I understand the issues with Elo. But I'm saying, if all rewards are available by even a bronze tier player, what issue are we attempting to remedy, specifically? The argument used to be that rewards weren't accessible. So that was fixed. So what is the current issue, if the all rewards are now available to anyone?

 

The only exclusive reward is Top 3 titles now. So is that what the heart of the issue is, who receives the titles?

The issue is ELO. The depths of what people do for ELO is ridiculous. I explained what I think are reasons enough to consider just removing it.

Without a ELO rating I think more people would participate in ranked, especially solo ranked.

Losses cost ELO, and when people lose ELO they go bat **** crazy. Just play solo ranked a day, see what happens when you lose a match. Or a round for that matter. People rage quit, go bonkers. This makes it stressful and toxic.

People also stoop to the lowest depths for ELO. It really is like a plague the amount of cheaters that will compromise matches for their own ELO gain. You know this I am sure if you have played ranked especially solo ranked.

I have had people proclaim they never had people drop matches in what appears to be win trades with their pals on the other side, but I had a week of shenanigans going on in solo ranked and it was enough for me to stop queing it last year.

It was a total waste of time, and I can even stomach the toxicity and insults just fine. What I can't stand is losing ELO and rating because someone on my team drops the match or willingly dies because they don't give a crap.

If gaining an exclusive reward is important, then perhaps just make the reward gained by the players with the most wins. At least that shows they won matches. If someone wanted to win trade wins to get this reward it would take a ton of win trades compared to someone queuing and playing often and winning. As it stands now, these guys are cheating for top ELO and all it takes is 10-20 matches for them to do it.

So the aim of revamping the Elo system is to get rid of the anxiety people feel when they see their personal Elo number go up or down?

You can minimize the impact of pressure some players get from others demanding they win and not lose, but believe it or not it definitely does affect people.

Not only does it affect the ones who are afraid of being insulted and blamed for losses, the ELO causes the epeens of others to enlarge which is why they rage on those they view as "*******s" or bads.

Anyway, if that's all you get out of my walls of text on reasons why ELO is more harmful than good, I can't explain it any more clearly.

The trouble of an exclusive top 3 ELO rating title is worth all the troubles for some, while for others it is not. I think the numbers speak for itself at this point. The main reason people say they do not play ranked is the toxicity and that is directly correlated with the ELO rating in my opinion.

The issue is ELO. The depths of what people do for ELO is ridiculous. I explained what I think are reasons enough to consider just removing it.

 

Without a ELO rating I think more people would participate in ranked, especially solo ranked.

 

Losses cost ELO, and when people lose ELO they go bat **** crazy. Just play solo ranked a day, see what happens when you lose a match. Or a round for that matter. People rage quit, go bonkers. This makes it stressful and toxic.

 

People also stoop to the lowest depths for ELO. It really is like a plague the amount of cheaters that will compromise matches for their own ELO gain. You know this I am sure if you have played ranked especially solo ranked.

 

I have had people proclaim they never had people drop matches in what appears to be win trades with their pals on the other side, but I had a week of shenanigans going on in solo ranked and it was enough for me to stop queing it last year.

 

It was a total waste of time, and I can even stomach the toxicity and insults just fine. What I can't stand is losing ELO and rating because someone on my team drops the match or willingly dies because they don't give a crap.

 

If gaining an exclusive reward is important, then perhaps just make the reward gained by the players with the most wins. At least that shows they won matches. If someone wanted to win trade wins to get this reward it would take a ton of win trades compared to someone queuing and playing often and winning. As it stands now, these guys are cheating for top ELO and all it takes is 10-20 matches for them to do it.

Okay, let me further expand on my point. Elo is merely a means to an end. In its most simplistic form, it is a method of measuring who gets what reward.

The rewards that Elo ultimately leads to, are now available to everyone. It's already understood that Elo isn't a good system for this game due to population issues. That being said, with the rewards already being available to anyone who truly wants them, what issue are we ultimately trying to fix by fixing the Elo system?

Because the only thing left that not everyone can obtain is a Top 3 title. So that brings me back to my original point. Is the premise actually: Elo needs to be changed to allow for a different system to determine who receives a Top 3 title?

I'd agree if you get 1 point for a win, 0 points for a loss.

Also increase the tiers and make seasons short, so people can't get into gold by simply flipping the coin for enough matches.

Or make it even better: removing solo ranked entirely from the game. Want to compete? Assemble a team.

You can minimize the impact of pressure some players get from others demanding they win and not lose, but believe it or not it definitely does affect people.

 

Not only does it affect the ones who are afraid of being insulted and blamed for losses, the ELO causes the epeens of others to enlarge which is why they rage on those they view as "*******s" or bads.

 

Anyway, if that's all you get out of my walls of text on reasons why ELO is more harmful than good, I can't explain it any more clearly.

 

The trouble of an exclusive top 3 ELO rating title is worth all the troubles for some, while for others it is not. I think the numbers speak for itself at this point. The main reason people say they do not play ranked is the toxicity and that is directly correlated with the ELO rating in my opinion.

I'm not trying to minimize any issues, I'm merely attempting to understand the premise of the argument. I can't really have an opinion on the matter if I don't even understand the premise. I'm merely trying to educate myself on the underlying issue that we're trying to resolve.

I'm trying to understand if the premise is to:

1) change to a system other than Elo so that the end result is specifically for exclusive rewards (currently this only refers to top 3 titles), to go to people who aren't currently getting them.

or

2) change to a system other than Elo so that the end result is that rewards are easier to obtain all across the board.

I ask because premise 2) already exists with the ranked token system and in that system, elo already doesn't matter. Any player who wants a Tier 1 reward can obtain it, even with an Elo of 1.

So eliminating that premise, it appears as though the issue that people seem to have is actually premise 1, so what we're actually aiming to do with revamping the Elo system itself is to specifically target the top 96 players, or more specifically how these players are chosen.

Does my question make more sense now? I'm not being sarcastic or downplaying anything, I'm legitimately trying to understand the sides of this argument and what it's specifically aiming to remedy.

If the actual argument has nothing to do with rewards, or more specifically, making it so that rewards don't matter, I counter with, why have Ranked at all? Just ditch the whole thing and make 3 queues:

* Regular Warzones (objective)

* Regular Warzones (arenas)

* Group Ranked (arenas)

Okay, let me further expand on my point. Elo is merely a means to an end. In its most simplistic form, it is a method of measuring who gets what reward.

 

The rewards that Elo ultimately leads to, are now available to everyone. It's already understood that Elo isn't a good system for this game due to population issues. That being said, with the rewards already being available to anyone who truly wants them, what issue are we ultimately trying to fix by fixing the Elo system?

 

Because the only thing left that not everyone can obtain is a Top 3 title. So that brings me back to my original point. Is the premise actually: Elo needs to be changed to allow for a different system to determine who receives a Top 3 title.?

If people required wins for an exclusive reward, total wins to get a top 3 wouldn't that be better than having an ELO system in place which has proven all it takes to achieve that reward is mastery of cheating and 10 total matches?

A wins/losses system in theory would create a grind. If players were required a high number of wins compared to their counterparts, theoretically players would have to queue more frequently to win.

Personally I am not concerned as much for the top 3 exclusive reward, but I understand you are and you are not alone. That's perfectly understandable.

I think if you shift the idea that having top ELO makes you the best to winning the most matches means you are the best would help you place value on this achievement.

The plus of this would be to win this award, it will be impossible to cheat in an hour or less. A total count of highest wins would require a lot of matches played to have a high number of wins. Again, in theory this would assuage a lot of the cheating via win trading.

The problem with such an easy ELO system to cheat is that it encourages players to cheat for ELO. This behavior has a trickle down effect.

Players that cheat ruin games for other players dropping matches for their pals. This means people on teams that have win traders quit queing because they don't want to lose ELO and it sucks losing a match because you get a teammate that simply drops the match to help his pal on the other team win. When I have two drops in ranked, I stop queing for the night that **** pisses me off and I am sure I am not alone.

Players that lose ELO rage because ELO means a lot. Every loss hurts ELO. ELO is life, ELO is love to many of the ranked players on SWTOR and this creates a lot of toxicity when they need ELO to live I mean win top rewards.

I'm not trying to minimize any issues, I'm merely attempting to understand the premise of the argument. I can't really have an opinion on the matter if I don't even understand the premise. I'm merely trying to educate myself on the underlying issue that we're trying to resolve.

 

I'm trying to understand if the premise is to:

 

1) change to a system other than Elo so that the end result is specifically for exclusive rewards (currently this only refers to top 3 titles), to go to people who aren't currently getting them.

 

or

 

2) change to a system other than Elo so that the end result is that rewards are easier to obtain all across the board.

 

I ask because premise 2) already exists with the ranked token system and in that system, elo already doesn't matter. Any player who wants a Tier 1 reward can obtain it, even with an Elo of 1.

 

So eliminating that premise, it appears as though the issue that people seem to have is actually premise 1, so what we're actually aiming to do with revamping the Elo system itself is to specifically target the top 96 players, or more specifically how these players are chosen.

 

Does my question make more sense now? I'm not being sarcastic or downplaying anything, I'm legitimately trying to understand the sides of this argument and what it's specifically aiming to remedy.

 

If the actual argument has nothing to do with rewards, or more specifically, making it so that rewards don't matter, I counter with, why have Ranked at all? Just ditch the whole thing and make 3 queues:

 

* Regular Warzones (objective)

 

* Regular Warzones (arenas)

 

* Group Ranked (arenas)

The problem is people place too much value on their ELO. This is proven by rages when someone costs the team a loss, this is proven when people win trade easily 10 matches to get a high ELO.

My point is ELO would be a great way to reward people for effort and would be the perfect way to prove who the best are but the system is too easily cheated.

When all it takes is an hour or less and some coordination by cheaters the likelihood of people trying to cheat is a lot higher than it would be if people were rewarded only for wins.

You remove the easy to manipulate stat ELO, and a lot of the problems in ranked go away, mostly the bad behavior it creates due to it being too easy to manipulate.

I think if you shift the idea that having top ELO makes you the best to winning the most matches means you are the best would help you place value on this achievement.

I don't think that, in fact, I've already stated that Elo is simply a a means to an end. It's simply a measurement to determine a reward. So I'm saying, what are you arguing against here exactly.

Do you want to fix Elo in favor of a different system to better determine who receives rewards? Or are you implying that End of season rewards don't matter, including Top 3 titles? If it's the latter, then I go back to my original question of: why have a ranked queue with no rewards? Why not just rename it to "Regular Warzone: Arenas" if there is no reward? The premise of a Ranked Queue is to determine a hierarchy of skill. A Ranked Queue devoid of any type of hierarchy is quite literally, by definition, no longer a ranked queue. It's just a standard queue.

I guess I'm just having a hard time understanding if at this point people are arguing to scrap the Ranked Queue system, or if they are arguing to shift how rewards awarded.

Im going to post an answer for you kre'a, hopefully its what you are looking for.

ELO is reputation. "I am gold tier, you are blue scum" but you can only say you are gold if you have the flair/title. how do you get said title/flair so you can tell everyone in blue elo to ky's and never queue again? you do it by cheating.

are there legit players? yes, are they outnumbered by cheaters? 110%. the point of changing the system from -30 elo for a loss at 1600 vs -10 at 900 to +X for a win and Ø/+X for a loss is it will give people the ability to get that flair/gold without jeporadising everything they've gained. so if I lose but I dont lose rating, I am no longer afraid of losing my gold.

Now. I would like to add to your idea and fine tune it a bit.

1. I would like elo to decay overtime so if you like ranked and want rewards you no longer can queue up, reach goal then quit playing
   
2. and I would like loss to be 0 gain.
   

I do not believe loss should grant anything and I have a good reason for it... it removes incentive to win. ranked is competitive, its not regs. so losses should not be rewarded. I believe the ultimate change that everyone wants is Remove ELO loss.

The problem is people place too much value on their ELO. This is proven by rages when someone costs the team a loss, this is proven when people win trade easily 10 matches to get a high ELO.

 

My point is ELO would be a great way to reward people for effort and would be the perfect way to prove who the best are but the system is too easily cheated.

 

When all it takes is an hour or less and some coordination by cheaters the likelihood of people trying to cheat is a lot higher than it would be if people were rewarded only for wins.

 

You remove the easy to manipulate stat ELO, and a lot of the problems in ranked go away, mostly the bad behavior it creates due to it being too easy to manipulate.

Okay, I understand what you're saying now, but now that I do, I think that you fail to realize that cheaters will always cheat.

Elo is a metric system for determining rewards. Your argument appears to be that people are abusing this metric system to receive rewards they otherwise wouldn't receive. So your argument is actually: I want a new system which cannot be abused by cheaters.

To this I say, cheaters will always cheat so long as there is a reward to be obtained. Period. People cheated at the Olympics by using steroids to win gold metals. People cheated in Runescape by literally spending 72 hours of ingame time to farm 10,000 PvP kills to boost for a cosmetic hat. If there is a reward, people will cheat for it.

Elo is just a metric, just like Miles and Meters are only metrics. It doesn't matter what new system is implemented, if it's wins, cheaters will win trade wins to get 1,000 wins to secure a Top 3 spot if that's what they choose to do. Having a new system will not dissuade people psychologically from wanting to cheat if they are already predisposed to this way of thinking.

And there's your mistake. You assume that changing from Elo to wins or from wins to Schrute bucks or good boy points or whatever the metric is for determining leaderboard ranks, will dissuade people from wanting to cheat the system. This is wrong. The only way to disincentivize cheating is by scrapping ranked entirely. As long as a reward exists, someone, somewhere will cheat for it. And if you scrap ranked rewards, it's no longer ranked, it's just regular warzones.

So if that's what you want, please retitle your thread: Scrap ranked and make regular arena warzones it's own seperate queue.

Because you will never get rid of cheaters so long as rewards exist.

Because you will never get rid of cheaters so long as rewards exist.

Exactly. That's why you implement a much more difficult system to manipulate and cheat. The problem is the way ELO is gained, rating is gained is it's far too easy to cheat. When people see a very easily manipulated system they are more likely to try to cheat it.

How would they cheat a wins/loss system? If you only gain by winning, exactly what would be the easy way to cheat for wins? Win trade hundreds of wins? I doubt it. if they did it, they would get caught much easier than they do now when they only have to fool the system with a handful number of matches.

I don't doubt people will cheat even in a system as I propose, but the amount of cheating will decrease for sure.

In theory, with that decrease in shady behavior will be an increase in good matches. With less focus on ensuring wins there will be less toxicity in the matches which in turn means lesser skilled players will be more welcome to play ranked. They will be welcomed more, and not raged on with blame if a match is lost. Losses come at a really high cost when it's ELO being lost and many players react poorly when they see someone as the reason for them losing ELO.

I understand what you are saying when you say one form of rating currency is simply being traded for another... but the fact is the currency we are comparing have two different worth amounts.

In a win/losses point system, a loss isn't a big deal, in the ELO system losses are a huge deal. This makes the currency of an ELO win far more important than a win in a wins/losses point system win. Just as a loss in an ELO system is extremely damaging while one loss in a wins/losses system is hardly significant.

This should cause less toxicity and more participation for ranked.

Win trade hundreds of wins?

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

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

I have no faith in man.

I do have faith in making cheating harder and easier to detect. Also, I keep pointing out all the ways ELO causes social issues in the game. It manifests the majority of the toxicity.

If someone decides they are going to win trade hundreds of wins, they will be far easier to catch and we are no more worse than we are now.

Right now, solo ranked is nothing but trolls, cesspool toxic scumbags, and win trade cheaters.

The fact is as it stands now, there's nothing to lose by trying a different rating system because the present state of ranked has never been worse than it is now.

What would be lost if they tried a wins/loss scoring system? That's probably a better question to ask because I have not seen or heard any defense of how keeping the ELO system is a better idea.

I have no faith in man.

 

I do have faith in making cheating harder and easier to detect. Also, I keep pointing out all the ways ELO causes social issues in the game. It manifests the majority of the toxicity.

 

If someone decides they are going to win trade hundreds of wins, they will be far easier to catch and we are no more worse than we are now.

 

Right now, solo ranked is nothing but trolls, cesspool toxic scumbags, and win trade cheaters.

 

The fact is as it stands now, there's nothing to lose by trying a different rating system because the present state of ranked has never been worse than it is now.

 

What would be lost if they tried a wins/loss scoring system? That's probably a better question to ask because I have not seen or heard any defense of how keeping the ELO system is a better idea.

I think the fact that a certain someone who's name started with a J on EU servers was able to literally fly hack and map hack outside of the arena and not get a ban for almost a year goes to show that regardless of how easy it is to detect a cheater, BioWare Austin either doesn't have the man power or doesn't find it a priority to get rid of these players like they claim they do.

As far as trying a new rating system, I have no problem. In fact, I couldn't care less if Solo Ranked didn't exist and neither did rewards, I would just move to group ranked when my friends are on and play Regular Unranked Arenas when they're offline. But regardless of my personal feelings on the matter, it just seems like a waste of dev time to move from one system where people cheat and rage to another system where people cheat and rage.

Even in a win/loss system, are you implying that type of people who currently rage at their team mates for losing Elo during a loss won't rage at their team mates for wasting their time with a loss? At the end of the day, people rage because they see their Time as an asset and backwards progression with Elo is a waste of time. Similarly, a complete lack of progression or being stagnant by losing will provide the same negative feelings as losing Elo. Sure, there isn't a direct case of visually seeing a number go down. But time was still wasted on a loss while other people in other matches were busy winning, propelling their win count upward at a faster rate than people losing, causing the ragers to, well...rage.

Changing the metric system for evaluating performance will no more prevent people from raging than it will prevent people from cheating. If I'm trying to get to work and there's traffic, it doesn't matter if I say that it's 10 miles away or 16 kilometers away (10 miles = 16 kilomters) I'm late either way, regardless of how I measure my distance in units. The same applies to Ranked, whether you call it Elo or Wins/Losses, losing a match is always equal in value to losing time, no matter what metric system. People who rage, rage because they are losing/wasting time when they lose. This is why they cheat.

So to reinforce what I stated earlier, as long as there are rewards, someone, somewhere, will cheat to obtain them. Doesn't matter what form of rating system you use.

So by all means, I'm fine with revamping the Elo system. But I wouldn't be surprised if we wound up right back at square one with the exact same complaints, just with a new metric for tracking people's rankings.

So....If I'm reading the OP's post right, the top rewards go to the people who play the most, not who are the better players.

I don't have an alternative, atm but there's something a little off there? - A truly awful player with lots of time to stink up the queues surely shouldn't get a better reward than an elite player who doesn't queue very often.

I think the system needs an overhaul, but whatever you do to the ratings system doesn't address the issue of queue-synchers, quitters and win-traders. That's what skews the league table(s)

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)