Ranked Needs Some Changes

[MrGeoghagan]

With the relatively small playerbase ranked matches shouldn't lose you mmr when losing to someone that is in the rank above you. As a silver getting constantly queued into golds it is frustrating to lose mmr after a match that was unbalanced from the start.

[Meat Man (Alfons)]

You do lose less points than if you were facing an equal or lower ranked player, which would be fine if you wouldn't match the same above ranked person 4 times in a row..

[BadRoy]

I hear you, but is it unbalanced from the start? Not necessarily. Maybe you catch a Gold on a bad day or they're your 9th hack Kragg that day and you just dominate. I try to ignore rank (unless they're literally a top 5% player and basically untouchable) because there's always a chance you're on point and they're not.

[MrGeoghagan]

Originally posted by BadRoy:

I hear you, but is it unbalanced from the start? Not necessarily. Maybe you catch a Gold on a bad day or they're your 9th hack Kragg that day and you just dominate. I try to ignore rank (unless they're literally a top 5% player and basically untouchable) because there's always a chance you're on point and they're not.

I get what you are saying, but overall what you are getting at is the higher ranked player needs to be performing below average and then maybe the lower ranked player can win. In my opinion that is an unbalanced match if the lower skilled player is going to need the higher skilled player to be underperforming in order to potentially win. A player can get queued into players ranked above them multiple times in a row (had this happen three times in a row that I queued into 950+ golds as a silver player hovering around 800) so now even if the lower ranked player encounters 1 higher ranked player having an off day it's unlikely to be happen on average. I am not asking for these match ups to stop happening as I expect it is unavoidable as the playerbase declines. However, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that losing to someone a whole rank above you (e.g. silver losing to gold, gold losing to platinum, etc.) takes away no MMR points.

[MrGeoghagan]

Originally posted by Meat Man (Alfons):

You do lose less points than if you were facing an equal or lower ranked player, which would be fine if you wouldn't match the same above ranked person 4 times in a row..

That's definitely a contributing reason as to why I posted this. Multiples times in a row I queued into players a rank above me (fortunately not the exact same player). I don't mind it happening on occasion as it can sometimes be fun to go up against a more skilled player and see how they play so you can see what makes them more skilled and look for ways to improve. I know the MMR loss is reduced in those cases, but I'd much rather it not happen at all to the lower ranked player when the two players are in completely different ranks. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to reduce the MMR of the lower ranked player in a match up that, at least on paper, the lower ranked player would be expected to lose. Not asking for this to happen to player in the same overall rank (e.g. a low silver rank vs high silver rank) only when it's players in two completely different ranks (e.g. silver vs gold).

[Phyvo]

Rivals 2 1v1 ranked works entirely via the ELO system that is also used in chess, so your MMR/ranking = your ELO. The divisions of stone/bronze/silver/gold etc are entirely arbitrary to how the matchmaking works and have very little to do with your calculated odds of winning or losing. The thing that it uses and which matters is Your ELO - Your opponent's ELO. There can actually be a much greater skill difference within a rank like bronze than there might be between a high bronze player and a low silver player.

The reason why you lose ELO when playing against somebody of much higher ELO is because the system is designed so that if you played against that person 100 times your ELO rankings would be stable. The odds are against you, but you would still win a couple times, get a lot of ELO and they would lose a lot of ELO. But they would win most of the time to get a little ELO while you lose a little each time. So in the long run the two of you would not gain or lose any ranking at all so long as you both started at your accurate ELOs. If you didn't start at accurate ELOs then by the end of 100 games you would have them.

Making one person not lose ELO breaks this entire dynamic. It would cause ELOflation and with how things work now eventually everyone would hit Masters rank because aside from top 100 the ranks are tied to your raw ELO. You wouldn't "lose" your ELO but you would still fall behind everybody else.

The end point is that losing rank against higher level players is good. It may feel bad in the moment but it helps the system match you more with players of your skill and less against higher skilled players.

[MrGeoghagan]

Originally posted by Phyvo:

Rivals 2 1v1 ranked works entirely via the ELO system that is also used in chess, so your MMR/ranking = your ELO. The divisions of stone/bronze/silver/gold etc are entirely arbitrary to how the matchmaking works and have very little to do with your calculated odds of winning or losing. The thing that it uses and which matters is Your ELO - Your opponent's ELO. There can actually be a much greater skill difference within a rank like bronze than there might be between a high bronze player and a low silver player.

The reason why you lose ELO when playing against somebody of much higher ELO is because the system is designed so that if you played against that person 100 times your ELO rankings would be stable. The odds are against you, but you would still win a couple times, get a lot of ELO and they would lose a lot of ELO. But they would win most of the time to get a little ELO while you lose a little each time. So in the long run the two of you would not gain or lose any ranking at all so long as you both started at your accurate ELOs. If you didn't start at accurate ELOs then by the end of 100 games you would have them.

Making one person not lose ELO breaks this entire dynamic. It would cause ELOflation and with how things work now eventually everyone would hit Masters rank because aside from top 100 the ranks are tied to your raw ELO. You wouldn't "lose" your ELO but you would still fall behind everybody else.

The end point is that losing rank against higher level players is good. It may feel bad in the moment but it helps the system match you more with players of your skill and less against higher skilled players.

Is this information the developers have shared and if so would you have a source I can visit to read more on it? If they're truly just using the elo system from chess that would be disappointing as this game is not as static as chess. By that I mean there are variables within that game that influence a match beyond just skill, those being character selection and stage selection.