4v4 Leaderboards should NOT be tied to Medal Score

CameraBeardThePirate

This needs to be addressed before this update goes live. Tying the BG leaderboard to Medal Score completely defeats the purpose of calling it a "competitive queue".

Medal Score is not competitive. The system can be easily gamed (some medals give way more score than they should like the crit heal medal). If the leaderboard is just cumulative Medal Score, then the leaderboard ranking will say nothing about winrate, and will merely reflect playtime.

Even worse, by tying the leaderboard to Medal Score, you are making it very difficult for Necromancers and Shielder "healer" builds to climb the leaderboard. 50% of Necro's damage and healing come from pets (Blastbones and Intensive Mender). Pet Damage and Healing does not count for scoreboard numbers and does not earn you medal score. Shielder support builds will be left in the dust for the leaderboard in comparison to true healers as well. Despite being as powerful (or even more powerful than true healers), shielders do not earn any Scoreboard Healing and do not earn Medal Score.

ZOS, you are actively putting Necromancers and Shielders at a disadvantage by tying the Leaderboard to Medal Score, as well as allowing the system to be abused to the point where it will not reflect player skill in the slightest.

@ZOS_Kevin This needs to be pushed to the dev team. Any "competitive" aspect of the new 4v4 mode will be dead on arrival if the leaderboard is still tied to Medal Score.

gariondavey

@ZOS_Kevin
Please check this thread out.
Camera speaks the truth.
Medal score is not a very good metric for leaderboards.

SkaraMinoc

Players that can cheese the medal score will be #1 every week.

SkaraMinoc

Win/loss is the primary motivation for competition in small-scale. Medal score is partially competitive but can be cheesed. If medal score is going to be used for 4v4 then it should only give a tiny boost to MMR and/or leaderboard ranking at the end of a match. It shouldn't be the primary weight in the calculation.

For example, if a 4v4 win gives +20 leaderboard points then a good medal score might give 1 or 2 extra points per win.

ForumSavant

BGs have been out since warden and win/loss still isn't the way leaderboards are functioning. Most popular games are popular because they have some sort of competitive system and backing. I can't name a single one that doesn't. It's as if ZOS is against wanting competitiveness, even though they are introducing a 4v4 BG just for that reason. It's the same as saying we want a competitive system where everyone can win regardless of how good they are, and while that's nice and all, it makes no logical sense.

Adding a competitive 4v4 game mode is a great step, please don't make it a waste by not including the only thing that would make it function properly.

Bashev

What are the new rewards for the ranking? I think they are not attractive and all this ranking is just an easy solution for ZoS to show some standings.

Right now we play BGs just for fun, and I do not think that this will change with the update.

ForumSavant

The rewards for leaderboards are not posted AFAIK, but they are probably the same as what you got for being on the leaderboards in BGs prior.

The actual reward for winning BGs is quite small, but I'm sure you could remove it entirely in exchange for an accurate or at least SOME sort of MMR based on win/loss and the people that play 4v4s would hardly care as long as they get a system they can climb in through actually performing well.

Synapsis123

Why not have a real mmr system like wow uses? A medal system means if you play more you are higher on the leaderboard. Are we just trying to measure who has more playtime ?

Urzigurumash

Synapsis123 wrote: »

Why not have a real mmr system like wow uses? A medal system means if you play more you are higher on the leaderboard. Are we just trying to measure who has more playtime ?

Correct. It should at least be the Total Medals divided by Matches Played. Much better than just a cumulative score.

ForumSavant

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Synapsis123 wrote: »

Why not have a real mmr system like wow uses? A medal system means if you play more you are higher on the leaderboard. Are we just trying to measure who has more playtime ?

Correct. It should at least be the Total Medals divided by Matches Played. Much better than just a cumulative score.

While that's better than straight up medal score, and would be a good improvement. I think the vast majority of the people would still prefer a straight up win/loss system, which is also very easy to do.

CameraBeardThePirate

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Synapsis123 wrote: »

Why not have a real mmr system like wow uses? A medal system means if you play more you are higher on the leaderboard. Are we just trying to measure who has more playtime ?

Correct. It should at least be the Total Medals divided by Matches Played. Much better than just a cumulative score.

Would still have the issue of Necros and Shielder builds being at a disadvantage, since the majority of what they do wouldn't be earning Medal Score.

Necrotech_Master

yeah i would agree win/loss would be better (we already have an example of this in game with the competitive tribute leaderboards)

there are some issues with this style of leaderboard in tribute, but i think it would make more sense for BGs

Urzigurumash

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Synapsis123 wrote: »

Why not have a real mmr system like wow uses? A medal system means if you play more you are higher on the leaderboard. Are we just trying to measure who has more playtime ?

Correct. It should at least be the Total Medals divided by Matches Played. Much better than just a cumulative score.

Would still have the issue of Necros and Shielder builds being at a disadvantage, since the majority of what they do wouldn't be earning Medal Score.

At the very least Blastbones needs to register Kills and Assists. I think it does get Kills right now but not assists? Also it should count for Heavy Hitter, Crushing Blow, Iron Soul and Steel Skin, any others like that.

Necro does have a small advantage on scoring Crit Heals with the Crit Heal passive, and the Healing / Damage total Medals not reading Pets is less of an issue for Medal score than Bones not getting Assists I think? That alone pushes Warden so far ahead of Cro because Deep Fissure is an Assist machine.

Urzigurumash

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

yeah i would agree win/loss would be better (we already have an example of this in game with the competitive tribute leaderboards)

there are some issues with this style of leaderboard in tribute, but i think it would make more sense for BGs

It really wouldn't be better in the CURRENT paradigm because nobody is playing to win. TBD with 2 teams if people start caring about the ball or relic?

fred4

I am glad someone has posted about this. I thought I was alone. The opaque and frankly bizarre scoring system put me off the existing BGs right from the start. I think my first BG was a Deathmatch. I thought I played well, had a good k/d ratio, but ended up at the bottom of the scoresheet. I felt bewildered and vaguely betrayed. I've rarely returned to BGs, even though I was a PvPer for a long time.

Look at the scoring for any established game or sport. The goal is usually extremely simple. Soccer: Put the ball in the net and calculate the goal difference. Chess: Capture the king. And so on. IMO BG goals should be equally simple. Game complexity is good. Complex goals are not. Medals ought not exist.

I shudder to think of the work that was involved. The wasted time. ZOS put significant effort into creating something that IMO only undermined the core gameplay and made the content worse.

fred4

Urzigurumash wrote: »

It really wouldn't be better in the CURRENT paradigm because nobody is playing to win. TBD with 2 teams if people start caring about the ball or relic?

I think some people do. From what I've observed over the years, the population is split right down the middle between people, typically perhaps accomplished (open world) players, who only want to play Deathmatch, and those that (also) like the other game modes.

Urzigurumash

fred4 wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

It really wouldn't be better in the CURRENT paradigm because nobody is playing to win. TBD with 2 teams if people start caring about the ball or relic?

I think some people do. From what I've observed over the years, the population is split right down the middle between people, typically perhaps accomplished (open world) players, who only want to play Deathmatch, and those that (also) like the other game modes.

When we had mode specific queues, it was possible to compete for the obj leaderboards, but in the 1 queue with 3 leaderboards paradigm, it was much more difficult because the obj leaders would just be those that had played the most low score "Obj as DM" matches.

If it were Win Losses in the current paradigm, it would essentially just be totally random, the leaders would be those that happened to join the team that scored 1 relic before time out more than others did.

ForumSavant

@ZOS_Kevin Any update on this? The amount of people who want a real MMR system in the competitive 4v4s greatly out weights those who would oppose it.

SkaraMinoc

Medals are mostly meaningless to the competitive players who will be playing 4v4. They care about winning first and kills/heals second. The leaderboard can't go Live based on medal score.

BetweenMidgets

+1

Agree with all of OPs post.

ForumSavant

Often times with posts on the forums, the community will be divided. Posts like these don't even have disagreement, people just outright want the same thing. A real MMR system would greatly benefit the community for the 4v4 BGs that are supposed to be competitive to begin with.

Necrotech_Master

Urzigurumash wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

It really wouldn't be better in the CURRENT paradigm because nobody is playing to win. TBD with 2 teams if people start caring about the ball or relic?

I think some people do. From what I've observed over the years, the population is split right down the middle between people, typically perhaps accomplished (open world) players, who only want to play Deathmatch, and those that (also) like the other game modes.

When we had mode specific queues, it was possible to compete for the obj leaderboards, but in the 1 queue with 3 leaderboards paradigm, it was much more difficult because the obj leaders would just be those that had played the most low score "Obj as DM" matches.

If it were Win Losses in the current paradigm, it would essentially just be totally random, the leaders would be those that happened to join the team that scored 1 relic before time out more than others did.

capture the relic will not be in the 4v4, neither will chaosball

so neither of them would be included for leaderboard purposes

win/loss doesnt work in the current paradigm because there are 3 teams, so there would only be 1 winner per match, making it more likely you lost MMR

Urzigurumash

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

It really wouldn't be better in the CURRENT paradigm because nobody is playing to win. TBD with 2 teams if people start caring about the ball or relic?

I think some people do. From what I've observed over the years, the population is split right down the middle between people, typically perhaps accomplished (open world) players, who only want to play Deathmatch, and those that (also) like the other game modes.

When we had mode specific queues, it was possible to compete for the obj leaderboards, but in the 1 queue with 3 leaderboards paradigm, it was much more difficult because the obj leaders would just be those that had played the most low score "Obj as DM" matches.

If it were Win Losses in the current paradigm, it would essentially just be totally random, the leaders would be those that happened to join the team that scored 1 relic before time out more than others did.

capture the relic will not be in the 4v4, neither will chaosball

so neither of them would be included for leaderboard purposes

win/loss doesnt work in the current paradigm because there are 3 teams, so there would only be 1 winner per match, making it more likely you lost MMR

Ah I missed that, thanks for clarifying.

In Domination today all the time you'll have the match ending like 500 0 0, nobody scored over a few hundred points except that one guy who ran around to empty flags the whole match while everybody else fought.

How do we see this panning out in the new 4v4s?

Necrotech_Master

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

fred4 wrote: »

Urzigurumash wrote: »

It really wouldn't be better in the CURRENT paradigm because nobody is playing to win. TBD with 2 teams if people start caring about the ball or relic?

I think some people do. From what I've observed over the years, the population is split right down the middle between people, typically perhaps accomplished (open world) players, who only want to play Deathmatch, and those that (also) like the other game modes.

When we had mode specific queues, it was possible to compete for the obj leaderboards, but in the 1 queue with 3 leaderboards paradigm, it was much more difficult because the obj leaders would just be those that had played the most low score "Obj as DM" matches.

If it were Win Losses in the current paradigm, it would essentially just be totally random, the leaders would be those that happened to join the team that scored 1 relic before time out more than others did.

capture the relic will not be in the 4v4, neither will chaosball

so neither of them would be included for leaderboard purposes

win/loss doesnt work in the current paradigm because there are 3 teams, so there would only be 1 winner per match, making it more likely you lost MMR

Ah I missed that, thanks for clarifying.

In Domination today all the time you'll have the match ending like 500 0 0, nobody scored over a few hundred points except that one guy who ran around to empty flags the whole match while everybody else fought.

How do we see this panning out in the new 4v4s?

it depends on how the MMR situation goes i think

if its based on win/loss, teams might try to play the objective a little more, along with there being only 1 enemy team to fight

from what i heard theres also not a lot of problems with 1 team getting shut down to the point of spawn camping, so i expect most matches to end with one team basically having max points (in a 4v4 domination, the dominating team could cap flags and then spawn camp the other team until they win basically)

in the current system, with the 3 team fights, a lot of people feel that the objectives can be cheesed a lot of the time, along with there being no mmr ramifications for "losing" so people who want more pvp just treat every match like deathmatch

it also heavily depends on map design too, if the maps are too big, yeah its more running between objectives and less fighting

Urzigurumash

I think we can expect there will be many players in the 4v4 who play to kill and not to win, no matter what, many players have made that abundantly clear. How can this reality not make it nearly impossible to be a competitive solo queuer with a Win Loss ranking?

Necrotech_Master

Urzigurumash wrote: »

I think we can expect there will be many players in the 4v4 who play to kill and not to win, no matter what, many players have made that abundantly clear. How can this reality not make it nearly impossible to be a competitive solo queuer with a Win Loss ranking?

if they have a solo queue it would make more sense to be queuing solo

i get that trying to solo queue into the competitive with premade groups being possible would be difficult if not impossible to win any matches

thats more of an issue with the queues instead of the MMR

if its just being competitive though, then your going to have to play the objectives (if the objective is crazy king or domination) as thats how you win

Urzigurumash

Let me clarify what I mean.

With Medal Score, it doesn't matter what your team does, you can still earn Medals and rank up.

With Win Lose, you'll only rank up if your team decides to play the objectives, which you can't control.

I suspect this is why Medals are used to score performance vs Win or Loss.

Win Loss DOESNT reflect performance, because most players don't care about winning. (In the current paradigm)

Necrotech_Master

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Let me clarify what I mean.

With Medal Score, it doesn't matter what your team does, you can still earn Medals and rank up.

With Win Lose, you'll only rank up if your team decides to play the objectives, which you can't control.

I suspect this is why Medals are used to score performance vs Win or Loss.

Win Loss DOESNT reflect performance, because most players don't care about winning. (In the current paradigm)

players dont care about winning, because winning doesnt matter lol

if it did matter players would care more, especially competitive players

in these threads about medal score, theres numerous problems with that:

• medals can be cheesed (such as crit heals)
• medal score only increases, there is no way to "downrank" MMR when you are doing poorly because your now playing above your bracket

its not fun for me to play BGs right now cause i feel it only matches me against min-maxed sweaty players, purely because ive been playing a long time and they rarely reset the leaderboards

Urzigurumash

Yeah we will see I guess, the reality is today it's hard to even guess what could make players care about winning since there's an ongoing "Protest Movement" about having taken away the DM Only Queue, it's enraged many players to a state of utter hostility to the idea of playing objectives whatsoever.

I think it's this more than the underlying mentality that following rules and playing games is lame and stupid, all objectives and points and stuff are for boring nerds, but this spirit for sure colors some of this Protest Movement.

I'm a team player so I deliberately do not play to win if most of my team doesn't want to, and vice versa. But could I become one of these guys raging on their mic about not capping flags? Could we all? Were they the real PvPers are along..

Necrotech_Master

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Yeah we will see I guess, the reality is today it's hard to even guess what could make players care about winning since there's an ongoing "Protest Movement" about having taken away the DM Only Queue, it's enraged many players to a state of utter hostility to the idea of playing objectives whatsoever.

I think it's this more than the underlying mentality that following rules and playing games is lame and stupid, all objectives and points and stuff are for boring nerds, but this spirit for sure colors some of this Protest Movement.

I'm a team player so I deliberately do not play to win if most of my team doesn't want to, and vice versa. But could I become one of these guys raging on their mic about not capping flags? Could we all? Were they the real PvPers are along..

i think thats probably some of it, the players who only want to do deathmatch losing the deathmatch only queue

to be honest im not sure why they arent making the 4v4 only deathmatch as that would make the most sense to me, the 8v8 can be the casual mode with objectives

for me personally, when im playing a BG, i usually play to win, which would be to aim for whichever objective the current game is about, i actually almost dont mind when i get a "DM focused" enemy team if they end up farming the 3rd team, makes for an easy win (which in todays system, doesnt really mean much, every players score went up because its all based on medals)

Urzigurumash

Perhaps the maps can sufficiently enforce fighting as a condition for capping flags and vice versa. If it were so a Win Loss Rank should be accurate and not random.

I maintain Chaosball is truly the best PvP in this game, proven by the popularity of ballsports irl. The only rebuttal to this I ever got was that irl ballsports have 2 teams not 3.