Rank system manipulation - a final thought

RCubed1967 · July 2023

Besides the ranking system being broken, there are other issues in how the system is manipulated.

First, although I have not seen this myself, one friend has reported being offered gold to lose a game so the other person could advance. In the same way, people can play against friends (or other personal accounts) to increase their scores by having the "competitor" lose.

Second, people have admitted to me that they stop playing at a certain point because their score is high enough. Stopping on the peak prevents others from competing and gaining correct ranks. Good players with multiple accounts can then use another account to try to obtain another peak. The same tools (your brain) should not gain additional wins.

Make the ranking system work so players are encouraged not to manipulate the game. These are forms of exploitation.

Seraphayel · July 2023

How does stopping at a certain point works though? Who‘s the rank decided, is it not by winning / losing? So if you stop playing and others are winning, doesn’t their rank increase while yours is decreasing?

RCubed1967 · July 2023

The rank at the end of the month is based on your score. If you stop playing at any point, your score points are held at that point (i.e., they do not degrade). Watch the leaderboards towards the end of the month, but pay attention to the score, not the rank. If their score is not moving, it is highly likely that they have stopped playing.

If you have 1000 points and stop there, you are essentially guaranteed to be in the top 10%. If you stop with 1500 points, you will be in the top 5% (or better).

People only pass you in rank if they accumulate more points than you. Gaining points to pass a person that has stopped is difficult because you can't take points from those people. You only gain points from those still playing. Gaining points can be more difficult as the month goes on because more people join the battle, and their scores are lower, so RNG losses are almost always 150 points. In the early month, the RNG losses can be less because there is less difference in scores between people.

I consider stopping as unsportsmanlike but resolvable by fixing the ranking system. However, stopping and using a second account to join the ranks at the top is an exploit, and such players should receive bans on both accounts. The person's capability is all that matters: same toolbox so use the same account. You can't play twice in the 2024 Masters.

Meji · July 2023

The system also incentivizes you to stop after you gain a lead. I win 6-7 games in a row and gain 150-200 points, but lose one and I lose 150, what would the point be? Considering that the differences in the top 10 are 1000 points apart there is not enough players to keep it competitive. A solution would be to have point decay.

Secondly there seems to be no minimum on winning, I have won a grand total of ZERO points more times than I can count. There needs to also be a system in place to reward a win with at least 50 points give and take position of the other player.

I don't know about you as I've not seen players trade wins(as a player that is consistently top 10 since Tales of Tribute released) but I get excited when I see a top 10 player actively moving on the score as I know if I queue with them I will match them and gain/lose in a sensible manner as oppose to winning scraps and losing buckets. Again it comes down to the lack of players that actually play the game and the flawed MMR system in place.

AnduinTryggva · July 2023

Meji wrote: »

The system also incentivizes you to stop after you gain a lead. I win 6-7 games in a row and gain 150-200 points, but lose one and I lose 150, what would the point be? Considering that the differences in the top 10 are 1000 points apart there is not enough players to keep it competitive. A solution would be to have point decay.

This!

I've pointed to this many weeks ago that the point losses on a lost game is motivating players to stop playing when they achieved a certain level of points. Sometimes one can even climb in rank when stopping playing because people on one or two ranks higher have lost one or two matches.

The rank system is just plain <put-a-suitable-adjective-here-one-that-starts-with-s-and-ends-with-d>

RCubed1967 · July 2023

@Meji - I don't mind a point decay, but I don't think it fixes the overall issue.

Here are June's top 10.

I want to highlight talking trading so I am using the table below, which has the games I played against the June top 10 over the period of April-June. Since trading takes multiple games. I have removed the three players that I only played once each.

Trading wins exist over multiple games. I came in 80th in June, yet I have a 50/50 win rate against the top 10 (46 wins, 46 losses). If series and trading mattered, then I should be on par with June's top 10...but I know that the top 10 would change. There are much better players than some of those in June's top 10.

I play until the end of every month because I like the game. I don't quit when I am high enough to gain extra gold. Does it harm me? YES! Does that matter? NO! The ranking system MUST change. Not just a point decay from not playing.

Further, you talk of having multiple wins with zero points. This month I have a 10-game run where I won 8...and the cumulative points from that streak was NEGATIVE 83. All of the players were ranked lower than me. I have multiple win streaks of 9, and can still barely muster any points. My current starting position win rate is 83% this month...and I feel pretty good about that. THE RANKING SYSTEM SUCKS AND IT MUST CHANGE.

By the way - You are a very good player, and I consider you in the top 3 or 4 that I play against. You are among the few I have a low win rate against, but give me the start sometimes (I always get the second pick with you!).