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Me_mumblecake's avatar
Me_mumblecake
5 years ago

Re: Get rid of Rank Decay

Fully appreciate what you are saying here. Let's take into account though that ranking is currently totally broken. Assuming this will get fixed this week the system is supposed to work as follows:

  • rank is supposed to be skill based. You should reach a rank ceiling which corresponds with your skill ceiling. Only the best will reach ace
  • assuming for a second that you have an "ace" skill level and assuming that you were in maverick in the moment and also assuming that you would be constanty matched against opponents from Ace league you would need a win rate of far below 50% to advance as a maverick will gain a lot of rank points from winning against an ace and will lose very little from losing
  • assuming that you are constantly getting matched against mavericks you would need a win rate much higher than 50% to progress (as the inverse from my last point is true)
  • on average you should get matched predominantly against people with equal rank points (match making ranking: MMR) so a win rate of slightly over 50% is needed. The higher the win rate the quicker the progression.
  • playing with a coordinated team helps A LOT (surprise surprise). Not wanting to turn this into a recruitment post (but doing it slightly anyway) at AOD (and I'm sure other clans as well) we take tthing super casual. You can only come online once every fortnight to play for 45 min? We have you covered. You would be invited to clan events but not necessarily expected to take part. Application is super easy. Have a look at this post and have a think if a higher win rate (and loads of fun with our clan members) is worth the 2 min to fill out the application form. Here are some details: https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/Pilots-Wanted-Recruiting-Academy/m-p/9588626#M4672

4 Replies

  • Darth_GrumpyCat's avatar
    Darth_GrumpyCat
    5 years ago
    @Me_mumblecake appreciate your effort, yet that wouldn't be a solution for me (and I assume many other after work pilots with limited and not plannable time slots). Everykind of coordinated gaming requires some kind of preparation. Been there in many other games over the past 20 years, it's always the same, no matter how nice the guild/clan/squad -call it what you want- is in general. I don't want to spend half the time finding others or having that one special snowflake going 10 mins afk just when the others are about to start, etc.
    I just want to press the play button, have a more or less good fight and have the certainty to make somekind of progress that doesn't get devaluated. If others with more time or willing to invest more non-game time make bigger progress- totally fine. If I can't reach a seasons top tier that way- also totally fine.
    But rank decay is just a terrible design choice for many games for so many reasons, it would allow for a separate thread.
  • Darth_GrumpyCat's avatar
    Darth_GrumpyCat
    5 years ago

    @Darth_GrumpyCat*bump* since this is still a thing. This game will only survive if people have some motivation to keep playing. Now we all knew there would be only a few maps with even fewer game modes, but either people were fine with that or didn't inform themselves before hand.
    But being stuck with a stupid early 2000's e-sports rank system is just so bad I really have to hold myself back to not let go an avalanche of swear words.
    Dear EA, dear Motive, IT IS NOT FUN TO BE TOP 3 IN EVERY FOXTROTT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO FLEET BATTLE YET LOSING RANK CAUSE THERE'S THAT ONE IDIOT IN YOUR TEAM THAT JUST FEEDS AND YOU CAN'T DO JACK ABOUT IT.
    It just can't be so hard to change the system in a way that it scores personal performance > team performance, put it in relation to other players and then adjusts the pace of climbing.
    Totally fine if it's balanced in a way that only allows for a minority (let's say 10% or sth.) to reach the peak, if it's the dedicated above average skilled people. But for the sake of all that's good, get rid of that stupid, totally demotivational, decay mechanic.

  • TrichorTTV's avatar
    TrichorTTV
    5 years ago

    Without a loss of rank when you lose and/or do poorly, the skill rating system would be meaningless and would be even WORSE at matching similarly skilled players.

    There are MAJOR problems with how it is adjusting ranks right now, but I am hopeful they will address those so that the system can get better at matching players of similar skill levels together.

    As it is right now, I'm winning around 85-90% of my matches and my rank is barely even moving. And I'm not even teaming up - the vast majority of my games are solo queue. This is a problem for two reasons: 

    ⚽ I can't progress to the higher ranks that I wish to attain, despite clearly belonging at a higher rank (name another MOBA where at 90% win rate results in your rank staying stable)
    🏈 I am being matched with players of much lower skill level. It's not fun for them to get shredded 15-20 times every match.

    Assuming that EA/Motive can fix the skill/mmr system so that it can more quickly sort folks into the right skill tiers, this will have a BIG improvement on match quality for all players, regardless of where they fall on the skill spectrum.


  • Me_mumblecake's avatar
    Me_mumblecake
    5 years ago

    Rank decay as such would be a reduction of points due to inactivity which is not the case. As such the title of the thread is slightly misleading. That said I disagree withg the OP on the point in principle. Motive has in effect implemented an ELO type system which is successfully implemented from Chess to StarCraft and I have never heard anyone complain about this system in principle before. The implementation of said system in squadrons is however completely broken.

    Match making is currently totally broken as is progression. I have repeatedly met lvl 250+ people who should be ace rank and should not get matched against our team but they are instead struggeling to get out of Hero 5 (with 800+ fleet battle games at a win rate of >90%) which is ridiculous. A decent algorithm would be able to quickly figure out roughly where in the food chain you stand (5-10 matches) but would also be able to rapidly adjust due to the uncertainty of the low number of games.

    If we take StarCraft 2 as an example (leagues are: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, master, grandmaster). Your first placement match will be at an MMR in silver league. If you win this, you will have your next match in platinum, if you win that you will have your remaining placement matches in diamond. Getting out of diamond into grandmaster will take you anything from 50-100 games depending on how high ranking a grandmaster you really are. Also from a match making point of view as a diamond you will never see a GM or a plat player. All in all said, the progression is rapid if your MMR/ELO rating doesn't match what you currently are. This is missing in squadrons. Let the aces sort it out between themselves ... I don't want to be their canon fodder

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