Allow me to rephrase. Is it more important to have a pretty distribution, or to have a positive experience from the player perspective?
you don’t MAKE the distribution, the distribution is INHERENT to the player base
if you look at a single characteristic with a normal distribution you always get a bell curve
like foot length, most people have about average length feet, nobody makes people’s feet fit the curve
the curve is where you end, not where you start
edit: and since smart people at blizzard knew that they made the middle ranks narrower so not 90% of players ended up being the same rank
There is design in the brackets and matchmaking. And unlike a traditional ladder, where everyone starts at the bottom and climbs, everyone is plopped in the middle. The matchmaker could absolutely be crafted in a different way and result in a different distribution.
no it could not
people’s skill form the curve, not the matchmaker. the matchmaker doesn’t MAKE you grandmaster or bronze
you ARE grandmaster or bronze and the matchmaker finds people like you to play against
you have cause and effect mixed up here
This simply isn’t true. As I said all new players are plopped in the middle. That’s what puts the highest population in the middle. Games are matched to attempt to achieve a 50% win possibility for both sides. It’s more designed than natural.
YEAH BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE AVERAGE, THAT’S HOW THE WORLD WORKS!!!
Corrected the error, I meant to say “new players”
ok that’s just because the probability a new player is close to average is the highest, so putting them there in the beginning is the most accurate way
That also isn’t true. These days, most new accounts are probably smurfs, but if it were truly new players they are likely to be far, far less skilled than the “average” player. Why don’t they start at the bottom of the ladder?
most new accounts are average people thinking they are better ending up being average again
twitch is not representative of the playerbase
and to a 2300 player a 2800 player seems like a smurf when they both meet at 2500
I don’t see how this explains why they are plopped in the middle to start with.
where would you put new accounts? the range they end up being with a 90% probability or the range they’d be with a 5% probability?
and i’m not talking the 10 placements games, but more like 50 games in when they reached their actual rank
Like I said, I would put them at the bottom of the ladder, as a traditional competitive ladder works. As a new player, they have to climb just to get to average. Would that not result in a more natural curve?
no it would end up in a bell curve again only that if you are in the lower ranks you have 4+ smurfs on each team
As opposed to the way it works now?
actually yes, now you’d have to throw your way down first, only the top half, or rather 30ish% of the ranks have smurfs
Smurfs at low ranks would climb very fast, no? The difference in skill is more obvious and the matchmaker can quickly get them where they belong.
I just humor this argument, I don’t accept the premise as I don’t see smurfs as an issue to design the matchmaker around.
you still have to climb 4000 SR instead of 1500 and as you said, new accounts are constantly created, so people in the lower ranks would have to deal with a constant stream of new players being a bit to a ton better than them
Why do a lot of these new accounts get created? I would say it’s because players are hoping to place higher than their main account. This is a huge flaw in the system in my opinion. If you always started at the bottom, why would anyone buy a new account? Is there any reason for this other than $$$?
I’m glad “pootflute” is not a game designer.
I’ve literally never been in bronze. I’m glad the system didn’t make me go through a bunch of games destroying players that are worse than me. That would suck for both them and myself.