Relmstein explains arena team ratings, and how Blizzard is working to combat exploiting them
by Daniel Whitcomb 
May 7th 2008 at 2:00PM
Relmstein of The Many Relms of Relmstein has posted an updated version of a post he originally wrote in 2006 that is one of the most concise and clear explanation of how team ratings work and how people exploit them, including how Blizzard's planned arena rule changes will help stop these exploits.
The team rating explanation itself is good for number crunchers and those who like to know how things work, and I found it fun to see. Of course, It comes down to a pretty straightforward statement that we already know: When two teams meet, the team with a higher rating will lose more points if they lose, and gain fewer points if they win, and vice versa.
The other part of the equation is explaining team smurfing (aka win trading), in which high ranked arena team members temporarily join a lower ranked team and inflate it upwards, then join their original team. At that point, they queue up both teams at a low population hour, and accept only the games where both of their teams face each other. Then, they cause the smurf team (full of friends or alts on second accounts) to throw the game, giving them a free win and a bump to their rating.
The new changes should help this out, explains Relmstein. Firstly, it will likely be nearly impossible to have 1500 rating placeholders be a part of their 2200 rated smurf team, being that if you're 150 personal rating below your team rating, your team will get matched based on your personal rating rather than team rating. Secondly, since you will now lose rating for dodging out of a match, these exploiters won't be able to avoid matches that aren't against their smurf team without taking a bad hit to their rating, and, of course, they will lose many more points from avoiding those matches than they will gain by fighting their smurf team.
It's definitely a good read and very much worth checking out. Go read it!
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Callandra May 7th 2008 2:24PM
What I can't figure out, is how is personal rating determined? Is it only on games one with a specific team? Is it a conglomeration of every single 2v2 (for example) match that season on that character?
Is anything being done to stop people from power-ranking in full S3 gear from 1500-1800 in a night and then selling it for gold? Only to start a new team at 1500 and do it all over again.
Daniel Whitcomb May 7th 2008 2:37PM
personal rating is based on your personal win-loss rating (that is, only games that you, yourself played) over all your games on all teams you have been a member of in a given bracket.
As far as power-ranking, they're now basing point gain and team matchups on your personal rating rather than team rating, which should hopefully prevent people from earning massive amounts of points by buying higher ranked teams, as they'll still play at their much lower personal level.
Zor May 7th 2008 2:34PM
'being that if you're 150 personal rating below your team rating, your team will get matched based on your personal rating rather than team rating'
ok, suppose this then,...hypothetically i (scrub) could join a 2200 rated team of 3v3 ( being 2 other in full ss3)
then so what?...then...they get matched up to another rated team that consists of scrubs?
kinda a for sure win wouldnt it?
maybe im missing the point?
i think they should break personal rating like levels in BG's
if your 1750 you fight others in 1750-2000
and 1500 - 1750
and if you dont fit in this bracket, you dont get in
this helps
a) team swapping - (everyone in the same team would ruffly have the same rating)
b)team selling - (some 2200 rated guy CANT come in the 1500-1750) and 'ahem' help his friends
nothing like geting matched at 1550 against 2 guys in s3 and a scrub - if he did, he just wouldnt be able to get on the same arena
think of it as this, theyre already doing it in the bg's
by levels
two buddies at 69, ask their 70 to help out in their WSG
cant happen
fixes everything imo
Keysdawg May 7th 2008 3:50PM
If you joined a team as a scrub (1550 rating) with your two buddies that had 2200+ ratings, you would be queued against the 2200+ group. But you would only earn arena points based on your personal ranking of 1550.
Rational May 7th 2008 4:50PM
If you were a scrub that joined a super team, yes you would be matched against a scrub team, but your super team would gain almost no benefit from winning against them.
The scrub team would suffer no detriment from losing against a super team. So it would be a completely insignificant match.
You would be like an anchor dragging the super team down. Meanwhile, your personal rating wouldn't change at all because of the paltry points being gained for each victory.
Dan May 8th 2008 1:48AM
"i think they should break personal rating like levels in BG's
if your 1750 you fight others in 1750-2000
and 1500 - 1750
and if you dont fit in this bracket, you dont get in"
Except that teams generally have a couple extras because everyone can't be on at the same time always, this means that their personal points get spread out a bit, and once they get close to the "bracket change" they will risk having 2 out of their 4 people in the 3v3 team suddenly being in another bracket, and unable to play with their team members...
Not to mention that it might even help those doing win-trading, at least in lower brackets. During offtimes they are much more likely to get matched against their "smurf team" since they cannot get matched against anyone outside their bracket, and if they can get one team into a specific bracket, they can probably get a second team in that bracket.
mirilene May 7th 2008 2:35PM
like ZA, Sunwell, Quel'Danas, more dailies and the upcoming expansion vs...season 4 and a few rule changes designed to lessen the impact of arena cheaters on the game?
Harmun May 7th 2008 4:12PM
Hear hear!
People who are gainfully employed and have lives outside Azeroth need to choose one thing to focus on. I picked PVE (just to be different and because I never liked counter strike), but all I read about these days seems to be PVP.
Zor May 7th 2008 4:16PM
'being that if you're 150 personal rating below your team rating, your team will get matched based on your personal rating rather than team rating'
read that again
Rational May 7th 2008 4:45PM
Re: PVE vs PVP
The reason you read a lot more about PVP than PVE is that PVP needs to be qualified in many more different ways than PVE. With PVE, you show up, you fight the encounter, maybe there's a bit of lore there, but generally the strategies and tactics don't make for thrilling blog content.
With PVP, the rules and regulations affect everyone who participates in PVP, so there's a lot more reader interest in every little change, especially when it comes to stamping out corruption in the game such as win-trading.
Of course new ways to exploit the game will be found. But at least they'll be a little bit harder each time the game is fixed.
Thorn May 8th 2008 6:10PM
You seem to be focused on why we read about it so much here. Fact is, we read about it everywhere (here, forums, trade chat) because PvP — especially arena — causes a lot of QQ.
LAWL May 7th 2008 4:48PM
I HERD AGE OF CONAN HAS PVP
Zor May 7th 2008 5:00PM
the only people who would have anything to lose are the new term here
'Reapers'
2200 in against the 1500
and id like to hear how they'll implement the point distribution
they might not get any, but you will
cause theres no differentiating between
1500 x3
and
1500 x 2 , 2200 x1
Zor May 7th 2008 5:03PM
cause they both will have the same RATING
and no where no how does it say anything about point distribution, - only team match - is mentioned
and many assumptions
Zor May 7th 2008 5:08PM
yeah i was ric rolled once to often
sorry about multiple posts
uncaringbear May 7th 2008 6:39PM
Of course, the ultimate solution to the problem is to simply eliminate Arena and implement a true PvP system into the game, one that doesn't involve fighting inside a stupid little box, and collapses to inevitable class imbalances.