Bornakk on arena ratings changes
by Daniel Whitcomb 
May 19th 2008 at 6:00PM
Apparently there's been some confusion over the exact way that the new arena ratings changes work. Bornakk tried to clarify that a bit today.
As he tells it, The adjustment to a team rating will always be based on the other team's team rating, but the adjustment to the personal rating of everyone in the match will be based on the average person rating for the other team. He used the following example:
- Team A has a rating of 1550. Team B has a rating of 1750.
- Team A has an average personal rating of 1520 for the members participating in the match. Team B has an average personal rating of 1490 for the members participating in the match.
- Team A wins. Team A's team rating is adjusted based off of a win over Team B's team rating of 1750.
- All members of Team A have their personal ratings adjusted based off of a win over Team B's average personal rating of 1490 but it will be a smaller gain when compared to the rating their team got.
Bornakk says that this change is meant to promote fighting against teams that are statistically closer to them and promote true competition in the Arenas.
I honestly say that I'm not sure I see how this will help. The problem here is that Team A in the above example can't pick what team they fight. So if they get put up against a 1750 rating team B because of their personal rating, even if they win, they seem to be cheated. Because the jump in their personal rating was so much lower than the jump in their team rating, they may not be able to buy new gear because of the rule that states that team and personal ratings must be similar for you to be able to buy gear.
As well, it seems there is a new exploit in which a high rating player who wants a boost to his personal rating can recruit two low personal rating players (or have two skilled friends deliberately lower their personal rating) and use them to bring down the team's rating average, thus allowing them to trounce lower rated teams and slowly gain personal rating score (Since he'll be fighting lower ranked teams with this scheme, his team rating probably won't skip too much ahead).
Feedback on Bornakk's thread so far seems to be mostly in the same vein. These new arena team rules don't seem to have changed much. People have just found new methods to exploit them, and lower ranked teams are still forced to face overgeared teams farming them for points and rating. Some people are saying it's becoming unreasonably close to the old honor grind.
For now, I'm not sure Blizzard has really perfected the Arena rating system to any great degree. More rating requirements help, but they really need to firm up the way it's granted. I like the idea of going with a gear matching system, matching people in like seasonal gear as much as possible. That way, people who have used dishonest inflation to get their seasonal gear have a better chance being matched against legit Season 3 geared teams who can use those shoulders and weapons to trounce them, and people who are trying to legitimately move up the ranks won't be trounced by people who played the system to get better gear and overpower them - or people who are leveling teams to sell to these players.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, News items, PvP, Alts, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
loopinvariant May 19th 2008 6:10PM
Just go play Counter Strike and quit messing with my MMO.
Lollerinas.
Oblivion May 19th 2008 6:22PM
I love comments such as these. I play multiple characters; some are competitive in arenas (high 1800s/low 1900s) and others are progressing in T6 raids.
Neither character effects the other. PvPers don't bother my raiders, and raiders don't bother my PvPers. I don't understand how we are "messing with your MMO".
It's nonsense.
loopinvariant May 19th 2008 6:28PM
Because instead of making two different games that are good, they are making one game that sucks.
Each part of the game is effected and more often than not undermined by the other. They are different game genres that don't mix, oil and water and all that.
They are lollerinas, both the combat platform and those that think it is some sort of heroic combat. Go play an FPS, they do the same thing only better, and have done so for years.
Put real PvP back into the game, bring it back to the world and give it meaningful goals this time.
loopinvariant May 19th 2008 6:29PM
Oops, affected.
Oblivion May 19th 2008 6:37PM
I have to disagree. I enjoy raiding and PvPing (and I do both in an end-game fashion) in BC much more than I did in classic WoW.
Blizzard is taking care of all aspects of the game quite nicely in my opinion.
Competitve FPS games are super fun also, but WoW arena-PvP brings something to the table that other eSports, for lack of a better term, don't--nine classes with unique playstyles and specs, different comps, etc. It's my favorite competitive game. And, it's one of my favorite non-competitive games as well (see also: raiding).
I think Blizzard plans to continue to do both, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who is happy about it.
mirilene May 19th 2008 6:45PM
Forgive me for saying so but....what the hell is a lollerina?
Is that like a ridiculous ballerina?
Do you mean lolarenas? or maybe even lollerenas?
I agree with Oblivion. I pvp far more now than i ever did during the Rank 14 days, and despite all the crying and hollering about how much pvp sucks and how much mages are worthless (i have a mage) and AoC is better, my friends and i are getting "serious" about pvp in season 4 and while we have no illusions about getting armored netherdrakes, we think we might be able to buy our shoulders.
Our pvping has improved dramatically since we stopped bringing in the scrub alts "for points" since once season 4 hits, its going to be hard to buy anything for them with a crappy rating.
crispy May 19th 2008 6:55PM
I have to agree in one sense. Arenas have led to nerfs that were not needed in terms of PvE. If Bliz isn't going to figure out a way to have abilities differ in PvE and PvP then they should go about balancing in a different manner.
gundamxzero May 20th 2008 11:04AM
I do agree as a general player versus player games you get an all around better sense of enjoyment out of an FPS there is far more to rely on skill as opposed to gear.
Quickshiv May 20th 2008 1:41PM
Please skip to page 2 to avoid obligatory PVE QQ. Actually you should just stop reading now if you are at all interested in discussing the actual post contents it just wont happen.
Ish May 19th 2008 6:20PM
[quote]Just go play Counter Strike and quit messing with my MMO.[/quote]
Seajay May 19th 2008 6:45PM
'I like the idea of going with a gear matching system, matching people in like seasonal gear as much as possible. '
NO!
If this happened then there would simply be a huge amoutn of thorycrafting on what the 'best' set of low end green stamina gear is best for arena. ie: my rogue and preist team will work really well at the level 69 green bracket.
Perhaps people then removing neck pieces to lower there Ilevel for the gear matchups... interesting but ultimately pointless.
I think Blizz really missed the ball on this one, they are making it more difficult to sell teams that is true, but they're still punishing those playing for fun by forcing team sellers into fighting against lower ranked teams!
The only way this will be sorted in my opinion is if peopel are only allowed to be in 1 team per month to prevent mass selling and swapping, if ALL matches were based on the HIGHEST RATING of ANY member involved (But points were still based on your own rating if you were more than 100 poitns away from that rating) and finally that Blizz police team selling RELIGIOUSLY.
Now they certainly did do some serious punishments to those who were win-trading or selling, (Honestly an applaudable move, anyone who disagrees is simply trying to abuse the game through a loophole and we dont really need those people) but I am saddened they failed to put in somthing like matching teams based on highest personal rating of any member,
Essentially if that happened taking a 4man S3 expert team with a 1 man paying idiot would be a serious liability and gain the newbie very little.
pantear May 20th 2008 10:40AM
Or they can take into consideration all your gear, regardless of where it is, like the BG queue.
alrdye May 20th 2008 1:48PM
No, the gear idea is a good one. The matching is gear based when the team is qued. Also, and very important, once a team is qued, their gear is locked until either the end of the match or they exit que. This prevents last minute swapping. If you can beat a s1 geared or better team in greens, my hats off to you. But for most of us, gear based matching is the most fair and equal method I know of.
brittwilson May 19th 2008 6:52PM
I just hope whatever they do, it will prevent teams that were high rated to the point that they got their shoulders and weapons from the current season from getting matched up with my sub 1500 3v3. I mean seriously, cant they base it on gear too or something? I mean, when my 3v3 and I fight teams of our real lvl, we do fine, with a loss here and there, no big deal. Then we get whacked down 60 freaking points because we went up against 4 teams in S3 shoulders. I understand how it happened, they jumped to a new team, tanked the rating, and are now pwning noobs for fun. But they keep talking about "balance" and "requirements" and now are making more "rules" so that games are more fair.
But until they fix the asshattery that goes on once the top players have all their gear and make arena life hell in the 1400 bracket, it doesn't really matter to me.
Pelouze May 19th 2008 7:06PM
Actually, the item lock system can actually work. If any member of a team has a S4 item (Equiped, in inventory, or in bank) with a rating requirement needed, then that team is considered to be at the minimum rating needed to have that item (Even if the team is well below the minium needed). They will still advance their team up and down, but they will only gain points or lose points based as if they were at that threshold.
Example: Team a has 1 person with s4 in the bank, even though the shoulders are still in the bank, he has the item and it "locks"
the team as having 2200 points for only the consideration or losing or gaining points. Even though the actually team rating is 1600, they will still only gain 3 or for 4 points if they win against a 1550 team, since they have a hard lock of 2200 points. This will deter alot of people from playing the field and playing Arena correctly
Andrew May 19th 2008 7:14PM
Great. My team's been clawing our way to 1850 for weeks. We want our S3 weapons. Today we hit 1800, our highest rating yet, only to discover that our personal ratings are 1776.
My exact words when we were discussing it were: "That doesn't make sense. It almost seems like a bug, or they added more to the personal rating calculations than what they said."
And now I read Bornakk's post. Wow.
Not only did they change more than what they said, they pulled the frickin' rug out from under our feet. GG, Blizz.
Dezrael May 19th 2008 8:03PM
The fix ("locked" gear-based matchings, referred to above) is so easy, and so obvious, and Blizzard so clearly not a company composed of morons, that the only conclusion is that the devs are reluctant to get rid of such exploits because they are indulging in them themselves.
Slayblaze May 19th 2008 10:08PM
I hope that somehow someone from Blizzard takes a look at the comment threads like this one, and realize that the the Arena system is broken as they have conceived it. It seems like no matter what the changes in the past, or the future changes, that their will be multiple people that feel they are getting the shaft. Like maybe 12% of players are actually satisfied and content with the Arena and the changes that are sometimes foisted upon the PVE content. 12% is just a random number based on what I have seen personally and in comment threads here and elsewhere, but it seems about right.
Not very many of the actual non-cheating players - the ones who actually play Arena in the manner in which it is intended - seem too pleased about the ratings system. I propose that it needs an entire overhaul. Start from scratch and invent an entirely new system that bears absolutely no resemblance to the Arena as it exists today. I wish I had a concrete idea of exactly what would be the right way to make it, but I simply don't. Thats why I'm not a game developer. There MUST be a way though.
Maybe just a more straightforward ranking system instead of having one calculated for the team and another calculated for the invdividual. That could have problems though, but the current system's problems are nearly insurmountable right now anyway. I don't know exactly how it should be fixed, just that it needs to be done when it comes to several factors such as the rankings and how they tie into gear purchased with points.
Freehugz May 20th 2008 12:14AM
I still don't understand people complaining about PvE "nerfs" when the encounters get nerfed way more than the player abilities do.
isobelle May 20th 2008 1:59AM
use item iLevels.
worgen claw necklace is a 110 iLevel item, right? (115? dunno off hand).
add up every members iLevel, divide it by team members (3for 3v3, 2 for 2v2). base wins losses on that number.
BUT WAH, what if someone really good is wearing crappy gear?!
then you stand a friggin chance. If you can't beat someone wearing level 27 greens weilding stunherald, then GG you don't deserve to win.
but Mortal strike Fred's gear level is really high, and he has a scrubby priest backing him up! we're both only in "decent" gear!
kill the priest, then the two of you should be able to 2v1 the remaining geared player.