New Arena system: you suck more than you know
by Zach Yonzon 
Feb 4th 2009 at 1:00PM
Well, the changes to the Arena system haven't made the game any more fun for people. Players are still reporting losses on winning records, and Slorkuz hops over to the official forums to explain things. The short version is: if you're winning games and dropping in ratings, it's because you suck. You do. The system has been tracking your level of suck and adjusting your wins to bring your team rating down to the appropriate level of fail. Of course, Slorkuz puts it more diplomatically than that.He mentions that the new 'hidden rating' which determines the matchmaking process remembers your original ratings. Players who routinely dropped to 1200, for example, and reformed teams at 1500 are recognized by the system and are promptly put in their place -- even if they win. This is because the new system is correctly matching those players with others who suck equally. So, let me get this straight... because you're beating other players who don't have much skill to begin with, they're worth less points?
The sad reality here is that you're a marked man. Or woman. The system has been watching your Arena performance for an unrevealed length of time and now adjusts your personal and team ratings accordingly. In many cases, that's downwards. There's no way to get a fresh start, even with new teammates, because the system has tracked your 'skill', which apparently is nothing more than your win-loss record. The only way out of this slump is to keep winning, according to Slorkuz. The idea is that your hidden, personal, and team ratings all have to converge before it starts moving towards a (hopefully) better direction.
I understand the system the way it's explained. It makes sense. What doesn't make sense is how the system was unleashed to the community without a proper introduction. Or why. Breaking in a new system while a season is already underway is insanely bad. I mean, the official calculator on WoW Armory doesn't even reflect the announcement that teams below 1500 earn the same as a 1500 rated team. A detailed explanation would've been welcome, specially for changes of this magnitude. Their slew of blue posts revealing everything piecemeal is just a horrible way to go about it. In fact, it feels like Blizzard is deliberately keeping everything mysterious because they're still tweaking the system.
It's no fun for anyone to win and end up with a losing record. A win is a win. In the NBA, for example, if the Lakers win against the top-seeded Celtics, it's chalked up as a W right up there when the Lakers beat the lowly Clippers. It's the same thing. In what twisted universe does winning games result in getting lower ratings? It might make sense technically, Gaussian Density Filter and all that, but on a human level, as a player, it's just no fun.
You would think that Blizzard, in their great experience and success with game design, would be aware of this. If anything, it seems like the new system has become even more prohibitive and unenjoyable to a larger player base. If their aim was to make Arenas more enjoyable to more players, a lot of feedback from players tells me that they might have missed their mark.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Al Feb 4th 2009 1:06PM
Arena is crap, lets just go back to the days of win trading and we'll be fine...
BooDizz Feb 4th 2009 7:58PM
Stop ripping on the clippers Zach, rip on the Thunder instead :)
Mr Magoo Feb 4th 2009 8:33PM
While this comment is rather unenlightened and shallow (sorry, but it was) it does reveal a particularily common view of all this.
The problem with their "gaussian" method and their "historic and hidden" number is that players want to game the system and find the best way to advance in it, as should be expected btw!
The reality is that this system is very well thought out, appears to be extremely accurate from what they have said and has solved several problems that used to occur that were game breakers for many people: namely ganking and buying arena points.
(if only they solved the other glaring PVP issues such as class imbalance and survivability!?)
What I find intensely amusing (and disappointing) is that the whining and complaining of players during this initial period has led them to make a very fundamental change which has resulted in all of us never being able to know our hidden score: personal ratings now tend towards our team rating rather than our hidden rating. (previously it was the other way around)
Yes that is right folks. Some people's whining and complaining has made it 1000% harder for us more patient and intellegent people to know our hidden rating or at least how hot or cold we were from it. (by how our personal tracked)
I am not sure why the hidden rating is hidden at all, but that is another disscussion.
Regardless. The more we all play, the better the system will learn and adjust over time and the trends will be less severe. This is how the gaussian method works and how it is going to stay for now. Just deal with it.
The fact that it very accurately predicting the outcome of matches and therefore performance should be the only thing we (and blizzard) really worry about! it appears they have already nailed that.
nagglecow Feb 4th 2009 1:08PM
Well, I don't to arenas....but from the way you explain it.....it certainly does sound like the new system of arenas is a big bucket of Kentucky Fried Fail.
jrizutko Feb 4th 2009 3:54PM
Well it looks like the new system is a way to prevent spikey rating fluctuations from small sample sizes. The problem was that before, ratings were easier to manipulate for experienced players, and unlikely to create fair matches for casual players. The benefit now is that the system is robust enough to repel manipulation and create fair matches, but it no longer provides much reward for casual players... unless the experience of a fair match is rewarding itself.
Thander Feb 4th 2009 5:49PM
Seems to be okay for casual players to me. Getting points as if you had a 1500 when you're much lower is nice. I don't do arena anymore but when I did it was casual and we never got serious about it. Our ratings were always borderline 1500 or lower. This is an overall buff for casuals and a nerf for the pros that may have had a bad season before.
Netherscourge Feb 4th 2009 1:08PM
The entire Arena system and idea is a complete and utter failure. One that Blizzard simply can not accept and one they will stubbornly continue to support to simply justify one or two game producers silly spending on an unpopular idea.
Blizzard, GIVE IT UP AND FOCUS ON WORLD PVP and LARGE BATTLEGROUNDS. PLEASE!
bob Feb 4th 2009 1:15PM
Amen.
Eternauta Feb 4th 2009 2:34PM
I'm not a PvPer, I've never done arena before, but I don't see how the concept of Arenas is that bad for the game?
The only thing I know about arenas come, ironically, from the WoW comic. And it seems like a lot of fun (I might try it someday, I promise). It's like a Colosseum thing xD
My humble question is: why arena sucks?
Euripides Feb 4th 2009 2:52PM
Arena sucks because it's not fun. Wintergrasp is fun. Battlegrounds are fun. Unfortunately, your only reward from fun pvp is the fun itself. This is possibly why it remains fun- if the rewards from doing pvp that is currently fun became as good as those from arena, all the arena players would probably ruin it for the rest of us.
Best solution in my opinion- make pve tokens the only currency for buying pvp gear. There's no real barrier to raiding now except being 80 and knowing what /lfg will do.
Eternauta Feb 4th 2009 3:21PM
@Euripides
It takes a lot more than being 80 and using lfg to start raiding, not even starting heroics.
Back to the arena thing, "it sucks because it's not fun" is a very subjective answer; it's more an opinion than a fact.
jrizutko Feb 4th 2009 3:56PM
So what you're saying is that Blizzard is wrong to include content that you don't personally like, and that you would prefer to play World of Netherscourge.
While we're talking about irrelevant personal opinions, I myself would have preferred that Toby Maguire had not been cast as Spiderman.
Ramz Feb 4th 2009 1:10PM
This is just unfair, you can't measure skill my arena.
i.e. you can be low 'cause of a bad partner, a sucky set-up or just bad luck in opponents, that can't be reversed except by finding a good partner, so you're stuck in low rating which isn't very attractive for that new good partner.
Great going Blizzard
John White Feb 4th 2009 1:39PM
HaHa. I love the fact that Blizzard has target'd the loosers who blame everyone else for their fail. Its about time. Get better play harder look in the mirror for you faults.
Nick S Feb 4th 2009 1:50PM
I played a 2s team just for fun with a friend, hovered around the 1500s, and then decided to get serious and switched to a different team. At the time I switched, my personal/team rating for 2s was 1422.
Now we're in the 1800s, and every time we lose a game we lose upwards of 25 points. Progress is incredibly difficult.
Stupid system, punishes everyone, solves no real problems.
Joyous_Oblivion Feb 4th 2009 1:50PM
No I think you missed the point here. You will not be in a lower rating, you will just not earn as many points. This is glorious for the many people who have abused the arenas for the last 4 seasons.
Might even be enough to make me go back.
jrizutko Feb 4th 2009 4:12PM
If you're playing arenas for fun, then the change is that you will actually win more with the new system. If you're playing for gear, it means you have to be competitive to get it. This syetm makes it so that the people playing for gear and the people playing for fun don't have to waste their time matching up against each other. Its not perfect, but aside from the ego hit of having a low rating, where are you really being hurt?
jrizutko Feb 4th 2009 4:23PM
@ Nick S - The system doesn't punish everyone. It just stops rewarding people unless they earn the rewards competitively. Its not like its some deep dark mystery. Arenas are designed for the most competetive PvP players. There are 7 other avenues of PvP that are not designed for the most competitive PvP players. Would you design the game so that people running heroic Nexus could get the same rewards as people running OS3D?
laughingman Feb 4th 2009 1:12PM
I've hated the arena ever since it first came out. Moving the best pvp gear from costing bg honor and marks to arena points and rating was just stupid imho. It's nice to log on and pvp once in a while and actually get decent gear, but now theres just no point. I'll just stick with raiding and play some of the much more awesome PvP games like TF2.
smcn Feb 4th 2009 1:13PM
Off-topic, WTB credit for Jim Benton's It's Happy Bunny!
http://www.itshappybunnybooks.com/