1v1 ladder transparency

Can someone at Uber explain how the points, ranking, and rating system work specific to the 1v1 pa ladder? I don't see how this would otherwise be secret information.

Not a loaded question or anything either. I just think it would be nice if players, especially new players knew the rules of the game.

Yup yup agreed! i beat Alpha when he was #2 uber and only moved up 2 places, but when i beat smithforce when he was #1 plat i moved up 3.... Ahahaha >.<

They're using Glicko, so it'll be determined by rating difference, uncertainty score and confidence (if they're using that). You can look up the Glicko formulas and do the maths yourself.

The only question is whether they've made any modifications.

New players don't need to know the formula, and almost no player is going to have the knowledge to understand it in any useful way. The problem is that people confuse rank difference for skill difference and that's not how it works. Rank difference is inherently meaningless, you'd need to expose ratings to know what the real gap is, and without the uncertainty rating that is information of a limited value.

+1 it isn't really a ladder, rather a skill rating system. Once you hit a level that matches your skill your not going to move irrespective of a few wins or losses as its looking at your overall performance.

Where you were concerned @violetania beating one great player could have been a fluke, beating two close together has more impact as the system rewards consistency.

Heck I beat Gandalf at #4 when I was top plat, and didn't move a place. That's because I'm ranked about as high as ever, and Gandalf is rated higher because on balance he wins more high level matches than I do....

ya, i know they are using glicko. But i dont know what the point system is if any, what the gap between players is, what it takes to get to another league, and also what modification was made to glicko.

For example, when i play against a gold leaguer from uber rank and win, they lose ranking. I don't know why that should be happening in a ranking system that is based on rating and not points?

Also, the problem voiced by violetania shows that the ladder needs more transparency, if not atleast to avoid misunderstandings (if it is one).

Transparency won't help because the maths is complex. People like to dwell on individual games, but statistically one game isn't significant. It why games like Starcraft 2 separate the matchmaking from the league point system because while people say they want ladders based on skill that's total balls, they want to see movement. Meanwhile a good rating system will lead to a very static ladder.

I mean, if your points are 1870 and his are 1830 and your Pd is 6 and confidence 3 and their PD is 12 and confidence is 2... What is this telling you?

The point of ranking is you are better than the people below you and worse than the people above. On average.

Some people are making the mistake of thinking going up three ranks is better than going up two ranks. You can't say for sure what the 'gap' is between ranks. For instance the skill/point gap between #1 plat and #2 plat might be quite large, but the gap between #2 and #3 is much smaller. At least, that's one part of it I think. I'm pretty sure what @violetania experienced is going to be due to the uncertainty/confidence values.

There really isn't any substitute for learning the math behind Glicko, and as @Quitch says, the only question is whether Uber have modified the Glicko algorithm in any way. I'd certainly like to know the details of those modifications if they have been made.

Right now? Nothing
After I played 1k 1vs1 games and watched the numbers react? Potentially a lot, even if I don't know anything about the formulas involved.

Me and the ladder have something special... )

ya i totally agree with what you're saying, but it's not what i'm getting at .

What i mean by transparency is simply to show the numeric basis for rankings (whether rating or points), and the gain/loss on this after every game. And for there to be an official understanding of how the ladder works, not something pieced together by the community from shreds of information released by uber (which is fantastic, but not by any means accessible or discoverable to new players).

The rules, as well as the rough state of the system at any point in time, should be well documented so players dont feel like it's all hocus pocus.

*You guys wrote an article on this

Sure, but in the article I proposed separating rating for rank because the two have conflicting goals. Players want to see movement so they have an incentive to keep playing and every game matters, while a rating is actually honing in on a value and should change less and less over time.

I'm all for improvements to the ladder, I just don't think revealing the rating is going to help. It just moves the conversation from why didn't I go up X ranks to why didn't I gain X points.

Right now we don't even have full ladder listings, so there's certainly a long way to go if Uber are at all serious about having a competitive ladder.

You absolutely need to see how far the distance is between you and the person directly above you for the ladder to feel right imho.

But that doesn't have anything to do with rating, rating should be for matchmaking, it doesn't have to be for ranking. Ranking should be based on something understandable IMO. Exposing Glicko won't help anyone because Glicko isn't something you do on the back of a napkin.

I've moved up the ranks by doing nothing for 2 months, yet I get exactly no where when I occasionally play a ladder match

Not convinced that, in it's current form, it's fit for purpose

That will be because of people leaving/becoming inactive. I've often come back from a brief period of inactivity and noticed I've gone up a few ranks.

I would say it is certainly fit for purpose and I'm glad it was implemented, but it could use a bit of TLC and improvements.

Yeah I'd quite like to see the actual skill values too, tbh. Why not?! paladder.com, iirc, showed the raw values.

But there is no singular value for Glicko, that's the point. Just seeing the rating doesn't give you complete information, you need the rating, the uncertainty and the confidence value. Then you need to understand how they interact.

And the first step to ever understanding how it works is to be told those numbers.

And you think that's when people start grasping complex mathematics? People right now can't even figure out how they lost a rank after winning a game. HINT: AT LEAST ONE OTHER PERSON WON A GAME TOO.

Glicko is complex, people aren't suddenly going to understand it because they see some numbers, nor will it introduce ladder movement which is what people really want.

Ofc a newbie wont understand the numbers perfectly. But by sheer playing and watching the numbers they can learn how they will react to certain things.
You can't seriously hide information from people with the argument "You won't understand anyway".
Ofc having some simple to grasp extra point numbers and stuff would be cool, but hiding information just because it is hard to understand is a very bad idea.

Also you can lose a rank even while somebody other loses a game: The new person in front of you just has to go from inactive to active