Dimento Graven, on 17 October 2019 - 05:16 AM, said:
Some people play just barely well enough to slowly creep up the tiers.
Some people play consistently well enough to quickly tier up.
Some people play consistently badly enough to never go up in tiers.
Yes, the Tier system from its origination SHOULD have been more 'harsh' in its rankings, and damn near all of us constantly said as much to PGI.
For years we were ignored.
And Russ/PGI some how doesn't understand the animosity of the player base... Weird, huh?
I think you have a serious misconception of the tier system's intent. the tier system was never intended to be an ELO based ranking system. the only purpose of the tier system was to keep newer players out of the same games as more experienced players. And for the most part the tier system does an excellent job of doing that. Working as intended.
The problem isnt the tier system per say. The tier system is basically part one of what shouldve been a two part system. The problem is that theres no ELO based ranking system that kicks in once you reach tier 1.
Most other games that do something similar will have basic ranks like bronze, silver, gold, diamond, etc... and usually just playing the game enough gets you through those basic ranks. But then once you get past those basic ranks thats when they actually start ranking you on ladder using an ELO based system. The whole point of the non-ladder ranks is to ease new players into the game gradually so by the time they start getting ranked they at least know the basics of how to play.
Of course that requires that your game actually has players... because ELO cant work if you cant draw from a big enough player pool to make sure the higher end of the bellcurve always has opponents. Which is why PGI never bothered with ELO because the game's population was declining so heavily at that point that they figured it wouldve been detrimental to add ELO. You cant add more buckets if you cant fill up the buckets you already have.
I suppose its possible PGI could still make ELO work if they eliminated some of the buckets instead of dividing an already small population between quickplay, group play, solaris, scout mode, and faction play, and custom games. Youd have less buckets with more players and a bigger player pool to draw from for ELO to work properly. Certainly group queue could be rolled into faction play. And solaris/scout mode could be removed to help bolster quickplay and faction play.
Edited by Khobai, 18 October 2019 - 12:11 AM.