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[Men_in_Boxes]

This was the Ranked Mode in pretty much every PvP game released over the last 20+ years...

Players are given an ELO score and play a bunch of matches until they settle in to their skill rank. The problem with this system is that once you hit your "skill plateau" you just bounced between two skill tiers until the end of time. Eventually you just start winning 50% of your matches because you're playing with everyone at your skill level. Win four or five matches in a row and the rubberband pulls you back down by putting you with superior players.

The Finals fixes this problem by starting everyone at the base of the mountain (Bronze Tier) and you only progress via a win. You never drop back down for losing. That means you're never placed in skill plateau purgatory. Eventually, winning becomes so difficult that it feels rewarding when you finally do it. It also encourages friends to get together and set goals because each tier gives players rewards. If the 3 of you reach Gold Tier for example, you get a silly weapon skin.



Has Ranked just been fixed?!

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

 

[sharp weiner]

Sweet! So you eventually plateau at a point where you can never win. Sign me up!

 

[LectureMaster]

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Sounds horrible.

 

[R6Rider]

I have 200 hours in The Finals and haven't even touched ranked.

 

[channie]

Yeah hard pass. Give me a ranked mode where I win every match instead!

 

[BlueLyria]

Amazing fix that will just make everyone's elo inflated.

Terrible thread

 

[Branded]

Reported this thread.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Sweet! So you eventually plateau at a point where you can never win. Sign me up!

While this is true, I still think it's superior to the rubber banding purgatory that traditional ranked suffers from.

Think about the journey to a 0% win rate. You progress from a 50% win rate to 30% to 15% to 9% to a 6% win rate etc...

This model gives you the sense that if you and your team get on the same page just one more time you have a (small chance) at getting to the next skill tier. Winning feels so much better in this new model.

 

[diffusionx]

sounds like the Halo 3 ranking system

 

[Tams]

Eh. I played about three hours worth and then got bored of it.

1. It's just another bland shooter.
2. The better players just dominate. Quick deaths that you didn't even notice were coming are just not fun.

 

[Pop]

sounds like the Halo 3 ranking system

Nothing like H3. The finals here you never derank, H3 you did

In fact we need more games to copy H3 ranks

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Tams is the kinda guy who could never get out of Bronze

 

[SatansReverence]

You can't rank down?

What a fucking retarded idea.

That isn't even ranked, it's just a time based leveling system.

 

[Tams]

Tams is the kinda guy who could never get out of Bronze

I was so thoroughly bored of it, that that means nothing to me.

 

[Hrk69]

Ranked mode for players who still go to kindergarten

 

[PSYGN]

Doesn't Apex have something like this? I think the problem with ranked in that game these days is that the population isn't enough so you get preds in diamond lobbies.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Doesn't Apex have something like this? I think the problem with ranked in that game these days is that the population isn't enough so you get preds in diamond lobbies.

It's literally one of the most popular games on earth. Always in the top 10 on both Steam and console.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

NeoGAF has a hard time talking game design. Would rather talk sales charts and media FUD for the nine billionth time.

 

[dreamstation]

Love the FINALS (over 500 hours play time) but it's Quick Cash for life for me. Almost impossible to get ranked matches in Australia without changing to Asia or another foreign server which doesn't interest me at all.

 

[killatopak]

The more you play, the more you lose. Sounds like a terrible game to play in the long run and is just to be played in spurts.

Basically play at the start of the season and the moment your win rate drops to around 40% just wait for the next season.

 

[dreamstation]

All I can say is, if you haven't tried the game yet and you love shooters that reward team work and love chaos and destruction that can lead to some absolutely hilarious and clutch victories, give it a shot. It's free. The casual modes like Quick Cash and even Power Shift are worth it, forget about ranked. That's for the try hard streamers.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The more you play, the more you lose. Sounds like a terrible game to play in the long run and is just to be played in spurts.

Basically play at the start of the season and the moment your win rate drops to around 40% just wait for the next season.

 

[Johnny Concrete]

The more you play, the more you lose. Sounds like a terrible game to play in the long run and is just to be played in spurts.

Basically play at the start of the season and the moment your win rate drops to around 40% just wait for the next season.

Well, yes and no.
Other people around your skill would climb the ladder as well, so you probably end up in the same spot as the old system where you would win and lose 50/50.

But what is the goal here exactly? People want to win more than 50% all the time? Because that is impossible. Someone on the other side has to lose more than 50% to make that happen.

Some Battle-Royale shooters fixed this problem, by introducing bots.

 

[killatopak]

Well, yes and no.
Other people around your skill would climb the ladder as well, so you probably end up in the same spot as the old system where you would win and lose 50/50.

But what is the goal here exactly? People want to win more than 50% all the time? Because that is impossible. Someone on the other side has to lose more than 50% to make that happen.

Some Battle-Royale shooters fixed this problem, by introducing bots.

Then what? If you try hard enough you get stuck on a 10% win rate on a elo you do not belong? With the only option to wait out the next season? The objective is to play at your skill level. I’m willing to bet player count in ranked will take a nosedive mid season.

People win more than 50% all the time. And by people I mean a specific subset of people who are at the top of ranked. That’s why they’re at the top. They win more than they lose. You don’t get at the top by winning 50%.

In my opinion the ultimate goal here is to move the average player higher in the ranks. They just shifted the majority population from low ranks to mid ranks like gold and plat. An undeserved achievement just to inflate ego. On a more positive note, it just means that rewards such as skins and other goodies given to specific ranks are more achievable.

 

[ZehDon]

Sweet! So you eventually plateau at a point where you can never win. Sign me up!

Pretty much. This might just be, and I'm only theorizing here, the worst thing every created in the history of mankind.

 

[nikos]

I’ve always been interested in playing ranked in this game but none of my friends play and my teammates in non-ranked have been so bad that I never bothered.

With this model, there’s pretty much nothing to lose so I’ll definitely try it and hopefully get teammates that actually play as a team. As long as I rank up a bit, the quality of games should improve instead of being a crapshoot.

 

[nikos]

Thread’s full of players hard stuck in bronze.

 

[Jakk]

That seems like the stupidest ranked system I have ever seen, and I'm a fan of the game - or at least I was, haven't played much in the last couple of months.

 

[Johnny Concrete]

People win more than 50% all the time. And by people I mean a specific subset of people who are at the top of ranked. That’s why they’re at the top. They win more than they lose. You don’t get at the top by winning 50%.

That's what I'm saying. Some people win more (the better players) and others lose more. There won't be ever a system where everyone wins all the time.
And I agree that a lot of players will not play Ranked anymore when they constantly start to get hammered by better players.

They could make it so there's another hidden matchmaking rank system on top of that, so they'll 'secretly' put you in a lobby of lesser players when you lose too much. But then this whole system is nothing more than some glorified XP thing, like any Call of Duty has, just with ranks.

 

[dreamstation]

Thread’s full of players hard stuck in bronze.

Threads full of players that have never played the game

 

[SJRB]

You forgot the #ad #sponsored hashtags, buddy.

 

[clarky]

Whilst i've only played The Finals a little bit this ranking system doesn't sound too hot. I think you just end up locked in a rank you'll never be able to win at in theory?

Surely you'd just end up not playing ranked at all in this case? Why is this better than plateauing at 50/50 win rate?

 

[Ribi]

On paper it sounds good but as already pointed out. Skill from other players will keep you from winning, as a counter point if people are better than you then over time they'll place higher and you'll eventually win and the process repeats...

Interesting. Really it's just what we already have in games except super delayed and with no penalty for losing

 

[Sakura]

While this is true, I still think it's superior to the rubber banding purgatory that traditional ranked suffers from.

Think about the journey to a 0% win rate. You progress from a 50% win rate to 30% to 15% to 9% to a 6% win rate etc...

This model gives you the sense that if you and your team get on the same page just one more time you have a (small chance) at getting to the next skill tier. Winning feels so much better in this new model.

I'm not sure I understand this. If you won only say 6% of the time, then who is winning 94% of the time? There has to always be a team winning so how could there ever be something like a 9 or 6 or 0% win rate?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I'm not sure I understand this. If you won only say 6% of the time, then who is winning 94% of the time? There has to always be a team winning so how could there ever be something like a 9 or 6 or 0% win rate?

Higher skill teams / players who haven't spent as much time climbing the mountain.

Whilst i've only played The Finals a little bit this ranking system doesn't sound too hot. I think you just end up locked in a rank you'll never be able to win at in theory?

Surely you'd just end up not playing ranked at all in this case? Why is this better than plateauing at 50/50 win rate?

Winning when the game hands out wins 50% of the time doesn't feel as good as winning when you know the odds are stacked against you. Think of how fun winning a Battle Royale is. 1 vs 99 feels exciting in a way that 1 v 1 isn't.

 

[clarky]

Higher skill teams / players who haven't spent as much time climbing the mountain.


Winning when the game hands out wins 50% of the time doesn't feel as good as winning when you know the odds are stacked against you. Think of how fun winning a Battle Royale is. 1 vs 99 feels exciting in a way that 1 v 1 isn't.

Yeah i get that but surely it will get to a point where you can't win at all?

 

[Sakura]

Higher skill teams / players who haven't spent as much time climbing the mountain.

Maybe in the low tiers that could be possible, but that wouldn't make sense in the higher tiers. ie imagine you are in the highest tier. Everyone there couldn't possibly be losing 0% or 6% or whatever the time because then who is winning the matches?
Furthermore if there is no downranking, then the majority of players would still just end up coalescing in a few tiers. I don't see how it would be possible for the average player to be getting to a point where they are barely winning any games.

edit: Let me try explaining it a different way. Season starts, everybody is the same rank at the bottom. The good players will all quickly move up, fine. But eventually you would be left with people who are about your skill level so you are winning "50%" of the time. Because there is no downranking, all of you would move up to the next rank at generally the same pace. So even if you ranked up over time from Bronze IV to Silver IV (I have no idea what the ranks are in this game) you should still be winning around 50% of the time because the people you are playing against are the same people that moved up with you.

 

[WaterOnix]

When I tried this game I thought its chaotic destruction was completely at odds with it's game mode. 3v3v3v3 objective-based third-partying with long respawn times. Lots of pub-stomping. I think I'd have been way more interested if they made it a casualized party FPS with bigger teams, simpler, more straight-forward game modes, etc. The destruction is good enough as a standout feature. Good for them if they're trying to improve ranked at least.

 

[Moochi]

It's a really, really stupid "fix" to give the illusion of numbers going up continuously. It rewards grinding as an alternate means of rank climbing. It means that at the top end of the rank structure someone with low skills but grinded long enough will get queued with legitimately skilled players. This will increase the toxicity in the community. This will increase bots, because rewarding grinding always increases bots. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, it is modern audience participation trophy bullshit and also gay as hell.

 

[clarky]

it is modern audience participation trophy bullshit and also gay as hell.

Thats not just gaming, its everywhere these days and yes its fucking shit.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Yeah i get that but surely it will get to a point where you can't win at all?

Even if / when that happens, I'd still take it over being placed in high Gold for the 10th season in a row. That gets way too predictable and unexciting. No system is going to be perfect but I consider this a massive improvement over the old style.

The grind / effort to reach certain tier goals is just innately more rewarding.

Maybe in the low tiers that could be possible, but that wouldn't make sense in the higher tiers. ie imagine you are in the highest tier. Everyone there couldn't possibly be losing 0% or 6% or whatever the time because then who is winning the matches?
Furthermore if there is no downranking, then the majority of players would still just end up coalescing in a few tiers. I don't see how it would be possible for the average player to be getting to a point where they are barely winning any games.

I am a pretty average player in terms of skill. Right now I'm winning less than 20% of my matches. It hasn't gotten to the 0% or 6% win rate yet.

I will monitor the situation as this is the first full season I've been putting all my time into WT. The mode came out last season but I only gave it a chance at the very end of the season.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Thats not just gaming, its everywhere these days and yes its fucking shit.

I thought this too at first. I didn't touch the mode initially because I genuinely felt it was a participation trophy ranked mode.

I'm now winning 10 - 20% of my matches and I much prefer the increased difficulty. The old ranked mode now feels like the participation trophy mode. Handing out Ws at 50% rate isn't satisfying.

 

[Sakura]

I am a pretty average player in terms of skill. Right now I'm winning less than 20% of my matches. It hasn't gotten to the 0% or 6% win rate yet.

I will monitor the situation as this is the first full season I've been putting all my time into WT. The mode came out last season but I only gave it a chance at the very end of the season.

It shouldn't ever get to 0 or 6% because the good players would eventually move past you to the higher ranks, and the worse players would move up to your rank and you'd start winning again. It should eventually settle into a situation where you are winning a similar amount of times as in previous seasons (I don't know if that number is 50% or not) even without rank downs. The only difference is your rank keeps going up over time which kind of makes the ranks pointless.

 

[clarky]

Even if / when that happens, I'd still take it over being placed in high Gold for the 10th season in a row. That gets way too predictable and unexciting. No system is going to be perfect but I consider this a massive improvement over the old style.

The grind / effort to reach certain tier goals is just innately more rewarding.

I am a pretty average player in terms of skill. Right now I'm winning less than 20% of my matches. It hasn't gotten to the 0% or 6% win rate yet.

I will monitor the situation as this is the first full season I've been putting all my time into WT. The mode came out last season but I only gave it a chance at the very end of the season.

Yeah i agree with you. The system in COD is like that, shit. I just don't like the sound of this solution either.

But you have more experience than me of it. How long have you been ranking up? I think i will become too frustrating without the game ranking you back down after say x5 straight wipeouts.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

It shouldn't ever get to 0 or 6% because the good players would eventually move past you to the higher ranks, and the worse players would move up to your rank and you'd start winning again. It should eventually settle into a situation where you are winning a similar amount of times as in previous seasons (I don't know if that number is 50% or not) even without rank downs. The only difference is your rank keeps going up over time which kind of makes the ranks pointless.

I'm going to keep track the next few times I play. Will update thread when I have a big enough sample size.