Why are competitive multiplayer games obsessed with finding each player's 50:50 W:L rank?

[pure.Wasted]

I'm sure that at some point or another, everyone's thought, "I know I'm really good at this game, I'd love to log on and just stomp some noobs." But modern games make this incredibly difficult. If you're playing competitively, chances are you have a competitive rank, which (when it works) should match you up against opponents you have a 50/50 chance of winning or losing against. So even if you're in the top 10% of any given game, unless you're playing on a smurf/friend's account, you might have a bit of trouble showing off just how good you really are to your friends.

And on the surface, this seems somehow "fair" and it seems somehow "fun."

But this model of competition isn't based on any kind of competition found in the real world, outside of video games.

I have a lot of friends who play soccer at a fairly high level. Every team in their division DOES NOT have a 50% chance of winning any given game. Some teams are clearly the worst teams in the division, and they get fucking stomped every season. Other teams are the best and consistently place in the top 3, and do most of the stomping. When you place 1st in your division, that doesn't mean next season you go pro. Next season you go back to your division and you stomp more players who aren't nearly as good as you are.

Now an obvious counter-argument might be "games cost money, so they have to give you what you pay for." But playing on a sports team costs WAY more money than playing a video game, from transportation costs, to maintaining your gear, to sign up fees, to the costs of eating healthy so you can stay in shape and be competitive. And hundreds of millions of people around the world are totally OK with paying money to play sports even though that doesn't mean they're going to win 50% of their games.

When you look at the absolute highest skill levels in a game, it starts to look like any other sport. A SC2 pro like INnoVation might have a 80% win rate even at his ridiculous level of play, which is in line with the level of domination someone like Federer might have displayed in tennis at one time, or Tiger Woods in golf. But that's only at the very, very top. Drop below that just a little, and it's back to 50:50.

The only gaming exception I can think of is Hearthstone's Unranked mode, which has absolutely no stat tracking at all. You can install the game, make a brand new account, hit "Unranked" and get matched up against someone who plays the game for a living. And there's something really, really awesome about that.

I'm not sure this is a problem and even if it is I'm definitely not trying to offer up a solution. It just struck me that it's been implicitly accepted that the 50:50 approach to multiplayer rank is the only way to make a multiplayer game, and what makes this especially strange is it's not based on any kind of outside model I can think of. It was just invented for games and it just stuck, despite other models clearly existing and working outside of games.

Where do you think the 50:50 model came from? Is it the best model for video games? Are there benefits to doing modes like Hearthstone's "Unranked"?

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

Other games have unranked modes, actually most games I can think of have unranked modes for this reason. No stat tracking, no risk to rank, just hop in and have fun with who ever you get, be experimental or get lucky or unlucky with match ups.

I do not follow real sports at all, but I imagine due to the higher population and the fact that games are more product than activity than a sport means you need a balance of challenge, to not get bored as well as preventing an impenetrable skill level from keeping new people away.

A sport may cost more, but those who dedicate that effort will be fine with the whole experience despite the imbalance. Games themselves need to cater to that dedicated individual, as well as the person who has 2 hours on Saturday with more time being rare. With single player games its easy, as you can cater to a specific player since a community is not needed for the game to be fun. MP games however need a stable community or else its dead no matter how good the games is.

Your example of wanting to "stomp noobs" is very selfish since there are other players involved. SP games with variable or high fixed difficulties are for the power trip that requires skill, for the conqueror. For MP games you need this balance otherwise the fun is lopsided, be the warrior, enjoy the fight regardless of victory.

Even if you can accept loosing, a 10/90 with most matches being over in record times is not fun, it would serve to push all but the most stubborn and/or skilled players away from the game. This is why the games try to make ranked competitive modes as 50/50 as they can.

I hate Hearthstone for this reason, while there are other factors involved the fact is that I was loosing an overwhelming majority of my games with no chance to make any plays that were a decent fighting chance. Compared to Rainbow Six Siege, for example, where I may not be on the winning team most times, but I can at least enjoy the match with a fair and fighting chance, or a fighting loss.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Other games have unranked modes, actually most games I can think of have unranked modes for this reason. No stat tracking, no risk to rank, just hop in and have fun with who ever you get, be experimental or get lucky or unlucky with match ups.

Interesting. That hasn't been my experience. SC2 and Overwatch have MMR across all competitive game modes, same for Mortal Kombat X, DOTA, LoL, HOTS. What sort of games are you thinking of that don't?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

The 50:50 model exists for two reasons: people wanting a challenge, and, mostly, for every feels good game you stomp newbs in, there's a bunch of newbs getting stomped on who have a dozen other choices of games to play.

If you want to grow your player base, having new players get stepped on a few times isn't going to help. World of Tanks had a problem where 2-3 players grouped up would bring their tricked-out, highly skilled crews manning tricked-out, over geared tanks to stomp players that were in the literal first hour of playing the game, well before they knew what all the buttons were, let along knowing about things like view range, dangerous map areas, angles for armor penetration, and what that weird "50%" next to their crew meant.

A good time was not had by all, unless driving a bit outside your deployment zone and randomly exploding due to an enemy you didn't see on a map that's unfamiliar by a bullet you couldn't afford sounds like fun. It got bad enough that Wargaming had to section off the matchmaker until you got into the mid tiers, where the pub stompers would find actual competition from folks grinding out cash.

Spoiler: Tangent

(Pub stompers aren't actually terrible good players, they just had crews running at full efficiency with a few elite skills, relatively expensive gear, and some cheese tactics vs players whose crews were taking a 25% penalty to every aspect of tank performance, had no gear, and only potentially knew some of the most basic tactics. Hence, when I was playing some of my tier two-three freebie tanks, I'd target stompers specifically. Nothing like making them rage by wrecking them with a throwaway tank everyone got for free and which was considered rubbish by nearly everyone,)

Or in other words, your level 387 Soldier 76 being matched up vs a level 5 Tracer might be fun for you, but it's not necessarily so much fun for the Tracer.

If you're comparing this to sports teams, it's more like your mates playing soccer are already in the lower rungs of actually competitive esports teams, while the folks you want to pub stomp are a pick-up team from the YMCA.

LeBron James can show up to the Y to have done fun all he wants, but if he plays to crush the other team for fun he's still being a dick.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

If you think you can't show off at high ranks then you aren't actually competitive. Also, you can show off how good you are more when you face good opponents as opposed to weak ones who can't push you to show off all of your stuff.


As a competitive fighting game player, even in my rank my win ratio is something like 80% since ranks don't mean that you're good, they just mean that you played a lot, so even at top rank there can be huge skill difference among players.


I think only people who don't care about improvement and only play to win and stroke their egos would mind this state of affairs. I think that the value comes in learning, not in winning, and you learn more from competent foes, so playing good players and having good matches is by far the best way for things to be.


In my specific side of things with games like blazblue and guilty gear, ranks are actually completely ignored and people just do unranked matches cause seeking foes after every single match wastes time you could spend playing instead. This has the effect of making low ranked players actually more dangerous since they just care about being good and not about ranks so they tend to be better than people who want their ego stroked. Of course from time to time a new player will ask for help so I will play them too but that is not done for my sake but for theirs, though teaching fundamentals is fun in itself so that's why I do it. Helping the scene grow and all that is fun too.

 

[Catnip1024]

Ermm, this is totally how it works in the real world (outside of US professional sports and their ridiculous franchise system). Take football in the UK as an example - there are 11 different tiers, and if you stomp your league you move up one. If you get stomped, you move down one. It gets distorted at the top because there are fewer players on that level to contest with. I gather it's largely the same in boxing, except with massive amounts of money influence and dodging fights going on.

In gaming, nobody likes being stomped on. And it's not much fun as a stomper, either, to be honest. When you kill an enemy ADC five times in the opening 10 minutes and they go AFK, it kind of ruins the competitiveness and you all wind up counting down the surrender. Like the peeps above said, it's the plays you pull off against good people that you remember most.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

Other games have unranked modes, actually most games I can think of have unranked modes for this reason. No stat tracking, no risk to rank, just hop in and have fun with who ever you get, be experimental or get lucky or unlucky with match ups.

Interesting. That hasn't been my experience. SC2 and Overwatch have MMR across all competitive game modes, same for Mortal Kombat X, DOTA, LoL, HOTS. What sort of games are you thinking of that don't?

Taking in to account what others have said before. A lot of games do have unranked modes, and rank like you level in Overwatch, and rank as it your play metrics for match making are different. Its all dependent on the game.

Play something outside of a MOBA or Blizzard game, I don't remember a game that did not have an unranked mode. I guess alot of Blizzard games and MOBA's.

 

[DoPo]

But this model of competition isn't based on any kind of competition found in the real world, outside of video games.

Why do you say that? This guy is right:

Ermm, this is totally how it works in the real world

Indeed, in the real world you don't really see, say, Arsenal or another team go and wipe some school football teams. With the Elo rating system which is used in chess, among other places[footnote]and as far as I know is also the basis of some, if not most, match maker ratings[/footnote], you are encouraged to play against players at your level or stronger - if a grandmaster chess player faces off a "chess noob", this will lead to rating loss, even for a win.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

So wait...you just want to show off? Then play against bots on easy. Do whatever tricks and stunts you want!
The whole point of competitive is to risk loosing.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

So wait...you just want to show off? Then play against bots on easy. Do whatever tricks and stunts you want!
The whole point of competitive is to risk loosing.

See, this is what I fully disagree with.

Maybe to ignorant people this may be showing off but if you're trying to show people who actually understand what is going on that you are skilled, you'd want to do so against people who can fight back competently. It's more impressive to kill a lion with a knife than it is a rabbit.


Maybe if you are showing off fraudulent, unimportant things to non-players of a game to falsely pretend you're skilled I could see this but presuming you ACTUALLY want to display skill, doing so vs both noobs or AI/bots (for shooters or MOBAs I guess, I only really know 2D fighters) is not going to achieve much of anything. You want to be able to show that you can beat highly skilled people.

If you lose too much to be able to show off to your hearts content, then, well, the system in place isn't in the wrong, you just have nothing worth showing off lol.


Honestly, this concern doesn't sound like it is competitive in nature, it sounds like the worries of someone who thinks they are competitive when in truth they are just another average player with a false sense of skill. Competitive means you want to be the absolute best you can and win always and if you're not winning you practice more and spend more time and achieve it. If you see that you are losing at this rank or whatever, that is a sign that you need to play more, not that the system is faulty.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

Honestly, this concern doesn't sound like it is competitive in nature, it sounds like the worries of someone who thinks they are competitive when in truth they are just another average player with a false sense of skill. Competitive means you want to be the absolute best you can and win always and if you're not winning you practice more and spend more time and achieve it. If you see that you are losing at this rank or whatever, that is a sign that you need to play more, not that the system is faulty.

If Overwatch has created anything, it's players thinking they are more skilled than they actually are. And I'll admit I'm wholly guilty of this at times. I do eventually step back though and think "Well, I'm really not that great. And neither are the people I lost to."

Overwatch has been created in a way that almost always rewards players on a constant basis, even if they are less skilled.

I blame the card system most of all honestly, especially in quickplay. Many people work so hard to get that card that they completely neglect the needs of the team and they lose. But it's okay, that one player got a card, so clearly he's the best player and the rest of you just suck.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Honestly, this concern doesn't sound like it is competitive in nature, it sounds like the worries of someone who thinks they are competitive when in truth they are just another average player with a false sense of skill. Competitive means you want to be the absolute best you can and win always and if you're not winning you practice more and spend more time and achieve it. If you see that you are losing at this rank or whatever, that is a sign that you need to play more, not that the system is faulty.

If Overwatch has created anything, it's players thinking they are more skilled than they actually are. And I'll admit I'm wholly guilty of this at times. I do eventually step back though and think "Well, I'm really not that great. And neither are the people I lost to."

Overwatch has been created in a way that almost always rewards players on a constant basis, even if they are less skilled.

I blame the card system most of all honestly, especially in quickplay. Many people work so hard to get that card that they completely neglect the needs of the team and they lose. But it's okay, that one player got a card, so clearly he's the best player and the rest of you just suck.

Hmm, I see. I mainly know fighting games and tourneys and stuff, not sure how it is with competitive fps games. Those are team based too so it's kinda different. You may not be the best player but if you are a good teammate your contributions may surpass those of a more skilled but less cooperative player I'd imagine.


I just like the aspect of no excuses in fighters. It's just you and your foe, you have no teammates to blame or to be carried by in that setting.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

So wait...you just want to show off? Then play against bots on easy. Do whatever tricks and stunts you want!
The whole point of competitive is to risk loosing.

See, this is what I fully disagree with.

Maybe to ignorant people this may be showing off but if you're trying to show people who actually understand what is going on that you are skilled, you'd want to do so against people who can fight back competently. It's more impressive to kill a lion with a knife than it is a rabbit.


Maybe if you are showing off fraudulent, unimportant things to non-players of a game to falsely pretend you're skilled I could see this but presuming you ACTUALLY want to display skill, doing so vs both noobs or AI/bots (for shooters or MOBAs I guess, I only really know 2D fighters) is not going to achieve much of anything. You want to be able to show that you can beat highly skilled people.

If you lose too much to be able to show off to your hearts content, then, well, the system in place isn't in the wrong, you just have nothing worth showing off lol.


Honestly, this concern doesn't sound like it is competitive in nature, it sounds like the worries of someone who thinks they are competitive when in truth they are just another average player with a false sense of skill. Competitive means you want to be the absolute best you can and win always and if you're not winning you practice more and spend more time and achieve it. If you see that you are losing at this rank or whatever, that is a sign that you need to play more, not that the system is faulty.

Isn't that kinda' bullshit though? OP wants to show how leet and kewl he is in front of other players, but doesn't want to risk actually loosing or having to try too hard. If he's up against people who are as good as him, he doesn't look as OP because they might beat him. And then he doesn't look kewl and no one will know how leet and truly awesome he is.

So just play against bots. That way you're guaranteed to win, and everyone will see the skillz and there's no chance of actually loosing. Its not any different than playing against noobs to show off them skittles.

Its kinda' bullshit to want to show off, but also complain other people are able to beat you and you can't show off.

 

[Bad Jim]

I'm sure that at some point or another, everyone's thought, "I know I'm really good at this game, I'd love to log on and just stomp some noobs." But modern games make this incredibly difficult.

No-one likes getting stomped by a player they have no chance against. What follows is the worst players getting frustrated and quitting. You probably won't miss them, they're only noobs. But there are always some players that are worse than everyone else, and if they keep getting frustrated and quitting the playerbase will shrink to nothingness.

Balanced matchmaking is essential to keeping the community alive in the long run.

I have a lot of friends who play soccer at a fairly high level. Every team in their division DOES NOT have a 50% chance of winning any given game.

Generally each team will still have enough chance of winning for the game to be interesting. In the FA cup (UK) it's common to see "giant killings" where top sides get knocked out by much weaker sides. But if I play Starcraft and get matched against some Korean pro my chances of winning are essentially zero. There are a couple of reasons for this. One reason is that the weaker teams in the FA cup are still professional players. The other is that soccer is a low scoring game where a few chance events can decide the match, while Starcraft requires a lot more consistency, as do fighting games, racing games, fps, moba etc.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Blame it on the "Participation Trophy" era. Publishers figure the happier everyone is, the more $ they'll make off the rinse/repeat cycle these games rely on.

Having said that, like others have mentioned there are rankings of skill levels outside the video game world. There kinda has to be, since many more different factors are at play like age, size, weight, etc.

In the video game world pretty much everyone is already on a fairly level playing field, and the more someone plays (while learning from their mistakes) will typically lead to the best player rank.

 

[sanquin]

You wonder why you can't stomp noobs in competitive? Competitive is all about rising up in the ranks. Not just in games but in sports as well. Being able to play against noobs as a pro would kinda defeat the whole meaning of the word 'competitive'. Besides, pros do stomp noobs from time to time. It's called smurf accounts.

 

[Avnger]

Blame it on the "Participation Trophy" era. Publishers figure the happier everyone is, the more $ they'll make off the rinse/repeat cycle these games rely on.

Um.. you wut mate?

Since when is having all consumers be happier a bad thing? And wtf does having paying customers enjoy their game more have anything to do with your "Participation Trophy" nonsense?

 

[pure.Wasted]

Blame it on the "Participation Trophy" era. Publishers figure the happier everyone is, the more $ they'll make off the rinse/repeat cycle these games rely on.

Um.. you wut mate?

Since when is having all consumers be happier a bad thing? And wtf does having paying customers enjoy their game more have anything to do with your "Participation Trophy" nonsense?

I should've clarified, I agree that Rank systems are great and pretty much needed for "level" types of games like MMORPGs where the design is based upon character building. But I doubt Quake, fighting games, racing games, RTS or sports games would have anywhere near the same type of following and praise if they were designed to channel people into different skill levels.

 

[DoPo]

But I doubt Quake, fighting games, racing games, RTS or sports games would have anywhere near the same type of following and praise if they were designed to channel people into different skill levels.

At least as far as RTS games go, they literally have been - Blizzard have done ratings for quite a while now - first with ladders (in StarCraft and Warcraft) and as of StarCraft 2 with the even more codified leagues (from lowest to highest: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master and Grandmaster). The Blizzard RTS games are undoubtedly some of the most played and most competitive in the world. So, yes, those games are designed in such a way and from the looks of things, they do have a large following and praise.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I should've clarified, I agree that Rank systems are great and pretty much needed for "level" types of games like MMORPGs where the design is based upon character building. But I doubt Quake, fighting games, racing games, RTS or sports games would have anywhere near the same type of following and praise if they were designed to channel people into different skill levels.

You know the saying that to a master swordsman, an untrained rogue is more dangerous than an adept fighter?


This kinda holds to some degree in fighting games as well, so they are inherently good at making "pro vs noob" style fights at least somewhat interesting. More so than other games anyway.


As that saying illustrates, while the master may read 20 steps ahead and be ready to parry your parry of a sidestepped dodge strike, the rogue who doesn't know any of the proper ways of swordfighting will throw something weird and out of the book at you, which while overly inferior than anything the adept might know, still has enough of an element of surprise to sometimes land a decent blow against the master.


This, this exact situation, for lack of a better term it feels gratifying, it feels like you touched upon greatness and that you have hope and that you can keep on playing and maybe you'll land a couple more blows next round. At the same time, to the master who has seen everything ever in the book, seeing a new approach has an incredible amount of novelty, and now their experience was also enriched (though more often than not by something so dumb it ended up being smart, which is frustrating but still fun), hence it is enjoyable to a degree.

So yeah, the system being as it is for fighters is fine indeed.