Rank//Removal of Stars

You're trying to say that not knowing your opponents 'strength' before the game is what turns people away?
For real?

No - I'm saying that you stated the current system of player skill description that was implemented in DOW2 wasn't good - and that the current state of DOW2 is tantamount to that.

In addition to clarify - as it seems you're having an issue grasping what the majority of others on this thread have an understanding of - is that the current "rank" system - or lack there of - is a bad thing.

It eliminated competition between players as the loss (or win) has no immediate impact on the player - also the rank is not descriptive of the players actual ability as a "star" or "level" is achieved simply by playing - be it vs a PC opponent or online - and those points are rewarded even for failure - in this case - defeat.

To summarize - due to the automatch system of putting random players together - SOME players would gauge the skill of their TEAM MATE or OPPONENT based on the only metric made available - which is STARS - which - unlike vCOH - have ZERO connection to player skill.

SOME players would simply quit the game is the stars didn't equate for them - ie. opponents had more stars or their team mate had less stars.

I'm not sure where you're getting lost here - unless of course you're just digging for an argument like you do in the multitude of threads you seem to like to crap on.

No - I'm saying that you stated the current system of player skill description that was implemented in DOW2 wasn't good - and that the current state of DOW2 is tantamount to that.

DoW2 had its own can of worms, but what you're trying to say here wasn't inside of it.
Demise of it was stupid matchmaking related to retarded GFWL that will finally die for good this year. This was fixed at 2nd expansion, but it was too late to keep the old players and draw enough fresh blood because at that point the game was simply old.

In addition to clarify - as it seems you're having an issue grasping what the majority of others on this thread have an understanding of - is that the current "rank" system - or lack there of - is a bad thing.

Bad thing how? Do you play like a noob when you see 1 star and like a pro when you see 5 stars?

It eliminated competition between players as the loss (or win) has no immediate impact on the player - also the rank is not descriptive of the players actual ability as a "star" or "level" is achieved simply by playing - be it vs a PC opponent or online - and those points are rewarded even for failure - in this case - defeat.

What? How is that even an argument? The only thing on player side that eliminates competition is lack of will to win. Its certainly not the lack of determining how many hours your opponent have behind him, because that isn't any indicator of skill what so ever. If you're willing to, you can check your opponents rank after the game. I can see why they removed stars from the game, it wasn't lacking players that gave up on the match as soon as they have seen 5 stars while they had 2.

To summarize - due to the automatch system of putting random players together - SOME players would gauge the skill of their TEAM MATE or OPPONENT based on the only metric made available - which is STARS - which - unlike vCOH - have ZERO connection to player skill.

You've mentioned 'competition' before. If you are looking for competitive play, you will have a reliable partner in team game, relaying on randoms is the easiest way to loose, and again, stars were absolutely no indicator of skill or its lack, but they would instantly discourage player if he noticed too many of them on the other side.

SOME players would simply quit the game is the stars didn't equate for them - ie. opponents had more stars or their team mate had less stars.

Yes, thats obvious, I've mentioned that already.

I'm not sure where you're getting lost here - unless of course you're just digging for an argument like you do in the multitude of threads you seem to like to crap on.

I'm not 'lost' on anything here.
I'm just not making a fuss over a disappearance of something that have no real positive effect, but had negatives.
I'd go as far and say you're the one getting lost here, thinking that stars were in any way important or meaningful.

..snip..

You've missed the point so badly here I'm just not going to even bother.

Good luck with your trolling elsewhere.

You're trying to say that not knowing your opponents 'strength' before the game is what turns people away?
For real?

DNK About people, but it definitely is a major turn off for me in COH2.

Beating a player, closely losing to a player or giving someone hard time in the game is closely related to the player I am playing vs.
Did I play good game or not? idnk
If I do not know who I am playing vs, most of the excitement is gone for me.

Its like some people check the score to see who won football game, I try everything in my power not to find out the score if I plan to watch it later.
If I do find out, I don't watch it. End of story
There is no point

DNK About people, but it definitely is a major turn off for me in COH2.

Beating a player, closely losing to a player or giving someone hard time in the game is closely related to the player I am playing vs.
Did I play good game or not? idnk
If I do not know who I am playing vs, most of the excitement is gone for me.

Its like some people check the score to see who won football game, I try everything in my power not to find out the score if I plan to watch it later.
If I do find out, I don't watch it. End of story
There is no point

While I see your point, its really more like looking at teams before the game to try to tell the winner. Some people did that and dropped on loading screen or early into the game after loosing first skirmish.

Simply give your best every time, if you will win, opponent was outplayed, if you loose, opponent was stronger/better and thats all you need to know.

Its pointless to set your mind on "haha EZ win" or "OMG I lost" before the game even finished loading.

Why on earth would you remove the stars from the faceplates

Now you have no idea or incentive knowing who you are playing against, ive said this before but i used to enjoy knowing i was matched against good opponents, now you have no clue, doesnt make it exciting or interesting at the start.

Just cant see the point, we may as well all be the same rank, all have the same insignia and all be the same level.

Gobsmacked..

The number of stars and a player's 0-100 rank are not indications of skill. Like, at all. If the game showed Elo points or ladder rank, that would be an indicator of the level of your opponent. The stars and the unlock-progress rank tell nothing in terms how good a player is. You can get to level 100 by playing the first mission of the campaign over and over again.
The short of it is that COH2 has not yet had a way to gauge the skill of other players from the loading screen. It would be great if they would add something like the ranks from COH1, but let's not pretend that something like that existed before and that it just got removed with this patch.

I'm generally OK with the removal of stars since they don't actually tell you anything about your skill level. Too often in my experience that opponents would surrender right away because their team has less total collective stars than yours, even though I discovered later that we were all evenly matched rank-wise. Sure it gives you an easy win, but you then have to spend another 5-10 minutes searching for another game.

But I agree with others here that there needs to be something to indicate players skill levels... ELO or ladder rank would be perfect. We should have a different method of tracking single player vs multiplayer progress, as the two are vastly different. You can be compstomping expert AI for 200 hours and lose your first online game vs a real player.

The stars were no indicator of your opponent's skill level. I would prefer the system of COH 1 to be honest.

The stars were no indicator of your opponent's skill level. I would prefer the system of COH 1 to be honest.

I think 99% of us are in agreement with that.

BUT there's a lot of resistance here by the Dev's to make the game "friendly" for all...

Oh you lost? Here, have some XP and look - even though you got completely thrashed - you gained a numeric rank that is indicative of the XP we just gave you...

Yay - we're ALL WINNERS!

This unfortunately makes for a dull experience - I miss the days of playing a higher ranked opponent where their bars were on the line - and so if I won, I got a level up - and if they lost - they lost their rank. The game MEANT something.

Right now - there's no repercussions for good or bad play - its simply just "meh".

This is also the reason I'm assuming we'll never get lobbies - as people who simply CAN'T play well will get kicked from the lobby - a true indicator "rank" or win/loss is removed to make it even more difficult to identify poor players - hence the removal of ANY indicator now of the players "XP accumulation" even.

The problem here is in team games - as who wants to invest an hour of their life struggling in a co-op game with somebody who's been "matched" that really doesn't play very well?

Considering there's no repercussion to simply dropping - if I was feeling like playing "Russian Roulette" and played 2 v 2 automatch without a friend - meaning all 3 other players were "randoms" - then I was rolling the dice in getting a partner that either could or couldn't play. Seeing a name with say zero stars indicated that the player had limited hours on the game - doesn't mean they're a bad player - but you knew there was a bigger possibility that they were.

So instead of addressing the problem directly - by implementing lobbies that worked since Day 1 of vCoh - we have this Nanny State BS. The excuse of smurfing is long gone given the Steam integration - its simply stubbornness now.

These changes were implemented to make it a "happy" environment for "all"....

You can still guess players level by looking at skins and bulletins, some of them unlock at 90...
I'm not sure if bringing in game players rank is a good idea, because it'll turn this game into massive e-sport.
I play CoH2 not because I want to get into top 10 but because I really enjoy high-quality graphics and this game has Russians (which I play most). I am very busy with work and school and I only crave out like one or two nights to play, so I don't care about ranking.

Removing stars was a bad idea, in my opinion. I just purchased new faceplate once I hit 100, and now this plate looks really ugly, and I feel like I wasted $2.99. Never buy anything again.

but they invisibled the stars, now the leveling is useless because you are the only one who saw your own levels, right? they should make a prestige system like in call of duty. Once you hit the lvl 100 you can choose to start it over agaib from lvl 1 but you are prestige 1 for example, and you could get an another faceplate?

5 starts don't mean shit.
Just play the damn game, always do your best.
Stars make you biased, a 2star player that played vCoh can be as good as a 5 star player that played 100hours of campaign & ToW.

Just play.

but they invisibled the stars, now the leveling is useless because you are the only one who saw your own levels, right? they should make a prestige system like in call of duty. Once you hit the lvl 100 you can choose to start it over agaib from lvl 1 but you are prestige 1 for example, and you could get an another faceplate?

I like that.
After lvl 100 it's like

ok and now what?

I like that.
After lvl 100 it's like

ok and now what?

then you can show how big your swag, you made 10x lvl 100 and you have special faceplate, the swagplate.

then you can show how big your swag, you made 10x lvl 100 and you have special faceplate, the swagplate.

Think I'd rather the old system where a scrub was rnk 8 and a decent player was 12+....

While I see your point, its really more like looking at teams before the game to try to tell the winner. Some people did that and dropped on loading screen or early into the game after loosing first skirmish.

Simply give your best every time, if you will win, opponent was outplayed, if you loose, opponent was stronger/better and thats all you need to know.

Its pointless to set your mind on "haha EZ win" or "OMG I lost" before the game even finished loading.

Nope, if Relic had major concern with people smurfing and teamstacking the games. Why do we have Relic create environment in which everyone is smurfing and teamstacking is made easy?

I call bullshit.

I would rather have someone drop out on loading screen than 4 min into the game or start drophacking . People who want to drop will drop anyway, not to mention that its not really fun playing vs real noob for me personally.

But at the end of the day we are all different. Personally I cannot take this game any more seriously than i would facebook farm game. Thats why I really like custom lobby where I can find myself good match.
I like challenge and equal matchups, some people like easy win. And those two will never even be able to understand each other

I'm fully aware stars mean jack all but I'm just amazed they've removed another piece off the faceplate.

Where is the incentive to play

I remember when only a select few were level 13 plus and when you got matched with one of those players how cool it was.

Now there is no incentive no kudos just play.

Yes I know we are not all competitive but personally I like to have something to aim for and a reason to try and get better

Now there is nothing but a big pool of equality. Good or bad doesn't really matter and as we all know this my friends is why communism failed

Basically my gaming time is limited - I don't want to waste it if I'm teamed with a complete nub - hence if there's a way to avoid said players and save my time, I'll do it.

I've certainly dropped a few times when I don't see a star on my randomly assigned teammate - it just saves time.

I'd rather go back to searching for a new game vs being handicaped with a poor player.

Ultimately thats what I think Relic is trying to achieve by this - instead of creating lobbies for players to work out their own games, we get this babysitter version.

I know I won't be playing random team games anytime soon now - it's 1 v 1 or 2 v 2 with a mate.

Basically my gaming time is limited - I don't want to waste it if I'm teamed with a complete nub - hence if there's a way to avoid said players and save my time, I'll do it.

I've certainly dropped a few times when I don't see a star on my randomly assigned teammate - it just saves time.

I'd rather go back to searching for a new game vs being handicaped with a poor player.

Ultimately thats what I think Relic is trying to achieve by this - instead of creating lobbies for players to work out their own games, we get this babysitter version.

I know I won't be playing random team games anytime soon now - it's 1 v 1 or 2 v 2 with a mate.

this is how your rank decreasing and you will get even more noob players. I just couldnot get out of 15k th place as soviet because i was matched with so stupid noobs.

this is how your rank decreasing and you will get even more noob players. I just couldnot get out of 15k th place as soviet because i was matched with so stupid noobs.

I know the system works on that theory - but it never worked out that way for me due to the lack of players online when I play.

Even when I had a 3:1 win ratio and an 8 game winning streak - due to the automatch system having a default function of getting you a game regardless of ELO if you wait a certain amount of time - you'd always end up getting Nubbed.

I got extremely lucky to actually GET a good playing partner - no thanks to the useless Relic "community" chat system they have - so I won't even roll the dice with random partners anymore.

I don't think Relic comprehends that running a 3 legged race with a complete random that may or MAY NOT know how to play the game makes for a VERY bad experience - no fun is had by either you (the skilled player) or the Nub (who doesn't learn or enjoy the game either).

If they don't give US - the community the choice of players - the entire "random" matchmaking system will kill this game off in no time.