COH3 Ranking System

I believe this is the correct place to put this topic,

Incen Rounds and J4J brought up a great point in the ranking system here:

Just wondering, wouldn't a percentile system make a bit more sense. For example rank 200 Ost is not the same as 200 Brit as there are significantly less ranked Brit players. I think in CoH3 a percentile ranking should be used to give a better sense of player skill/rank.

Most games have had success with divisions and groupings (you know, the bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond stuff). Obviously percentiles will exist alongisde those (transparent or not), but I think theres no reason not to go with the previously mentioned divisions.

I was wondering what people felt would be the best option for ranking in COH3? Explanations for each 6 option are below:

Division Ranking System by Player Non-seasonal:

Basically the Bronze, Silver, Gold etc rankings found in games like Overwatch, LoL, CSGO, and Dota 2. Nonseasonal means that there will be no rank resets similar to CSGO. By Player means that all factions w/l's are added together into a single overarching ranking.


Division Ranking System by Faction Non-seasonal:

Basically the Bronze, Silver, Gold etc rankings found in games like Overwatch, LoL, CSGO, and Dota 2. Nonseasonal means that there will be no rank resets similar to CSGO. By Faction means that each faction will have a separate ranking for each player.

Division Ranking System by Player Seasonal:

Basically the Bronze, Silver, Gold etc rankings found in games like Overwatch, LoL, CSGO, and Dota 2. Seasonal rankings means there is a set date per year (TBD time and length of season Discuss below!) that all ranks reset and promos are redone, similar to LoL, Overwatch, Dota 2, R6. Most of these games come out with large meta sweeping updates during new seasons. This however is not necessary and can be discussed. By Player means that all factions w/l's are added together into a single overarching ranking.

Division Ranking System by Faction Seasonal:
Seasonal rankings means there is a set date per year (TBD) that all ranks reset and promos are redone, similar to LoL, Overwatch, Dota 2, R6. Most of these games come out with large meta sweeping updates during new seasons. However this is not necessary and can be discussed. By faction means that each faction will have separate rankings based on individual faction play.

Current COH2 system:

Current system used in COH2, completely separate ladder board rankings per faction.

Elo Rating System with no Divisions:

The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players, originally designed for two-player games such as chess. This would be a flat number to calculate the skill of each player. If a lower elo player beat a higher elo player then that player would gain more elo then if the higher elo player had beaten. Many systems use elo behind the Divisional system but this is for people who want an ELO system w/o divisions

Other:

Any other ranking system you would prefer, please describe below.

Feel Free to discuss anything about ranking system below, I was hoping to make a thread that could contain all discussions on possible future ranking systems.

Thanks for bringing this up. There are certainly better ways to show skill level than absolute ranking or an artificial level 1-20. I think a good way to measure if a faction is up or op is to see if the matchmaker consistantly puts a factions 80th percentile player against let's say another faction's 65th percentile player in a match that should raise red flags. It would mean that the first faction is underpowered since a more skillful player is consistently pitted against a lesser skilled opponent and still have a competitive match. The only way this goes wrong is if there is ample evidence that the average player of one faction is simply better than the average player of another faction.

Thanks for bringing this up. There are certainly better ways to show skill level than absolute ranking or an artificial level 1-20. I think a good way to measure if a faction is up or op is to see if the matchmaker consistantly puts a factions 80th percentile player against let's say another faction's 65th percentile player in a match that should raise red flags. It would mean that the first faction is underpowered since a more skillful player is consistently pitted against a lesser skilled opponent and still have a competitive match. The only way this goes wrong is if there is ample evidence that the average player of one faction is simply better than the average player of another faction.

I find the current ranking system a little convoluted and confusing. Like one thing you hear a lot is that _____ faction player ranked 50 lost to a ______ faction player ranked 200! Yet in reality those players could have a similar ELO rating since the rankings arent based on elo exactly unless you are at higher levels.

I agree that 1-20 lvls are pretty bad at ranking. Its really obscure and doesn't really tell much except a very broad ranking

I find the current ranking system a little convoluted and confusing. Like one thing you hear a lot is that _____ faction player ranked 50 lost to a ______ faction player ranked 200! Yet in reality those players could have a similar ELO rating since the rankings arent based on elo exactly unless you are at higher levels.

I agree that 1-20 lvls are pretty bad at ranking. Its really obscure and doesn't really tell much except a very broad ranking

Exactly, many players (myself included) have misinterpreted these ranks before and it has led people to believe faction x is op/up.

I think you are missing a point here n there about how systems works for each game, including CoH.

https://www.coh2.org/news/54445/the-ladder-1v1-matchmaking

Most if not all games uses different types of ELO system, whether they show it or keep it a secret number. Rank/divisions are just a way to give players some kind of feedback on where they are ranking compared to other players and give them some sense of "progress" or objectives to achieve.

When you have a big playerbase, SEVERAL THOUSANDS active players at any given moment, you can take the luxury of putting restriction based on leagues despite MMR discrepancies.

In the case of CoH, you have an ELO system which determines your ranking and the level tells you on which percentile you are within a faction. Top 200 onwards gets lv from 16 to 20. But 201 and above, that's not the case.
A faction requires 4000 players to have properly all lvs distributed. Factions with less players will have missing levels.

Accordingly, faction balance is almost irrelevant in this respect, because imbalances are compensated by matching with a better or worse player. Obviously, this does not work for the top players, as "better" players are simply not available (another reason for balancing from the top).

Thanks for bringing this up. There are certainly better ways to show skill level than absolute ranking or an artificial level 1-20. I think a good way to measure if a faction is up or op is to see if the matchmaker consistantly puts a factions 80th percentile player against let's say another faction's 65th percentile player in a match that should raise red flags. It would mean that the first faction is underpowered since a more skillful player is consistently pitted against a lesser skilled opponent and still have a competitive match. The only way this goes wrong is if there is ample evidence that the average player of one faction is simply better than the average player of another faction.

The ranked playerbase has shrunk throughout the years that you don't really have a proper way to qualify how much better a certain percentile of the base is compared to one or another. Even the arbitrary top 200 have fallen short since a year or 2 ago.
Add to that the CoH ELO sytem is "exploitable" in the sense that basically "ANYONE" can rank top 200 through a small sample of 10/20 games by playing against potatoes or by spamming games and having a W/R above 50/55.

Gauging "balance" through matchmaking is a joke, because players are not restricted from playing against opponents which are much better or worst than them. CoH2charts became relevant only when the difference between factions was at +10% or more on WR. Even worst, the site was a general faction performance which had no information about the specifics match ups against each other.

When you have a big playerbase, SEVERAL THOUSANDS active players at any given moment, you can take the luxury of putting restriction based on leagues despite MMR discrepancies.

In the case of CoH, you have an ELO system which determines your ranking and the level tells you on which percentile you are within a faction. Top 200 onwards gets lv from 16 to 20. But 201 and above, that's not the case.
A faction requires 4000 players to have properly all lvs distributed. Factions with less players will have missing levels.

Would you say a release playerbase in coh3 could sustain a division based ranking system? I feel like a better "competitive" matchmaking system along with consistent updates can hold up a player base in coh3 of at least a couple thousand for a good amount of time.

How about the hypothetical "seasons" maybe adding new and/or updating/replacing maps and/or adding new factions could come around that time. I know form other games the "pre-season" into a new season is always very interesting considering the sweeping changes many have. While I don't think Coh3 should be a game that should have sweeping changes, new or updated maps pools will keep the game changing enough to be interesting. Similarly this might prevent disliked maps from staying in the map pool for so long.

Nice thread.

Nice thread.

Why thank you

I made it b/c I feel like one big thing coh2 can do to make the game feel more "competitive" is a better ranking system. I felt like the current COH2 system should have something better than the ladder we have now. Similarly the 1-20 lvl system is a bit confusing and as el chino posted earlier, a bit convoluted for the average player which while a relativly small thing is overall very important in creating the e sport/competitive culture that relic appears to be looking towards.

My thoughts about it:

I really appreciated the change after 1-2 year release to have not only 1 single rank / MMR in each modus. The new AT- system is awesome. So one can play with a friend, who is new or noob, without losing your own rank. One of the best ideas ever in this game!I
The other good thing is, that you don't have a big ladder decay. That you are out of the ranklist after 1 month is fine. Tho maybe some kind of sort reset could also work into this.
I know its hard to give new accounts or people in a new gamemode the correct rank. But what I sadly saw and often see is that new placement games gives WAY TOO MUCH Elo. I saw it self very often with creating new 4 At premades, with 3 same person and 1 guy was always another guy. After 10 games we were always position 1-20 after 10 wins. And the 10 wins were sometimes vs rank 400 or worser people. So not very high. When we faced in the placements top 100 enemies in let's say 3-4 games from 10 we were always position 1-5 in the end after the placement games.
I tried it also for 1vs1, i went 7-3 with soviet this year and got position 60!
For random games its the same. I found for few days this:

http://prntscr.com/l180iy

Problem:
- That you can get highrank even when you are not facing very high enemies.
- It kills the system self kind of that a guy who played like 200 games with a good win/lose ration and facing good enemies is lower seeded.
- It create alot of smurfs in 1vs1 and 2vs2 because its WAY easier to play 10 placementgames and get a high rank, instead of playing like 50 games to reach the same Rank with it

Would you say a release playerbase in coh3 could sustain a division based ranking system? I feel like a better "competitive" matchmaking system along with consistent updates can hold up a player base in coh3 of at least a couple thousand for a good amount of time.

How about the hypothetical "seasons" maybe adding new and/or updating/replacing maps and/or adding new factions could come around that time. I know form other games the "pre-season" into a new season is always very interesting considering the sweeping changes many have. While I don't think Coh3 should be a game that should have sweeping changes, new or updated maps pools will keep the game changing enough to be interesting. Similarly this might prevent disliked maps from staying in the map pool for so long.

I don't think so. While CoH benefits from having a single server grouping all people around the world, i'll think you still need x5-x10 the numbers for a restrictive matchmaking.

Again, we already have a pseudo division based ranking system. That's what the level represents. Instead of calling grandmasters, we have lv18-20. Master 16-17, Diamond, 14-15, etc...

A "competitive" matchmaking means people willing to wait 10/30 mins for a game on 1v1. For teamgames, you might as well just make a new smurf account each time you finish your placements games.

By CoH nature and design, i don't think seasons would work as well as other games. Map pool rotation is something that can be done without going into seasons and specially ELO "soft resets".

The only thing which is retarded about the CoH2 system is that smurfing gets rewarded so much. How the fck is it fair that someone with 10 wins and 0 losses has a higher ELO than someone with 500 games and 90+% winrate?

Rest is fine for me, I like that you get an ELO penalty after 14 days of inactivity (and another one + hidden rank after 4 weeks). In CoH1 there wasn't something like that... you could be #1 on ladder, not play for 1 year and still be #1 on the ladder which was dumb.

My thoughts about it:

I really appreciated the change after 1-2 year release to have not only 1 single rank / MMR in each modus. The new AT- system is awesome. So one can play with a friend, who is new or noob, without losing your own rank. One of the best ideas ever in this game!I
The other good thing is, that you don't have a big ladder decay. That you are out of the ranklist after 1 month is fine. Tho maybe some kind of sort reset could also work into this.
I know its hard to give new accounts or people in a new gamemode the correct rank. But what I sadly saw and often see is that new placement games gives WAY TOO MUCH Elo. I saw it self very often with creating new 4 At premades, with 3 same person and 1 guy was always another guy. After 10 games we were always position 1-20 after 10 wins. And the 10 wins were sometimes vs rank 400 or worser people. So not very high. When we faced in the placements top 100 enemies in let's say 3-4 games from 10 we were always position 1-5 in the end after the placement games.
http://prntscr.com/l180iy

Problem:
- That you can get highrank even when you are not facing very high enemies.
- It kills the system self kind of that a guy who played like 200 games with a good win/lose ration and facing good enemies is lower seeded.
- It create alot of smurfs in 1vs1 and 2vs2 because its WAY easier to play 10 placementgames and get a high rank, instead of playing like 50 games to reach the same Rank with it

I love the AT mode, I had some friends who were brand new to the game and our combined at rank was like 1000 since they could barely play, lets just say im happy they didn't destroy my current rank/mmr. I agree high ranking off placements is pretty bad and I talked about it a bit below. It is indeed a problem when almost around half of them are free throwaway games and you get sub 100 ranks after them immediately.

The only thing which is retarded about the CoH2 system is that smurfing gets rewarded so much. How the fck is it fair that someone with 10 wins and 0 losses has a higher ELO than someone with 500 games and 90+% winrate?

Rest is fine for me, I like that you get an ELO penalty after 14 days of inactivity (and another one + hidden rank after 4 weeks). In CoH1 there wasn't something like that... you could be #1 on ladder, not play for 1 year and still be #1 on the ladder which was dumb.

Indeed I have noticed smurfing is a pretty big issue currently, the best way to solve that issue would to add a hard cap to the maximum rank achievable (IE maximum rank any new player off promos can be rank 150-200) Therefore you won't see 10 or 9 win smurfs at the top of the leader board above people who have 1000+ games with 70-90% winrates.

I don't think so. While CoH benefits from having a single server grouping all people around the world, i'll think you still need x5-x10 the numbers for a restrictive matchmaking.

Again, we already have a pseudo division based ranking system. That's what the level represents. Instead of calling grandmasters, we have lv18-20. Master 16-17, Diamond, 14-15, etc...

A "competitive" matchmaking means people willing to wait 10/30 mins for a game on 1v1. For teamgames, you might as well just make a new smurf account each time you finish your placements games.

By CoH nature and design, i don't think seasons would work as well as other games. Map pool rotation is something that can be done without going into seasons and specially ELO "soft resets".

Yeah I can see why seasons might seem a little difficult to implement and a little redundant for a game like COH3, and I understand the level based system a bit more than I used to so thank you for that, still I'd prefer it to be "Divisions" like that instead of levels, I find it better imo.

Also I forgot that even in immensely popular games IE LOL high level players still wait 10-15 minutes for a match, so even if COH3 upheld even a 10k population the higher ranked players would still likely wait into the 30s which might be very frustrating.

I find the current ranking system a little convoluted and confusing. Like one thing you hear a lot is that _____ faction player ranked 50 lost to a ______ faction player ranked 200! Yet in reality those players could have a similar ELO rating since the rankings arent based on elo exactly unless you are at higher levels.

I agree that 1-20 lvls are pretty bad at ranking. Its really obscure and doesn't really tell much except a very broad ranking

The ranking is 100% based on elo. The only thing that can possibly make the way ranking works unclear is that the elo value is hidden. It could possibly be shown, but one has to be mindful that it is a design decision, as a ranking with visible elo is easier to abuse.

As for the levels, in fact they are nothing else than leagues. What they do is they simplify the ranking and make it more stable. For example if you are on lvl 17, you will probably stay there for some time. So when you say that your level is 17, I know aproximately what your level of play is. When you say that you are ranked at place 60 in the ladder, the information is too specific, as your place may change to 50 or 70 in next few days.

Mind that down the ladder the level actually gives more meaningful information than the ladder place itself, as it takes into consideration the actual lenght of the ladder.