Ranking system isn't optimal

[duracell1955]

I've been playing Gwent for a little over a year now. The game has much to recommend it but I feel that the leveling ranking system is a weakness, and that changing this system may increase retention of players of the game.

I'll use my own circumstances as an example. For the last six months I've been playing at levels 3 to 5. I've rarely gone either above or below those levels, so that should indicate my ability level for the game. If the ranking system were perfect, then I should be winning around 50% of my games at my ability level, but in fact it's more like 30%. This leads me to believe that the ranking system isn't optimal.

This is important because of human nature - it's natural for us to feel good when we win and bad when we don't. It's also human nature for us to avoid doing things that make us feel bad. I have no statistics on why players stop playing Gwent, but it's reasonable to believe that continued losing would be a significant reason.

At present if we win more than we lose then we will fill the mosaic pieces and rise a level, however there is no equivalent for if we lose more than we win. If there were, then players would drop levels much more rapidly than they do now. And while there would be frustration at dropping levels, the benefit would be that at a lower level the win percentage should increase making playing games of Gwent more enjoyable.

I consider that personally I'm playing at too high a level, and look back at my halcyon early days of Gwent, where although I had much weaker decks, I enjoyed playing the game more. On many occasions I've thought that it may be worthwhile giving up Gwent for a few months to let my level fall (although at two levels per month it could take quite a while); an improved ranking system would get me to the right level for my skills far more rapidly. Plus if I gave up Gwent for a few months I may well have found some other online activity in which to participate.

Moderator's note: The user was talking about rank, not level. Updated the thread to reflect this.

 

[Draconifors]

@duracell1955 Post moved to a new thread.
(Feel free to edit the title if you're not happy with it.)

 

[LeftHookGoodNight]

It is not Levelling System. It is Ranking System.

 

[quintivarium]

The ranking system tends to advance players to a point where they loose a lot. I rose quick quickly to rank 12 with pretty basic decks, then I reached a point where I very rarely won a match. For me, it was more like 10%. It was clear I had risen to a point where I was no longer competitive with my skill / card holdings. My solution has been to avoid ranked matches and wait until either my cards catch up to my level or my level drops enough that I am competitive again. Luckily Gwent provides enough unranked modes that I am happy with this.

But I definitely agree that the ranking system could be improved. Were Gwent not such an excellent game, there is a good chance I would have quit in frustration.

 

[HTMekkatorque]

Either you're very mistaken or I'm very mistaken and I'm not saying that I am but for your version to be true there has to be something hidden that is included in matchmaking. Ranking to me doesn't really feel like anything measuring anything, other than that you're obviously playing a lot more or winning a lot more than you are losing to get higher up in the mosaic pieces. But for the average player who has ~50% win ratio this is more a measure of time, as I'm pretty sure you need to play 30-50 games in a month just to end up back at that same mosaic piece when achieving better than ranks 7. Losing mosaics would actually hinder the bad player experience even more because you're actually missing out on RP and its actually giving the better players an actual advantage in deck collection and having better deck synergies.

In my version of correct understanding, you can play against anyone at the beginning of each season, when the faction mmr resets to 1250, for me I can see that if you can raise that to 1400 or more the players you play against become incredibly hard, but if you have a 50% win ratio you will sit around 1250, and it's fine, it promotes win/lose/win/lose for average players, but what is flawed to me is that the faction mmr resets, bringing players that were bad back up to 1250 and bringing players that were good back down to 1250, most games at least do this in a soft reset way.

But it is kind of like a false sense of achievement overall until you are comparing the pro ranks, because I think bad people are at different strengths of decks overall and obviously the more you play until some point, because I assume most people have mostly just completed decks, but also depends if you play at the start of the month or at the end and if you swap factions, swapping factions in this games probably actually better for most peoples win ratios and especially when collecting mosaics and if you swapped even between the top best 4 factions and brought them to skill ceiling mmr you've probably achieved the most mosaics you possibly could have.

 

[duracell1955]

Either you're very mistaken or I'm very mistaken and I'm not saying that I am but for your version to be true there has to be something hidden that is included in matchmaking. Ranking to me doesn't really feel like anything measuring anything, other than that you're obviously playing a lot more or winning a lot more than you are losing to get higher up in the mosaic pieces. But for the average player who has ~50% win ratio this is more a measure of time, as I'm pretty sure you need to play 30-50 games in a month just to end up back at that same mosaic piece when achieving better than ranks 7. Losing mosaics would actually hinder the bad player experience even more because you're actually missing out on RP and its actually giving the better players an actual advantage in deck collection and having better deck synergies.

In my version of correct understanding, you can play against anyone at the beginning of each season, when the faction mmr resets to 1250, for me I can see that if you can raise that to 1400 or more the players you play against become incredibly hard, but if you have a 50% win ratio you will sit around 1250, and it's fine, it promotes win/lose/win/lose for average players, but what is flawed to me is that the faction mmr resets, bringing players that were bad back up to 1250 and bringing players that were good back down to 1250, most games at least do this in a soft reset way.

But it is kind of like a false sense of achievement overall until you are comparing the pro ranks, because I think bad people are at different strengths of decks overall and obviously the more you play until some point, because I assume most people have mostly just completed decks, but also depends if you play at the start of the month or at the end and if you swap factions, swapping factions in this games probably actually better for most peoples win ratios and especially when collecting mosaics and if you swapped even between the top best 4 factions and brought them to skill ceiling mmr you've probably achieved the most mosaics you possibly could have.

Thanks for your comments which I found interesting. You have a better appreciation of the system that determines which players you are drawn against than myself.

I play Gwent regularly, at least 100 games per month. As I've been playing for a while I've collected all the cards and have decks for most factions. I switch between decks regularly as I find this more interesting than repeating the same deck over and over again. As such I expect my overall MMR may rise within the month, but this isn't of interest to me and I don't track it.

I have equated rising ranks with rising difficulty in winning but it could be rising MMR as you suggest. However the win ratio issue remains - whichever system is in place in my view it would be better if it left the player in a position where they were playing against their ability equals, and thus would win around half of their matches. I've played competitive sport and games for many years and I find this most rewarding when playing against persons of similar skills to myself. There is little enjoyment in being thrashed by someone of greatly superior ability, nor is there enjoyment in soundly beating someone of much lesser ability.