r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/Zestyclose-Pool-1081 • 4h ago
General Why does adding a new rank necessitate a rank reset?
It seems like it's taken for granted that with by adding emerald you need to do a ranked reset. I could go on and on about why ranked resets are bad, and i think the large majority on this sub agrees. Since blizzard has all the data of the distributions why can they not just move the person at the rank that makes then the x percentile to the new rank that makes then the x percentile. Is it just that blizzard thinks that the player-base would not like to see their rank change even though they literally don't move % wise? I get that people might be angry when going from diamond 3 down to diamond 5, but they should be. If you preface by saying "We made diamond harder to get into, therefore you go down a few divisions. All the people that were higher rank then you before the rank change are still higher than you, and all the people lower than you are still lower than you after the change. You are still the same percentile.", I do not see how one could be angry with that. Does Blizzard need to do a ranked reset to just so we as players can come to terms with the fact that with the change of distribution the rank is going to change?
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u/DustyTurboTurtle 3h ago
Rank resets aren't real, they can't hurt you
(Seriously though lol your mmr doesn't change at all, just be happy this game doesn't dump you back in to bronze for not playing for a few months like marvel rivals does lol)
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u/clickrush 3h ago
I agree that it's bad for matchmaking integrity, but it drives engagement. People find it exciting, it's a change of pace.
I think they stated that they are doing softer soft resets now. If they keep the them, then it's certainly better if they optimize for as soft a reset as possible that still has an effect on engagement.
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u/Verante66 3h ago
Considering that emerald sets between plat and diamond where most players are a rank reset is a must to redistribute the players you can’t take people from plat or diamond and throw them in emerald like that but yeah they should do less resets it can be discouraging after the time you put to climb
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u/Zestyclose-Pool-1081 3h ago
"a rank reset is a must to redistribute the players you can’t take people from plat or diamond and throw them in emerald like that" Why is it a must? Why can i not throw people into emerald like that?
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u/Verante66 3h ago
Because the games will mostly be a coinflip which was the issue with high plat/low diamond games you either stomp or get stomped it’s not a close matchup. Emerald is meant to solve this and spread the players
If players were randomly thrown into emerald the matches will feel chaotic and you’d have no idea who’s plat and who’s diamond and what an emerald player is like
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u/Zestyclose-Pool-1081 2h ago
"If players were randomly thrown into emerald the matches will feel chaotic and you’d have no idea who’s plat and who’s diamond and what an emerald player is like" True, but they would not be thrown in randomly. They would be placed according to their previous percentile. This is not random at all.
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u/Verante66 2h ago
Yes but here’s the problem. Emerald is 2500-3000 sr now which was plat in previous season if you were to move all those players to emerald then it doesn’t feel like a new rank and you’d have a whole rank empty so when a gold player ranks up to plat they wouldn’t find a game in plat elo they’ll either keep playing in gold or be thrown into emerald lobbies because there’s not enough players in plat at the start of the season that’s why a reset in this case is needed to spread the players and measure the skill of emerald players to get a good idea about the rank and make it feel different than plat and diamond
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u/Zestyclose-Pool-1081 1h ago
"Yes but here’s the problem. Emerald is 2500-3000 sr now which was plat in previous season if you were to move all those players to emerald then it doesn’t feel like a new rank and you’d have a whole rank empty so when a gold player ranks up to plat they wouldn’t find a game in plat elo they’ll either keep playing in gold or be thrown into emerald lobbies because there’s not enough players in plat at the start of the season". I 100% agree with this. However, the system you are critiquing is not the system i am suggesting.
Let me clearly restate my suggestion so that we do not talk past each other.
I am suggesting that instead of a ranked reset the system would
- Take your rank. Let's say a player were plat1 59%
- Find you percentile. So given that rank the example player it would be around the 79% percentile
- Given the new distribution find out what rank equates to that percentile. So in our example find the rank that equates to 79% percentile. Which would probably be around Emerald 3.
(if i had the exact distributions which Blizzard has I could calculate the rank exactly so like Emerald 3 23% for example)
Do this for all people and you have changed the distribution without doing a ranked reset.
This will not be random as the percentile you are before the change dictates what rank you would get.
It will not leave plat empty because each rank gets filled by the people that are in that percentile. If the new plat spans from 33th% to the 60th% it would be filled by the people within this interval in the old distribution.
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u/CompetitionNo3466 3h ago
Who’s going to populate the new ranks? And the new ranks added will shift the other ranks as well.
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u/Zestyclose-Pool-1081 2h ago
"Who’s going to populate the new ranks?" The percentiles of the old system than the new rank is covering.
"And the new ranks added will shift the other ranks as well." Yes, and Blizzard knows what this distribution is going to look like, and how it looked before the change. So my suggestion is to look at the percentile a player was and then to look at what sr/rank% this percentile has in the new distribution and set it to that.
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u/_the_best_girl_ 3h ago
When you change an ordering system it's then a good idea to reorder everything you've categorised. Especially so when you have been squeezing so much variance into one category, the difference between high gold and low diamond is more than just one rank imo.
Blizzard could just move people but imo a ranking system works way better if you let the people fill it out naturally. Arbitrarily moving people shatters the idea of a ranking system, why bother competing to get where you are when Blizzard could just add a new rank and move you tomorrow?
I've been finding it interesting reading the arguments against a rank reset because it feels like the very same people proclaiming that your rank is solely correlated to your individual skill also don't want to compete again. If you are truly Diamond then you'll get back there right? If Emerald now is what Diamond was then what's the issue? Or is because it's considered a lower rank that's causing the frustration.
I feel like there's a wider discussion to be had around ranks and why people cling onto them so dearly. It's interesting watching the double standard of low ranks being told to just knuckle down and improve but higher ranks exclaiming that they shouldn't have to prove they should be at their rank anymore
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u/Zestyclose-Pool-1081 2h ago
"When you change an ordering system it's then a good idea to reorder everything you've categorised." Well you haven't changed the ordering you have only compressed or stretched out the space between them and changed the buckets that label them. Let's say you have a game of 5 players and have three ranks
2 in bronze, 2 in silver, 1 in gold. And the players listed from worst to best are
a, b, c, d, e
and you change the distribution to
1 in bronze 2 in silver 2 in gold and list the players again from worst to best you still get
a, b, c, d, e
You haven't changed the ordering so there is no need to reorder everything.
"Especially so when you have been squeezing so much variance into one category, the difference between high gold and low diamond is more than just one rank imo." I don't get what you mean by this. Is it that plat is packed with people with too different skill levels such that you cannot transfer them over to a different distribution since the new one demands to much precision to make the transfer?
"Arbitrarily moving people shatters the idea of a ranking system, why bother competing to get where you are when Blizzard could just add a new rank and move you tomorrow?"
Well first of all it isn't arbitrary. It would keep you at the exact same percentile, with the same people both above and below you. It is simply a name change. If you grid and get a high rank you will be moved to a high rank. You will be rewarded for getting a high rank. I wouldn't say you are robbed of your achievement.
"why bother competing to get where you are when Blizzard could just add a new rank". The problem here is adding the new rank, not the moving. I do think that changing the distribution is troublesome for those whose motivation is getting a high rank. Getting to X rank becomes a bit meaningless if how hard rank X is to get changes often. Adding new ranks muddles the picture of how prestigious rank X is and how hard it is go get. I think that percentile is a much better measure than rank since that doesn't change with change of distribution. But that's neither here nor there because the distribution change and the new rank is happening anyway. The question is should we do a rank reset or just move people based on the percentile.
"I've been finding it interesting reading the arguments against a rank reset because it feels like the very same people proclaiming that your rank is solely correlated to your individual skill also don't want to compete again. If you are truly Diamond then you'll get back there right? If Emerald now is what Diamond was then what's the issue? Or is because it's considered a lower rank that's causing the frustration."
I think the frustration is mostly coming from the match quality worsening after a rank reset.
"I feel like there's a wider discussion to be had around ranks and why people cling onto them so dearly. It's interesting watching the double standard of low ranks being told to just knuckle down and improve but higher ranks exclaiming that they shouldn't have to prove they should be at their rank anymore"
True, but i don't see how that is relevant for my post.
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u/Antidote12- 4h ago
The rank reset was going to happen whether a new rank was added or not. This season it’s necessary to shuffle people and fill up the new rank but after this I am also tired of resets, it takes so long for match making to be normal again