Remove rating from (default) scoreboard

Jip

Rating is relevant for match making to guarantee a fair match. It is relevant in the lobby to perform some form of balancing. But once you are in-game I'd argue it should no longer be visible by default. It should be about the game - not about being continuously confronted with the fact:

(1) you're outmatched, and therefore you'll lose anyway
(2) you're over qualified, and therefore you should win

On both ends of the balance there's some negativity:

(a) mental stress that you impose upon yourself
(b) mental stress that your team imposes upon you

And with that, the game automatically becomes a lot less fun for me.

Example 1

As a practical example, take this replay:
-https://replay.faforever.com/16914131

It is a ladder game with Explosive (1700 rating) and me (1400 rating). My desire to play that game immediately dropped the moment I saw his rating on the scoreboard - and even expressed that in text. It discouraged me from going into ladder again.

The reason is stated as above: I felt significantly outmatched. To those looking at the rate changes: Yes, I won. But instead of thinking that I'm a master mind who can now take up @Evan_ during his matchmaking experiment, I figured that instead of me doing something good it was Explosive that just made a difficult-to-come-back-from mistake. Both are true, but I felt the latter and because of that I did not enjoy the victory.

Example 2

And as another example, take this interaction:

https://replay.faforever.com/16920687

Before you read it: know that I really don't care about rating beyond it giving a decent setup for a reasonably balanced match.

And by all means, this is not to be negative about the other player. But that interaction literally drew the fun out of the game for me. I just want to play, I don't care about your rating, my rating - I just want to play and have a good time. And if you happen to draw me, better me or are taken out by me - that is all great. That is what the game is about - not about this type of banter with strangers. Not to me at least.

Suggestion

Once you are in-game, we no longer show the rating of players on the scoreboard (or anywhere else). You can find the rating either:

in the lobby, before the game starts
in the replay vault, after the game has ended

The SSB UI mod would still show the rating. At best we can remove the rating from the default scoreboard. But that, on its own, would mean a world of difference to me. It would allow me to enjoy matchmaking more, without haunting myself. Or be haunted by others because "I should be embarrassed for playing so poorly" or because "I bought my account", etc.

Eternal-

People still rely on the rating when interacting in the game during team match. This will be a chaos for while
I vote for removing :DDDD

Tagada

If I play with random players in 8+ player team games I rely on the ratings shown in the scoreboard to roughly estimate how my teammates will do in the game, If I see I have a 1.8k player vs his 1.5k opponent I know that probably I don't need to help him, while if the ratings are opposite now I can proactively react by making sure I am able to help my teammate cause there is a higher chance he will lose his lane.
I understand your argument but the info is useful for a lot of players and without it and knowing the players yourself it's very difficult to make some decisions during the game that involve the outcome of your teammates' battles.

Anachronism_

@jip
You say you don't care about rating, but you clearly do. It is very relevant information for predicting player skill, lane balance, and future circumstance in-game. If it isn't displayed, then knowing players and their approximate ratings becomes even more of an 'insider' advantage, because it is inherently useful to be able to better estimate player skill and related. If you want to add an option to hide rating on the scoreboard, I have no opposition to that, but I do not think it should be removed.

JazzFunkNoob

I'm with Tagada here, it really matters in team games. Knowing your strongspots and weakspots is quite valuable. Otherwise people with more player knowledge have a significant advantage. Removing or rather replacing it with the Division in 1v1 ladder could be fine though.

Caliber

Knowing player ratings can be valuable strategic information for example if we know there is a very highly rated player the team knows we have to pressure them so they dont dominate the game and also not to snipe the lower players and therefor give double or even triple base to the better player, although i too understand the pressures and negatives of player rating but i think it is very valable information in a team game.

Maomaoo

just add a new queue that's simiilar to GW where you play as an anonymous vs anonymous that would solve your problem and i would like it aswell.

The_Janitor

I have argued for position that rating should only be visible for the player and not the others since mental pressure and potential negativity from the peers makes it difficult to have a proper state of mind when playing. But my argument only comes from 1v1 2v2 and 4v4 matchmaking for global rating I would approve being seen in the lobby as it is needed for balancing but hiding it once the game starts.

Things that i have argued for the matchmaking:
Removing the name/s so you dont know versus who you are playing or playing with
Hiding the rating until end of the game where it can be previewed in the replay

It would increase more healthy mentality of the players and better altitude towards ongoing match

Zeldafanboy

Surprised to see so many people wanting to remove rating. In any game with greater than 2 players knowing which players are more dangerous with more eco is super important. Would you rather snipe the 1300 or the 1000 if you only had the resources to snipe one?

For 1v1 ladder I actually do support hiding rating as an option

Blade_Walker

actually this is genius: instead of players having to mess around with smurf accounts, we can have a dedicated smurf tmm queue

The_Janitor

@zeldafanboy You should be able to just see who is better play rather then looking who has the higher number. People have been accused "how did you got to X rating by playing like this".

Jip

@tagada said in Remove rating from (default) scoreboard:

If I play with random players in 8+ player team games I rely on the ratings shown in the scoreboard to roughly estimate how my teammates will do in the game, If I see I have a 1.8k player vs his 1.5k opponent I know that probably I don't need to help him, while if the ratings are opposite now I can proactively react by making sure I am able to help my teammate cause there is a higher chance he will lose his lane.

This is exactly the mental pressure that I am describing in the first post. Rating is is an average across all maps and all compositions. A player can be really good on certain maps or certain positions, yet make fatal decisions when he or she plays outside of their comfort zone. It is an average, and that is about it.

When we hide the rating it means the game becomes more difficult, but also more meaningful:

You can no longer make assumptions about your opponents based on their rating, but based on what you scouted
You can no longer make assumptions about your allies based on their rating, but based on what you see them doing

At minute four you can easily determine whether the player (ally or opponent) in question is going to be reliable at its task. As an example: if a player is mid in seton's and he doesn't have a second land factory (or third, or fourth) at minute four then you know that he is going to need guidance and help.

The game makes it easy to inspect your ally: you have shared vision. But it requires the construction and survival of a scout to make a judgement about your opponent(s). And based on what you scout you can make the same decisions. But now you actually need to frequently scout your opponents, instead of seeing it on the scoreboard.

With thanks to @DerpFAF

And to re-iterate: I am not asking for rating removal. I am not asking for removing the rating in the lobby. As I stated:

Rating is relevant for match making to guarantee a fair match. It is relevant in the lobby to perform some form of balancing. But once you are in-game I'd argue it should no longer be visible by default.

Where 'in-game' means that you are actually playing the game, not in the lobby waiting for the game to start.

@techhousenoob said in Remove rating from (default) scoreboard:

Otherwise people with more player knowledge have a significant advantage.

This is the only real issue because our player base is relatively small. Other issues such as 'who to snipe' is, in my opinion, approaching the game wrong: don't snipe, just take out the base instead and then snipe. At that point there is no base to give.

edit: typing is difficult

Cyborg16

Jip, I kind of support your idea for 1v1 ladder. But when playing 2v2 and 4v4 matchmaker with unknown players it is very relevant to planning — that first minute while you're waiting for your factory to build and trying to guess who will/should do what. Giving lower-rated players just a little bit of advice about where to focus their play as the game starts can significantly improve team performance.

Evan_

@jip said in Remove rating from (default) scoreboard:

instead of thinking that I'm a master mind who can now take up @Evan_ during his matchmaking ~~experiment~~ lifestyle, I figured that instead of me doing something good it was Explosive that just made a difficult-to-come-back-from mistake. Both are true, but I felt the latter and because of that I did not enjoy the victory.

Lol if you can beat Explosive you can beat me (for now).

archsimkat

Players will still be able get the rating information of the people in their game—they will just alt+tab out of the game to look up the player in the faf client. This is just making getting information harder so I am against this change.

Uveso

Well there are 3 options.

Showing the player rating in game lobby and ingame:

People get distracted by constantly seeing player ratings.
People use this rating to manage the game.
1 = BAD
2 = GOOD

Hiding the player rating in game:

People delight in their ignorance
People can't judge players without the ranking number
1 = GOOD
2 = BAD

Hiding the player rating in game
AND
Show people how to use pen and paper and how to write the rating on a piece of paper.

People delight in their ignorance again
People use a piece of paper with ratings to manage the game.
1 = GOOD
2 = GOOD

ok, now seriously;
After you understand that for some people it's really distracting to see the player rating
then you'll probably agree that hiding the rating is the lesser evil

(and yes, making a note makes the game harder, I'll admit)

Pro

This is not good idea for me.why make your life difficult and remember players' ratings before the game?the ratings are there to assess on a regular basis who is playing more difficult or easier.

Uveso

@neptun said in Remove rating from (default) scoreboard:

This is not good idea for me.why make your life difficult and remember players' ratings before the game?

You should do this to be considerate of players who have problems with the rating.

archsimkat

As a compromise, maybe just make it a toggle so that the people who don't want to see the ratings can personally not see the ratings, but the people who want to see the ratings will be able to?

Jip

@archsimkat said in Remove rating from (default) scoreboard:

As a compromise, maybe just make it a toggle so that the people who don't want to see the ratings can personally not see the ratings, but the people who want to see the ratings will be able to?

That solves example (1), but not example (2) of my original post. And considering that every bases their strategy on their opponents rating instead of what they are actually doing, I'd also argue that it would give an unfair advantage to those that do see the rating.