Huge drop in number of high ranked players playing games

[beeroy]

If you're reading this thread and you DO want a ratings wipe, please post so! until the previous post it was basically me arguing with a handful of people who are against it for various reasons, but I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who are for it. Don't agree silently, say something!

+1 on this, i want a wipe

[Sorter]

All that needs to happen is decaying system and lowering of brackets. Problem solved. Well perhaps a drop for 400+ ppl to 400 but that would be as last resort or something. If all your worries are about not getting rating when you beat a lower rating person then just the bracket adjustment should suffice.

[Anurak]

I'm really surprised so many people request a ranking wipe, when most claim they don't care about rating. Could be they want to see justice served and those who see their names on the top 20 taken out. I'm currently at 345 and don't care at all. With a decay system they will soon drop if they avoid playing, or if their skills are lacking. If they ever decide in reseting the ratings that should propably happen when all the cards from the first release are out and the bugs are dealt with. A haircut for those who are above 400 could be a solution if the majority wants, but I bet the majority hasn't been in the forums even once, so I have no idea how they will react.

[BadKarma]

Don't really care about rating.
Don't really care about a wipe.
I'll be happy either way as long exploits and bugs are fixed.

[shannong]

I'm for a "post-exploit-fix wipe to reset everyone back to a fair playing ground" now. I'm also for the idea of a periodic wipe every time every time a major release (with significant card additions/changes that change the metagame) comes out.

Bottom line is that if you reset everyone and we all start from scratch, things will quickly crystalize again, but you'll have cleared out the ratings that were gained by cheating. You'll also have cleared out the ratings that were kept low by unexpected bugs that lost you a game you'd have otherwise won, etc.

Me? I don't really care about ratings so much except to see for myself where I sit in the overall bell curve. I'd rather that my rating *accurately* reflected my place in the bell curve than have it be inaccurate because it's skewed directly or indirectly by folks who cheated and have artificially high ratings.

Right now I'm at 314 after about 20 total rated games (hey I just found this game about a week ago, and between my job and wife aggro don't have much time to play a challenge match without interruption, lol). But does that rating reflect where I'm really at or is it inflated? Will my progress suddenly drop to a crawl because of the effect Calmdown is describing?

Seems to me like a wipe now is a one-time bit of "pain" for everyone to go through. Communicate it beforehand and the reasons why and it will probably be less pain and short-lived.

Alternatively, perhaps a downranking of the 400+ to 400 is a gentler way to go. I'm not familiar enough with the Truematch system to grasp whether it would effectively clean up the bell curve as well as a global ratings reset would do.

[Audie]

Why not implement a minimum difference for gain / loss of ranking?
For example: If the difference in ranking between the players is greater than X nobody would gain or lose ranking.

This is kind of the right idea. In my opinion if a high ranked player plays a low ranked player it should play out like this:
(for the purpose of this example and my hating of typing on my iPad 'H' is high lvl person and 'L' is low lvl)

H beats L: H receives small rating increase and L loses none or very little rating.
L beats H: H loses either none or very little rating while L gains a lot of rating

Using this system there will be a rise in higher ranked players.

[yaemon]

I don't really like the idea of resetting ratings...
I think that a decay over time could work in case of inactivity.
but, most of all, I think that the ratings changes due to games should be more aggressive, not 1 point or so... go from 5 to 15 per match instead...

[Anurak]

They should change the brackets for matchups. As since we find less players as we move to higher ratings, I was thinking something like this
For ratings 0-400 the system should pair them with players within -75/+75 rating.
For ratings 401-500 the system should pair them with players within -100/+100 rating. (So a 450 rating would be paired with ratings 350-550).

Also about the min/max win/loss I was thinking something like this: (H) - Higher rating, (L) - Lower rating

H wins - H gains min 1 rating, or 2 if the difference is <25. L loses 2, or 3 if difference is <25.
L wins - L wins X+1 rating points and H loses 2*X rating points
where X: (difference of ratings)/25 rounded up (which means min 2 rating and max 5 if a 400 plays a 475-500)

The numbers may need some adjustments, but I think it's a fair system. (Hoping I'm missing something)

[Kain83]

+1 for the wipe.

[shannong]

Wouldn't it be easy to exploit decay? You could still log on once per decay interval and prevent the decay from affecting you. This would result in holding on to a "cheated" rating for quite a while.