Rethink the idea of the rank system only catering to top competitive players

Open

Threadfinn32 messagesstarted Oct 7, 2026, 9:57 PM

gameplayother

ThreadfinnOP2 weeks ago(edited)

For 90% of players having fun is more important than pure competitive integrity. Having more players makes the game more competitive even if most of them are casuals. I think a system that encourages more people to play more often is good, even if it may not have perfect representation of skill.

Possible ideas to make playing feel more rewarding:
-Add derank protection for ranks below guardian, and make match score affect rating change.
-Reset ranks occasionally, and make the system so climbing will occur over time even if winrate is slightly below 50% (assuming opponent elo is equal to yours).

message.txt4.3 KB

ThreadfinnOP2 weeks ago(edited)

idk why i put all that earlier tbh

sugaarush2 weeks ago

haven't read all of this but i think clash royale elo system can be decent inspo too

sugaarush2 weeks ago(edited)

theres ladder progresion through arenas until 15k elo and then ur elo changes a lot per match even after the arenas and finally for the top 10k players they have an entirely different system for ranking

Uniquepotatoes2 weeks ago

0 days without someone suggesting score based elo gains can we give it up

ThreadfinnOP2 weeks ago

When was the previous one other than today and like 2 months ago?

Uniquepotatoes2 weeks ago

people have asked about it without making posts occasionally

ThreadfinnOP2 weeks ago

https://discord.com/channels/1493030345048719483/1557199483513737256

ThreadfinnOP2 weeks ago

there's this but that was mostly also me

ThreadfinnOP2 weeks ago

I think draftout is a more fun game than Valorant, but I'm currently playing Valorant because the ranking system is just addictive and draftout's ranking system makes it better not to play

pancelor2 weeks ago

I play draftout because its fun. like, the gamplay, not anything to do with elo

ThreadfinnOP2 weeks ago

Like I want to play draftout, but then again I'm on my rankup game in Valorant (which happens almost every day) and so I play for that

ThreadfinnOP2 weeks ago

And draftout could have that too

pancelor2 weeks ago

what do you like about draftout? like, what part of it makes you excited to play, or what things do you have strong memories of

pancelor2 weeks ago

I guess this is a bit tangential to the suggestion thread here but I am curious

isawabellelast week(edited)

game ranks are skill-based, and turning them into a progression system (with rank protection and making it faster then it should be) which doesnt fully reflect skill is turning it into an entirely new thing
now could draftout do that new thing? sure. i really like for example splatoon 3's ranked system, where you have a progression system up until the final rank where it then turns into an elo system - but that there is clearly 2 systems. trying to combine them both into 1 system isnt great

i also think most players dont really care about their rank when playing for fun. getting stuck in a rank and not ranking up for a while is natural in comp games - its a sign that you need to practise more or change up your playstyle a bit or learn new tech or something. changing the ranked mode to cater to people who dont like not progressing is again, changing the ranked system from a ranked system to a progression system. and its clear thats not what draftout is trying to be

isawabellelast week

this sounds like you overthink your rank a lot, which to that i say play quickplay. if youre tired and worried about losing elo, play quickplay. want to practise and improve without fear of deranking? play lobbies or quickplay
you dont exclusively have to play ranked
and playing without worrying about your elo all the time might be a more healthy way to play - play for fun, not rank points

isawabellelast week

also if you have this system you cant call it elo because it just isn't that - its not a skill rating, its rank points

isawabellelast week

to add to this splatoon 3's series system is also really cool and you can kinda fake this in an actual elo system (by hiding a player's true elo)
in splatoon 3, you spend rank points to start a series (but you can equally have it without the spending points). you then play until you either win 5 matches (3 in x rank) or lose 3, whichever comes first - which then you gain/lose based on your performance in 1 big chunk
it gives you a closer and more tangible goal - do well in your current series - vs the much bigger and daunting task of "rank up". it also encourages playing more games in 1 session

idk its just another thing that could work and isnt completely changing how the ranks system works

ThreadfinnOPlast week

I mainly just like that there's a lot of goals that are things you would never do normally playing Minecraft.

Wanhedalast week

the current elo system is horrible for anybody

Wanhedalast week

playing more games should be rewarding, you shouldnt gain less and lose less the more games you have

Wanhedalast week(edited)

it makes it very frustrating and just annoying for any player to get their elo pb as well

ThreadfinnOPlast week

I've played more lobbies and quickplay than I have ranked, but this is the only multiplayer game where I play any unrated modes without being asked to by friends. Rank just gives a goal to work towards, and this system just felt so punishing at the beginning that I lost motivation to play for it. And it's so close to vanilla that when I want to actually play a casual relaxing game I just play in a singleplayer world.

ThreadfinnOPlast week

The current system also isn't elo. Elo, glicko, and what I'm suggesting are all rating systems in that a player with a higher rating number is usually better than a player with a lower rating number. The main difference with this would be that a player with very few games played would be underranked, which would also fix issues like half the leaderboard being people with only 4-5 games played.

ThreadfinnOPlast week

Another reason the current system already struggles because it already is a progression system for the top players. Mongey winning against someone 400 glicko rating lower doesn't prove that much about his skill. Even though he occasionally loses, having an 95% winrate against low elo players is less meaningful than whatever his winrate is against the rest of the top 10.

isawabellelast week

this is a problem with draftout having a small playerbase, not the ranking system itself

isawabellelast week

issues like that would be better fixed by tweaking the values in the current ranked system's formula imo, like making the first few games less weighted. what you're suggesting is basically reworking the ranked system again when the current one hasnt even been given a chance

isawabellelast week

well yea i agree
but this suggestion isnt the way to fix that imo
and also that sounds like it punishes the top competitive players more

Maloxlast week

As of today, 25 players in the top 100 have 10 or less wins, 40 have 20 or less wins. The update has been out for a month or so, meaning they barely played a game a day on average. Obviously not everyone plays every day, but that's on average.

A game duration (in the top 100) probably is around 20/25min and you usually do more than 1 game/day. Meaning 40% of the leaderboard is inactive or so,

If we decide to keep the glicko (and tbh, why not ? Even if we win less, it's the same for every one so the result is just a shift in max elo 2300 -> 1800) at least add elo decay to counter-balance the fact that your first games can make you win tons and "penalize" players actually playing the game

TNT444last week

Slightly unrelated but I'm also not a huge fan of the new elo system. After a few games I'm averaging +-9 elo compared to +-30 elo on the old system, taking it very long to get higher on the leaderboard

TNT444last week

Even though my winrate is 60% and basically all af my losses are people in the top 100