How I think ranked could be fixed

[Xenithos]

1) [spoiler]First of all ranked should be COMPLETELY reworked from scratch. From core to connection, it should be completely discarded and reprogrammed from the core itself. As a programmer I know this because if you rewrite @$!# code it will work 100x better. This would take a lot of time I know but at least we will have a better system. And yes I know they already did that but they should do it again.[/spoiler]

2)[spoiler] Second of all placements. During placements, you shouldn’t look at wins or losses because placements will ALWAYS be unbalanced. There is no way at all to balance a handful of players that are unranked. Adding to that you should not look at the ranks from previous season to match players, because until now we’ve had broken seasons with players that belong in gold being stuck in silver, and players belonging in bronze that got carried to gold. I know that there is no way to stop these carries, though there is a way to slow these down. I want to add that it might be better to look at performance of the player in pubs/casual, what I would do is monitor the player during his lvl 1-7, and give him a certain rating equal to a rank that is invisible. Use that to match him with other unrankies. Also level 7 is WAAAAAY too low for ranked. It should be between 15 and 20 no offense to those insane good low levels that come from other fps games. Though because of the low playerbase this might make things even worse so at least crank it up to 10. This will also fix the smurfing problem. Most level 7s just don’t have enough experience.[/spoiler]

3) [spoiler]Going back to what I’ve said about the match against a gold agent and an elite operative with a full silver team at my side. First of all these matches can be allowed since the playerbase is a bit low yes sure BUT if you lose this match (which you are most likely to do) it should NOT have any impact whatsoever on your ranked profile AT ALL. For the high ranked people they also shouldn’t rise a lot from that. IF however you manage to win that, then you should rise EXTREMELY high like an instant uprank or something and those high ranked should get an instant down rank for losing against low ranks (not that this would ever happen but there is a possibilty). Besides in my opinion matches like these shouldn’t even be created but then the high ranks would have a hard time finding games. Also those matches were you have a leaver should if you lose these they also shouldn’t have high impact on your profile BUT if you win 1 of these impacts should be high. Losing with a 5 man team against a 4 man team is a disgrace and should be punished more while winning with a 4 man team against a 5 man team should be rewarded much more. Also these leavers need HIGHER penalties. Because some hop into ranked and then just leave for no reason, ok sure you have those that are having crashes to their game but they can reconnect. If they don’t however they should be punished more.[/spoiler]

@spartamania302

1. Glad to know someone knows this, however, this is ALWAYS done with prototypes before you begin work on the ALPHA of a game. You just recommended that SD completely undo all of the last several years worth of work to POSSIBLY make something better than a system that’s already working as it mostly should. You also presumed that their code is garbage, which isn’t exactly nice. I also find it ironic that you realize they’ve already done this and think they should do it again. I went into the gaming industry in creation for a bit and it’s not that easy. Talk about pissing off the player base, I’m surprised more people haven’t disagreed with you for that. It’d be easier to just go recreate the game in Unreal Engine 4 than to recreate their entire ranked game in UE 3.

2. Placements - Though I agree that placements and the level limit is low, if we were to raise the level limit to 15-20, that means DB’s already incredibly low population, Less than 1% of it would be available to play ranked. Think about that for a moment. I recommend an easier solution, hack all the CS:GO servers killing their game and advertise about DB extensively for two months. That will fill the competitive scene and allow their matchmaking to undergo tweaks allowing the rest of what you said. There’s a difference between theory crafting and actually being able to do anything about a game people don’t stick with. I don’t have an answer for how to fix any of this, and though what you said can be agreed upon by a veteran’s viewpoint, it really can’t be agreed upon by a developer stand point unless they desire their game to truly just die.

3. SD is right with you on balancing being broken, however, due to the already low population, two regions were completely stuck in matchmaking queues due to their limit of a simple 5 up or down. Which is STILL a wide range of skill levels. They had to turn off their limit because some players were searching for several hours to find a single match, or not even getting one. Also, I’m right with you on leavers needing higher penalties, however making sure they’re actual leavers isn’t quite in the code right now, and it should be. I had a friend banned for 30 minutes because SD claimed he was in the game, when he wasn’t and it kicked him for a security violation. I’m sorry, but that’s just messed up.

In all ability I can to not scream at you, I end with this: I appreciate your thought process, since it is one a lot of people can agree WOULD fix DB, it is however, entirely implausible. I wish you the best.

Edit: Just realized this is almost 2 weeks old. Ugh… I need sleep.