Almost any multiplayer game is rating its players.
It’s the case of any Xbox game, or, on PC, any DotA-like or FPS (Battlefield/CoD) or RTS.
The purpose of that rating is to allow the system to propose fair games.
FaF is no exception, but by design, I choose to display as much information as possible to the user, as I believe that knowledge is always a good thing.
Rating is really just a tool, a meaningless number.
But some players see others things in that rating.
It is partly my fault : FAF displays “ranking” in a few places, it should not.
Ie. the game lobby displays “ranked/unranked” while it should really display “rated/Unrated”.
But while it’s probably part of the problem, it’s most likely not the main one.
Some people are losing games in a way to keep it arbitrary low and bash less skilled players.
Others think they are better because the number is higher, while it’s really the opposite.
As a result, a lot of games were “unranked”.
But even more games are putting restrictions based on rating.
There is a big contradiction here : You can’t use a system if the system is never updated correctly.
That introduce bias in the rating system, and the number, while meaningless, is also useless as a tool.
The rating system is currently broken, and can’t be used reliably.
I have tried to solve that unreliability in the last days by making unranked games more difficult to make.
But after 5 threads and hours of discussions in the chat, it seems that a lot of players are not pleased, but are still using the rating as a way to balance and restrict games.
So, I have changed my mind and decided to go the way other games do, and obfuscate the rating as much as possible.
This means some changes:
Right now:
- There is no easy way to “unrank” a game anymore, as there is no good reason to play an unranked game on purpose.
- The lobby won’t display game results anymore.
In the next lobby update:
- Rating numbers won’t show anywhere in the lobby or the in game lobby.
- There will be no indication of ranked/unranked in the in game lobby as it’s a meaningless information.
- Game quality will stays, as well as player statistics.
And later, rating will be replaced by a rank icon (that you will only get after some games).