DateyourGame’s Blog

Last day armykid45 brought to my attention a thing I wanted to make an editorial about since 2005 but always ended up too lazy to make anything of it. So this morning I started answering him but turned out in an editorial. Here is the resulting of what I think about ranking systems in video games and the thinking behind what I mean by what I told him:

“Rank just show how much you play and not how good you are.”

More and more the video games use ranking system to get player addicted by rewarding with abstract ranking system. Those ranking system have different impact but the first goal of the developer is to create an addiction in a really Pavlovian manner, that’s a good thing if it works, since the player will enjoy the game for a long time due to the constant pressure of levelling up. But the impact is the endless human attitude to compare themselves base on statistic and that’s where it really doesn’t mean much from a practical stand point.

Myth The Fallen Lord Ranking
For example, back in the Myth the Fallen lord days (1997). I became the 225 best plays on 64000 players. I wasn’t that good but I was an Emperor and all proud of myself. Then I took a break of a couple of months. By the time I played again they had restarted ranks. So I was back to the dagger rank. Then I fought a 2vs2 battle, I was with a “Lord” and I was a “dagger” against 2 emperors (best rank before the 10 best players). I won and the two emperors lost many point for being beat up by a Dagger. (They told me I had cost them many ranking).

Rainbow Six Raven Shield
After 2 days of playing Rainbow Six Raven Shield. I was the 72 best players and I certainly wasn’t that good but the rank favoured my stats base on probably many lucky encounters.

World of Warcraft
Bobwolf was use to play WoW with a ranger and he many time killed player of higher rank just by skill.

Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2 rank system is base on point you have by playing. That mean that if you just starting playing your rank will be low, that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to dominate the game either by pure luck or by experience from other game you played before.

America’s Army
America’s Army rank gives your “honour” rank base on point you make. I played is since it came out but rarely. So I was good but since I rarely played I had low honour. So high honour player could not believe they were defeated by a low rank player. So they were thinking I was cheating and I would not be surprise if some admin did scan my game to see if I was cheating. I created my account on the 30-OCT-03 when you start you have 10 honour. In 2005 I was 24 of honour. I then decided to play a lot during 1 week or 2 and didn’t played since, I’m now a 39 of honour. So I have gain more rank in 2 weeks then in 2 years just by playing more with the expediential effect of my skill.

Rainbow Six Vegas
Rainbow Six Vegas on Xbox has a rank system similar to battlefield and allow unlocking guns. On pc it’s not the case. So I’m able to use equipment most Xbox player don’t have yet. Since most of them think I play on Xbox, well they think I’m an “Elite” and insult me of over playing the game. I think every one here know that If I was over playing that game, you would be flood by videos of it.

Conclusion
Rank is really a subjective thing that really doesn’t reflect the true skill of a player. In my opinion the best skill a player can have is the capacity to enjoy what he play without having to be stimulated by any Pavlovian stuff the game developer comes out with. That is why I rarely ever play anything that has any rank stuff in it.

What do you think?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 9:31 am and is filed under Attila, Editorial, Video Game. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.