Blood Sport: Personal ratings fixes the Elo rating system

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Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column. Also, apparently, arena history is discussed as well, as evidenced by these last two articles. Mhmmm arena history — the best kind.

Listening Music: ELO with “Don’t Bring me Down.” Alright, my bad for not dropping some Elo in the last article. I felt the wrath of my readers. I offer a humble sacrifice.

Last Week: We talked about the beginning of arena and how the old rating system differed so dramatically than the one we have today. The Elo system was implemented on a firm foundation, but quickly eroded due to…

This week: Personal ratings and why we have them!

Season 3 and season 4.

While the old system was grand in many respects, it had flaws. The biggest flaws with an Elo rating system which only had one rating (team rating) were point-selling and win-trading. Both of which are virtually non-existent in today’s arena world. Personal rating was created in season 3 to end both of these problems. Even though many arena-boosting groups tried to duplicate their success before season 3, it was much harder, and therefore, much more rare.

If you aren’t familiar with point-selling, it was a pretty big deal early in WoW‘s arena history. Essentially, a high-rolling exceptionally good PvP team would level up a 3v3 or 5v5 team to around 2100 or 2200 rating (at the time, these ratings were unbelievably good — think 2700 or 2800 in today’s arena world). Then, they would sell spots on the team for gold. Individuals would buy 1000+ arena points for 500-1000g. It would usually be advertised through trade and it would be assumed that the individuals would be entering three to four losing arena games. The team rating would suffer as a result, but they’d still get the points advertised.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)