Porphyr wrote:A thought on team rating: If a new team is founded, it starts with a rating of 1500 - independent of the team member's rating.
The consequence: Our teams are frequently matched with 1500 rated teams, consisting of 2.5k+ players. They are so strong, that there is little to no chance of winning, so we instantly lose many points.
This is made worse by the fact that teams are pretty volatile: if a member leaves, the whole team is dissolved and has to be founded anew. Since most teams don't last long, there are lots of teams around 1.5k, not reflecting the actual team strength.
My proposal: Set the initial rating of a team to the average of the member's rating. This would much better relate to their strength. What do you think?
I am most active in the 4v4 multiplayer ladder, so I will focus on it. Currently there are no teams with a 1700+ score. Setting the team score to the average of player scores would make it trivial to create a team with 2500 score. If they ever lost, they could recreate their team at 2500 points again. This entirely defeats the attempt to make ratings reflect ability. It makes much more sense the way it is, with teams starting fresh all at the same score. The fact that some teams are composed of very good players is expected, and a 1500 score should ideally be just a bit below average. Therefore, a new team who looses should not be upset about their 1400s score, since it does not compare with a 1400s individual score. If you play many games, eventually your rating will become an approximate reflection of your ability (no rating is more than an approximation).
Finally, team gameplay is very different from individual gameplay, so a team with 4 high rated players is not necessarily any better or worse than a team with 4 1500s rated players. My team is an example of this, currently #8 on the ladder, we have beaten multiple teams with an average rating more than 500 points higher than ours - the difference between 1900 and 2400.