Hey everyone, we've examined the state of the the ranking system and have decided to enact a small change to make things easier on our hardcore players. Effective immediately, the star penalty for a lost game has between rank 1500 - 3000 has been reduced from 40 to 30! What this means is that players between 1500 and 3000 star points will lose slightly less stars when losing a game. This should make it a little bit easier to for players in those ranks to make progress.
We'd also like to take this opportunity to explain a little bit how our point system works. Players earn and lose points based on the comparison between their own rank and their opponent. If two players are closely matched in rank, then the winning player can expect to earn 40 points. The losing player may lose up to 40 points depending on their current rank. At very high ranks a loss is more penalizing, whereas at very low ranks a loss means very little. Progressive increases in loss penalties ensure a smooth increase in difficult as the player progresses through the game.
If two players are very unevenly matched, then the amount of points at stake may be significantly lessened. Unlike a traditional ELO system, we soften possible point losses for both the lower ranked player AND the higher ranked player. This ensure that high ranked players are not risking a huge number of points when they have to play lower ranked opponents.
We hope you enjoy the update and have fun ranking up!