Rank Confidence was introduced in Dota 2 after a major gameplay update called “The New Frontier Update”. This update changed the whole rank system for the game. Rank confidence is basically the game’s confidence about your skill level and what bracket you belong to. Hence, the reason why you get more addition and subtraction in your mmr until your rank confidence reaches 100% and after that you get a basic mmr change after your win or lose.
The purpose of this new rank confidence was the change the dota 2 boosting system. Many players used to hire different boosting companies to play their 10 calibration games so that they could end up reaching a higher rank but now that the system is changed. There is no concept of 10 games but in this new ranking system, there is a 30% bar. Players needs to keep playing to reach 30% to unlock their rank.
Previous MMR ranking system
Previously Dota has been using a modified version “Elo” for the ranking system in game but according to valve this caused some problems in game like the distribution of rank which resulted in a clumping of players in 0-2000 mmr bracket and it also caused problems for returning players to return to their original mmr that their skill originally belonged to.
Impact of Rank Confidence on Gameplay
Valve decided to change their ranking system algorithm called “Glicko”, with glicko rank system matches won’t cause mmr to increase or decrease at a fixed rate like it used to. Instead, it will increase or drop based on several things, like the Rank and Rank Confidence of other players in the game.Also, the rank confidence will decrease over time if a player stops playing the game for a certain time.
Rank confidence boosting
Boosting in any game occurs when you get help from a professional or a player who has higher skills than you to get better at the game yourself. Dota has the same kind of boosting services around the globe.
In previous ranking system, people use to hire dota 2 calibration boosting service to finish the 10 games to unlock the new rank.
With the new rank system your first 30% of rank confidence decides what bracket of MMR you will be placed into so if you get the help of a professional during those early stages you will find yourself to be in a way better place than others.The amount of in-game bans have also stopped occurring because the system doesn’t recognize the professional as a booster or a smurf , it just puts your ID into a higher skilled bracket which helps you and the professional as well.
Conclusion
The Rank confidence system was introduced for the betterment of the game and player experience and so far it appears to have been doing it’s job.
But the players who only play on weekends for a couple of hours might face some difficulty getting a medal because of the rank confidence decline over inactivity. I do hope that valve address this issue in future and make the game even better.
