Quote Originally Posted by Dragon View Post
Hmm, I started wondering about this too after reading your post, maybe some time we will get a big thread about the whole rating system, how it works, how you can get "+" on rating when your PPM is 13-15 while the rating is 26 or higher etc.
Well, while the fact that you can get a + rate with a very low PPM is annoying, THAT is not actually the problem and is evidence that the rating system is working to an extent.

I am not going to pretend I know what the formula is, or exactly how it works. However, my understanding of it is that you get +ppm for beating the ppm of other players in the round, and this is adjusted by the average rate of the other players in comparison to yours. What this should mean is any increase in PPM from playing on a server full of newbies is EXACTLY negated. I.e. if you get 130% normal ppm there, the rate adjustment will in effect mean you are calculated as having 100% normal ppm. What I think the issue is, is that the rate adjustment goes too far - playing on a high rate server adjusts it up too much, and on a low rate server down too much. This means if those with highest rate play on the same server, it becomes the only place you can rate (and hence why they all play there). It is hard for me to comment with hard numbers since I do not know the system, but if one server is better to rate on than any others, then the system is clearly not equating properly.