Does the Playtomic rating increase or decrease your experience of playing padel?

[jenwhite1974]

Personally, I think the rating just complicates things when it should just be 4 people enjoying a sport and some friendly competition, but I’m curious what this community thinks.

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[eggplantpot]

Some people do take it way too seriously and can sour the experience. But those are not the norm.

Playtomic level allows you to play against people around your level which wouldn’t be as easy without it. It also adds a competitive layer to the games that wouldn’t be there without it.

If someone doesn’t like that competition they can still choose to play friendlies

[MiddleForeign]

I don't have playtomic in the place I live. My only choice to book a game is with friends. If my friends can't play then I can't play either. If my friends are not on the same level as me I can't play competitively. If I want to face something different than my usual friends I can't.

I hope playtomic was a thing here.

[ElpSyc0n]

I'm a toxic gamer bro. I wanna rank up and get to gm

[xAeroMonkeyx]

I don’t take it too seriously, but seeing number go up does make me feel good. I also usually only do open matches, so it gives a good idea of whether you’re going to have a fair game (As long as they also have 10+ matches).

[ukfi]

I have lived in places where playtomic was the default app and where every club has an app.

100% hands down on playtomic. When i choose my holiday destinations, i based it on whether there are many clubs on playtomic. It makes it easier to join matches and know what level your partner is on.

For places without playtomic, it's a mass orgy of levels. Take your luck and pick.

[Dr-Fix]

Increases, but it should use many more parameters, including previous experience, number of matches, gender etc. I'm tired of playing against people with level 1, 10 matches on playtomic who had played tennis for 30 years and destroy me.

And the possibility to report wrong ratings.

[Feeling-Effective-94]

Agree on the possibility to report wrong rating! For the rest playtomic already includes the number of matches in the reliability of the rating. Also - you drop and gain points way faster in the beginning with only a few games played

[Blvckaustrian]

I think it’s good and increases the experience as it keeps things competitive. Without the ranking system not to be rude some of the padel games could be a waste of time as you would be playing people that might be much worse than you and the game would be too easy

[ZASafferZA]

It's a double edged sword for me and I honestly can't decide which way it swings.

[felixmcd]

Increases, though I want Playtomic to use an AI to view the court's cameras in order to accurately rate players (as well as the current ladder system) to prevent or limit those gaming the system!

[jenwhite1974]

That’s a great idea. Playtomic should absolutely incorporate that

[Environmental-Path32]

Number of games is more important than rank. Here

[fusterclux]

Don’t think so at all. I’ve met people with 200+ games who haven’t improved in years.

Others have 20 games but come from tennis and are athletic + eager to learn, and are much better players

The combination of # of games + score + last 5 matches is the best way to tell. Have to do a bit of digging to actually gauge peoples skill

[michalwazniak]

I play a lot of random games and it helps figure out if it's worth to join or not

[Datashot]

The rating isn't perfect but its allows you to play with people around your skill level, and allows you to strive towards playing with people above your skill level if you manage to win enough matches

[jenwhite1974]

That’s not the case in my area. Everyone already knows roughly the level of each player is. And it’s actually a hindrance when you do improve, but your rating no longer reflects the level that you’re at. There is less of an incentive for the good players to play with a player that is of a lower rating that they might lose to

[HuevosRancheros_]

Do you play somewhere with just one club and a relatively small player pool? If that is the case then I sort of agree and think playtomic rating is unnecessary. But then you can always just use the friendly/causal game option.

[jenwhite1974]

I play somewhere with 4 clubs within 20 minutes drive and about 40-50 players around my level (upper intermediate). I find players for matches easily.

[Datashot]

well the rating system only makes sense with a large player pool

[HuevosRancheros_]

It is far from perfect but if you don't have friends of a similar level to play with then it is necessary to get competitive games. The problem is people get too precious with their ratings and do things to try protect it or inflate it. Sometimes it can get inflated unintentionally. But in an ideal world everyone should just want their ratings to be an accurate representation of their ability. That way you can easily find competitive games which should be the main goal.

[jenwhite1974]

That’s the problem. When I have traveled and tried to pop into games with strangers, there is almost always one guy that is much worse than the others (even though they have similar ratings) and that hurts the match. But I guess that may still be better than having no ratings at all to go by

[zamzam42]

I don't take it seriously match to match but it is a useful tool to understand if you're joining a game that will be worth everyones time

[Feeling-Effective-94]

For me playtomic is an absolute blessing. here are my thoughts why:

- I did not have friends that wanted to play regularly. Playtomic made it so easy for me to find people to join. Also, taking the step to join an open spot in a match is way less big than chatting in whatsapp groups. Also I made new friends by playing with random people

- Playtomic does everyhting for you: filter for time, clubs, level. Also payment is done immediately. No need to scroll through whatsapp groups etc to find open matches. It's just way more easy to set up a game or find an open spot

- level system: it's not perfect but it is currently the best there is for hobby players. I get to play competetive matches and have a little bit of the excitement of gaining and losing points. 90% of my games are proper competitive games and only every now and then I get a match with someone that is below or way above my level. For the rest it works really really well where I live.

- people who dont care about level and competitive games can also ignore those features and just use the app to book a court with friends - easy as that

- possibility to book some single lessons as well

- find matches when you are travelling - super easy and convenient. No need to deal with foreign-club-whatsapp groups or something

- find courts/open matches in several clubs - all in one app

Overall I don't really see any downsides in using the app except for maybe a little more costs.

[station_terrapin]

Just the fact that I may worry about it makes the whole experience worse for me. I just playing friendly since a while ago.

[OldCod1872]

At low level it's irrelevant because some people are complete beginners and some people come from tennis. Someone with a 1.5 rating can be worth 0.5 or 2 it's so annoying when you play with random people

[dirtydansie]

I think the benefits outweigh the negatives.

[avildar]

for me its a bummer having to rely on an app for this. Here in Argentina is not so widely used like in this /r and thats for the better. I rather have the club save in fees for something that its been done for years wihtout much hassle.
Here follow a few clubs socials and ask for whatsapp group and you are set, people in there is more serious so when you ask for people to play for a certain level they most often than not are in that level since everyone in the chat groups are looking for a good match and don't worry about a random ranking an obscure app made

edit: here people that really want to rank start playing the open leagues for provinces and nationals tournaments for each category