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So a few weeks back when the Master League was launched I got to see the master league icon up close and really had a strong reaction to it (see negative), so I decided to go and fabricate my own to see what it would look like being more in tandem (albeit loosely) with Blizzards current design scheme. This was the result. Not the greatest of renditions, but hey, I was curious.
In working on it I got some feedback and starting thinking about this myself, but what would it look like if I took the leagues and reworked them into a more consistent representation overall. My main thought was that I wondered why Blizzard hadn't taken point from so many military organizations on the planet, as their design aesthetic seemed sporadic. In one sense it was somewhat unique (what they were likely looking for), but in most ways it was merely a homogenization of many different 'levels' (some sport, some military), and had no real core trajectory. This was my starting point.
When I began to think about how to divide the leagues appropriately, I looked at ELO and how their distribution worked. The first thing I noticed was that there were far more divisions of skill. Oddly enough, this mirrored my own thoughts about the leagues in sc2, in that there either weren't enough of them, or at least not enough clear enough divisions of skill (1000's of divisions on the other hand I feel is a little ridiculous, but beside the point). So I took the ELO and played around with the relative levels and tried to work around a system that I felt was concise enough without being too confusing, but still with enough tiers that skills would be more accurately represented.
Eventually I divided the system into 3 tiers: beginners (0-840), moderately skilled players (841-1960), and very skilled players (1961-2800). I then further divided them into 3, 4 (or 2 and 2), and 3 parts so that there would be a total of 10 divisions, housed within the overall three. Once completed, I then tried to see if I could correlate these tiers with the global percentages, following sc2ranks as a base so that I could try to show the distribution so that they could be somewhat compared with the current rankings. Here is the end result:
Full League Distribution (note: click on each image for a larger view)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/Q4Db1.png)
DISCLAIMER: I should state plainly that all of the following numbers/calculations are an approximation and are in no way accurate (some choices were arbitrary, others educated guesswork), it's just to show what an approximate distribution might look like. I should also note that I don't know if the ELO distribution and the approximate percentages are remotely accurate to one another. If someone more qualified than I would be willing to do a more accurate calculation for this (if possible), that would be awesome.
Breakdown by Tier:
Tier 3 (~82.6% of the population)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/f5V3a.png)
[45.3% = 3,225,017]: ~0-280 ELO
[20.2% = 1,438,087]: ~281-560 ELO
[16.9% = 1,203,152]: ~561-840 ELO
Tier 2 (~17.28%)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/JpixJ.png)
[6.48% = 461,327]: ~841-1120 ELO
[5.4% = 384,439]: ~1121-1400 ELO
[3.24% = 230,664]: ~1401-1680 ELO
[2.16% = 153,776]: ~1681-1960 ELO
Tier 1 (~.32%, Master Tier)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/uJVZj.png)
Master [.2% = 14,238]: ~1961-2240 ELO
Senior Master [.1% = 7,119]: ~2241-2520 ELO
Grand Master [.02% = 1,439 - approx. top 200 in each region]: ~2521-2800 ELO
So this was far more than what I originally set out to do, simply re-imagine the visualization of the ranks, though I did find it interesting to try to see how the two systems might compare with one another. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with a good nomenclature for the system save for the top tier, which seemed somewhat obvious. I wanted to stay away from iCCup rankings to avoid confusion, but perhaps something along those lines would function best (G-A, then Maser Tier). Finally I should mention that this was simply an idea of mine, I don't expect that the status quo will change anytime soon (or ever) as that's not how Blizzard generally operates, but hey, one can wish right? 
 
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We can wish indeed tho considering Blizzard is currently using 2%/18%/20%/20%/20% I doubt they'll ever go with a ranking system like this :'[. They should add a system like this for Master League only so all the "casual" players don't get effected and all the "elite" players can enjoy their own extra layer of rankings.
Hopefully Blizzard will release their new icons soon since they said they would change em up to reflect your rank in the division. Still waiting for these Master League icons.
+ Show Spoiler +
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Stop doing things that make sense. We would rather have a random system with random materials (except masters) Maybe they will get rid of bronze league and add grand masters league or something who knows.
And having something based on ELO makes a lot of sense but at the same time, it shows how good a player is. The point of blizzards system is to make players feel good. Seeing their ELO go up and down can negatively influence a player whereas having a 2K bonus pool and constantly increasing in points (and the fact that the lowest league is "bronze" which is a medal...and therefore something noteworthy).
Apparently blizzard believes people want to see their rating go up, not a ELO system where numbers mean something, that is a 1500 elo vs. a 1200 elo mathematically has a X% chance of winning vs. the other whereas in Blizzards system you have no clue. Having no clue makes people feel less inferior.
I think your icons look really baller by the way. One can wish.
edit: the other problem is that since previous data is stored in the system, the fact is that blizzards fuck up is hard to fix. they would have to publicly announce that they fucked up and revamp the whole thing. Also, when one looks at a players "past seasons" record, everyone will get confused
"why is this guy platinum and now grand masters?"
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Honestly the first thing I thought of when I saw that was Call of Duty, I don't think that people want that much of a change into the system. The icons look real nice though.
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On February 13 2011 02:00 Whiplash wrote:
Honestly the first thing I thought of when I saw that was Call of Duty, I don't think that people want that much of a change into the system. The icons look real nice though.
Well we definitely want masters league separated into at least like 5 divisions. maybe based on MMR ?
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Don't care about icons, just want to see MMR.
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On February 13 2011 01:57 ReketSomething wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Stop doing things that make sense. We would rather have a random system with random materials (except masters) Maybe they will get rid of bronze league and add grand masters league or something who knows.
And having something based on ELO makes a lot of sense but at the same time, it shows how good a player is. The point of blizzards system is to make players feel good. Seeing their ELO go up and down can negatively influence a player whereas having a 2K bonus pool and constantly increasing in points (and the fact that the lowest league is "bronze" which is a medal...and therefore something noteworthy).
Apparently blizzard believes people want to see their rating go up, not a ELO system where numbers mean something, that is a 1500 elo vs. a 1200 elo mathematically has a X% chance of winning vs. the other whereas in Blizzards system you have no clue. Having no clue makes people feel less inferior.
I think your icons look really baller by the way. One can wish.
edit: the other problem is that since previous data is stored in the system, the fact is that blizzards fuck up is hard to fix. they would have to publicly announce that they fucked up and revamp the whole thing. Also, when one looks at a players "past seasons" record, everyone will get confused
"why is this guy platinum and now grand masters?"
I applaud your use of sarcasm sir. I do agree however that fixing the inherent problem would be tricky. My feeling though would be, well, SC:BW lasted 12+ years, so assuming the SC2 lasts this long then changing the design even a year into it's release is relatively ok..
On February 13 2011 Rotodyne wrote:Well we definitely want masters league separated into at least like 5 divisions. maybe based on MMR ?
I originally had Masters broken into 4 tiers but for some reason decided to remove this first one
+ Show Spoiler +
On February 13 2011 02:26 limonovich wrote: Don't care about icons, just want to see MMR.
Man do I wish they would just show us our actual rating, I just think that it was also kind of silly that the visualizations are somewhat meaningless right now.
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Its a great idea. However they hide MMR for a reason. They're trying to not make this game seem intimidating with ELOs and all that.
I'd gladly support this, maybe some colour into those icons will be make it better?
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Uhh, This reminds me of the Duty Calls system.
I'd like a more simple approach:
1. 99.5 % = "Lolnoob"
2. 99.5% - 99.98% = "Noob"
3. 99.98% - 99.999% = "Can Play"
4. 99.999% + = "Pretty good"
Icons could be little L,N,C and P with colors and glitter.
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On February 13 2011 05:46 HwangjaeTerran wrote:
Uhh, This reminds me of the Duty Calls system...
Yes, that would probably be because CoD follows the American military (Marines/Army) in it's rank divisions. A sergeant will always have 3 chevrons. You can't really get away from the variations on theme either, if you look at a USA sergeant vs. a British sergeant, they share the same 3 chevrons.
Also lol's, I'm assuming you mean percentiles instead of %.
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pretty flippin cool icons... and yea i think a base elo would be better system to go through
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United States4126 Posts
I really agree that there's more levels of skills than leagues. In the old iccup system there were 14 ranks if I'm counting correctly, from E all the way to the olympic rank. Blizzard's system is so muddled that it's hard to take anything from it.
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Although I do agree about this approach, I think there should be a greater number of divisions in the upper tiers, especially considering that it is where the majority of D level and upwards of people from iCCup usually reside. The approach would be nice for the lower leagues, though the opinion that Plat and lower is usually considered "casual" probably means that they won't really care about the changes as much as the Diamond and Masters players.
IMO, it would be great to add an iCCup-style rating to the upper tiers since currently it's quite ambiguous what true skill a player is based on their points and ranking in a league. A grueling iCCup system would be a solid, though stark, reminder of a player's true skill inside the upper league.
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Nice graphics on the icons, they look very realistic and sharp. I also liked the previous version that they had with more decor.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zSA3B.jpg)
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On February 13 2011 11:29 eviltomahawk wrote:
Although I do agree about this approach, I think there should be a greater number of divisions in the upper tiers, especially considering that it is where the majority of D level and upwards of people from iCCup usually reside. The approach would be nice for the lower leagues, though the opinion that Plat and lower is usually considered "casual" probably means that they won't really care about the changes as much as the Diamond and Masters players.
IMO, it would be great to add an iCCup-style rating to the upper tiers since currently it's quite ambiguous what true skill a player is based on their points and ranking in a league. A grueling iCCup system would be a solid, though stark, reminder of a player's true skill inside the upper league.
I tend to agree. I really do feel that 14 levels is a good number for a more accurate representation of skill, and both ELO and iCCup do this. My initial problem was that I couldn't figure out a concise visual way to represent the levels, the 3rd tier and 1st tier would be no problem in making 1 addition, but I had a lot of trouble with tier 2. Below is what I played around with originally, but never really felt that it worked quite well enough.
E, D-, D, D+
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/QqP67.png)
C-, C, C+
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/La6H4.png)
B-, B, B+
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/sihVO.png)
A-, A, A+, Olympic
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/hSozG.png)
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EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/QUnI9.png)
