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Hi, guys. This is the second post on my quest for Platinum. Some of you may already have heard this rant in other places on the forums but allow me to restate (Master's people who know how little difference there is from bronze to gold and back are kindly requested to bear with it  ):
Basically, it seems the system matches me up with a mixed array of opponents for not much of a specific reasons. I would get, say, silver opponents after defeating gold ones. Maybe not enough people to match a game with? At any rate, those lower league people with high MMRs have always been my weakness, much more so than the actual league I'm in. Plus, if I manage to lose a game there, it will match me with worse and worse opponents, where I will still lose games (you'd probably need to be plat or diamond to keep winning like 75% games through bronze, I guess...). Sometimes a single mistake can lead to a losing streak vs lower league opponents.
At night, I won a game against a rather ranking silver opponent but got matched up with the same silver guy twice in a row afterwards and defeated each time, demoted to silver, same rank as I was in gold (around 27 or 28). I've climbed to #14 since the morning but not without losing one or two games to bronze players. But somehow got matched with silvers again and kept winning most of it, so thankfully no more bronze now. There seems to be much more strong play than I've seen from dudes at gold level. It looks like these people know what they're doing, it just doesn't work in some games, probably as in incalculated flaw of whatever they're doing.
I couldn't really keep three-raxing due to the variety of all-ins, cheesy builds etc., although there's still an occasional very solid player with a standard build or a very well executed, thoughtful cheesy build. Had to fall back on my separate TvZ build, still three-raxing vs Prot but with optimised stim timings (I can get it around 6:30) and sometimes some aggression before stim even gets researched, still at a loss as to what to do with Terran due to the variety (may have to settle on 1/1/1). This is probably an opportunity to revise scouting and learn to interpret the results.
I'd like to thank Zanazuah, Wastuta and Duggi (diamond and master players), each of whom has played at least a game or two with me yesterday night, helping me see some things.
I'm probably gonna be slow today since I've got a cold and caught the flu that's running in the family right now. But I keep playing. Let's see where this gets me.
But like I said at night, in my previous last post, if the system places me in bronze, I'll probably uninstall the game and get back to work. I like Starcraft and Battle.net but getting hopped through the leagues is not fun, even if you know that those leagues don't really matter much (new season, plenty of inactive people purged leading to higher skill average in the lower leagues, MMR hidden anyway etc.).
I'm not posting replays since they aren't interesting and some of them are a little compromising to me. I'll get back to replays when I've moved up a bit or got myself into a proper execution mode.
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(you'd probably need to be plat or diamond to keep winning like 75% games through bronze, I guess...)
Not really. In the bronze silver gold area competent players can have 90%+ win ratios losing only to like hard build order counters. (ultra fast DT v fast third late lair PvZ kind of thing). Bronze macro is so bad that you can do silly things like 2rax expo into 2base Battlecruiser+Bio timing and still win.
Look at it over a month or two, set definite goals which have tangible results (play 20 games and look through every replay being able to write a sentence as to why you lost) and you will jump up the ranks slowly but steadily.
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Hey, here's a tip - stop caring about your opponent's league or rank, just play and work on improvement. You don't lose because people have high MMR or they're in a higher league, you lose because you did something wrong. Find it, fix it.
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Thanks, Wonderwall. I see.
Thanks, Andy. Yeah, I know. Whenever I rid myself of that mindset, things get better. It's hard, though, you know, after a couple of years on the ladders. BTW, since you're always looking for partners, just poke me if you have the time to play and wouldn't mind playing with me (dunno what league you are).
Guys, it seems things are improving. I've got to #9 in my division and just won a TvT game (not my strongest matchup, maybe even the weakest) against my first gold opponent.
Looks like dropping stuff on people from medivacs seems to be helping. Even dropped thors and hellions from medivacs on a zerg some time ago on western spots on Shattered Temple instead of walking.
My APM seems to have gone up some 15%, as measured against real minutes with SC2gears.
This is somewhere between my fingers warming up more or less to the speed I had in Warcraft 3 (I'm not far behind it right now) and my getting a new mouse. I got a Logitech G9X like a wrote a while ago, and it's letting me do some nice micro I couldn't pull off with an optical mouse (talking about cloth pad here). At the same time, despite being too short for my fingers, this mouse isn't tiring me (right now my keyboard hand is definitely far harder affected). The "precision grip" is kinda cool. I like the way this thing is so flat, like the mice when I was a kid.
Edit: Just entered top 8 of this silver division. It took a while to break since I'd lose one win one and so on. I'm likely going to lose the closest match on this principle (while I'll be trying not to) but I've managed to climb some points still after my bonus points ran out. It seems dropping bio on people is helping a lot, including zerg. I knew all the pros did that (or at least could do it) but I didn't think it could in any way be comparable to the BFH > thors build (that I've tried with medivacs for the first time today). Let's see how stuff goes. At least I haven't seen a bronze opponent in a long while.
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Incidental thought: It seems I can't get a consistent win streak. I can have one of up to 3 or 5 games, rarely more, then another, but always with a loss or two in between (except when I'm getting a long loss streak). Wonder if this is hindering me.
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And this mouse is great. Wonder if I'm gonna have to play in gloves, though. The buttons are getting a little slippery. It's a good thing I bought it. I can now split workers, easily select individual units without boxing and many other things I thought I just couldn't do.
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heyhey, i'm a new player too, only started about three weeks ago.. i'm gold now, would be cool if we played  .
i gotta leave for a class now (class at 19:45, really uni? REALLY?) but once i'm back we can get some games going. feel free to add me.
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Glad to hear that! I've just added you, so you should get the friend request first thing you see after logging in. Had some evening classes at uni too. There was some stuff available only so late.
Status report: #7 in division, win streak of 3. Lots of win streaks today but nothing bigger than 3.
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Hey, I don't really see anything -_-. What's your name/char code? Or just message me in the game, I'm on.
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NewbieOne.967.
Status Report: #4, now getting high gold as even match, it seems, and sitting on a win streak of 5. Hope it sticks.
Edit:
Status Report: somebody must have gone up, I'm #5 now. However, it seems I've won 24 and lost 6 today, which is 80%.
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I don't know if this is still viable. But the computer matches you according to your MMR. If you are Gold League and get matched against a Silver player, chances are he is getting ready to move out of Silver and into Gold.
I am Silver and I play a range from High Ranking Silver to Mid Ranking Platinum. Until it finds a good place for you, it will continue to match you against varied ranks and leagues.
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Hey, Link_Drako, yeah, that's true. It's still possible that a silver opponent that I get after defeating a gold opponent may have higher MMR than that silver opponent did. On the other hand, that gold player may be looking at demotion. I guess I have to live with where it places me, although it sucks how details are handled. By this I mean plenty of demotions etc. In fact, the Top 8 of my current silver division includes three guys who have been gold in 1v1 on the same accounts (myself included) and a runner up was in Plat in Season 1. I suspect that if you haven't played a heckload of games in the respective season, your league rating is less stable and an accidental loss streak can get you demoted or even a single stupid loss can matter a lot. Not sure about the system's accuracy in assessing the likelihood of winning (if favoured ratings are broken, so can be win/loss likelihood estimates for MMR purposes).
Congrats on your matchups! I used to get solid streams of gold opponents and some plats back in my last days of silver and first of gold prior to my recent demotion. You're probably going to be promoted when the system is able to decide between gold and plat, until which time it likely won't get you out of silver. (Supposing you haven't registered a lot of losses to silver or bronze opponents.)
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Don't read too much into MMR and leagues. Focus more on your play!
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Is it rare or neato in any way that a Gold would get matched against Masters on ladder?
Should I feel good that I was given that challenge?
I hope that I had been playing hard enough that it wanted to challenge me.
I don't know what to make of it. I am not cleaning house in Gold, btw either so I was surprised.
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On September 28 2011 15:31 WeddingEpisode wrote:
Is it rare or neato in any way that a Gold would get matched against Masters on ladder?
Should I feel good that I was given that challenge?
I hope that I had been playing hard enough that it wanted to challenge me.
I don't know what to make of it. I am not cleaning house in Gold, btw either so I was surprised.
I have no idea how often that happens but I wouldn't even expect it to happen at all in the very first place. I don't think he would still be in Masters if he had a low diamond MMR and even if he had low diamond MMR and you had high plat (and for some weird reason avoided demotion and promotion respectively), there would still be a high gap there. Do you have, like, a small number of games on your account where the system can't be sure? Or have you played tons of games before your skill rapidly increased due to off-ladder practice? I would definitely say you're in line for promotion. Perhaps the system doesn't know what high league to put you in, so it keeps matching you for now and will decide the details of your promotion later. Skipping a single league in promotion has happened, not sure about two leagues or more.
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On September 29 2011 00:59 NewbieOne wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2011 15:31 WeddingEpisode wrote:
Is it rare or neato in any way that a Gold would get matched against Masters on ladder?
Should I feel good that I was given that challenge?
I hope that I had been playing hard enough that it wanted to challenge me.
I don't know what to make of it. I am not cleaning house in Gold, btw either so I was surprised. Do you have, like, a small number of games on your account where the system can't be sure? Or have you played tons of games before your skill rapidly increased due to off-ladder practice? I would definitely say you're in line for promotion. Perhaps the system doesn't know what high league to put you in, so it keeps matching you for now and will decide the details of your promotion later. Skipping a single league in promotion has happened, not sure about two leagues or more.
About the small number of uncertain games, do you mean disconnects or close games kind of thing?
I just checked my total Wins (I don't know how to find Grand Total Games Played). and it's 1326.
So, I'd guess that my total wins and losses are probably double that, roughly.
I've been playing quite a bit daily since February '11.
I think you're right about the system not knowing what league for me to be in, as the average rank of opponents goes from mid-silver, to mostly Gold, and up to an occasional high or higher Platinum. I'm learning the game just by losing and learning, so my play is everything from good to beginner still.
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On September 29 2011 06:38 WeddingEpisode wrote:
About the small number of uncertain games, do you mean disconnects or close games kind of thing?
I just checked my total Wins (I don't know how to find Grand Total Games Played). and it's 1326.
So, I'd guess that my total wins and losses are probably double that, roughly.
I've been playing quite a bit daily since February '11.
I think you're right about the system not knowing what league for me to be in, as the average rank of opponents goes from mid-silver, to mostly Gold, and up to an occasional high or higher Platinum. I'm learning the game just by losing and learning, so my play is everything from good to beginner still.
By uncertainty, I only meant the system's uncertainty about which league you belong in. The system doesn't want to get you promoted to a league where you'd be below average from what I've read. So you basically need to reach that mid-Plat point before going to plat.
Wow, that's quite a bit game count. Perhaps the system needs more games from you to contribute to some kind of percentage that matters in the calculations. With over 1300 games it's hard to raise your win percentage even with a stream of winning streaks (it takes a lot of time before it changes by even 1 percent). But I don't suppose they wouldn't have taken this into account in designing the promotion mechanics.
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I seriously think you should stop worrying about battle.net and trying to analyze how you're doing with the leagues and the spots you are on your league. The entire system is designed to obfuscate your actual skill level and the leagues are very, very diverse within themselves. I suggest worrying about how you play the game itself: once you're platinum level, you'll be promoted to platinum.
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Guys, just wanted to let you know this thing is over, I'm back to gold. Got placed as #8 of a new division where everybody else has only just joined and there's not even a full hundred. Meanwhile, there's been a new post.
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EPT
