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First and foremost: if you expect to have a complete solution of how the SC2's ratings work, you will be very much disappointed.
My goal with this thread is to report what I know for sure, which I feel some people will learn a bit on the system, and what are my hypotheses on its functioning, as well as answer some questions or critics about that system and get some feedback from you guys to try and dig it further.
ON THE NUMBER OF POINTS EARNED/LOST
What is known for sure
The number of points you earn/lose after each game follows this formula :
edit #3 : rewritten the formula to better formalize it (but it did not change whatsoever, big thanks to edahl for this)
p = c + x + b
where p : the total number of points (in absolute value)
c : a constant equal to 12
x : the relative expected skill level (or rating) between opponents
b : the points you get from your bonus pool (which includes the rested pool)
=> x is a value in in {-12,...,12}, positive numbers are when your opponent is favored
- if the game says you are even, x = 0
- if it says your opponent is slightly favored, then x is in {-3,...,3}
- if it says your opponent is favored, then x is in {-12,...,-4; 4,...12}
(of course, if you are the slightly/favored player, then x is negative)
This is true when you win, it is actually the opposite when you lose (that's why I wrote the absolute of x), this means you lose more than 12 points after a defeat where you were the favored player.
=> b is different from 0 under 2 conditions :
{your bonus pool is >0
{you are victorious
If these 2 conditions are met, then b = 12 + x (again, if your opponent was favored, x > 0)
edit #2 Note : there is a known issue with the indication of who was favored in the detailed breakdown of points after each game.
What is uncertain & my own hypotheses
=> The exact calculation of x is unknown, but I highly doubt it is calculated based on the current rating differential. Rather, it probably considers the expected rating, that is what the system considers to be your "true rating". That value is of course accompanied with a certain interval for which there is a probability that your rating is contained. If this is the case, then the "30 games" mark makes absolute sense with probabilistic distributions as it is a value where you can expect the rating of a player to be in the proper margin with 95% confidence (which is standard level).
Alright, enough technical blabbering, in short : I'm fairly sure blizzard's formula follows something close to the glicko rating system, adapted for the multiple divisions system.
Example calculation
Grrr plays Bisu, Grrr wins. Bisu was slightly favored, exact value being 2.
Grrr will then get p = 12 + 2 + (12+2) = 28 pts for this win. Had Grrr lost, he would have lost : y = 12 - 2 = 10 pts
Conclusions
The value of x is exactly the reason why top players were often getting 0-2pts from wins and losing 20+ when they lost early on, their opponents were rated much lower.
In the end, no, the number of players in a division does not matter and the rating of players within a league CAN be compared. (see bonus pool and rested points)
The maximum number of points you can earn is 48, with the bonus pool, the minimum you can lose is 0 - but these extremes are highly unlikely as bnet will probably not match players that could have such great disparity anymore.
ON BONUS POOL AND RESTED POINTS
What is known for sure
- The bonus pool is the sum of all "bonus points" you can get, which are added to the rating points you earn after a victory.
edit #2 & #3 - The rested points are earned over a period of time at a constant rate (without any "activation period"), the exact value being 1pt per 4 hours period. These are used FIRST OUT of you bonus pool, that means if you have 100 rested points in a total of 300 bonus pool and you increase your rating by 200 total (100 "normal" points and 100 "bonus"), you will have depleted only your rested points and the rest of your bonus pool is still untouched.
edit #3 - "Missed rested points" (the points you could not get as you made an account after the beginning of the count) are added directly to your total. In short, if you create an account 10 days after the beginning of the season, you will get 60 rested points just to allow you to catch up.
- You earn bonus points after your 10 placement games, the exact factors and reasons for this are unknown, but it's easy to imagine these act as an incentive to keep playing in order to reach your "anticipated potential" quicker.
- You also earn bonus points after you get reranked, or using a more general principle : "whenever you enter a league."
edit #3 - You get 1 point to your bonus pool for each player in your division, that applies also if you join an unfilled division and players are added over time.
edit #2 - There is apparently a bug regarding the rested points : if you hit 0 rested points (that is, if you used them all), it will stay at 0 for good. Instead, your rested points will go directly into the bonus pool and will get displayed only after a defeat (although you can still earn them in case of a victory).
edit #3 : as per the Blizzard ladder FAQ, the display of rested points is a bug entirely, only bonus pool should appear (cf. http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23766799717&sid=3000)
What is uncertain & my own hypotheses
edit #3 Nothing is uncertain at the moment.. except that which we have no clue whatsoever!
Conclusions
edit #2 : Because the number of bonus points you get has the number of players in the division as a factor, players inside a big division are able to get more rating points in the same number of games compared to players in other divisions.
ALTHOUGH, even if this is correct, that applies to the bonus pool only which is emptied after merely a few dozen wins. The higher the number of wins a player has, the more accurate his rating is and THAT allows us to compare players between divisions. Or more formally: the higher the amount of wins 2 players of 2 different divisions have, the more accurate the rating comparison between these 2 players is.
ON THE FAVORED STATUS AND RERANKING
What is known for sure
- Reranking (edit: being moved from a league to another), if required, is done after the 30th game, no matter how you performed in the last few games. There are other occurrences where players will get reranked.
edit #3 According to a quick survey of the "favored" status and opponent pitted against me (cf. post #52 for the details), we can draw the following conclusions :
- There is NO correlation between the actual rating of two opponents and the "favored" status
- There is NO correlation between the rank of two opponents and the "favored" status
What is uncertain & my own hypotheses
edit #3 - We don't know the actual mechanics of reranking, it was hypothesized that there would be fixed checkpoints, but according to reports, it did occur at around 200 games (for link0) as well as (in my case) at the 112th game. According to Blizzard's ladder FAQ, "[t]he time and frequency of these reviews is kept hidden", which probably suggests there are no "hard-set checkpoints". (source of the FAQ : http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23766799717&sid=3000)
Conclusions
edit #3 - The fact that there is no correlation between rank and favoritism is coherent with the system, otherwise players ranked 1 would be constantly at a disadvantage versus almost any player, no matter which league they are in, compared to players ranked lower. Same thing applies for players in a newly created division, they would not be able to earn points as fast since their rank is much higher than everyone else's (on average).
To me, this point supports the hypothesis that the rating of players in different divisions can be compared as their ranking inside their own division has no influence on the points they earn. The only deviation that occurs here regards the differential of bonus points awarded to players of different division size, although the impact of this deviation is diminishing as the number of games played increases (and is pretty much nil after a few hundred games).
This is a work in progress and a couple things need verification. I would also like if you guys have any additional info on the division system : why is there such a great disparity in the number of players between division...
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The numbers are pretty close to what i have seen within the game, being an abnormally high rated copper player I play quite a few games where the numbers are heavilly skewed and i have seen +34 point games and -0 pt losses.
However many people have claimed league changes have happened well over the 30th game. In some cases they claim to have been moved to plat after 100+ games. It makes sense for me though, as ive been stuck in copper and the first 30 of my games i suffered heavy losses but made up for later as im at almost 2100 rating now.
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not bad. i don't see anything incorrect from my own judgments about the system.
after the 30th game though, there seems to be some mysterious period of time(2 weeks i'm guessing) that corresponds with a season and therefore is the time when the system re-ranks you according to your consistent level of play.
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If by reranking you mean changing divisions, it can happen well after 30 games - I got bumped up from Gold to Platinum after almost 200 games - and I wasn't even particularly highly rated within my gold division (~15th). However, that was part of forming a new Platinum division (12), so it's possible that rules are a bit different when they need to form a new division.
What's been puzzling me lately is how they decide who's "favored" and by how much, and/or whether ratings can be compared across divisions of the same tier. That is: a couple days ago, while rated ~1500 (platinum), I played a player from another Platinum division who was rated somewhat lower (~1450, as I recall), yet he showed as slightly favored. Which implies either that:
a) Being "favored" includes factors other than simply your rating - it might, for instance, include your performance in various matchups (or whatever), or
b) Ratings aren't directly comparable between different divisions, even if both are (for instance) Platinum.
Anyone have any ideas about which might be the case?
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[B]On March 14 2010 19:54 Steve496 wrote:
What's been puzzling me lately is how they decide who's "favored" and by how much, and/or whether ratings can be compared across divisions of the same tier. That is: a couple days ago, while rated ~1500 (platinum), I played a player from another Platinum division who was rated somewhat lower (~1450, as I recall), yet he showed as slightly favored. Which implies either that:
a) Being "favored" includes factors other than simply your rating - it might, for instance, include your performance in various matchups (or whatever), or
b) Ratings aren't directly comparable between different divisions, even if both are (for instance) Platinum.
Anyone have any ideas about which might be the case?
Im pretty sure they put into account your record vs a certain race, and how well you do on the map you are playing on. If someone in the same league has a higher ranking/rating than you but suffers the majority of their losses against the race you play and you do particularly well against theirs, you should be favored. I also think map records play a role as well since its actually a statistic in your profile.
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I think it takes into account your match up win % and some sort of averaged comparison of your scores. Like the system knows if 1500 in one division is greater/lower than 1500 in another.
Its kind of a weird system but I haven't had much trouble with playing people far below me like I did in the first week so its ok. I like the bonus pool system for encouraging people to play.
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Their was a huge wave of players getting moved to leagues like a week or 2 after beta started. It appears that blizzard reranks everyone into leagues periodically. Why not just put them into different leagues when they deserve or why even have multiple divisions doesn't make much sense.
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To rank up I think you just have to win vs people in a particular league more than you lose while ALSO winning vs people in your league.
ie, beat like 4/5 platinum people and beat 9/10 gold people and you will rank up. The problem is if you lose a few in a row the system waits longer and longer before it is positive of what your level is.
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However many people have claimed league changes have happened well over the 30th game. In some cases they claim to have been moved to plat after 100+ games. It makes sense for me though, as ive been stuck in copper and the first 30 of my games i suffered heavy losses but made up for later as im at almost 2100 rating now.
TBH, I don't know why I wrote "I believe not" on this point (I'll blame it on fatigue, being in a LAN atm and having slept once until sunday morning, as well as my 2v2 partner who was waiting for me to get playing games!) There is most probably other times where players will get reranked, but I feel these are fixed, no matter how good you have performed in the past 20-50-etc. games
after the 30th game though, there seems to be some mysterious period of time(2 weeks i'm guessing) that corresponds with a season and therefore is the time when the system re-ranks you according to your consistent level of play.
so we had a completed season already, with no shuffling of the divisions (for the players who stayed in the same league) and no tournament as is indicated in the ladder? (and some info released by blizzard)
On March 14 2010 19:54 Steve496 wrote:
If by reranking you mean changing divisions, it can happen well after 30 games - I got bumped up from Gold to Platinum after almost 200 games - and I wasn't even particularly highly rated within my gold division (~15th). However, that was part of forming a new Platinum division (12), so it's possible that rules are a bit different when they need to form a new division.
Yeah, that's one of the big question mark I have, but so far I don't think divisions are created manually, 3 main reasons for that :
- It would be too simple to set up a few rules for division creation compared to paying someone do the job manually.
- Divisions get created every so often, platinum 1v1 has about 17 or 18 at the moment, but other leagues and other match types (2v2, 2v2 random) have WAY more than that.
- There have been many screenshots of divisions with less than 5-10 players in them, and they get filled over the next couple of hours.
What's been puzzling me lately is how they decide who's "favored" and by how much, and/or whether ratings can be compared across divisions of the same tier. That is: a couple days ago, while rated ~1500 (platinum), I played a player from another Platinum division who was rated somewhat lower (~1450, as I recall), yet he showed as slightly favored. Which implies either that:
a) Being "favored" includes factors other than simply your rating - it might, for instance, include your performance in various matchups (or whatever), or
b) Ratings aren't directly comparable between different divisions, even if both are (for instance) Platinum.
Anyone have any ideas about which might be the case?
As I wrote in the 2nd part of my OP, I think the actual rating is not even a factor of who's favored over who => Blizzard says their system is the most advanced, therefore I don't see how they could use a rating system based on the actual rating, such as ELO. They most probably want to set up a system where people are advancing depending on the skill level of their opponent (didn't they repeated over and over they wanted to match people of the same skill level for bnet 2.0?), that means they have to use the expected rating instead of the actual, but yeah...there can be other factors as well.
Additionally, regarding your b) option, since you can play players from any division, if my formula is correct, that automatically means you can compare ratings between divisions. To support this, there are quite a few players that are WAY above the rest of their division, if the rating was relative to the players in the same division (such as in an ELO rating system), then it would mean those players are totally dominating everyone in their division, which is hardly the case if we look at the win ratio of those players and those right below them (because top1-2 players don't play exclusively other top1-2 players).
On March 14 2010 20:12 CagedMind wrote:
Their was a huge wave of players getting moved to leagues like a week or 2 after beta started. It appears that blizzard reranks everyone into leagues periodically. Why not just put them into different leagues when they deserve or why even have multiple divisions doesn't make much sense.
you're correct about the wave of players being switched leagues, but I think this is due strictly to the beta being a beta : they test a few things and they then made a one-time (or so) major adjustment to the rankings of many players, I doubt that move was hard coded in bnet 2.0
On March 14 2010 20:51 red.venom wrote:
To rank up I think you just have to win vs people in a particular league more than you lose while ALSO winning vs people in your league.
ie, beat like 4/5 platinum people and beat 9/10 gold people and you will rank up. The problem is if you lose a few in a row the system waits longer and longer before it is positive of what your level is.
the question that interests me the most is when rather than how, it's very obvious that you have to be performing fairly better than the average people in your own league to move up
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we want to know how to pass from a division to another ! not this stuff!
thanks anyway 
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On March 14 2010 21:48 LuDwig- wrote:
we want to know how to pass from a division to another ! not this stuff!
but then again, the reasons you will be moved from a league to another is related to how the system works, which is obviously related to this "stuff" - if you understand a part of it, you are more likely to understand/figure out the rest
I had hopes this would be a starting point and with the information people on TL would bring in, we could get further and further - until we could answer such questions as yours.
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On March 14 2010 21:48 LuDwig- wrote:we want to know how to pass from a division to another ! not this stuff! thanks anyway
play 30games, have good winrating and u will rise a league
myself went to platin today, i had 20-8 stats in gold and was ranked 28, today i lost two ladder games and went up to platin with 20-10 stats (points: 14xx ----> 10xx)
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ive been first in my gold div for over a week with ~280ish games and nutting.
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Was anyone promoted twice yet? If so - after how many games?!
PS: I got promoted after exactly 30 games,too.
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Do you have a source for this info?
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On March 15 2010 01:48 Sfydjklm wrote:
ive been first in my gold div for over a week with ~280ish games and nutting.
have you ever been moved from a league to another?
if not could you please report if you get moved during the beta please? if that has to happen after x games, it might be 400 as the WC3's ladder system was done to show an accurate ranking (level, actually) at about that number of games played
On March 15 2010 01:59 glassmazarin wrote:
Do you have a source for this info?
not that I could retrieve in a minute, it's mostly based on 3 things :
- players' reporting of their experience
- my own observations
- theoretical knowledge of rating systems
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What's the difference between bonus points and rested points?
I thought they were the same thing o_O
Also none of mine have been showing up since 2 patches ago 
I still get the benefit after games tho, just can't see how many I have
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On March 15 2010 03:20 Tamerlane wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2010 01:48 Sfydjklm wrote:
ive been first in my gold div for over a week with ~280ish games and nutting. have you ever been moved from a league to another? if not could you please report if you get moved during the beta please? if that has to happen after x games, it might be 400 as the WC3's ladder system was done to show an accurate ranking (level, actually) at about that number of games played
nope was gold from the get go, never been to any other.
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All i can say about reranking is that I could be on a 3match lose-streak and then win the next game against a silver player (being bronze myself) and immediatly get promoted..
So...I would guess you simply have to beat a player of a higher division X number of times to advance, regardless of your current position/stats in the league you're in.
Speculation ofc..
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I guess the only thing I am worried about is being locked into silver/gold and unable to get platinum because of early performance while learning. Is this a concern? Is it possible to get yourself locked out of the high levels because of early performance and limited re-ranking opportunities? That would be a big discouragement imo.
Will early low-performance make it extremely difficult (and so better to 're-roll') somehow, or is it possible to improve and reach the highest of the top level
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I've gotten 38 - 42pts for a wins frequently when I was still in silver league.... I'm in Platinum now.
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Do rested points take a whole 24 hours to start going?
I've been sitting on bonus pool 294 and rested points 0 for more than a day I believe in 1v1, and I remember reading rested points accumulated at the rate of 1 per 4 hours independent of whether you played or not (which was true for when I actually had rested points). Is this a display bug or not?
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What I really would like to know... How many players actually have been demoted? All I hear is that players get promoted from gold or even silver/bronze into platinum - but is the reverse possible, too ? For example that a platinum players get back to silver or bronze?
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OK, I just tested this, and here's the results:
- I had 294 bonus pool 0 rested, didn't play for about 4 days.
- I played twice and lost twice, but the bonus pool jumped up to 345 after the first loss, rested points stayed 0.
- I won and it gave me +15 bonus points on the win, I now have 331 bonus pool. Note that I played a few hours later so the +1 point to bonus pool is ~consistent.
However, before my rested points hit 0, it would slowly regenerate and I wasn't paying attention to my bonus pool.
My hypothesis based on this:
a) The bonus pool is awarded on getting into a division.
b) Your rested pool works fine until you hit 0, at which point it appears to be bugged, and your bonus pool starts increasing instead of your rested points.
c) The 1 rested point/4 hours thing seems to be true.
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sharing an account. placed into bronze, upgraded to gold, then fell into silver. i wasnt paying attention to the games played though. right now still in silver, so you can move both ways.
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Like the WC3 ladder, you probably have an estimated skill level, which is hidden. This ranking is absolute across leagues, and changes much more quickly than your actual ranking. It determines who is favoured in a matchup, and determines who you play. Like WC3, the estimated skill level would be hidden, because it changes much more quickly than your visible ranking. (Blizzard doesn't want players with few games played to be ranked highly.) This is why people in bronze can play platinum players, and the fake-ELO (your visible ranking) correlates so poorly to the division you are currently in.
I don't imagine the internal ladder system has actually changed much from WC3. What has changed is the ranking they actually show you. There is fake-ELO instead of experience points, and they introduced divisions.
If all this is accurate, this means that the fake-ELO is not dependent at all on the division you are in. Another observation is that you apparently lose ELO when you increase divisions.
edit: hi Tamerlane
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Dude, this is awesome! I love math posts...
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On March 15 2010 01:54 bOOgyWC wrote:Was anyone promoted twice yet? If so - after how many games?! PS: I got promoted after exactly 30 games,too.
I was.
I went about 5-5 in my placement games and ended up in bronze. 30 ladder games later, I was promoted to silver.
About 200 games after that (and staying #1 in my silver div for a while), I went from silver to Platinum.
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My guess is that your given a hidden rating that changes very quickly. After x games, should your hidden rating be sufficiently deviant from your expected rating, the game reassigns you to a more suitable ladder.
Usually, I normally fight Silver opponents. Once, I played drunk, and the next day I fought straight bronze for like seven games. Now, I'm starting to fight lower gold/silver.
(I'm silver #12 so far)
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About the "favored player"...On March 14 2010 19:54 Steve496 wrote:
What's been puzzling me lately is how they decide who's "favored" and by how much, and/or whether ratings can be compared across divisions of the same tier. That is: a couple days ago, while rated ~1500 (platinum), I played a player from another Platinum division who was rated somewhat lower (~1450, as I recall), yet he showed as slightly favored. Which implies either that:
a) Being "favored" includes factors other than simply your rating - it might, for instance, include your performance in various matchups (or whatever), or
b) Ratings aren't directly comparable between different divisions, even if both are (for instance) Platinum.
Anyone have any ideas about which might be the case?
b) Ratings aren't comparable, and the ranking within the division is relevant.
While i was ranked mid-bronze, after the second big wave, new divisions appeared, with very few players. I played against a player who had just finished his placement matches. So, he was a total newbie in bronze league, but still, n°3 of his division (because his div counted like 10 players), so he was favored. And i won many points.
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Smaller divisions might be awarded smaller bonus pools. There's certainly some sort of discrepancy between divisions when it comes to size.
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On March 15 2010 10:32 TheTester wrote:
OK, I just tested this, and here's the results:
- I had 294 bonus pool 0 rested, didn't play for about 4 days.
- I played twice and lost twice, but the bonus pool jumped up to 345 after the first loss, rested points stayed 0.
- I won and it gave me +15 bonus points on the win, I now have 331 bonus pool. Note that I played a few hours later so the +1 point to bonus pool is ~consistent.
However, before my rested points hit 0, it would slowly regenerate and I wasn't paying attention to my bonus pool.
My hypothesis based on this:
a) The bonus pool is awarded on getting into a division.
b) Your rested pool works fine until you hit 0, at which point it appears to be bugged, and your bonus pool starts increasing instead of your rested points.
c) The 1 rested point/4 hours thing seems to be true.
You dug something I didn't look at in details, so tyvm for the info you provided and your observations. I did try a couple things out myself and here's what I concluded (other than what is in the OP) :
- Your observation about the rested pool being bugged is correct, those points are added to the bonus pool after a defeat
- The bonus pool includes your rested points, regardless if you hit 0 or not
- Rested points are used before the rest of the bonus pool
On March 15 2010 21:43 Icks wrote:While i was ranked mid-bronze, after the second big wave, new divisions appeared, with very few players. I played against a player who had just finished his placement matches. So, he was a total newbie in bronze league, but still, n°3 of his division (because his div counted like 10 players), so he was favored. And i won many points.
It's not because he was #3 of his division that he was favored, I can't believe that Blizzard's bnet designers would be stupid enough to determine who is favored based on the player's rank in their division. That would be like them saying "ok guys, we got the best system we've ever done, but it's flawed so bad that Warcraft 2 ladder was better, lol." No, that was not a hyperbole.
Anyways, I will try to have a look at if there is any correlation between ranking/rating and "favored" status.
On March 15 2010 22:18 LaLuSh wrote:
Smaller divisions might be awarded smaller bonus pools. There's certainly some sort of discrepancy between divisions when it comes to size.
possibly yes, the bonus pool is affected by division size, but that's not the case for the number of points earned with a victory
and actually, that would make sense with the fact that bonus points are added to the pool on an irregular basis, I have noted that you get bonus points soon after joining a division, but it stopped after a while (other than for rested points) which would indicate that you get points added to the bonus pool when your division increases in size
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=> Reranking (edit: being moved from a league to another), if required, is done after the 30th game, no matter how you performed in the last few games. What is actually uncertain is if you get reranked at any point after that 30th game, I believe not.
That would make sense.. I was just saying in another thread that i picked up a friends ID who went 8-2 and was in gold and I played games for 1 day and got moved into platinum. I'm thinking it might have been around 30ish games because i was putting down around 20 a day for the first couple days.
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I'm confident that APM is considered when placing you into leagues, and perhaps even when determining who is favoured. I believe this because all my spammer friends are in higher divisions than me, yet we seem evenly matched when playing against each other. Also, it makes sense to consider APM.
Anyone have an idea on this?
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I got some comps in 2v2 platinum and both me and my ally are slower than a sloth taking a shit when it comes to the "spamming-useless-commands"-department, so no, I'm 101% sure APM has nothing to do with it.
And if it by some retarded reason does:
WTS SC2 beta account
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On March 16 2010 05:07 probu wrote:
I'm confident that APM is considered when placing you into leagues, and perhaps even when determining who is favoured. I believe this because all my spammer friends are in higher divisions than me, yet we seem evenly matched when playing against each other. Also, it makes sense to consider APM.
Anyone have an idea on this?
I have a shitty APM and just been promoted to platinum (more on this later, trying to figure a couple things out first).
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You take the absolute value of the y and the x, which doesn't seem to make much sense. Other than that, it seems a pretty sensible analysis.
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On March 16 2010 05:28 edahl wrote:
You take the absolute value of the y and the x, which doesn't seem to make much sense. Other than that, it seems a pretty sensible analysis.
I was too lazy to write down 4 formulae for each situation, that's the only reason why 
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You just need one formula y=12+x+z. I do suggest a slightly better notation letting p mean points, b mean bonus points and f mean points of favour. You might also want to let c be your constant 12, just because that is also subject to change. For brevity (and readability) your formula formula then reads
p=c+b+f, with c=12, b in {0,...,k} (where k is your bonus pool), and f in {-12,...,12}. Slight favour in either direction means f in {-3,...,3}, strong favour means f in {-12,...,-4, 4,...12}.
Either way, good work and interesting. I found the proposition that there's a "checkpoint" every 200 games interesting. Made me want to play more matches!
EDIT: I conjecture something down the following line. Let K={k1 (practice), k2 (copper), ..., k7} be a set of constants with k1<...<k7 (this set might simply be K={1,...,7}). Let p,q be players of some match m with ratings r(p),r(q), and let k(p),k(q) in K be the values in K associated to the players p,q. Let w(m) be the winner of the match, and l(m) the loser. Let m(w(m))=1, m(l(m))=-1 (we may call this the outcome sign). Then there exists a function deciding f(x) with x in {p,q} (deciding the f of each player) given by SOMETHING LIKE f(x)=m(x)|r(p)-r(q)|/(|k(p)-k(q)|+1).
Now, my proposed f is not the correct one, but it might get some of you down the correct line of reasoning. The functions I have provided may not be sufficient, i.e., there may be more cases and factors and relations cropping up.
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the 30 game bump prolly does make sense just in my case because im a leader of a gold div and have a lot of points i get matched up with mid to high ranked platinum guys, against whom im 50%~ish(yea im not that good) so it is impossible for me to post a 70% win ratio in a 30 game stretch. So... 30 game bumps are retarded is my point.
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that would mean if i decide to play offrace lets say drop 300 pts or so and then go 20-10 against silver-gold guys instead of going 15-15 against platinum guys i get bumped into plat?
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The mystery continues...
Would it really kill blizzard for someone to just post on their bnet forum or something about how the point system works?
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On March 16 2010 07:21 edahl wrote:
You just need one formula y=12+x+z. I do suggest a slightly better notation letting p mean points, b mean bonus points and f mean points of favour. You might also want to let c be your constant 12, just because that is also subject to change. For brevity (and readability) your formula formula then reads
p=c+b+f, with c=12, b in {0,...,k} (where k is your bonus pool), and f in {-12,...,12}. Slight favour in either direction means f in {-3,...,3}, strong favour means f in {-12,...,-4, 4,...12}.
Your suggestions are definitely worthy, I'll formalize my first post a bit which I had not bothered doing in the first place.
On March 16 2010 07:21 edahl wrote:EDIT: I conjecture something down the following line. Let K={k1 (practice), k2 (copper), ..., k7} be a set of constants with k1<...<k7 (this set might simply be K={1,...,7}). Let p,q be players of some match m with ratings r(p),r(q), and let k(p),k(q) in K be the values in K associated to the players p,q. Let w(m) be the winner of the match, and l(m) the loser. Let m(w(m))=1, m(l(m))=-1 (we may call this the outcome sign). Then there exists a function deciding f(x) with x in {p,q} (deciding the f of each player) given by SOMETHING LIKE f(x)=m(x)|r(p)-r(q)|/(|k(p)-k(q)|+1).
Now, my proposed f is not the correct one, but it might get some of you down the correct line of reasoning. The functions I have provided may not be sufficient, i.e., there may be more cases and factors and relations cropping up.
TBH, I'm not sure what is the meaning of f(x) and m(x), nor how we could ever determine the constants involved.
On March 16 2010 16:26 Sfydjklm wrote:
that would mean if i decide to play offrace lets say drop 300 pts or so and then go 20-10 against silver-gold guys instead of going 15-15 against platinum guys i get bumped into plat?
I didn't suggest there was a "checkpoint" (or bump) every 30 games, I would be surprised this was the case (and in fact, I have been reranked at my 112th game) and I'm fairly sure your opponent's true/hidden rating is factored in, which means your record or win ratio is of little use to determine if and where you get promoted/demoted.
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On March 16 2010 22:09 Tamerlane wrote:
TBH, I'm not sure what is the meaning of f(x) and m(x), nor how we could ever determine the constants involved.
m is a function from {p,q}->{-1,1}. If p is the winner, m(p)=1 and vice versa. f=f(x) is a function from {p,q}->{-12,...,12}, and is simply the function that determines your f after a match. If p wins 12 points from the opponent being very favoured, f(p)=12. Similarily, f(q) might be -12 in this situation. It's kinda like doing physics: At first you'll just have to guess it, then you have to try it out. There's no point in determining the exact constants just yet, but it makes sense that they're there. They may be based on some distribution, or they might increase linearly.
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On March 14 2010 19:32 Tamerlane wrote:
|y| = 12 + |x| + z
I know it seems like you put alot of work into this, but unfortunately the original poster's equation is wrong. At higher levels, the "x" becomes more negative for each matchup. For example, at higher ELO levels an even matchup will actually have a negative x, and a slightly favored opponent will still even have a negative x (although less negative than the even matchup).
On March 14 2010 19:32 Tamerlane wrote:
The value of x is exactly the reason why top players were often getting 0-2pts from wins and losing 20+ when they lost early on, their opponents were rated much lower.
Well x is the reason, but actually its not because their opponents are rated much lower, its in fact because even at the same ratings, the x value is lower than with lower ELO.
I'm not sure why this was done, it was most likely done to put a theoretical limit of rating points one can obtain, as perhaps they didn't want anyone with like 50,000 points.
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I've gone silver->plat->silver->plat
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My suspicion is that the skill rating system is similar to Xbox Live (Halo) rating.
Like "level" in Halo 3 or Warcraft 3, the "Rating" is not intended as a measure of player skill. It is a function of both player skill and the number of games played since it generally increases more for winning than it decreases for losing.
However, there is a hidden "skill rating" that the game uses to track how good a player is. The skill rating is a zero-sum ELO-like score. I don't think that we will easily be able to determine how that rating is calculated.
Also, we know that most modern matchmaking systems use an "uncertainty" factor as well. If you consistently win against worse players and lose against better players, the matchmaking system can very confidently say what your skill level is. On the other hand, if you alternate between losing against bad players and then winning against good players, it really does not know what your skill is. This is likely to be a factor in advancing leagues, since it doesn't want to advance (or demote) you if it is very uncertain about your true skill.
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On March 17 2010 03:07 Disastorm wrote:I know it seems like you put alot of work into this, but unfortunately the original poster's equation is wrong. At higher levels, the "x" becomes more negative for each matchup. For example, at higher ELO levels an even matchup will actually have a negative x, and a slightly favored opponent will still even have a negative x (although less negative than the even matchup).
Well x is the reason, but actually its not because their opponents are rated much lower, its in fact because even at the same ratings, the x value is lower than with lower ELO.
I'm not sure why this was done, it was most likely done to put a theoretical limit of rating points one can obtain, as perhaps they didn't want anyone with like 50,000 points.
I think you missed (if you did read?) the part where I explain x isn't based on actual "ELO" (it's not ELO guys, stop taking about ELO, I know you're used to the ratings of SC1/WGT/iCCup, but please move on) but rather an expected rating. That means 3 things directly regarding your post :
- it totally makes sense that x becomes more and more negative for player as he get at the highest level => that's because his expected rating his higher than most of the players he is facing
- an "even matchup" is by a definition a matchup where no players is favored (at least, that's what the system believes), x won't be negative in that case (it will be equal to zero)
- it's not done to put a theorical limit, it's a different system than ELO => if my assumptions on x are correct, it's probably similar to the glicko system (which uses ratings deviation instead of ratings difference, such as in ELO)
On March 17 2010 03:32 oxxo wrote:
I've gone silver->plat->silver->plat
any idea on the number of games played at these switches?
On March 17 2010 09:15 Piousflea wrote:
My suspicion is that the skill rating system is similar to Xbox Live (Halo) rating.
The "Trueskill" rating system of the XBox Live is based on the Glicko 2 rating system, it's even posted on their website.
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Alright, here's some new info I grabbed on the ladder system. Some context: I was in the silver league (as I said earlier, I blame my friend who lost consistently on my account prior to the 30-game reranking) and I wanted to know if the actual rating or ranking had any correlation with the favored status. To do so I started to note systematically mine and my opponent's rating, ranking, the status as well as the variation in bonus pool points.
Only 2 games into this experiment and I got promoted to platinum, in a new division that had only 24 players in it...and that occured after 2 losses in a row. My starting rating was 1011 (down from ~1804 in silver) and after the 3rd game (which I lost as well) I could now get an update on the bonus pool and rested points I had : 464 and 107 respectively.
Over the next few games and division growth, I could verify 3 important information :
- We earn 1 rested point every 4 hours.
- This is no initial period required to earn rested points.
- We earn 1 bonus point for every player that joins the division. At least, that's the only explanation I could find between the evolution of my bonus pool and rested points as there was a few points discrepancy that equaled the number of players added to the division.
Also, now that the 4 hours period was verified, I did a little calculation :
=> I was being reranked on March 15, with 107 rested points, divide that by 4 and it equals 26.75. 26 days prior to March 15 was February 17, the day the beta launched.
Finally, on the favored indicator : my rating didn't change much during that time, staying in the 1100-1150 range for a while as I was trying a few things and lost consistently. Furthermore, ALL of my opponents had higher actual rating than I did, the only thing that changed was the league in which they played and since I was in a new division and my rank was always 3rd/4th, I was ranked higher than almost all of them (except a few guys in the bronze/silver/gold leagues). Here is the breakdown of my 22 recorded games as platinum when it comes to league+rank :
Favored (including slightly)
- 4 platinum players, ranking between 16 and 56
- 3 gold players, ranking between 7 and 15
Opponent is favored (including slightly)
- 5 platinum players, ranking between 16 and 38
- 8 gold players, all ranked between 3 and 7 (except for 1 player who was 15)
- 1 silver player, ranked 1
- 1 bronze player, ranked 1
Even matchup
- 2 gold players, ranked 5 and 11
Conclusion (albeit a relatively small sample, I believe it is still conclusive) :
- There is NO correlation between the actual rating and "favored" status
- There is NO correlation between the rank of player and the "favored" status (and this totally makes sense as little divisions, where almost everyone is ranked higher than should be would be at a huge disadvantage when it comes to earning points)
- Corollary of the previous point : there is NO correlation between the division size and the points earned (appart from the bonus pool).
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Did you notice the number of games played by the "favored" bronze and silver players? Were they new players? If not, i dont see how they could be favored against a platinum...
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Also, now that the 4 hours period was verified, I did a little calculation :
=> I was being reranked on March 15, with 107 rested points, divide that by 4 and it equals 26.75. 26 days prior to March 15 was February 17, the day the beta launched.
You should have divided by 6. You get 6 points per day, that would equal 17.8 days, which would put you at the end of february, which means nothing.
By the way, did you keep track of how many game you had the moment you got promoted? It would be nice to know when to expect a second chance to be reranked.
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On March 18 2010 23:46 Icks wrote:
Did you notice the number of games played by the "favored" bronze and silver players? Were they new players? If not, i dont see how they could be favored against a platinum...
I didn't note the exact number of games, but that was above 100 for sure, their rating was 1829 and 1786 for bronze and silver guys respectively.
On March 18 2010 23:56 onmach wrote:Show nested quote +Also, now that the 4 hours period was verified, I did a little calculation :
=> I was being reranked on March 15, with 107 rested points, divide that by 4 and it equals 26.75. 26 days prior to March 15 was February 17, the day the beta launched. You should have divided by 6. You get 6 points per day, that would equal 17.8 days, which would put you at the end of february, which means nothing.
ahhh...you're right, I don't know how I could have done such a simple mistake :O
well, it means nothing except if we get rested points at a rate of 1 per 6 hours!
=> I'll check this out after the reset (I didn't note the exact time at which I got y rested points, but the 1pt/4h rate seemed to do fit - although it could have happened that I got 2pts in a lapse of anywhere between 8 and 12 hours even if the rate was 1pt/6h period!)
On March 18 2010 23:56 onmach wrote:By the way, did you keep track of how many game you had the moment you got promoted? It would be nice to know when to expect a second chance to be reranked.
I thought I had mention this tbh, it was after game #112 ...which seems kind of random. I'm starting to believe that reranking can occur at pretty much anytime after game 30!
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On March 19 2010 01:10 Tamerlane wrote:
I thought I had mention this tbh, it was after game #112 ...which seems kind of random. I'm starting to believe that reranking can occur at pretty much anytime after game 30!
If the reranking period is not random, at least Blizzard will change the time and frequency regularly.
They said in the FAQ that the time and frequency will be kept hidden. If it was the same time and frequency everytime, it would be easy for anyone to understand how it works, the way you're trying to do it. And it wouldn't be hidden for a long time.
So it's certainly "random after a certain amount", as you said.
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I think that the system is accurate, in my opinion. It's better than anything else
one side question pls: how we can reset our stats ?
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On March 18 2010 02:14 Tamerlane wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2010 03:07 Disastorm wrote:I know it seems like you put alot of work into this, but unfortunately the original poster's equation is wrong. At higher levels, the "x" becomes more negative for each matchup. For example, at higher ELO levels an even matchup will actually have a negative x, and a slightly favored opponent will still even have a negative x (although less negative than the even matchup).
Well x is the reason, but actually its not because their opponents are rated much lower, its in fact because even at the same ratings, the x value is lower than with lower ELO.
I'm not sure why this was done, it was most likely done to put a theoretical limit of rating points one can obtain, as perhaps they didn't want anyone with like 50,000 points. I think you missed (if you did read?) the part where I explain x isn't based on actual "ELO" (it's not ELO guys, stop taking about ELO, I know you're used to the ratings of SC1/WGT/iCCup, but please move on) but rather an expected rating. That means 3 things directly regarding your post : - it totally makes sense that x becomes more and more negative for player as he get at the highest level => that's because his expected rating his higher than most of the players he is facing - an "even matchup" is by a definition a matchup where no players is favored (at least, that's what the system believes), x won't be negative in that case (it will be equal to zero) - it's not done to put a theorical limit, it's a different system than ELO => if my assumptions on x are correct, it's probably similar to the glicko system (which uses ratings deviation instead of ratings difference, such as in ELO) any idea on the number of games played at these switches? Show nested quote +On March 17 2010 09:15 Piousflea wrote:
My suspicion is that the skill rating system is similar to Xbox Live (Halo) rating. The "Trueskill" rating system of the XBox Live is based on the Glicko 2 rating system, it's even posted on their website.
Ok srry i didnt know about the non-ELO system, however it doesn't change the fact that I have won games against slightly favored people and lost points due to "x". And no I am not referring to the "message bug" displayed in the result screen where it falsely says your opponent was favored. I am referring to the loading screen which blizzard has said is not bugged. However, thinking back on it, I don't think it happens that often and so it is possible its just a bug with the scoring system.
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On March 19 2010 17:42 Disastorm wrote:Ok srry i didnt know about the non-ELO system, however it doesn't change the fact that I have won games against slightly favored people and lost points due to "x". And no I am not referring to the "message bug" displayed in the result screen where it falsely says your opponent was favored. I am referring to the loading screen which blizzard has said is not bugged. However, thinking back on it, I don't think it happens that often and so it is possible its just a bug with the scoring system.
Losing points after a win...that's unheard of!! If it happens again, could you please take a screenshot? I'll make sure that is reported as a bug (and if it isn't a bug, hopefully we'll get some more info on how the system works)
@gorchiza : it's not possible to reset your stats, Blizzard made it clear they wanted to eradicate smurfing, although the beta ladder will be reset (well, all accounts will be deleted to be exact) in the near future
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i've been thinking. Could people be stuck because they have in fact too much pts? Like could it be that the ladder does not allow to move in higher then top 11 in a division? Has anyone with over 2k+ pts in their non plat division been advance yet?
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I think the best question to answer here is. Does the system match you with players who are good competition for you most of the time? And if not do you think that will change when there's a larger pool of players? And further more is this the best way to ensure good matchmaking? If so the rest is just aesthetics.
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On March 22 2010 20:47 ManiacTheZealot wrote:
I think the best question to answer here is. Does the system match you with players who are good competition for you most of the time? And if not do you think that will change when there's a larger pool of players? And further more is this the best way to ensure good matchmaking? If so the rest is just aesthetics.
i have like a 55%winrate beeing currently 4th in my gold division. so it seems it works pretty good so far.
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On March 22 2010 20:47 ManiacTheZealot wrote:
I think the best question to answer here is. Does the system match you with players who are good competition for you most of the time? And if not do you think that will change when there's a larger pool of players? And further more is this the best way to ensure good matchmaking? If so the rest is just aesthetics.
no its not aesthetics. The whole idea of a ladder ranking system is to....
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rank people.
this is a competitive game, not hugs-go-round.
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On March 22 2010 20:47 ManiacTheZealot wrote:
I think the best question to answer here is. Does the system match you with players who are good competition for you most of the time? And if not do you think that will change when there's a larger pool of players? And further more is this the best way to ensure good matchmaking? If so the rest is just aesthetics.
The system matches you based on your ongoing performance. My theory is that your statistics vs a certain race will determine who you will be playing next and the level of favoritism, and it is NOT based on your "points".
Last night, I played two PvZ's straight. The person I played was something like 30-15, platinum rating ~1450-1500. The first game I played I was slightly favored (weird in itself if it is based solely or mostly on rating, as I was much higher at that point), and I lost. Then next game, I was still at a much higher rating, but we were ranked "even".
This makes me feel that the "favored/unfavored" levels are based more on the "odds" of you winning - based on matchup statistics for both players, and minimally based on your rating.
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Thanks for clearing the system up, I know there are still a lot of unkowns but those will come with time as more people keep adding info. The system seems to be working well as I am sitting at around a %54 winrate. What I will start doing is checking the players rating/ranking to see what the system is currently matching me up against and who is favored. While I am in Silver League I have not checked who I have been playing and if most of the players I play are in Silver or not.
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One important thing is if you're promoted your ELO resets and you get your ENTIRE bonus pool back which is rrather amazing as now I'm sitting in a new league with nearly 600 bonus points available.
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On March 22 2010 23:58 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2010 20:47 ManiacTheZealot wrote:
I think the best question to answer here is. Does the system match you with players who are good competition for you most of the time? And if not do you think that will change when there's a larger pool of players? And further more is this the best way to ensure good matchmaking? If so the rest is just aesthetics. i have like a 55%winrate beeing currently 4th in my gold division. so it seems it works pretty good so far.
Only if you're playing legitimate Gold skilled players. If you're playing top platinums and you still have a 55% winrate then it's not working good, it should place you in the Platinum league.
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I guess my guide will need some update, as my bonus pool have been increasing quite fast since some time in the weekend, if it's only caused by a time period I would estimate this at +1pt every 2 hours :O
can't wait for the damn reset...
On March 22 2010 20:47 ManiacTheZealot wrote:
I think the best question to answer here is. Does the system match you with players who are good competition for you most of the time? And if not do you think that will change when there's a larger pool of players? And further more is this the best way to ensure good matchmaking? If so the rest is just aesthetics.
The system is definately designed to match players of the same skill level, but there are a few shortcomings that really can not be addressed fully :
- it requires a large number of games to appropriately assess your level (not talking about leagues here)
- it assumes that the skills of a person are constant and often the outcome of a game does not depend only on skill, or if you wish : we're not always playing our A-game (to use a poker term)
In any case, I see your point, the objective is not really to find out how you get points or how many, but rather to find out how the system works which would allow us to answer such questions as those you posed => the sad reality is that we could never have full knowledge of the intricacies of the current system (as Blizzard wants to maintain secrecy over this) and the best we can do is guesstimate its functioning, and this is what I'm doing
On March 23 2010 03:25 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
One important thing is if you're promoted your ELO resets and you get your ENTIRE bonus pool back which is rrather amazing as now I'm sitting in a new league with nearly 600 bonus points available.
well, since you get a huge drop in rating (it's not ELO btw, it's a different system) after being moved up a league, it just makes sense to restart your bonus pool - the idea is that you reach your accurate rating after a decent number of games, not after hundreds of games!
On March 23 2010 06:37 Dionyseus wrote:Only if you're playing legitimate Gold skilled players. If you're playing top platinums and you still have a 55% winrate then it's not working good, it should place you in the Platinum league.
but you know very well that if this is the case, it's only a matter of time before he gets moved up
and since he's 4th, it's more than likely that he's not playing top platinum players as these would have a much higher "x" value than him, which means he would get lots of points for every win and very few for every loss, if he has a ~50% win rate against such players, that would give him somewhere around +4-6pts for every 2 games on average - at least for a while - and he would clearly be ranked 1st unless he has played few games
...and if he played few games, well, we can't blame the system much for starting him in the gold league and waiting a bit to promote him to plat...
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Is therer and updated analog of this post?
It looks like now players do not earn any positive or negative number of points when they lose a game.
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EPT
