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United States12235 Posts
Battle.net 2.0's matchmaking system can be complicated to understand. This post will attempt to explain the core of the system and its capabilities. Be warned that this post may contain unsubstantiated hypotheses and may not be completely accurate, but in my view this is the most logical and comprehensive analysis of SC2's overall system.
MATCHMAKING
Placement
Before being seated in a league, players must play a number of placement matches. Battle.net uses these placement matches to estimate your skill level and give you a starter point. The number of placement matches is set to 5. This means that although the system will seat you in a league more quickly, it may do so less accurately. Being placed in a league doesn't cement you within that league, and if you are able to prove that you can hang with players more skilled than Battle.net initially estimated, the system will promote you to a higher league. Conversely, the system will relegate you to a lower-level league if the opponents you are initially grouped with prove to be too difficult. It is not possible to be placed into the highest league, only promoted into the highest league.
Matchmaking Ratings
The prevailing theory behind the matchmaking system is that each player is assigned a hidden "matchmaking rating", or MMR. MMR determines who your opponents are, as well as whether you are promoted or demoted. When you win or lose a game, your actual rating is compared with the MMR of your opponent and points are awarded or deducted as necessary. MMR is only affected by the end result of a match, not the means used to achieve those results. In-game details such as APM, unit composition, and tech path of either player are irrelevant.
An important reference point for understanding this theory is the WoW Arena Matchmaking System (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=14910422788&sid=1).
Examples
As Battle.net most closely resembles the WoW Arena system, we'll use those values as a baseline. Remember that you cannot see your matchmaking rating in SC2, but you can in WoW Arena. This becomes easier to estimate when using WoW Arena as a reference because your MMR is what your team's rating is expected to become if you continue playing at your current level, and there are no hard separations between players.
It's generally accepted that the hierarchy of WoW Arena participants looks like this:
0-1499: Newb
1500-1799: Average
1800-1999: Fairly skilled
2000-2199: Very skilled
2200-3000: Extremely skilled
If we expand that to SC2, we would get Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond, respectively.
In WoW Arena, your MMR - which is persistent across arena seasons - starts at an average level while your team rating starts at 0. If you go 10-0 for your first 10 games, your MMR would probably skyrocket to 2200. The reason for this is that the system is unable to accurately determine your skill level, so your MMR rises more rapidly (called "volatility") in the hopes that it finds an upper bound. Even though your team rating will only be about 460 after going 10-0, you at that point would be playing against the most skilled players because your MMR is so high. The longer your win streak, the more your MMR increases until you are playing people that cause you to win 50% of the time. Once you start losing more games than you're winning at a certain level, your MMR starts falling until it can comfortably seat you. As you get closer to a 50% win rate, your volatility drops and therefore your MMR doesn't rise and fall as dramatically as it did at first.
The system acknowledges that just because your MMR is a certain level, you may not always perform at that level. There is some allowance involved.
Search Functionality
The Battle.net matchmaking system will find opponents that are close to your skill level. The degree of accuracy had yet to be determined by Rob Pardo according to this interview (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99211-Battle-net-StarCraft-II-Matchmaking-Too-Good). You will notice after a short time that the message "EXPANDING SEARCH..." will appear when searching for a game. This means the system is searching for opponents that may be higher or lower than your intended level.
What is not clear is whether the system eventually and continually expands the search until any opponent is found, or whether it merely widens the allowable MMR variance.
LEAGUES
League Overview
Leagues are divided evenly, comprising 20% of active players across the board. The inactivity period has not been announced by Blizzard. Note that it is not possible to be placed directly into Diamond league, and that players can only be promoted into Diamond league.
Promotion and Demotion
In order to be promoted to a higher league, your MMR must sit comfortably within the boundaries of that league, meaning you'll need to be averaging a 50% win rate against those kinds of players. If you are a 2250 MMR Platinum player who typically faces Diamond players, you will need to not only average a 50% win rate against those Diamond players, but also maintain a much higher win rate against any Platinum players you may encounter. Once your MMR reaches a certain threshold you may be eligible for promotion.
The system takes a moving average of your past X games and uses that to determine your eligibility for promotion. If the moving average crosses a certain league threshold, you can be promoted to that league.
Dropping down to a lower league works the same way, only by losing.
You do not need to reach #1 (or any particular rank) in your division to get promoted.
Divisions
Leagues comprise a number of divisions that are not ranked equally. Divisions cap out at 100 players.
Divisions are loosely grouped by skill at the time of placement. Note that you cannot move laterally within your league, so in order to move to a new division you must get promoted or demoted out of your league.
Want to learn more about division tiers? Read this post: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=169830
RATING
The important thing to know is that rating only determines your standing within your own division. And even then, only indirectly, because you are playing against opponents beyond your division's player pool.
Team Ratings
Your team wins or loses as a whole. If your partners left the game early and you stuck around to defeat your opponents, your entire team will be credited with a win.
"Rating Inflation" and the Bonus Pool
The Bonus Pool is a pool of points that are awarded whenever players are placed into a new League. The Bonus Pool also accrues over time. Whenever a game is won, an amount equal to the rating earned is deducted from the Bonus Pool and added to the player's rating.
This has the effect of increasing player ratings over time. On the surface, this appears to be a negative thing. However, War3's Ladder system had XP decay beyond a certain level. Rather than forcing players to play games in the fashion War3 used, SC2 encourages players to play by generating a Bonus Pool.
The Bonus Pool accrues at a rate of 1 point per 2 hours, whether the player or team is active or not. The Bonus Pool also begins building based on when the ladder season began. That is, if Player A was placed into a division and started with a Bonus Pool of 100, then 24 hours later Player B placed into a new division, Player B's Bonus Pool would be 112.
Some more information from ZapRoffo:
With a matchmaking rating system, the way points are assigned is as follows. There is a default point assignment (was +/-12 for wow, seems similar in sc2) for an "equal match result". The amount won or lost in any given match, though, is determined by comparing your displayed rating to your opponent's matchmaking rating. This is why many people are experiencing huge gains for wins and small losses. It's because they haven't played enough to raise their displayed rating to their matchmaking rating. They may be matched as an 1800 matchmaking rating, but are at 1300, so if they win against an equal opponent (1800 matchmaking), they get the points of a 1300 beating an 1800, which may be +20 or something. The opponent compares his displayed rating to your matchmaking rating to calculate his point change, if he's displayed 1600 and you are also 1800 matchmaking, he will lose -10 or so (slightly less than -12 default).
One huge misconception people I feel like people need to learn the truth about:
The bonus pool WILL NOT cause inflation of ratings in the long run as long as it only modifies your displayed rating and not your matchmaking rating, which appears to be the case. In the long run, displayed ratings converge to matchmaking rating, so if matchmaking rating is unaffected there is no long term effect.
An example:
I start with a big bonus pool and win up to 1600, and my matchmaking rating is 1700. Alice wins the same amount against similar quality opponents but with no bonus pool and goes to only 1350 or so, but also with 1700 matchmaking rating, because matchmaking is totally unaffected. Now in my games I will only be looking at winning +13 or so from my opponents who are 1700 matchmaking, while Alice is looking at something like +16 or +17 from her 1700 matchmaking opponents. I'm looking at -10 or -11 from losses, while she's looking at -8 or so from those same people. Eventually the result over a long enough period is we both end up at 1700 if no change in skill happens.
Even if I got enough of a bonus pool to get to 1900 or something, once that runs out I'm going to lose more for losses than I get for wins against people who are my skill level until I get to the appropriate level. The bonus pool just functions to get people's displayed rating jump started so if they took a break they can jump to their rating more quickly.
Antiquated information:
+ Show Spoiler +
"Tough" Divisions
Because divisions are generated as necessary, invariably the most skilled and most dedicated players will rise to the top and be placed in the low-numbered divisions. Directly speaking, this doesn't inherently mean players added to this division will encounter tougher games, just that they are less likely to reach the tournament qualifier cutoff of Top 8 because their rating is unlikely to be as high as the top players, who are expected to carry higher point totals due to their expected higher win rate.
TOURNAMENTS
The Top 8 players within each division automatically qualify for a tournament run on Battle.net. The frequency of these tournaments is unknown. Warcraft 3's tournaments ran weekly, for reference. The rewards for placing highly in tournaments is also unknown, but may involve league promotion or special Battle.net icons. It is likely that tournaments will be limited to the Top 8 players within that division, rather than across all divisions in a league, if they are to be scheduled with any regularity.
Part 2 of our Ladder Analysis can be found here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=142211
EDIT 11/22/2010: Edited information about divisions in light of the new division tiers discovery.
EDIT 11/1/2010: Corrected League Overview section (again). It actually is set percentiles, but they apply only to active players.
EDIT 8/11/2010: Added more information about the Bonus Pool.
EDIT 8/10/2010: Added a link to Part 2.
EDIT 8/7/2010: Corrected League Overview section, removing the part about set percentiles per league. Evidence from http://sc2ranks.com/stats/
EDIT 8/3/2010: Added link to the Blizzard Leagues and Ladders FAQ for supplemental information. Also added a note about teams winning or losing as a group.
EDIT 7/28/2010: Minor edits to reflect the released game.
EDIT 6/11/2010: Clarified scoring, emphasizing that upon conclusion of a game, your actual rating is compared to your opponent's MMR and points are awarded or deducted based on the difference. Also removed some relatively ambiguous and potentially confusing wording on streaks.
EDIT 6/4/2010: Added new Patch 15 info about Diamond league being locked from placement matches.
EDIT 5/27/2010: Updated League names to reflect Patch 13 changes. Also added "rating inflation" analysis.
EDIT 5/11/2010: Removed outdated information. Added ZapRoffo's supplemental analysis (this is good stuff).
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Thanks to Vanick.ejb for analytical help and proofreading.
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Wow. Awesome read. Thanks for sharing this.
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This is a ton better than the official Q&A.
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Katowice25012 Posts
Given how much testing they have done with WoW, it seems pretty logical to assume they would use a very similar system for bnet 2.0. Good read, solid reasoning.
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Easily the best analysis of the ladder system yet. There's still some shady gray areas, which you eloquently noted in the analysis. There are plenty of limitations which of course make this analysis inconclusive. It bothers me that we still aren't given exactly how the ladder is set up. It would be really great to get some feel, even some kind of hierarchy or imagery to give us a better understanding...
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nice read, but a slight edit to the tournament point, as far as i can remember W3 tournaments were not restricted by any means at all (at least those few i participated in), especially not the ladder ranking you had. you just signed in when started, played placement matches, and after that, if you were high enough, continued.
I kinda appreciate this new approach of blizzard for the tournaments.
the only ladder related were battle.net finals, and they were played out semi-annual or so.
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This is really clear.
It's irritating to see other beta players claim that how you win affects your AMM/League rating, when it's obviously just your wins vs ranked opponents.
Now if only you could analyze placement matches a bit more. (If I'm playing my second or third placement game, for instance, how does Blizzard know that I'm favored or unfavored?)
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United States12235 Posts
On April 03 2010 02:20 Kimera757 wrote:
This is really clear.
It's irritating to see other beta players claim that how you win affects your AMM/League rating, when it's obviously just your wins vs ranked opponents.
Now if only you could analyze placement matches a bit more. (If I'm playing my second or third placement game, for instance, how does Blizzard know that I'm favored or unfavored?)
Your placement matches are against players who are already ranked (or are currently playing placement matches), and your volatility is probably quite high. If your MMR starts at 1000 and you win your first game, it's possible that your MMR would jump to 1300 for the next game due to high volatility.
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On April 03 2010 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It's generally accepted that the hierarchy of WoW Arena participants looks like this:
0-1499: Newb
1500-1799: Average
1800-1999: Fairly skilled
2000-2199: Very skilled
2200-2999: Extremely skilled
3000: Prot warrior
FYP!:D
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Hey man, could you give some more information regarding the pro league that may be included when the game is released. Is it going to be invite only? Are there going to be some special tournaments in that pro league, and what are the rewards there going to be (more than cosmetic icons for b.net?) since its pro only?
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On April 03 2010 02:51 Jimmy Raynor wrote:
Hey man, could you give some more information regarding the pro league that may be included when the game is released. Is it going to be invite only? Are there going to be some special tournaments in that pro league, and what are the rewards there going to be (more than cosmetic icons for b.net?) since its pro only?
It's supposed to be invite-only, but I don't think Blizzard has decided/announced anything that is final for the pro league.
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Very good explanation.
I think the end of season tournaments will go like this.
1. When the end of season is near everyone will be locked for a few weeks to their current division and league.
2. The top 8 in each division will do a tournament to determine the division winner.
3. The division winners will then do a tournament to determine the league winner.
It resembles sports and since they wish to make SC2 an e-sport it makes the most sense.
I really think the Division system combined with Division and League tournaments is a much better solution then just having an overall gigantic ladder. This way everyone has a chance to compete against players on their own level instead of just having competitions for the top 0.1 percent of the player base.
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cool post. I thought blizzard stated that division numbers had no significance (ie between platinum 15 and platinum 30)?
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I'd rather have them keep the AMM a bit less restrictive than it is for WC3/TFT, before the implementation of the AMM it was matching players only according to their level +/- 6, which led to some unfair matchups and encouraged smurfing for those "pristine" stats.
Given how the AMM works your adversaries might be of better/closer caliber but the search could take FOREVER especially on east/west where ladder is just not as popular as as euro/asia, combined with the amount of players doing ums like dota/tower D, and smaller pool of talented players.
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0-1499: Newb
i am a newb damn =( damn i wanted to stop for today after reaching 1400 points but this made me very sad T:T
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Nice read, but on one point: Skilled players are in lower numbered divisions - not sure how accurate that is. I'm pretty sure it's random. I'd say the only thing you can take from someone being in a low division number is they've been playing in X league for a long period of time (since the ladder reset) and even then that's not totally true, as once those players ascend to a higher league, new players will fill those spots to hit 100 again.
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so bottom line its harder to get high rating pts in division 1 of platinum compared to 10?
i thought the rating was just as hard to get for everybody xd
it was a good read but why do they (if what ur saying is true) give us fake rating? why cant it just be like iccup where 2000 pts is better than 1900 regardless of anything else :x
whats even the point of seing ur rating if its not comparable to ppl outside ur division :/
On April 03 2010 07:49 TimeToPractice! wrote:
Nice read, but on one point: Skilled players are in lower numbered divisions - not sure how accurate that is. I'm pretty sure it's random. I'd say the only thing you can take from someone being in a low division number is they've been playing in X league for a long period of time (since the ladder reset) and even then that's not totally true, as once those players ascend to a higher league, new players will fill those spots to hit 100 again.
i think its all got to do with the 5 first games u make and how soon u got it. i dont think its possible to move up and down divisions, only ranks. i simply think the "more skilled" ppl get in the 1-5 plat just because they play alot and go 5-0 in the placement and get thrown in, then 2 days later they seem full and even if others go 5-0 they get like division 8 or so xd
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On April 03 2010 08:08 MorroW wrote:
so bottom line its harder to get high rating pts in division 1 of platinum compared to 10?
i thought the rating was just as hard to get for everybody xd
No, it's not harder to get rating points in division 1 compared to 10. It's just harder to be ranked top 8 in division 1 because there are more "good" players that have high rating points as well. Rating points are the same for everybody; he just meant that in division 1 there will be more people with rank 1800+ etc, so it will be harder to get a higher rank in that division than if you were in division 10.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 03 2010 08:08 MorroW wrote:
so bottom line its harder to get high rating pts in division 1 of platinum compared to 10?
i thought the rating was just as hard to get for everybody xd
it was a good read but why do they (if what ur saying is true) give us fake rating? why cant it just be like iccup where 2000 pts is better than 1900 regardless of anything else :x
whats even the point of seing ur rating if its not comparable to ppl outside ur division :/
I think you might be misinterpreting here. So, you're among the higher skill levels. That means your MMR is going to be higher than most players, and likely above even those within your division. Let's say you get to #1 within your division and you have a 50-50 win ratio. Now let's say the #10 person is a couple hundred points below you, and his MMR is a bit lower than yours, but he has a better win rate. Even if he wins games often enough for him to get up to your MMR, once he reaches your MMR he'd be playing people around your level, and his win rate would drop. You would still have an edge. In short, you've already played and beaten all the people that the #10 person is currently playing, and there is basically a permanent invisible buffer between the two of you, barring his skill increasing at a greater rate than yours.
Your rating is only used to rank you against people within your division for the purposes of tournament placement. It's not completely irrelevant and certainly not "fake" because it does serve a purpose, only a fairly limited purpose. It's not the most elegant design because you're regularly playing against people outside of your division anyway, but it gives you a tangible goal. That's pretty much it. Rating is absolutely comparable across divisions, so it's too bad that the interface doesn't make it easy to do that. It's pretty safe to say that whoever has the highest rating in a league probably has the highest MMR, making them the best player. With any luck, we'll be able to browse across divisions upon release.
Show nested quote +On April 03 2010 07:49 TimeToPractice! wrote:
Nice read, but on one point: Skilled players are in lower numbered divisions - not sure how accurate that is. I'm pretty sure it's random. I'd say the only thing you can take from someone being in a low division number is they've been playing in X league for a long period of time (since the ladder reset) and even then that's not totally true, as once those players ascend to a higher league, new players will fill those spots to hit 100 again. i think its all got to do with the 5 first games u make and how soon u got it. i dont think its possible to move up and down divisions, only ranks. i simply think the "more skilled" ppl get in the 1-5 plat just because they play alot and go 5-0 in the placement and get thrown in, then 2 days later they seem full and even if others go 5-0 they get like division 8 or so xd
Yep that's exactly why.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 03 2010 07:45 MeProU_Kor wrote:
0-1499: Newb
i am a newb damn =( damn i wanted to stop for today after reaching 1400 points but this made me very sad T:T
I think you're confusing rating with MMR. Rating is what it is. I'm only drawing a parallel to WoW Arena's MMRs because they're more transparent. I would say that unless you're in the Copper league, your MMR is going to be much much higher than your point total.
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On April 03 2010 07:34 AeroGear wrote:
I'd rather have them keep the AMM a bit less restrictive than it is for WC3/TFT, before the implementation of the AMM it was matching players only according to their level +/- 6, which led to some unfair matchups and encouraged smurfing for those "pristine" stats.
While that may have encouraged smurfing, as you say, the unlimited number of accounts let people get away with it.
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"Tough" Divisions
Because divisions are generated as necessary, invariably the most skilled and most dedicated players will rise to the top and be placed in the low-numbered divisions...
Pretty sure this is wrong. I was placed in division 2 after there were 18 divisions before the whipe and this was after my placement matches. I'm in no way a "top player" I didn't even win all my placement matches. I went like 9-1. The placement is first come first serve. Someone dropped out of division 2 and it had to be replaced and i just happened to be the next person to get in platinum.
The reason the "named" players are in divisions 1-5 is because they played their matches early because they are power gamers and get it done early.
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On April 03 2010 09:22 starcraft911 wrote:Show nested quote +"Tough" Divisions
Because divisions are generated as necessary, invariably the most skilled and most dedicated players will rise to the top and be placed in the low-numbered divisions... Pretty sure this is wrong. I was placed in division 2 after there were 18 divisions before the whipe and this was after my placement matches. I'm in no way a "top player" I didn't even win all my placement matches. I went like 9-1. The placement is first come first serve. Someone dropped out of division 2 and it had to be replaced and i just happened to be the next person to get in platinum. The reason the "named" players are in divisions 1-5 is because they played their matches early because they are power gamers and get it done early.
The point is that the most dedicated of the highly-skilled players will be much more likely to play their placement matches early on, so they'll get placed in the first few divisions formed more often.
It's first come first served ... but the top players are more likely to be in the "first come" group than Joe Random.
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United States12235 Posts
Gonna bump this for the weekend visitors.
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NICE IM EXTREMELY GOOD AT WOW ARENAS. IM KIND OF A BIG DEAL NOW.
Anyway, awesome analysis, very informative.
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On April 03 2010 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:
a hidden "matchmaking rating", or MMR. This is the sole factor in determining everything within the system.
That's not quite what you wrote below. At least the total number of games in your match history are used to compute the volatility of your ranking. That's an important factor. Otherwise a great write up. Thx!
I read somewhere that Bliz called it the best system available right now so I wouldn't be surprised if they'd have some non-trivial way to determine rating/volatility.
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if you get placed in a division with people that have higher points already i'm pretty sure you get more bonus points. (This is the point of the bonus points, no?)
so points won't really be comparable across divisions only within them.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 04 2010 07:34 Asta wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2010 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:
a hidden "matchmaking rating", or MMR. This is the sole factor in determining everything within the system. That's not quite what you wrote below. At least the total number of games in your match history are used to compute the volatility of your ranking. That's an important factor. Otherwise a great write up. Thx! I read somewhere that Bliz called it the best system available right now so I wouldn't be surprised if they'd have some non-trivial way to determine rating/volatility.
Each game you play impacts your MMR, which in turn impacts who you play in the future and how many points you get from them. As far as how it affects volatility, the system's goal is a 50% win rate, so any extended streaks will impact your volatility (or rather, causes the system to lose confidence in its estimate of your skill level). I think you sort of caught me in a technicality because I used the all-encompassing word "everything" which may have been a mistake, because MMR comparisons don't alone affect volatility. I don't think that volatility is necessarily a product of all your games played (though that's certainly possible) because the system would probably cement you at a certain level early and make it much harder to be promoted/demoted. That is an interesting question, though.
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nice work thank!
but anyway i dislike this system iccup ftw
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About the "hidden rating" idea. The use of hidden ratings in SC2 ladder would be useless.
The point of the hidden rating system in World Of Warcraft is to address several issues that SC2 doesn't have.
- Having more than 1 member on a team
-Those members having each of their own personal ratings
-People leaving and joining teams multiple times
- New teams forming whenever during the season
What would the point be of having a hidden rating when you and you alone affect your ladder rating that you can never reset.
Also, you use the term "MMR" which has nothing to do with the hidden rating of each person.
MMR means Matchmaking Rating. The official team rating will be skewed because of the amount of games played or the hidden ratings of each individual teammate. The MMR is the estimated team skill in the format of the rating system, non-biased towards hidden ratings and previous team members. It is as accurate as possible of how the team is "currently" playing.
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I remember reading somewhere that bonus points were given to players at a constant interval, and those points are added to any wins. However, to address the issue of players 'starting late' into the ladder, the bonus points are given to the player based on the time of ladder reset (rather than first placement date or anything like that).
But I'm under the impression that this concept is very useless (other than to encourage players to play a couple of times everyday and not let the points stagnate). Everybody has access to these points, and as long as you win a small handful of games, you'll redeem all of your points.
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I've searched this forum but couldn't find anything about unknown divisions (glitch?). I ranked up to silver in 2vs2 random but it says my division is unknown and it doesn't show anything for my ranked place and it still defaults me to the bronze ladder I used to be in. The only way I can see my rank is after a game on the game facts screen.
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On April 04 2010 10:00 guitarizt wrote:
I've searched this forum but couldn't find anything about unknown divisions (glitch?). I ranked up to silver in 2vs2 random but it says my division is unknown and it doesn't show anything for my ranked place and it still defaults me to the bronze ladder I used to be in. The only way I can see my rank is after a game on the game facts screen.
Check the official bug forum:
http://forums.battle.net/board.html?forumId=25498616&sid=5000
I had that bug and I fixed it by losing 44 games in a row to be demoted. My guess is that the bug goes away when you either get demoted or promoted.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 04 2010 09:33 DSC wrote:
About the "hidden rating" idea. The use of hidden ratings in SC2 ladder would be useless.
The point of the hidden rating system in World Of Warcraft is to address several issues that SC2 doesn't have.
- Having more than 1 member on a team
-Those members having each of their own personal ratings
-People leaving and joining teams multiple times
- New teams forming whenever during the season
What would the point be of having a hidden rating when you and you alone affect your ladder rating that you can never reset.
Also, you use the term "MMR" which has nothing to do with the hidden rating of each person.
MMR means Matchmaking Rating. The official team rating will be skewed because of the amount of games played or the hidden ratings of each individual teammate. The MMR is the estimated team skill in the format of the rating system, non-biased towards hidden ratings and previous team members. It is as accurate as possible of how the team is "currently" playing.
I don't know if you have the beta or not, but currently all you see is your point total and your league and division, with no other marker for progress. The pairing system has to use a hidden MMR. The purpose of the MMR is to pair players with similar skill levels, just as it does in WoW, only because of the different leagues, the system wants players to be promoted or demoted more quickly than grinding out points to the top or bottom of a division. This is why the MMR is theorized to extend far beyond your actual points accrued in order to pair you with players with whom you'll be matched at a 50% win rate.
Also, there are no more hidden ratings in WoW (as of 3.1 or 3.2 I believe?). The MMR is shown after each match. It would be nice if SC2 were as transparent as that, but it may get even more confusing because of the distinct leagues.
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On April 03 2010 07:49 TimeToPractice! wrote:
Nice read, but on one point: Skilled players are in lower numbered divisions - not sure how accurate that is. I'm pretty sure it's random. I'd say the only thing you can take from someone being in a low division number is they've been playing in X league for a long period of time (since the ladder reset) and even then that's not totally true, as once those players ascend to a higher league, new players will fill those spots to hit 100 again.
The reason the skilled players are in that league is because they were among the first to be placed there after the system reset.
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i once heard that will be a pro-ladder above the platinum and the top 8 of every Division will be promoted to that ladder. But your explanation makes more sense. Good Job.
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more skilled players won't be placed in earlier divisions unless there are more skilled players playing at the very start of division formation (this would be explained by players who play more frequently being placed earlier.. which is sort of speculative). If you have 100 people, you can assume a set number (let's say 15) will be placed in platinum. This happens regardless of the groups overall skill level. It has nothing to do with a win ratio in placement games skewing placement towards platinum. Since players can be demoted from leagues as well as promoted, there will be no collective movement of initially placed gold players filling the ranks of later platinum divisions without some equal demoting of platinums. The effect will be relatively even skill levels across platinum divisions barring the possibility of more frequent, high skill level players being placed earlier.
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so to get this straight (because i was discussing it in another thread): the main supposition here is that it's got nothing to do with divisions who you're matched against, meaning you don't play people from your own division more often than people from other divisions?
my assumption went along with what the following person said:
On April 03 2010 18:17 Dyno. wrote:
In addition to what people have said about being evenly matched, there have been cases of people being "promoted" from one platinum division to another. It was a bug that blizzard has since fixed. However, when this happened, the player's rating would be significantly different in their new division compared to their original one.
It happened to KHB twice on different accounts (whatever happened to him anyway?).
Edit: And to address what someone said earlier about the matchmaking system not favoring players in your own division, this is generally believed to not be true. It seems fairly obvious that the matchmaking system will attempt to match you with a closely-rated player in your own division before searching the rest of the league, and then expanding to other leagues. If the #1 and #2 players in a division are queueing up at the same time, they will almost always get matched up together. This is why we saw such things as IdrA and CauthonLuck playing so many games against eachother prior to the reset (they were both top3 in div 4).
if that was true, how can you compare ratings across divisions when the generated ELO depends on the players you are matched against (and players from your own division WOULD be favored)?
sad that we have no contact to the person(s) who stand behind this matchmaking system and could easily answer the question if it does or doesn't play a role in which division you are and what opponents you get accordingly.
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On April 03 2010 02:14 heyoka wrote:
Given how much testing they have done with WoW, it seems pretty logical to assume they would use a very similar system for bnet 2.0. Good read, solid reasoning.
if this is anything like wow's arena rating system i will be severely disappointed.
being a 2300 3v3 wow arena'er myself, i'd be really mad if they made it the same.
the arena match making system im wow is so messed up right now... jesus. i really hope they do more testing
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this is my first post here and since i come to this website for useful information concerning strat and i saw that no one wrote any numbers concerning promotions, i thought i should add something ...
i was copper division 55 and after being first for about a day once i hit 1300 points (2nd guy was 1233) with my 69th game i was promote to bronze. i was added to bronze div 80 and straight away i was rank 9 with 1039 points.
hope this helps on finding how the system works
edit: oh and my bonus pool changed from 0 to 52.
last edit .... maybe: when i joined i was rank 9 with only 1039 simply cos most people in the group had 1000 points cos they just joined on that day with 5 games. also on closer inspection there was 47 people in the division so a new one i gues. and rank one in that group had 1242.
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About higher skilled players being in lower division numbers statistically. I'd expect that to be true only for the first season. I'd seems (to me) very likely that divisions will be redistributed periodically (probably at the start of a season), with players being evenly distributed based on their skill (i.e. MMR most likely).
If this is not the case, I feel sorry for that nice guy that got stuck in division 666 with all those BM players. Or less exaggerated, it should be refreshing for everybody to have a new set division mates once in a while.
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got placed in bronze, after about 10 games i started playing only platinum and gold people, went 20-12 and got moved to silver, played sooo many games and went 65-49 against mostly platinum people and moved to gold, went 100-70ish and got moved to platinum...just kind of weird that i played platinum people regularly almost right from the start but it took almost 200 games to get there. my win record isnt good but still..
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I am a pretty bad casual player at SC2 (30 APM max, often supply blocked, often can't build things fast enough to makro properly on 2 bases), but was very lucky at my placement matches - I got paired against 4 very weak players first and stomped them. 5th opponent was good (280 APM) and I had no chance.
So I was put in Gold with my 4-1 score, set 1000 (ELO?) points initially.
Thought that I would get stomped here like opponent 5 did - at least until I am releveled to Silber or Bronce. But surprisingly, I am still matched against opponents, that I can sometimes beat (now at 970 something with a 8-6 score).
So whats the point of my story? 5 placement matches are probably not enough. But even if you are running bad in your league, the system does a good job in finding suitable opponents for you. Just wondering when the system will find out how bad I am and relevel me - so my goal is to try to stay in Gold as long as possible.
Finally sorry to all the decent players that get paired against me and might wonder: "What the hell is this guy doing here in Gold?"
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well, if you keep hovering around 1000 pts in Gold, you definitely belong to how the current gold league is defined
but 14 games isn't much, keep playing and see how it goes, if you drop below 900 you will probably be demoted
On April 07 2010 21:13 ahbeez wrote:
got placed in bronze, after about 10 games i started playing only platinum and gold people, went 20-12 and got moved to silver, played sooo many games and went 65-49 against mostly platinum people and moved to gold, went 100-70ish and got moved to platinum...just kind of weird that i played platinum people regularly almost right from the start but it took almost 200 games to get there. my win record isnt good but still..
there's a huge difference between high/low plat players, being able to win against low ranked plat players is usually not any more an achievement (or a representation of skills) than winning against top gold players (say, with 1250-1300 rating)
plus, if you have a winning rate not that far above 50% against those players, maybe it was a good thing the system did wait for you to play more games before moving you from silver to gold and from gold to plat, don't you think?
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Thanks for this post -
I still don't understand why I got demoted after I win every game where the other team is favored (2v2 random.) Stayed around 1000 while going 1:1 (or a little over) and still got demoted.
Ah well, thanks for this post and hopefully blizzard will clear things up a little more. I'm assuming every time the other person is favored they are A) In a higher league or B) same league but more points. According to the OP, I should have been promoted then *sigh*
edit: I got demoted on my 20th game, just if anyone cares about that note. Excuse me while I faceroll back up to gold I guess -_-
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Great post. I agree 100% with what was said in the OP.
There are plenty of times my platinum ranked friend would crush someone who was slightly favored against him only to find out the other guy was in gold league or lower . I tend to believe the other guy was favored because of one of the following 3 reasons:
1) The other guy had only played only a few games (which he could have won) and thus his MMR shot up way higher then it should have been.
2) He went on a long winning streak, perhaps against some high MMR opponents who were having off days, and his MMR shot up higher then it should of.
3) There are so few people playing beta that everyone's MMR is so highly volatile that there are likely to be huge fluctuations in a single person's MMR. This is can be readily seen because of how quickly the matchmaking reverts to "Expanding Search" thus searching for players largely out of your MMR range.
I also had a thought about the "review checkpoints". I think that the number of games goes up exponentially so as to get you in your proper league sooner and then leave you there for a while so that you can climb that individual ladder. For example: Review checkpoints would happen at intervals like 25 games, 75 games, 150 games, 300 games etc. so you can get that feeling like you have something to strive for as was the intention of the league system.
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Long time reader, first time poster.
My question is this (I'd be happy to hear thoughts on this from anyone): If you go 5-0 in your placement games, does that guarantee that you'll wind up in Platinum? Has anyone ever experienced going undefeated in their placement games and still not been placed in Platinum? I'm just curious because its quite possible to play five weak opponents by chance in your placement games and then get placed somewhere you don't belong. Likewise, you could easily go 3-0, then lose to two high-level plats that are also playing their placement games (after a ladder reset), and wind up in silver where you don't belong.
As several people have mentioned, it could take quite a large number of games (100+?) to move from silver to platinum even with a good win ratio vs. other platinum players.
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Very informative!
I have a question and wasn't sure where to ask it and couldn't find any info on it...
Was there a ladder reset very recently? I had to play the placement matches again.
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Awesome read. Great analysis. Not 100% on everything as other people and you noted. But I would like blizzard to release all there information on how they rank everyone, divisions etc. If higher divisions actually do mean better players or what exactly. Just would like a 100% answer from blizzard. Would help other people in organizing tournaments really. Cause being number 20 in division one might be better then someone top 5 in like division 50. That's not a guarantee either but it would be nice like I said. And they also need to add a battle.net feature to look across multiple divisions and others ranks etc. It will probably be like that on release but I want it now! haha
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Sometimes the ladder system seems incredibly arbitrary. Mainly when it comes to demoting and promoting. According to the system apparently I am too good for silver and too bad for gold because of the five times I've been reset I have always gotten placed in gold with no problem, not using cheese or all in just straight up games. Then I've played something like ten more games, with a 50% win ratio and then I am instantly demoted to silver. While I am in gold the system seems balanced, I play people of my own skill, when I loose it is still an even game and when I win I still had to work hard for it. Why the system demotes me after first of all such a small sample of games, and secondly while I am not at a negative win ratio and sitting comfortably on one of the top 20 spots in my division with 1200 rating is beyond me.
What then happens is that I end up in silver and then I just faceroll everything for weeks. I sit in the first place of my division with at least 100 rating down to whomever is below me but obviously I never get promoted. I just have to sit there playing endlessly tiresome games with no challenge whatsoever.
I am really completely loosing all interest in the game from this because my ambition is just killed off.
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Very helpful information, especially with blizzard's viel of silence regarding the issue. Weekly tournaments would be sick! For me it took ~150 games of 55-60% win ratio to move up from gold to plat.
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On April 03 2010 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It's generally accepted that the hierarchy of WoW Arena participants looks like this:
0-1499: Newb
1500-1799: Average
1800-1999: Fairly skilled
2000-2199: Very skilled
2200-2999: Extremely skilled
3000: Prot warrior
3000+ Wizard Cleave
Fixed
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congrats to op, interesting read
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It feels like if you're a C- player (arguably even D+) from SC1, you can make it into platinum league fairly easy with a large amount of the relatively new players to SC2.
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On April 03 2010 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It is not currently known how leagues are divided, but it is certain that they each contain a certain percentile of players. I estimate that to be this:
Top 10% - Platinum
10-25% - Gold
25-45% - Silver
45-70% - Bronze
70-100% - Copper
If it was a normal distribution it would be -
10% - Platinum
20% - Gold
40% - Silver
20% - Bronze
10% - Copper
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On April 22 2010 13:10 ManiacTheZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On April 03 2010 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It is not currently known how leagues are divided, but it is certain that they each contain a certain percentile of players. I estimate that to be this:
Top 10% - Platinum
10-25% - Gold
25-45% - Silver
45-70% - Bronze
70-100% - Copper
If it was a normal distribution it would be - 10% - Platinum 20% - Gold 40% - Silver 20% - Bronze 10% - Copper
you've got the right idea in that you have a bell curve. Only thing I wonder about is that in a normal distribution you have 68.2% of people within 1 standard deviation of the mean, and then outliers on the outside. I think a normal distribution might look like
2.2% - Platinum
13.6% - Gold
68.2% - Silver
13.6% - Bronze
2.2% - Copper
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With divisions, as I understand it, players in div 1 platinum for example would just be the first 100 players to get placed in platinum, so your division number would really just be indicative of chronological placement as opposed to a breakdown of skill or win-rates.
In any case with the launch of the game and public unveiling of bnet2.0, I imagine Blizzard will be disclosing additional information, and at the very least the noticeable increase in the size of the player base will provide new perspectives and information on the matter.
Solid post and if not spot on, gives a very logical breakdown of how a ladder functions.
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Some more information:
With a matchmaking rating system, the way points are assigned is as follows. There is a default point assignment (was +/-12 for wow, seems similar in sc2) for an "equal match result". The amount won or lost in any given match, though, is determined by comparing your displayed rating to your opponent's matchmaking rating. This is why many people are experiencing huge gains for wins and small losses. It's because they haven't played enough to raise their displayed rating to their matchmaking rating. They may be matched as an 1800 matchmaking rating, but are at 1300, so if they win against an equal opponent (1800 matchmaking), they get the points of a 1300 beating an 1800, which may be +20 or something. The opponent compares his matchmaking to your displayed rating to calculate his point change, if he's displayed 1600 and you are also 1800 matchmaking, he will -10 or so (slightly less than -12 default).
One huge misconception people I feel like people need to learn the truth about:
The bonus pool WILL NOT cause inflation of ratings in the long run as long as it only modifies your displayed rating and not your matchmaking rating, which appears to be the case. In the long run, displayed ratings converge to matchmaking rating, so if matchmaking rating is unaffected there is no long term effect.
An example:
I start with a big bonus pool and win up to 1600, and my matchmaking rating is 1700. Alice wins the same amount against similar quality opponents but with no bonus pool and goes to only 1350 or so, but also with 1700 matchmaking rating, because matchmaking is totally unaffected. Now in my games I will only be looking at winning +13 or so from my opponents who are 1700 matchmaking, while Alice is looking at something like +16 or +17 from her 1700 matchmaking opponents. I'm looking at -10 or -11 from losses, while she's looking at -8 or so from those same people. Eventually the result over a long enough period is we both end up at 1700 if no change in skill happens.
Even if I got enough of a bonus pool to get to 1900 or something, once that runs out I'm going to lose more for losses than I get for wins against people who are my skill level until I get to the appropriate level. The bonus pool just functions to get people's displayed rating jump started so if they took a break they can jump to their rating more quickly.
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I just think it was easier when I was number 740 on the ladder in WC3 and could see the 100 people ahead of me and behind me. I would recognice names I had played against and could easily see the race distribution at the top. If I wanted to participate in tournaments I would sign up for one, or initiate a clan war.
I'd prefer to see my universal ranking like all other game ladders in recorded history.
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Great read. I have one interesting thing. You say that in order to advance your MMR has to comfortably sit within the next bracket. In that case how can you lose a game and be promoted. Why would you not have been promoted after your previous win?
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Thanks for the info.
I'm really starting to dislike this rating system. I wish it was just a transparent ELO rating and I could have a number next to my name which I could compare to anyone else regardless of divison/league.
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I really enjoyed that thnx OP altho I noticed this info is about a month and a half old now and it seems things have changed a bit.
I purposely lost my first 5 qualifying games. After the first reset I won a vast majority of my games and it took me like 70 games to go from copper to platinum. After the second reset it took me like 25 games to go from copper to platinum.
And yes, I as do most other people I'd assume really despise the whole top 100 in each division as it really means absolutely nothing and wish there were some sort of top 1k available to know where u really stand.
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Good post OP, and it seems like the actual numbers in your comparison to WoW correlate okay. I guess the top 15% (Rival) mark in wow is probably 2250-2300 in most battlegroups so 2200 as top 20% isn't off at all.
Also, to a posters above, while silver is the midpoint, I doubt that each league is calculated at one standard deviation above or below the others. I gave two of my friends beta keys a week or two ago, and one placed into bronze and one in gold, both in 1v1, and they both were put in a division between 100 and 110, so while the sample size is small, I am gonna go with the logical conclusion that the population of each league is equally distributed. 20% for each league.
As for MMR from WoW though, the MMR carries over from previous seasons and defaults at 1500 for new characters, and even if you win-streak against equal rated players, your MMR shouldn't spike up that fast, only if you win against higher rated players (which you shouldn't be facing if the system is working correctly). As for Starcraft 2 though, with only 5 matches to determine your rating, I'm guessing it knows it's a lot less accurate, so it'll probably spike your MMR much higher on a win streak.
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Great read, thanks for the effort.
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Cleared some things up for me, thanks for a great post.
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My division is currently 'undefined.' Does anyone know what this means?
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can you elaborate on "tough divisions"? I honestly have no idea what you mean by there are typically more skilled players in lower div numbers. maybe I read that wrong, but for example, ppl that play games immediately after a reset have a chance at getting into low numbered platinum divisions whereas people who log on later wont have a chance as those low divisions would be full. how does that equate to more skilled players being in lower divisions? more dedicated, but not necessarily more skilled.
can you also elaborate on where you got your information on sc2 tournament info? or is that speculation based off of previous blizzard titles?
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On May 12 2010 02:19 micropede wrote:
My division is currently 'undefined.' Does anyone know what this means?
you broke battle.net.
you are deducted 2 internets
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Why would you invent a random term called "MMR" when they are probably using a standard ELO system. Just called it ELO, because that is what it is
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Its actually a modified TrueSkill system due to the additions of rank reevaluation, hidden rating, and the change to a not-so-normal(?) distribution.
Although, saying elo makes you cool.
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United States12235 Posts
On May 12 2010 03:02 mattpkp wrote:
Why would you invent a random term called "MMR" when they are probably using a standard ELO system. Just called it ELO, because that is what it is
MMR is established in many many other games. It's not ELO. If it was ELO I would have called it as such. There is a point value (or "rating") that reflects your standing in the ladder, but that's where the similarities end. Elo has a very specific structure and set of rules, and it's inaccurate to call the SC2 system by the same name.
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United States12235 Posts
On May 11 2010 23:51 ZapRoffo wrote:
Some more information:
With a matchmaking rating system, the way points are assigned is as follows. There is a default point assignment (was +/-12 for wow, seems similar in sc2) for an "equal match result". The amount won or lost in any given match, though, is determined by comparing your displayed rating to your opponent's matchmaking rating. This is why many people are experiencing huge gains for wins and small losses. It's because they haven't played enough to raise their displayed rating to their matchmaking rating. They may be matched as an 1800 matchmaking rating, but are at 1300, so if they win against an equal opponent (1800 matchmaking), they get the points of a 1300 beating an 1800, which may be +20 or something. The opponent compares his matchmaking to your displayed rating to calculate his point change, if he's displayed 1600 and you are also 1800 matchmaking, he will -10 or so (slightly less than -12 default).
One huge misconception people I feel like people need to learn the truth about:
The bonus pool WILL NOT cause inflation of ratings in the long run as long as it only modifies your displayed rating and not your matchmaking rating, which appears to be the case. In the long run, displayed ratings converge to matchmaking rating, so if matchmaking rating is unaffected there is no long term effect.
An example:
I start with a big bonus pool and win up to 1600, and my matchmaking rating is 1700. Alice wins the same amount against similar quality opponents but with no bonus pool and goes to only 1350 or so, but also with 1700 matchmaking rating, because matchmaking is totally unaffected. Now in my games I will only be looking at winning +13 or so from my opponents who are 1700 matchmaking, while Alice is looking at something like +16 or +17 from her 1700 matchmaking opponents. I'm looking at -10 or -11 from losses, while she's looking at -8 or so from those same people. Eventually the result over a long enough period is we both end up at 1700 if no change in skill happens.
Even if I got enough of a bonus pool to get to 1900 or something, once that runs out I'm going to lose more for losses than I get for wins against people who are my skill level until I get to the appropriate level. The bonus pool just functions to get people's displayed rating jump started so if they took a break they can jump to their rating more quickly.
This is an excellent addendum and very likely accurate.
EDIT: In fact, I'll add this to the original post.
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16962 Posts
Nice read....though the first thing I thought of when I saw MMR was "Measles Mumps Rubella" >_>
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United States12235 Posts
On May 12 2010 00:10 Crais wrote:
Great read. I have one interesting thing. You say that in order to advance your MMR has to comfortably sit within the next bracket. In that case how can you lose a game and be promoted. Why would you not have been promoted after your previous win?
That's a good question. The reason is because the longer your win streak is, the more volatile your MMR. Maybe you'll get about 20 MMR for your first win, 30 for your second, 50 for your third, 100 for your fourth, and so on. So let's say you start in Copper and won a number of games in a row. In the system you're describing, if you crossed the promotion threshold with your most recent win, you'd be promoted to Bronze. However, because your MMR is so volatile and the system has lost so much confidence in where you belong, your next few wins may make you eligible for Silver, and your next few beyond that may qualify you for Gold. This would make it troublesome for a player because he may constantly be getting promoted (or demoted) and unable to create goals for himself within his own division. Because of this, the system needs to take a "wait and see" approach to finally determine where you belong. Once you start going 50/50 with players of a given league, that's when your volatility will decrease and you'll face promotion into the target league. That's also why players will "skip" one or more leagues in their promotion, because they've overshot a league.
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United States12235 Posts
On May 12 2010 02:56 mrgoochio wrote:
can you elaborate on "tough divisions"? I honestly have no idea what you mean by there are typically more skilled players in lower div numbers. maybe I read that wrong, but for example, ppl that play games immediately after a reset have a chance at getting into low numbered platinum divisions whereas people who log on later wont have a chance as those low divisions would be full. how does that equate to more skilled players being in lower divisions? more dedicated, but not necessarily more skilled.
can you also elaborate on where you got your information on sc2 tournament info? or is that speculation based off of previous blizzard titles?
That part is a little antiquated. Back in the earlier versions of beta, the Top 8 players from each division were considered "tournament eligible" but the specifics of tournaments were never defined. The idea behind "tough divisions" is covered by MorroW at the bottom of page 1 of this thread, but basically it means that the top players are more likely to a) play earlier than most players and b) go undefeated in all their placement matches, which means they'd be placed in the earlier Platinum divisions. So, if you were to see Division 1, you may not be surprised that it includes Artosis, Nony, Day, Machine, Inc, and others. Because of this, it's that much harder for people slightly below the top level to break into the Top 8 of that division to qualify for a tournament. Perhaps as a result of this speculation, tournament qualifier positions were removed for the Top 8 in one of the more recent beta patches.
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So you are saying that there is a special day when everybody is promoted or it can be at anytime? (given that all the other variables have been met)
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On May 11 2010 23:51 ZapRoffo wrote:
Some more information:
With a matchmaking rating system, the way points are assigned is as follows. There is a default point assignment (was +/-12 for wow, seems similar in sc2) for an "equal match result". The amount won or lost in any given match, though, is determined by comparing your displayed rating to your opponent's matchmaking rating. This is why many people are experiencing huge gains for wins and small losses. It's because they haven't played enough to raise their displayed rating to their matchmaking rating. They may be matched as an 1800 matchmaking rating, but are at 1300, so if they win against an equal opponent (1800 matchmaking), they get the points of a 1300 beating an 1800, which may be +20 or something. The opponent compares his matchmaking to your displayed rating to calculate his point change, if he's displayed 1600 and you are also 1800 matchmaking, he will -10 or so (slightly less than -12 default).
Great post - this makes a ton of sense and also may explain why I have never, ever played a game where I was ranked as "favored" or even "slightly favored" compared to my opponent. I thought the system was just lying about who was favored in order to inflate points and make me feel better about losses, but more likely I just haven't played enough games to get my displayed rating to match my MMR.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 22 2010 15:32 Sejong wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2010 13:10 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 03 2010 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It is not currently known how leagues are divided, but it is certain that they each contain a certain percentile of players. I estimate that to be this:
Top 10% - Platinum
10-25% - Gold
25-45% - Silver
45-70% - Bronze
70-100% - Copper
If it was a normal distribution it would be - 10% - Platinum 20% - Gold 40% - Silver 20% - Bronze 10% - Copper you've got the right idea in that you have a bell curve. Only thing I wonder about is that in a normal distribution you have 68.2% of people within 1 standard deviation of the mean, and then outliers on the outside. I think a normal distribution might look like 2.2% - Platinum 13.6% - Gold 68.2% - Silver 13.6% - Bronze 2.2% - Copper
I did think about that, and maybe it makes more sense that way. I was approaching it from the perspective of both the average striving and determined player and a developer, where each league above your own becomes slightly more exclusive. That appears to be reflected in the number of divisions within each league. Of course, it's just as likely that the designers could take your approach and anchor more players into the Silver division, though I'd argue that's not good game design (although it does have the side effect of making the top league extremely exclusive).
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United States12235 Posts
On May 12 2010 03:49 Holden Caulfield wrote:
So you are saying that there is a special day when everybody is promoted or it can be at anytime? (given that all the other variables have been met)
It's different for everybody. It could be random, it could be based on your volatility, it could involve a minimum number of games since your last league change. There are really too many variables to accurately speculate.
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Realy nice post, thanks for that!
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It's generally accepted that the hierarchy of WoW Arena participants looks like this:
0-1499: Newb
1500-1799: Average Items
1800-1999: Fairly good Items
2000-2199: Very good Items
2200-3000: Extremely good Items
Here you go, fixed.
As you all know theres no skill involved in wow.
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+ Show Spoiler +On May 12 2010 03:55 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2010 15:32 Sejong wrote:On April 22 2010 13:10 ManiacTheZealot wrote:On April 03 2010 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It is not currently known how leagues are divided, but it is certain that they each contain a certain percentile of players. I estimate that to be this:
Top 10% - Platinum
10-25% - Gold
25-45% - Silver
45-70% - Bronze
70-100% - Copper
If it was a normal distribution it would be - 10% - Platinum 20% - Gold 40% - Silver 20% - Bronze 10% - Copper you've got the right idea in that you have a bell curve. Only thing I wonder about is that in a normal distribution you have 68.2% of people within 1 standard deviation of the mean, and then outliers on the outside. I think a normal distribution might look like 2.2% - Platinum 13.6% - Gold 68.2% - Silver 13.6% - Bronze 2.2% - Copper
I did think about that, and maybe it makes more sense that way. I was approaching it from the perspective of both the average striving and determined player and a developer, where each league above your own becomes slightly more exclusive. That appears to be reflected in the number of divisions within each league. Of course, it's just as likely that the designers could take your approach and anchor more players into the Silver division, though I'd argue that's not good game design (although it does have the side effect of making the top league extremely exclusive).
While it makes sense, does it mean that there is really about 30 times as many Silver divisions as say Platinum? I had always thought it was 20-20-20-20-20 (or even the 10-20-40-20-10).
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On May 12 2010 04:03 AlliNPreFlop wrote:Show nested quote +It's generally accepted that the hierarchy of WoW Arena participants looks like this:
0-1499: Newb
1500-1799: Average Items
1800-1999: Fairly good Items
2000-2199: Very good Items
2200-3000: Extremely good Items Here you go, fixed. As you all know theres no skill involved in wow.
If SC2 was like WoW:
0-1499: Harvesters, marines, zealots, lings available.
1500-1799: Hellions, tanks, observers, stalkers, colossi, hydras, banelings unlocked. BCs, Carriers, Ultras, and Brood Lords unlocked as an achievement for getting 1500.
1800-1999: Thors, banshees, high/dark templar, ghosts, mutalisks, corruptors, infestors unlocked.
2200-3000: Marauders, immortals, sentries, and roaches unlocked. Hey, if you're good you don't need good units to win games. You'll get to 2200 eventually.
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Very well put, but what about the issue of bonus points causing point inflation among the displayed ratings?
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On April 03 2010 07:45 AmstAff wrote:
0-1499: Newb
i am a newb damn =( damn i wanted to stop for today after reaching 1400 points but this made me very sad T:T
He meant your MMR not your points, your MMR is hidden 
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Very nice read btw
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I just realized there's a word sequence error in my writeup that might be confusing, where it says:
"The opponent compares his matchmaking to your displayed rating to calculate his point change, if he's displayed 1600 and you are also 1800 matchmaking, he will -10 or so (slightly less than -12 default)."
It should say:
"The opponent compares his displayed to your matchmaking rating..." because it operates the same way for him as it does for you.
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Just like to say thanks for posting this, it has been very useful
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Great stuff. So many points about AMM are now clear to me. I was thinking wtf when got promoted after 3 losses and was thinking the same when I played like 80+ games (from silver to platinum) against favoured players and always got 18-20s for wins and -2-4 for losses.
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United States12235 Posts
Updated the original post with the new league names and bonus pool/point inflation stuff.
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0-1499: Newb
1500-1799: Average
1800-1999: Fairly skilled
2000-2199: Very skilled
2200-3000: Extremely skilled
I'm curious what the point range is with the new point system, mainly in diamond.
It seems like once you get to about 300+ in any given division you get moved up and your points get slashed to around half of what they were. Then in diamond there's no cap. The highest I've seen so far in diamond is around 560, although I haven't exactly been looking much. Or is this chart accurate for the current system and people simply need more time to build their ratings?
-edit- I just looked a bit and found a guy with 900+ rating.
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those rating mean absolutely nothing and heres why.
Player A and player B have the same MMA (1600 & 1600)
Player A plays in some league and after 100 games has a rating around 400 (assuming 50% win + bonus points)
Player B then joins and has a 0 rating after placement matches.
Player A and Player B play, and A wins 50% of the time and B wins 50%. Because of bonus points they will both rise at roughly the same rate and B cannot catch up to A unless he begins to play more games or improves his play.
The whole thing is to hide your actual rating so that you get the illusion of improving. (last week i had 100 points and now i have 150!!!) because otherwise people get discouraged (woot last week i had a 1600 rating and this week i'm.....1601....yay...)
The reason is because sc2 is not a competitive sport. In competitive sports people want to know how they are doing because then they can truly know their own strength. In non-competitive sports, people like knowing how they are doing in comparison to the people in close proximity to them. What i think blizzard might do, and hopefully does do eventually, is offer two types of leagues: competitive and casual. Casual will stick with the current system and competitive will be more of a true ELO system and only available to say plat and diamond casual leaguers.
Actually, now I'm going to say that i think that it is the best possible solution.
1. Casual league with current setup.
2. optional competitive league for players in the top 20% with a true ELO rating. Maybe something cool would be like a weekly tournament to earn a spot in the competitive leauge where the top 4 earn the right to be in the competitive league. From there, season to season, players are placed in leagues A-E depending on the final ELO from the previous season, but the league always shows their win/loss along with their ELO. This system maybe could have weekly matches within your league with a final tournament at the end of the season (keep seasons short somewhere between 3-6 months).
If blizzard doesn't do this, then I think i'll spend the next few sc2-less weeks making this into a website.
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On April 03 2010 02:53 MockHamill wrote:
Very good explanation.
I think the end of season tournaments will go like this.
1. When the end of season is near everyone will be locked for a few weeks to their current division and league.
2. The top 8 in each division will do a tournament to determine the division winner.
3. The division winners will then do a tournament to determine the league winner.
It resembles sports and since they wish to make SC2 an e-sport it makes the most sense.
I really think the Division system combined with Division and League tournaments is a much better solution then just having an overall gigantic ladder. This way everyone has a chance to compete against players on their own level instead of just having competitions for the top 0.1 percent of the player base.
I completely agree and would love this system.
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bonus pool sounds really cool, although imo they should use exp decay also. but eh, whatever. didn't like exp decay, it always felt like a double wammy. ok, so i'm losing games AND my level went down, thanks guys...i mean the AMM doesn't always care what your level is anyways...so...yeah the expanding search notification will be rather cool.
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United States12235 Posts
On June 01 2010 05:18 Aether wrote:
0-1499: Newb
1500-1799: Average
1800-1999: Fairly skilled
2000-2199: Very skilled
2200-3000: Extremely skilled
I'm curious what the point range is with the new point system, mainly in diamond.
It seems like once you get to about 300+ in any given division you get moved up and your points get slashed to around half of what they were. Then in diamond there's no cap. The highest I've seen so far in diamond is around 560, although I haven't exactly been looking much. Or is this chart accurate for the current system and people simply need more time to build their ratings?
-edit- I just looked a bit and found a guy with 900+ rating.
Those numbers are imported from what is generally accepted as true for WoW Arena and have no direct correlation to SC2 other than estimates regarding MMR milestones.
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yeah, that's why I'm asking what a similar chart for the diamond league in SC2 would look like.
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Great reading. Thanks a lot.
Like a few other people I would appreciate to have a number representing my actual strength to compare to others as well as to measure my improvements. Visible MMR's could be sufficient.
Any chance that we can make Blizz think about that?
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2. optional competitive league for players in the top 20% with a true ELO rating. Maybe something cool would be like a weekly tournament to earn a spot in the competitive leauge where the top 4 earn the right to be in the competitive league. From there, season to season, players are placed in leagues A-E depending on the final ELO from the previous season, but the league always shows their win/loss along with their ELO. This system maybe could have weekly matches within your league with a final tournament at the end of the season (keep seasons short somewhere between 3-6 months).
You're KIDDING, right? After all Blizzard have done to tailor this game to casual players, do you really believe they will even consider an option like that for a second? I see a lot of people here are still living in the past. The days of making new, intricate systems that benefit the players are over. Now, every single feature is about squeezing as much money out of you as humanly tolerable.
Wake up.
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United States12235 Posts
On June 02 2010 18:04 Aether wrote:
yeah, that's why I'm asking what a similar chart for the diamond league in SC2 would look like.
The point of that list was not to create arbitrary and ultimately useless categories, but to provide a reference point. As I covered in the rest of the post, the goal is to explain the ladder system, not pointlessly rank people. The only reason the WoW Arena breakpoints are there is because those breakpoints are weighted -- be it by player choice (because certain rewards become available at 1800, 2000, 2200 so players tend to stop playing after reaching those milestones) or the system itself -- and because the MMR is visible and has a hard cap of 3000.
I roughly equated the different league breakpoints to those reward breakpoints in Arena because it makes it easier to understand when you consider that the ladder is overarching and that leagues themselves are only the by-product of your relative standing in the overall player population. It wouldn't make any sense to create a ranking chart for Diamond league because the ratings will constantly increase over time due to the bonus pool, whereas your standing in the top 8% of all players may never change.
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The question was what a similar reference would look like for the current diamond league. I understand the fact that bonus points will *slightly* skew your apparent rating from your matchmaking rating. It doesn't mean that someone couldn't easily make a similar reference for the current league by looking through the divisions. The bonus points won't skew things so badly that the rankings become completely meaningless.
If you can't answer this question just say you can't answer it, don't start answering questions I didn't ask or saying it's pointless or impossible. It's not. Would it be the be all end all guide to measuring starcraft skill? Obviously not. It would still be interesting to see.
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United States12235 Posts
On June 04 2010 03:16 Aether wrote:
The question was what a similar reference would look like for the current diamond league. I understand the fact that bonus points will *slightly* skew your apparent rating from your matchmaking rating. It doesn't mean that someone couldn't easily make a similar reference for the current league by looking through the divisions. The bonus points won't skew things so badly that the rankings become completely meaningless.
If you can't answer this question just say you can't answer it, don't start answering questions I didn't ask or saying it's pointless or impossible. It's not. Would it be the be all end all guide to measuring starcraft skill? Obviously not. It would still be interesting to see.
I still don't think you're understanding the irrelevance of such a chart. If my guess is correct and Diamond represents the top 10% of players, then that means you would need to break into the top 10% of Player MMR to join that league. The number of points for each player are also irrelevant. Everything is relative in this system, that's the beauty behind it. On release day you may have someone bragging on forums that they have 500 points. A week from release day someone else may brag that he has 1000. A month from that someone may claim to have 5000. Day after day, players will be posting about "800++ replays" that they want to see, or "anyone have replays of 1200+++ players?" or "check out this strat from this 1600++++ P player". The best players are going to be the best players regardless of their score because it's their ranking relative to the other players that matters.
I hope you don't take it as a cop-out but it really is pointless. It would be no different than players talking about "zomg nada just hit B- in ICCup" when everyone else is C... eventually he'll hit A, but relatively speaking, he's already the top player. In ICCup it's very difficult to move up which is why A is so prestigious, but A is only good because there are so many Bs, and B is only good because there are so many Cs, which is only good because there are so many Ds. With SC2's Bonus Pool, months down the line all the Ds will become Cs, so that skews any kind of a guide I could create.
Updated the original post with the new Diamond league rules.
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I have a couple gripes with the algorithm they use for the placement matches, as it is a different system (sort of). Specifically, lets say Player 1 (you) play 4 placement matches and go 4-0. Great. No information has been given yet other than to raise your MMR for your last placement match. Now in your fifth and final placement match you face off against Player 2, who is ALSO 4-0 in his placement matches. You then lose to Player 2 and get demoted to either Gold or Platinum league with you going 4-1 and player 2 going 5-0.
Whats the problem with this? Well Player 2 could be NonY. The problem is that pitting two players without a loss always ends up with no information other than the fact that player 2 is better than player 1. Its quite obvious I am not good as say, NonY, but I still deserve to be in diamond league.
This is the biggest problem with their logic. Anyone who has taken logic can understand this, and such a low number of placement matches isn't helping at all. I am aware that placement matches are an estimate, but it seems to be ALOT harder to go up a league the old fashioned way by winning 5-10 games IN A ROW (I've heard some horror stories about this). It is both stupid and discouraging to get put in the wrong league.
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United States12235 Posts
On June 07 2010 13:38 Surrealz wrote:
I have a couple gripes with the algorithm they use for the placement matches, as it is a different system (sort of). Specifically, lets say Player 1 (you) play 4 placement matches and go 4-0. Great. No information has been given yet other than to raise your MMR for your last placement match. Now in your fifth and final placement match you face off against Player 2, who is ALSO 4-0 in his placement matches. You then lose to Player 2 and get demoted to either Gold or Platinum league with you going 4-1 and player 2 going 5-0.
Whats the problem with this? Well Player 2 could be NonY. The problem is that pitting two players without a loss always ends up with no information other than the fact that player 2 is better than player 1. Its quite obvious I am not good as say, NonY, but I still deserve to be in diamond league.
This is the biggest problem with their logic. Anyone who has taken logic can understand this, and such a low number of placement matches isn't helping at all. I am aware that placement matches are an estimate, but it seems to be ALOT harder to go up a league the old fashioned way by winning 5-10 games IN A ROW (I've heard some horror stories about this). It is both stupid and discouraging to get put in the wrong league.
Of course you couldn't get into Diamond immediately anymore anyway, so we'll discount that. As far as your hypothetical scenario, the system counterbalances that in two ways:
1) You may not drop into Gold at all. If your opponent's MMR was high enough and exceeded the Platinum threshold by enough points, there's a good chance that your MMR won't be as adversely affected. The most recent patch did tweak the algorithm somewhat -- and to the exact degree nobody can be sure -- but in the previous patch there were plenty of examples of people going 4-1 or even 3-2 and being placed in the highest league because their opponents were also rated very highly.
2) If you are truly Diamond-caliber, your MMR will rise up to Diamond level naturally anyway. Once you start getting a >49% win ratio against those types of players you'll inevitably be promoted. You don't necessarily have to go on any type of streak, your MMR just has to breach the Diamond threshold.
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On June 07 2010 14:26 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2010 13:38 Surrealz wrote:
I have a couple gripes with the algorithm they use for the placement matches, as it is a different system (sort of). Specifically, lets say Player 1 (you) play 4 placement matches and go 4-0. Great. No information has been given yet other than to raise your MMR for your last placement match. Now in your fifth and final placement match you face off against Player 2, who is ALSO 4-0 in his placement matches. You then lose to Player 2 and get demoted to either Gold or Platinum league with you going 4-1 and player 2 going 5-0.
Whats the problem with this? Well Player 2 could be NonY. The problem is that pitting two players without a loss always ends up with no information other than the fact that player 2 is better than player 1. Its quite obvious I am not good as say, NonY, but I still deserve to be in diamond league.
This is the biggest problem with their logic. Anyone who has taken logic can understand this, and such a low number of placement matches isn't helping at all. I am aware that placement matches are an estimate, but it seems to be ALOT harder to go up a league the old fashioned way by winning 5-10 games IN A ROW (I've heard some horror stories about this). It is both stupid and discouraging to get put in the wrong league.
Of course you couldn't get into Diamond immediately anymore anyway, so we'll discount that. As far as your hypothetical scenario, the system counterbalances that in two ways: 1) You may not drop into Gold at all. If your opponent's MMR was high enough and exceeded the Platinum threshold by enough points, there's a good chance that your MMR won't be as adversely affected. The most recent patch did tweak the algorithm somewhat -- and to the exact degree nobody can be sure -- but in the previous patch there were plenty of examples of people going 4-1 or even 3-2 and being placed in the highest league because their opponents were also rated very highly. 2) If you are truly Diamond-caliber, your MMR will rise up to Diamond level naturally anyway. Once you start getting a >49% win ratio against those types of players you'll inevitably be promoted. You don't necessarily have to go on any type of streak, your MMR just has to breach the Diamond threshold.
While this is true, you may have beat the first 4 players who were all extremely terrible and low ranked and then lost the 5th game to someone who is exceptionally good. You still went 4-1, but your 4 wins were against people who were very low.
Yes, you will eventually soar up to diamond once you get the required MMR, it will still take quite a bit of time/win streaks. The whole point of my reply was to get the point across that the current placement match system is a bit inaccurate.
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Nope. If you truely deserve to be in diamond, and got placed in gold/plat, you'll move up quickly after a couple games (as in 5-0 your opposition). Besides, if you are not 5-0ing people, it means you are playing at your ability and system is matching up with people with similar skills, so what's the compliant? Seems the status of 'I'm in this league' means more to you than the quality of games you play.
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Top 10% - Diamond
10-25% - Platinum
25-45% - Gold
45-70% - Silver
70-100% - Bronze
This doesn't make sense. Why would most people be in Bronze? It should look more like this, with the highest number of people in Gold.
Y- number of people X- leagues
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On June 07 2010 18:43 MaxwellE wrote:Show nested quote +
Top 10% - Diamond
10-25% - Platinum
25-45% - Gold
45-70% - Silver
70-100% - Bronze
This doesn't make sense. Why would most people be in Bronze? It should look more like this, with the highest number of people in Gold. Y- number of people X- leagues
I think the layers of skill more resemble that of a pyramid. I sincerely doubt there are about as many players in the top as in the bottom.
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On June 07 2010 18:43 MaxwellE wrote:Show nested quote +
Top 10% - Diamond
10-25% - Platinum
25-45% - Gold
45-70% - Silver
70-100% - Bronze
This doesn't make sense. Why would most people be in Bronze? It should look more like this, with the highest number of people in Gold. Y- number of people X- leagues
The higher you get the more exclusive the league gets meaning less and less players the higher you get.
It actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it. View the system as a pyramid.
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I believe that the assumption should be that the distribution of experienced starcraft 2 players is normally distributed. That is, once people are more-or-less at their skill cap they will be normally distributed (people generally fall into a normal distribution at most measurable world skills).
The only thing I can think of that makes this an invalid assumption is the "noob factor". SC II has a ton of noobs. This would lop of the left side of the distribution (making it more like the pyramid analogy). What is really happening is the total population distribution is really two different normal distributions combined--one of the experienced players and one of the inexperienced (which has more people, thus allowing enough players to fill out "the bottom of the pyramid").
I would expect that in Brood War the distribution of player skill is more-or-less normal, as there aren't an over-abundance of noobs. There is no reason to expect anything but a normal distribution when you are talking about people.
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The distribution of player skill is not necessarily normal. Both FIDE and the USCF, for example, have switched from ELO to a logistic distribution (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_distribution ). They still call it ELO out of tradition and respect, but it is not really ELO anymore. I suspect SC maybe behave in a similar fashion.
It is clear that blizzard is using the league rating we actually see in order to get people to play more games. If you have to start at zero, you want to "keep up" with the other players of your skill. How do you keep up? Well, by playing more games! If they used a chess-style rating system, players may be inclined to NOT play in order to keep their rating. Say I got lucky and went like 15-0 against some really top opposition and my rating hit like 2600. Well, if I never play again, I'll always be 2600. Go me!
When I first started playing Go competitively, my rating would change drastically by winning or losing a couple games. If I cared about my ego, I could have stopped playing on a win streak to have that artificially high rating.
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Well this rating system seems weird to me.. I never played starcraft before. I was an age of empires II: age of kings player for years.. its the perfect game to me but its so unpopular now. Starcraft 2 is closest game to it so decided to buy it. I watched some youtube build orders, watched some day9, etc.. I play protoss.. and my build is pretty good vs most zerg players unless they are really good which allowed me to go 5-0 and get in platinum where I got destroyed by terrans.. Anyway 50 games later I was rank 6 platinum and still facing silver and gold players sometimes.. my last game as platinum I lost to a gold player and was put into diamond lol? I am rank 30ish diamond and probably would be higher if I played more.. to me the system seems to let you raise in ranking by beating worst players than you more and only makes you lose a little bit of points vs people that are at your skill.. I want to know my true rating.. I have like 2000 materials and junk sometimes so I know I am not supposed to be in diamond lol..
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Wow, quality quality OP.
Thank you to everybody who contributed. I realize Beta is down (duh) but I just found this thread. Great read, great work <3
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The important thing to know is that rating only determines your standing within your own division. And even then, only indirectly, because you are playing against opponents beyond your division's player pool.
This is wrong. There is no relationship between points gained/lost and the division one is in. If the system is like wow arena this is based on the mmr of you and your opponent. Therefore, this is actually an accurate measure of ones skill in comparison to other members in the same league.
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United States12235 Posts
On June 12 2010 11:56 Parmer wrote:Show nested quote +The important thing to know is that rating only determines your standing within your own division. And even then, only indirectly, because you are playing against opponents beyond your division's player pool. This is wrong. There is no relationship between points gained/lost and the division one is in. If the system is like wow arena this is based on the mmr of you and your opponent. Therefore, this is actually an accurate measure of ones skill in comparison to other members in the same league.
Two things:
1. You appear to be pretty familiar with the MMR system. There's a slight mistake in your post, though. This post and the one below it explain the system in greater detail with important specifics. The amount of points won or lost is based on your team's rating and your opponent's MMR, and not your MMR. I should probably clarify that in the original post.
2. You're absolutely right that your rating is directly comparable to any other in your league. The point I was trying to make with the statement you quoted is that you need to look beyond your own division in order to truly rank yourself. The problem is that the Battle.net UI doesn't make this easy because you need to have friended someone in a different division in order to browse that division and see everyone's ratings. There are several collaborative community projects that attempt to create a universal ranking website, but those are beyond the scope of my original post which is targeted toward new users whose experiences with the system are limited to the client itself. There are a lot of players who claim to be "top 10 diamond" but that could mean anything between being 300 and 1000 points depending on the division.
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Quite a bit to learn here. Thanks for putting the time into this.
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This is an amazing post, laid out perfectly.
After years of experience playing arena in WoW I sort of assumed it worked mostly the same way in SC2 but never saw anyone really lay it out so clearly.
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Great read, really clarified it for me. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
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United States12235 Posts
It's probably still a bit too early to draw any definitive conclusions, but it appears on the surface that the curve has changed. In the latter stages of the beta, the distribution was roughly close to 10/15/20/25/30 (something like 11/18/23/22/26). It could be more of a bell curve now like 10/25/30/25/10 or possibly something like 10/15/25/25/25.
We should know more in the coming days and weeks, once more players get shuffled around into new leagues. Diamond promotions are still happening frequently so it will take some time before the league distribution evens out.
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I'm sorry if this has already been explained, couldnt see it anywhere. If i play a 3 v 3 for example, but loose the overall game, but come second, by eliminating 2 of the 3 but get finished off by third player, would this affect my rating in a positive or negative way?
I presume a win is a win and a loss is a loss.
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United States12235 Posts
On August 03 2010 21:49 thipequz wrote:
I'm sorry if this has already been explained, couldnt see it anywhere. If i play a 3 v 3 for example, but loose the overall game, but come second, by eliminating 2 of the 3 but get finished off by third player, would this affect my rating in a positive or negative way?
I presume a win is a win and a loss is a loss.
A win is a win and a loss is a loss, and it's determined by the ultimate outcome of your overall team. If your partners left the game early but you defeated your opponents, your entire team gets the win. Either you all win or you all lose.
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I did not read all the posts, but my question is:
can you be demoted for being inactive? let's say you are rank 50 in platinum, and do not play any times during 2 weeks, whether my rank is now 100, or remains at 50, is it possible to be demoted into gold?
also, can they change u divisions within the same rank? (ie: you are in a plat division and get moved to another division in platinum)
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United States1218 Posts
1. You appear to be pretty familiar with the MMR system. There's a slight mistake in your post, though. This post and the one below it explain the system in greater detail with important specifics. The amount of points won or lost is based on your team's rating and your opponent's MMR, and not your MMR. I should probably clarify that in the original post.
Not entirely sure this is relevant to your dispute, but this is only true of the displayed rating. The gain to your MMR is dependant on your MMR and the opponent's, and so your matchmaking "points" have no direct relation to the displayed rating.
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United States12235 Posts
On August 04 2010 07:01 phamou wrote:
I did not read all the posts, but my question is:
can you be demoted for being inactive? let's say you are rank 50 in platinum, and do not play any times during 2 weeks, whether my rank is now 100, or remains at 50, is it possible to be demoted into gold?
also, can they change u divisions within the same rank? (ie: you are in a plat division and get moved to another division in platinum)
Theoretically, you could. Let's say right now the MMR threshold for Diamond is 2200 (top 10% of players, and don't put too much weight in the actual number, everything is relative in this system) and your MMR is 2250. Now let's say you take a 1 year break, and over that time people have discovered some new strategies and the overall skill level has increased at the high end. Now the MMR threshold to get into Diamond is 2300. You'd log in and find yourself demoted to Platinum. Again, this is only theoretical, and there's no actual evidence proving this, only some anecdotal evidence of people being suddenly shifted around leagues in the very early stages of beta just by logging in.
There was also some evidence of people being moved laterally -- from one division to another within the same league -- but that was in phase 2 of beta. I haven't seen any evidence of that happening since release, so it was probably a bug. For all intents and purposes, divisions are designed to be equal with one another (as best I can tell).
On August 04 2010 07:04 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +1. You appear to be pretty familiar with the MMR system. There's a slight mistake in your post, though. This post and the one below it explain the system in greater detail with important specifics. The amount of points won or lost is based on your team's rating and your opponent's MMR, and not your MMR. I should probably clarify that in the original post. Not entirely sure this is relevant to your dispute, but this is only true of the displayed rating. The gain to your MMR is dependant on your MMR and the opponent's, and so your matchmaking "points" have no direct relation to the displayed rating.
Sorry if that wasn't clear in the post. MMR increases or decreases based on your MMR as compared to your opponent's, as you would expect (just think of a rapidly changing traditional rating system), just like you said. The quoted post only intends to explain the relationship between rating gained based on the difference between your opponent's MMR and your actual rating.
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A win is a win and a loss is a loss, and it's determined by the ultimate outcome of your overall team. If your partners left the game early but you defeated your opponents, your entire team gets the win. Either you all win or you all lose.
Seems fair enough, thought that would be the case, probably just feeling a little hard done by about a certain result, lol
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On June 09 2010 03:51 Powster wrote:
Well this rating system seems weird to me.. I never played starcraft before. I was an age of empires II: age of kings player for years.. its the perfect game to me but its so unpopular now. Starcraft 2 is closest game to it so decided to buy it. I watched some youtube build orders, watched some day9, etc.. I play protoss.. and my build is pretty good vs most zerg players unless they are really good which allowed me to go 5-0 and get in platinum where I got destroyed by terrans.. Anyway 50 games later I was rank 6 platinum and still facing silver and gold players sometimes.. my last game as platinum I lost to a gold player and was put into diamond lol? I am rank 30ish diamond and probably would be higher if I played more.. to me the system seems to let you raise in ranking by beating worst players than you more and only makes you lose a little bit of points vs people that are at your skill.. I want to know my true rating.. I have like 2000 materials and junk sometimes so I know I am not supposed to be in diamond lol..
I know this is an old post but I want to clarify since I think this might be confusing to people still.
If the silver and gold players have not played many games and haven't risen to their real rating yet (if someone has a lot of games played and is near 50% win you can say they are near their real rating) they will play people in higher divisions if that's where they are anticipated to land (although having not played many games their matchmaking is not very accurate). You can still win many points off them because they are predicted to be players around your level, especially if you haven't played enough to reach your real rating as well.
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United States12235 Posts
On August 07 2010 23:29 ZapRoffo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2010 03:51 Powster wrote:
Well this rating system seems weird to me.. I never played starcraft before. I was an age of empires II: age of kings player for years.. its the perfect game to me but its so unpopular now. Starcraft 2 is closest game to it so decided to buy it. I watched some youtube build orders, watched some day9, etc.. I play protoss.. and my build is pretty good vs most zerg players unless they are really good which allowed me to go 5-0 and get in platinum where I got destroyed by terrans.. Anyway 50 games later I was rank 6 platinum and still facing silver and gold players sometimes.. my last game as platinum I lost to a gold player and was put into diamond lol? I am rank 30ish diamond and probably would be higher if I played more.. to me the system seems to let you raise in ranking by beating worst players than you more and only makes you lose a little bit of points vs people that are at your skill.. I want to know my true rating.. I have like 2000 materials and junk sometimes so I know I am not supposed to be in diamond lol.. I know this is an old post but I want to clarify since I think this might be confusing to people still. If the silver and gold players have not played many games and haven't risen to their real rating yet (if someone has a lot of games played and is near 50% win you can say they are near their real rating) they will play people in higher divisions if that's where they are anticipated to land (although having not played many games their matchmaking is not very accurate). You can still win many points off them because they are predicted to be players around your level, especially if you haven't played enough to reach your real rating as well.
Thanks Zap. Vanick and I are working on a post today that will address and clarify some of these concerns.
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On June 12 2010 12:23 Excalibur_Z wrote:Two things: 1. You appear to be pretty familiar with the MMR system. There's a slight mistake in your post, though. This post and the one below it explain the system in greater detail with important specifics. The amount of points won or lost is based on your team's rating and your opponent's MMR, and not your MMR. I should probably clarify that in the original post.
I am pretty familiar with WoW's MMR system, and assuming they did the same sort of thing, your MMR also affects the number of points gained.
You can see this when leveling an arena team from scratch. Let's take 2 different teams at low team rating. One has an MMR of 2000 and the other has an MMR of 2500. They both beat an 1800 MMR team.
When you first start out a team, you gain 48 points for a win and lose 0, until you get closer to your MMR. This steps down to 36-24 points somewhat quickly though, when you get to about 1000 points below your MMR.
So if both of our example teams have a 1000 team rating, when they both beat this same team, the 2500 MMR will get 48 points but the 2000 MMR team will get 24 or 36 points. The only difference is the winning team's MMR.
I am fairly confident that this is how the MMR system works in WoW, and they gave us the same talk about how points were determined by your team rating and the enemy's MMR. Essentially what they are not saying is that the game tries to bring your Team Rating to your MMR as best it can. Beating good teams still helps a lot of course, because it increases your MMR.
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On August 10 2010 04:15 fant0m wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2010 12:23 Excalibur_Z wrote:Two things: 1. You appear to be pretty familiar with the MMR system. There's a slight mistake in your post, though. This post and the one below it explain the system in greater detail with important specifics. The amount of points won or lost is based on your team's rating and your opponent's MMR, and not your MMR. I should probably clarify that in the original post. I am pretty familiar with WoW's MMR system, and assuming they did the same sort of thing, your MMR also affects the number of points gained. You can see this when leveling an arena team from scratch. Let's take 2 different teams at low team rating. One has an MMR of 2000 and the other has an MMR of 2500. They both beat an 1800 MMR team. When you first start out a team, you gain 48 points for a win and lose 0, until you get closer to your MMR. This steps down to 36-24 points somewhat quickly though, when you get to about 1000 points below your MMR. So if both of our example teams have a 1000 team rating, when they both beat this same team, the 2500 MMR will get 48 points but the 2000 MMR team will get 24 or 36 points. The only difference is the winning team's MMR. I am fairly confident that this is how the MMR system works in WoW, and they gave us the same talk about how points were determined by your team rating and the enemy's MMR. Essentially what they are not saying is that the game tries to bring your Team Rating to your MMR as best it can. Beating good teams still helps a lot of course, because it increases your MMR.
It's possible. We don't really have evidence to back up either claim. The theory was put forth because it's the simplest possible explanation. It's counterintuitive to believe that it's only comparing your rating to your own MMR, there needs to be some external comparison. We would need further evidence to support a more complex theory than the one we propose, though.
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This is certainly not the case since some players must post their profile in that site for it to show up.
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United States12235 Posts
Added more information about the Bonus Pool today, specifically that everyone gets the same bonus pool and it builds at a rate of 1 per 2 hours.
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On August 10 2010 07:43 carwashguy wrote:This is certainly not the case since some players must post their profile in that site for it to show up.
You're quoting a 9 day old post (granted I'm quoting a 2 day old one!) and saying it's inaccurate, which isn't surprising. The 'accepted' distribution right now is about 5%/15%/20%/20%/35%, which has held true regardless of having 300k or 900k characters.
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On August 12 2010 04:15 Shadowed wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 07:43 carwashguy wrote:This is certainly not the case since some players must post their profile in that site for it to show up. You're quoting a 9 day old post (granted I'm quoting a 2 day old one!) and saying it's inaccurate, which isn't surprising. The 'accepted' distribution right now is about 5%/15%/20%/20%/35%, which has held true regardless of having 300k or 900k characters.
If no one has addressed the issue, why does it matter if the post is 9 days old? Besides, it's not as if the website has changed its method of ripping data in the last week. I'm not sure what you mean by "characters," but I'd be interested in knowing how you draw a conclusion as to what is "accepted."
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On August 12 2010 08:05 carwashguy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 04:15 Shadowed wrote:On August 10 2010 07:43 carwashguy wrote:This is certainly not the case since some players must post their profile in that site for it to show up. You're quoting a 9 day old post (granted I'm quoting a 2 day old one!) and saying it's inaccurate, which isn't surprising. The 'accepted' distribution right now is about 5%/15%/20%/20%/35%, which has held true regardless of having 300k or 900k characters. If no one has addressed the issue, why does it matter if the post is 9 days old? Besides, it's not as if the website has changed its method of ripping data in the last week. I'm not sure what you mean by "characters," but I'd be interested in knowing how you draw a conclusion as to what is "accepted."
Characters mean... characters, players, toons, chars, whatever you choose to call them.
It matters because 11 days ago every site had a very limited set of data, RTS was working off of around 70k (maybe a little less?) characters compared to the 700k it has today. The distribution RTS is listing has matched the same one SC2Ranks show, and I'm sure between us we have a pretty good distribution of characters/divisions.
As always, data will shift as more and more characters are added, but that shouldn't shift it by more than a percent or two. There's also the natural changes you will see as the matchmaker moves people between leagues and gets a better idea where people stand.
[edit] Or more accurately, there isn't a hidden cache of 500,000 Bronze players sitting somewhere that will drastically throw it off.
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Great post, really enjoyed it.
I have been looking for this information for a while now. While one must keep in mind that it is impossible to say definitively how the system works without getting the info directly from the creators, I am comfortable with accepting your explanations based on the evidence you provided.
I am really glad that I don't have to be number 1 in my division to move up. That was starting to stress me out. Logically, one would have to obtain and maintain a rank 1 in their division for a set period of time, or perhaps for a set number of games, or even get to number 1 and not lose for a set number of games, before they would be promoted. Such a system would be quicker than waiting for your scheduled review date, but meh. At least now I know.
Given this info, do you all think it would be a good practice to start saying "gl hf, silver" when you started a game? if the opponent reciprocated, you would both start to get an idea of how your w/l ratio is for that particular league, thus giving you a better idea of if you will be eligible for promotion whenever the time comes.
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On August 12 2010 08:20 Shadowed wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 08:05 carwashguy wrote:On August 12 2010 04:15 Shadowed wrote:On August 10 2010 07:43 carwashguy wrote:This is certainly not the case since some players must post their profile in that site for it to show up. You're quoting a 9 day old post (granted I'm quoting a 2 day old one!) and saying it's inaccurate, which isn't surprising. The 'accepted' distribution right now is about 5%/15%/20%/20%/35%, which has held true regardless of having 300k or 900k characters. If no one has addressed the issue, why does it matter if the post is 9 days old? Besides, it's not as if the website has changed its method of ripping data in the last week. I'm not sure what you mean by "characters," but I'd be interested in knowing how you draw a conclusion as to what is "accepted." Characters mean... characters, players, toons, chars, whatever you choose to call them.
So like... a player profile? Okay.
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On August 12 2010 08:20 Shadowed wrote:
The distribution RTS is listing has matched the same one SC2Ranks show, and I'm sure between us we have a pretty good distribution of characters/divisions.
As always, data will shift as more and more characters are added, but that shouldn't shift it by more than a percent or two. There's also the natural changes you will see as the matchmaker moves people between leagues and gets a better idea where people stand.
[edit] Or more accurately, there isn't a hidden cache of 500,000 Bronze players sitting somewhere that will drastically throw it off.
Well how can u claim that? If you only list people that are self reported (or reported by someone else) u certainly have a preselction of a certain player type (The player type that is willing to look up his standings, is interested in the broader SC2 community by visiting community sites etc.). From a statistical standpoint you could never claim to have a normal distribution because of that. Having a big sample doesnt mean having equally distributed data. Actually there is a prominent example at the beginning of polls, where (I hope I'm getting this right) an American newspaper tried to predict the outcome of the presidential election. They had a clear result from their polls but they were blatently wrong just because they carried out their data collection through the phone. And only a certain socio-economic strata could afford phones at that time which skewed the sample pool a lot. Well, and its quite likely that the same applies to our example.
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i think i dont understand the rating system completely... i was a platin player and got promoted to diamond. now i loose much more games and the opponents are sometimes soooo good, that i dont really have a chance.
is it only a time matter, till i go back to platin due MMR?
ps. Nice post.
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is it only a time matter, till i go back to platin due MMR?
ps. Nice post.
no, MMR has decided you are better than the average platinum-guy, therefore the promotion - now it's deciding if you are better than the average diamond guy
happened to me too, I also got promoted too fast and lost the first couple of games in diamond; after a while I played lower diamonds and higher platinum-players and did/am doing fine
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nice to know. thank you for the information! i thought i would stay at diamond loosing all games =)
now i won some games, but still hard! I think i need a training partner =)
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0-1499: Newb
1500-1799: Average
1800-1999: Fairly skilled
2000-2199: Very skilled
2200-3000: Extremely skilled
sorry but this is very wrong
1-1500: Difficulty with basic motor functions.
1501-2000: Borderline retardation. Qualifies for handicapped parking.
2001-2400: Average Intelligence, realizes they are bad.
2401-2600: Above Average Intelligence. Capable of separating goods from bads.
2601-2800: Highly intelligent
2801-2999: Genius
3000+: Super Genius
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I am not sure if I agree completely with how the system ranks individuals, but I suppose a tournament style cannot be implemented with so many players. The system does not accurately place players who play fewer games, despite winning or not. It is more based on the amount of time spent playing matches, instead of inherent skill level. For those who may be very skilled, yet have very little time to play...bronze league will be your realm.
Thanks for the explanation. It does make complete since how it all works, I am just not sure I completely agree with mechanics to it.
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United States12235 Posts
On September 07 2010 03:40 Zebah wrote:
I am not sure if I agree completely with how the system ranks individuals, but I suppose a tournament style cannot be implemented with so many players. The system does not accurately place players who play fewer games, despite winning or not. It is more based on the amount of time spent playing matches, instead of inherent skill level. For those who may be very skilled, yet have very little time to play...bronze league will be your realm.
Thanks for the explanation. It does make complete since how it all works, I am just not sure I completely agree with mechanics to it.
That's not how it works at all. If you are very skilled but only play a few games, you'll still end up in Platinum or Diamond. That's actually the whole point of the system, in fact.
It's older ladders like ICCup that start everyone at the bottom and you move up by playing lots of games. I think you may be confused.
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Another reason for the bonus pool is that it makes people constantly seem like they're improving, since as long as they run out of bonus pool and are staying constant, they'll be gaining points at a steady rate.
Since the whole division system is here to coddle people and hold their hands also, the current bonus pool method makes perfect sense to encourage people to play more, as well as encourage noobs that theyre getting better because they have +621 points from the bonus pool and are now at 1000+ points.
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Thanks for the detailed information! Helps understanding the ladder system much more now.
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Do custom matches impact on your hidden rating?
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I have a question (don't find the clear answer anywhere)
If i'm in a division with lot of really good player, will i have more troubles having a good rating compared to someone who is in a poor division ?
Does someone with 1000 rating in super division have the same skill level as a 1000 rating player who is in a low level division ?
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United States12235 Posts
On September 24 2010 21:11 cozzE wrote:
Do custom matches impact on your hidden rating?
Custom matches do not have any impact, no.
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United States12235 Posts
On September 24 2010 21:39 Fabious wrote:
I have a question (don't find the clear answer anywhere)
If i'm in a division with lot of really good player, will i have more troubles having a good rating compared to someone who is in a poor division ?
Does someone with 1000 rating in super division have the same skill level as a 1000 rating player who is in a low level division ?
You play against people beyond your division, so the answer is no to the first question. 1000 should be equivalent to 1000 from another division because the player pool is shared. The "tough" division just makes it harder to get a high rank within that division because the better players there will have super high ratings, securing the top ranks of the division.
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ugh, 30 games to have a review done? well atleast i understand now. ive been confused since ive been matched up against platinum for my past 15 games, and won close to all of them then it started putting me up against diamond players recently, and im still stuck in silver, while most of my friends have been zooming past me. atleast i gain +40 when i win and lose -3 or -5 for my losses. mass points!
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Ok, I thought I understood the system. But now I encountered a scenario which I couldn't explain with the explanations given above. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
My friend used to be a 400 pts silver player. I am a ~1200 diamond. For fun, I played like 15-20 games for him and won almost all of the them (except 1). So, due to his high bonus pool we climbed up to 900 pts in silver. At the end, I mainly played against diamond or high platinum players. So far so good.
I assume that the hidden MMR was quite high at this point, lets say 900 pts diamond or sth. His open rating, however, was still low of course: silver, 900 pts
Now, my friend made a pause of 1 week and started playing.
His first game was against a 1172 platinum player which is also fine, as his hidden MMR was high.
He lost, because he is not good enough for a high platinum. Fine. Now comes the strange part.
The high platinum player gained 13 pts + bonus (also 13), but my friend lost 11 (!) points. How is this possible?? Why did he lose so "many" pts? His open rating was still much much lower (900 silver) than his MMR and presumably also much lower than his opponents MMR. So he should have lost only like 3-5 pts, not 11.
The other player gained 13 (more than 12) which might be ok, if we believe that my friend's MMR was even higher than his 1172 platinum points.
Is it possible that the open rating of the opponent is much much higher than his hidden MMR? But how would this be possible, as they were matched against each other implying that their hidden MMR was roughly the same. (and my friend's mmr was higher than 1172 plat according to him getting 13 pts).
Really strange.
Similar things happened to me when I was around 700 diamond. I was constantly playing against 1100-1200 players, but the teams were mostly even and i never gained more than 14 pts (plus bonus). This would imply that my rating (700) was not far away from their hidden MMR. Lets say 900. But this would also be impossible as THEY also played against team even meaning that their shown rating 1200 would be almost as high as my MMR.
I can only imagine that this means that being "even" stretches a range of 400-500 pts which would be very strange.
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strange thing i noticed as i played some ladder yesterday.
i'm only a 600 dia. with almost 700 in bonus pool (i dont know if it matters) but, i've been playing against 1300+ dia players and it was shown as "evenly matched".
then i played some other players who were "favored" and noticed they're only 800 points.
i checked their records and they all seem to have 50% win rate +-5% with over 200 games (i'm about 50 games)
what does this mean???
800 points can have higher mmr than 1300 yet same in win rate?
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On October 13 2010 03:46 jinorazi wrote:
strange thing i noticed as i played some ladder yesterday.
i'm only a 600 dia. with almost 700 in bonus pool (i dont know if it matters) but, i've been playing against 1300+ dia players and it was shown as "evenly matched".
then i played some other players who were "favored" and noticed they're only 800 points.
i checked their records and they all seem to have 50% win rate +-5% with over 200 games (i'm about 50 games)
what does this mean???
800 points can have higher mmr than 1300 yet same in win rate?
i wonder why my pool is so low, if you win most of your games you will be 2k while if i win all of mine im like 1300; till yet i thought the pool changes with every league but i still have the same in diamond as i had in platinum
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On October 13 2010 03:46 jinorazi wrote:
strange thing i noticed as i played some ladder yesterday.
i'm only a 600 dia. with almost 700 in bonus pool (i dont know if it matters) but, i've been playing against 1300+ dia players and it was shown as "evenly matched".
then i played some other players who were "favored" and noticed they're only 800 points.
i checked their records and they all seem to have 50% win rate +-5% with over 200 games (i'm about 50 games)
what does this mean???
800 points can have higher mmr than 1300 yet same in win rate?
I'm playing people between 1800 and 2100 and I'm being listed at "favored" with 0 bonus pool and about 1600 pts.
I'm baffled by the logic.
A lot of people have similar win %'s as me and are at least 200 pts higher than me or at least are listed as "unfavored" vs me.
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@ drazzzt
i get very weird points often too. i just cant understand it and it seems so freakin random at times.
im currently ~1500
just some of the weird stuff:
i play against a 1650 and win 11.
i play against a 1600 and lose 15
i play against a 700 (with normalish stats) and win 14
i play against a 1350 and win 15
next game against a 1400 and i lose 16
someone only 20 points lower and i win 8
is the hidden rating really so off for so many people? sometimes someone 100 points lower is favored and then you are favoured vs the next guy thats 200 above? so crazy
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I have the a similar problem as the posters above me:
Right now I am at 600 Points in Diamond and get matched against 1200+ Opponents almost all the time (like 9 out of 10 games). Now, this would be nothing strange. Apparently I have a similar MMR as them. Now, the problem is that in the loading screen I am marked as slightly favored or the teams are even. How can I be slightly favored, if I have only 600 points and my opponent has 1300 points? Would that mean, that the opponents have an MMR that is lower than my measly 600 Points? When I lose against such a player, I get -15 points. If I win I only get like 11 points (which are doubled to 22). The effect of this is that I am stuck at my 600 Points, although I win every second game against 1200 opponents. I really dont understand this. Can someone explain whats going on? Did I misunderstand the OP?
If you want to check my match history, my account is ToonTheSheep and the ID is 537 on the EU servers.
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United States12235 Posts
How many points are your opponents losing or winning? If they're seeing themselves as favored also, then that could be our first clue toward some kind of "soft" point ceiling.
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For me, there are only 2 explanations:
Either, the range of be estimated as even is quite large, let's say 400-500 pts)
Or, the hidden MMR can vary rapidly even after having played 200 games. Let's say after a win streak of 5 games, it can easily go up by 300 pts or so.
On October 15 2010 00:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:
How many points are your opponents losing or winning? If they're seeing themselves as favored also, then that could be our first clue toward some kind of "soft" point ceiling.
Unfortunately, I don't have good examples right now, as I only see my last 25 games which are mainly custom games.
I found 1 example which is _slightly_ strange, not very strange (so it's not the best, but the best I could find right away).
Me, 1180 vs 1350 diamond (open rating). Both see match as even.
I lose, he wins. I lose 14 pts (-14), he wins +14 pts.
If I lose 14 pts, this means that my open rating is slightly higher than his hidden MMR.
-> his hidden MMR must be < 1180
He wins 14 pts, which means that his open rating is slightly lower than my hidden MMR.
-> my hidden MMR must be >1350
This would mean that his MMR would be << his rating and my MMR >> my rating (we both have almost no bonus pools and >200 games and ~55% win rate).
So:
1.) Why would I play against him (my MMR >> his MMR)
2.) Why is my MMR >> my rating, but his MMR apparently << his rating
I looked up my friends history (which is complicated by the fact that the players are in different leagues):
friend 900 silver (open) vs other 1200 platin (open)
friend loses and loses 11 pts (-11), other wins and gains +14 pts.
friend loses 11 -> his 900 silver pts must be slightly < than other's MMR.
-> others hidden MMR ~= 1000 silver
other wins 14 -> his 1200 platin pts must be < than my friends hidden MMR
-> friend's hidden MMR ~=1350 platin
So, again:
1.) Why would they play if their MMRs are so far apart
2.) why is my friend's MMR>his rating, but the opponent's MMR apparently << his own rating
This makes no sense.
At least, in the latter example, my friend's bonus pool was high, the other's was not.
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United States12235 Posts
On October 15 2010 18:06 Drazzzt wrote:For me, there are only 2 explanations: Either, the range of be estimated as even is quite large, let's say 400-500 pts) Or, the hidden MMR can vary rapidly even after having played 200 games. Let's say after a win streak of 5 games, it can easily go up by 300 pts or so. Show nested quote +On October 15 2010 00:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:
How many points are your opponents losing or winning? If they're seeing themselves as favored also, then that could be our first clue toward some kind of "soft" point ceiling. Unfortunately, I don't have good examples right now, as I only see my last 25 games which are mainly custom games. I found 1 example which is _slightly_ strange, not very strange (so it's not the best, but the best I could find right away). Me, 1180 vs 1350 diamond (open rating). Both see match as even. I lose, he wins. I lose 14 pts (-14), he wins +14 pts. If I lose 14 pts, this means that my open rating is slightly higher than his hidden MMR. -> his hidden MMR must be < 1180 He wins 14 pts, which means that his open rating is slightly lower than my hidden MMR. -> my hidden MMR must be >1350 This would mean that his MMR would be << his rating and my MMR >> my rating (we both have almost no bonus pools and >200 games and ~55% win rate). So: 1.) Why would I play against him (my MMR >> his MMR) 2.) Why is my MMR >> my rating, but his MMR apparently << his rating I looked up my friends history (which is complicated by the fact that the players are in different leagues): friend 900 silver (open) vs other 1200 platin (open) friend loses and loses 11 pts (-11), other wins and gains +14 pts. friend loses 11 -> his 900 silver pts must be slightly < than other's MMR. -> others hidden MMR ~= 1000 silver other wins 14 -> his 1200 platin pts must be < than my friends hidden MMR -> friend's hidden MMR ~=1350 platin So, again: 1.) Why would they play if their MMRs are so far apart 2.) why is my friend's MMR>his rating, but the opponent's MMR apparently << his own rating This makes no sense. At least, in the latter example, my friend's bonus pool was high, the other's was not.
MMR constantly fluctuates. If you were on a slight winning streak or your opponent were on a slight losing streak (and it could only be a couple of games in a row), you may play each other and be considered even. Or, "even" could actually cover a few hundred points (which may not be a lot considering the scope of the ladder). Your MMR will never actually settle at your displayed rating, it will always fluctuate to some extent. It may hover around a particular range, but the range will always be pretty large (at least, relative to the gains or losses in points per game). Remember: think in recent trends.
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I was promoted from silver to gold rank3, does this mean i was almost promoted to platinum?
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On October 19 2010 00:39 zedest wrote:
I was promoted from silver to gold rank3, does this mean i was almost promoted to platinum?
As far as I understand: no.
It is, of course, still possible that you are promoted to platinum soon.
The actual rank in your division is no measure for your promotion/demotion. You could be ranked #1 in your league for ages, but still not being promoted. It's rather the hidden MMR in combination with the sigma value which decides about your promotion/demotion (see OP's post at page 1).
Nevertheless, I have the feeling that losing only ~300 pts when promoted is not enough overall.
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On October 19 2010 00:39 zedest wrote:
I was promoted from silver to gold rank3, does this mean i was almost promoted to platinum?
Your "Rank" in a division means absolutely nothing. It is a representation of your points vs other people in your division.
For instance: I didn't play any practice matches, jumped straight into league games and was placed in silver. After about 25 more games I was immediately placed in platinum, skipping gold entirely. I was not even close to the top of my division in silver. Also, When I was promoted to Diamond, I was not at the top of my division, or even close.
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I am a Platinum Player with 180 games.
So far the ranking system behaved similar to what Excalibur_Z is describing. After some initial fluctuations, I constantly played high Platinum / low Diamond opponents. Most of my opponents had a solid position in the ladder with >100 games in the ladder. I had no bigger win or loss streaks.
But one thing I noticed is pretty weird:
~30 Games ago I had a pretty bad losing streak, losing 8 games in a row.
Since then, I got often paired against opponents with <40 games. Some of them gold players with records like 13 wins to 7 losses.
Yesterday I got paired against a new player doing his 5th placement match against me. He was 4:0 before and I got 17 points (+17 bonus) for that match.
My question:
1) Did anyone experience similar things - being paired against solid players but after a streak getting suddenly paired against new players on the ladder?
2) I always thought that more stable / established players will play among themselves and players new on the ladder will play among themselves. Why I am paired against players in or shortly after placement matches?
*edit*: I know that MMR might fluctuate stronger than the rating.
3) Can my 2v2 or 3v3 games have any influence on how stable the system sees my rating?
(I play a little bit 2v2 - but quite solid. I only played 5 placement matches for 3v3 as random recently. Throwing 3 of them because of the off racing. But can this have any influene on 1v1 pairing?)
4) Is what I experienced just a statistical outlier? (Honestly I did not look at all my opponents statitics, only when they seemed too weak or too strong for me)
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Merano,
unfortunately I can't answer your questions, but I can describe some things happening to me which might be interesting for you nonetheless.
I am also a quite streaky player as I don't have much time to play and like to switch races. So, the first games I play after some days of absence I usually have to get used to playing again and to the new styles around. As a consequence, I often lose several gams in a row (even though I don't know if I ever lost 8 games in a row). Then I win some in a row using up my bonus pool and ending just a few points higher than before I started.
But I never played against players with few matches or even being in placement , but this might be only by chance. I usually play against ppl having between 500 and 1700 pts in diamond (I'm around 1300), so quite a range (and I can win and lose against any of them, there is no real correlation to points, so either points only mean little or I'm quite unstable or ...w/e).
I played some random 2on2s and got paired with some really bad players, but it doesn't have to seem to effect my 1on1s.
So, probably you are seeing some statistical outliers _or_ you are even more unstable than I am and your MMR fluctuates quite a lot or platinum is different from diamond
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A friend recently got promoted from high silver to high gold. Honestly, I'd say he plays at a platinum level - he could beat a lot of platinums I've faced and maybe take some games off the diamond players I've met. He is now being matched against high gold players.
Does that mean that high silver and high gold players have similar MMRs? Wouldn't you expect to be playing lower ranked players in your new league after being promoted? How much do leagues really differentiate skill? Is rating a better indicator?
If I had to guess, I'd say the leagues overlap quite a bit in skill, at least until you hit diamond. IOW, an 1100 silver isn't that different from an 1100 platinum.
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Dude good mathematics and all but you make it look like all is logical and nothing's wrong with it. And you missed the fact that the ladder promotion is one big bugged pile of sh*t. I don't rely on random sources much but it proves my observations too:
http://troublmaker.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/blizzard-confirms-bugged-promotion-system/
So what’s the bug? It comes in when you actually are beating players you shouldn’t be. Theoretically if you lost every match to people in higher leagues you’d actually get promoted FASTER than if you were to beat them. The system doesn’t really have anything in place to deal with this so instead it just keeps putting you against people of an equal rating but never promotes you.
So my only loss in the placement was a disconnection and I was winning cause half of his base was destroyed and mine untouched, he had no units etc.. and this placed me in gold. So I beat gold naps all the time, im favored vs other Golds and if I lose from gold that's 1 game out of 10, the rest is 50% I win vs platinum and 50% I lose from platinum thus my losses coming from plats but my wins coming from gold all the time and from platinum half of my games vs plat.
So the system recognizes that I'm beating platinums etc but still keeps me in gold. I rank up daily and now am under 10, I know i dont need to get #1... Also with the current bug where some games don't show on the ladder stats what r we doing? I play vs team even, in my 1st games I matched vs diamonds and slightly favoted platinums, so it's like once you lose that chance to beat them and qualify fast, the rest is a retarded wait when you are clearly higher than the current.
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I've been taking a break from 1v1s and playing 2v2s exclusively. I have 700 ponits and over 700 bonus points in 1v1. I think I'm around 1300 point diamond in terms of skill. Will I be matched with 1300 point diamonds, or will I be matched with 700 point diamonds when I return?
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On October 23 2010 02:43 KevinIX wrote:
I've been taking a break from 1v1s and playing 2v2s exclusively. I have 700 ponits and over 700 bonus points in 1v1. I think I'm around 1300 point diamond in terms of skill. Will I be matched with 1300 point diamonds, or will I be matched with 700 point diamonds when I return?
You will more likely play against 1300s or 700s with a lot of bonus points left then 700s with no bonus points left. Reason: The matchmaking is based on the hidden skill value (MMR) so your opponents should always be challenging, even after taking a longer break..
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Is it normal, that my friend is at ~~2200 bronze? He just won 16-17 in a row. ~2 bronze, ~5 silver and ~5 gold opponents.
When will he get promoted?
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most recent opponents:
platinum 1150
platinum 1400
platinum 1450
diamond 1350
diamond 1450
diamond 1450
silver 1900
...
43 in a row now
Still bronze :|
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United States12235 Posts
On November 01 2010 10:33 jarek.exe wrote:
most recent opponents:
platinum 1150
platinum 1400
platinum 1450
diamond 1350
diamond 1450
diamond 1450
silver 1900
...
43 in a row now
Still bronze :|
This is basically why:
![[image loading]](http://s2.kimag.es/share/37246343.jpg)
Your friend is like 349-261. I don't know what his history was before, but if he was in Bronze it either means he was going 50-50 at Bronze level for a long time or bombed his MMR to drop down to Bronze. Right now he's clearly performing far far better than the system estimated, and his moving average will take longer to comfortably cross and settle within the Diamond threshold because it had come to rest in Bronze for so long.
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How does it work for random teams? In the 3v3 match making for example without a party.
Does every player has an MMR for his 3v3 play separate from his 1v1 MMR?
I ask this becuase I mostly play team games, and there are many ppl who play 1v1 better than me, but their teamwork succs. So I'm trying to understand if the common rating of the team is boosted by their partly irrelevant high 1v1 MMR.
What I'm trying to say is that if a player's MMR is single for all ?v? types then the system could match for a 2v2 in one team two playes with average skill and teamwork, but on the other team one with high skill and one with low (per their 1v1 performance) who usually play 1v1, but their teamwork succs. Yet system would assume these teams have the same chance of winning but actually the second team will almost never win such a game (more so for the same example in 3v3).
And then what happens if one or both teams are pre selected parties?
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On November 11 2010 22:06 tupo wrote:
How does it work for random teams? In the 3v3 match making for example without a party.
Does every player has an MMR for his 3v3 play separate from his 1v1 MMR?
I ask this becuase I mostly play team games, and there are many ppl who play 1v1 better than me, but their teamwork succs. So I'm trying to understand if the common rating of the team is boosted by their partly irrelevant high 1v1 MMR.
What I'm trying to say is that if a player's MMR is single for all ?v? types then the system could match for a 2v2 in one team two playes with average skill and teamwork, but on the other team one with high skill and one with low (per their 1v1 performance) who usually play 1v1, but their teamwork succs. Yet system would assume these teams have the same chance of winning but actually the second team will almost never win such a game (more so for the same example in 3v3).
And then what happens if one or both teams are pre selected parties?
I'm wondering about MMR and Team games too. I'm a very good diamond player, and my girlfriend is a bronze player - but we still play 2v2s and can beat two players well above bronze. Does this affect the same MMR that is used to determine which opponents she faces in 1v1? I ask because after we played a few team games, she won two 1v1 games and got only 2 points from each win. It's possible they had artificially lowered their MMR for whatever reason, but I hope the game isn't going to pair her against gold players just because we beat gold players in team games.
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When I started playing for the first time, I was kinda clueless and got ranked bronze back then.
Recently I picked up 1v1 again after playing alot of teamgames and watching alot of the pro leagues, and with that far more knowledge about the game, I was easily beating everyone.
After about 15 games I was promoted to silver, and it then took about 10 games to be promoted further to gold.
Now, however, I am stuck in gold, while being matched up with diamond players _ALL THE TIME_. The past 30 games were against either highrated plat or diamond(of any rating), to an extreme of playing a 1730rated diamond while it even said 'Even match'. My winrate over these last 30 games is well over 70%, and after a win streak of 8 in a row against 8 diamonds that all stated they were either 'slightly favored' or 'even match', there is still no scent of a promotion.
I don't really understand it. If I had played alot back at the bronze days I would understand that it takes a long time to be promoted to silver or even gold, but why am I stuck at gold now, when I have never really lost to anyone highplat or lower ever since I got my silver promotion?
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On November 12 2010 00:27 Marksel wrote:
When I started playing for the first time, I was kinda clueless and got ranked bronze back then.
Recently I picked up 1v1 again after playing alot of teamgames and watching alot of the pro leagues, and with that far more knowledge about the game, I was easily beating everyone.
After about 15 games I was promoted to silver, and it then took about 10 games to be promoted further to gold.
Now, however, I am stuck in gold, while being matched up with diamond players _ALL THE TIME_. The past 30 games were against either highrated plat or diamond(of any rating), to an extreme of playing a 1730rated diamond while it even said 'Even match'. My winrate over these last 30 games is well over 70%, and after a win streak of 8 in a row against 8 diamonds that all stated they were either 'slightly favored' or 'even match', there is still no scent of a promotion.
I don't really understand it. If I had played alot back at the bronze days I would understand that it takes a long time to be promoted to silver or even gold, but why am I stuck at gold now, when I have never really lost to anyone highplat or lower ever since I got my silver promotion?
This is all really explained in the OP. Your current MMR is really high, but your average MMR is still low.
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On November 12 2010 00:28 fdsdfg wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 00:27 Marksel wrote:
When I started playing for the first time, I was kinda clueless and got ranked bronze back then.
Recently I picked up 1v1 again after playing alot of teamgames and watching alot of the pro leagues, and with that far more knowledge about the game, I was easily beating everyone.
After about 15 games I was promoted to silver, and it then took about 10 games to be promoted further to gold.
Now, however, I am stuck in gold, while being matched up with diamond players _ALL THE TIME_. The past 30 games were against either highrated plat or diamond(of any rating), to an extreme of playing a 1730rated diamond while it even said 'Even match'. My winrate over these last 30 games is well over 70%, and after a win streak of 8 in a row against 8 diamonds that all stated they were either 'slightly favored' or 'even match', there is still no scent of a promotion.
I don't really understand it. If I had played alot back at the bronze days I would understand that it takes a long time to be promoted to silver or even gold, but why am I stuck at gold now, when I have never really lost to anyone highplat or lower ever since I got my silver promotion? This is all really explained in the OP. Your current MMR is really high, but your average MMR is still low.
Like I said, I would understand that if this would have withheld me from my first 2 promotions, but I don't get why I'm suddenly stuck at specifally gold, rather than having been stuck in bronze or silver for a longer time.
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United States12235 Posts
On November 12 2010 00:39 Marksel wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 00:28 fdsdfg wrote:On November 12 2010 00:27 Marksel wrote:
When I started playing for the first time, I was kinda clueless and got ranked bronze back then.
Recently I picked up 1v1 again after playing alot of teamgames and watching alot of the pro leagues, and with that far more knowledge about the game, I was easily beating everyone.
After about 15 games I was promoted to silver, and it then took about 10 games to be promoted further to gold.
Now, however, I am stuck in gold, while being matched up with diamond players _ALL THE TIME_. The past 30 games were against either highrated plat or diamond(of any rating), to an extreme of playing a 1730rated diamond while it even said 'Even match'. My winrate over these last 30 games is well over 70%, and after a win streak of 8 in a row against 8 diamonds that all stated they were either 'slightly favored' or 'even match', there is still no scent of a promotion.
I don't really understand it. If I had played alot back at the bronze days I would understand that it takes a long time to be promoted to silver or even gold, but why am I stuck at gold now, when I have never really lost to anyone highplat or lower ever since I got my silver promotion? This is all really explained in the OP. Your current MMR is really high, but your average MMR is still low. Like I said, I would understand that if this would have withheld me from my first 2 promotions, but I don't get why I'm suddenly stuck at specifally gold, rather than having been stuck in bronze or silver for a longer time.
Read the part of the Part 2 thread that explains the moving average and you may understand better why that's happening to you.
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I dont get what the number is on the top right of my home screen in battlenet, right under my name. It is 1180. In the ladder, it appears as if I have 407 points.
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United States12235 Posts
On December 21 2010 02:33 roflcopter420 wrote:
I dont get what the number is on the top right of my home screen in battlenet, right under my name. It is 1180. In the ladder, it appears as if I have 407 points.
Those are achievement points.
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On December 21 2010 03:25 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2010 02:33 roflcopter420 wrote:
I dont get what the number is on the top right of my home screen in battlenet, right under my name. It is 1180. In the ladder, it appears as if I have 407 points. Those are achievement points.
you dont have to mock me...
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Sorry for bumping an old thread but its better than cluttering the forum with a new one.
Anyway, i have a question.
I've recently started playing SC2 and I'm currently in bronze with a win/loss ratio of 25 wins 32 losses with 6 points on the ladder.. i looked on my ladder rankings and there are other players with near equivalent win/loss ratio yet their points are way beyond my own (400-600) and i was wondering how this has come to be. If anyone could help me out it be much appreciated, thanks.
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They play and lose against players with higher mmr/rating
They lose less, gain more
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wtf .. just wondering why on earth blzzrd created a rating and promoting system, which is completely intransparent for the player. It would motivate me a lot to play ladder, if i would be able to exactly determine the conditions which would lead to my promotion.
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On January 09 2011 19:20 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:
wtf .. just wondering why on earth blzzrd created a rating and promoting system, which is completely intransparent for the player. It would motivate me a lot to play ladder, if i would be able to exactly determine the conditions which would lead to my promotion.
Do you care about your promotion or getting better? Do you just want that star on your profile and the ability to say "Yeah I'm Diamond" and reap the praise from your friends?
The main thing about the system is "YOU WILL GET THERE WHEN YOU DESERVE TO BE" as a general rule. There are a few anomalies, but eventually, you'll get there.
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On January 09 2011 19:34 Comma20 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2011 19:20 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:
wtf .. just wondering why on earth blzzrd created a rating and promoting system, which is completely intransparent for the player. It would motivate me a lot to play ladder, if i would be able to exactly determine the conditions which would lead to my promotion. Do you care about your promotion or getting better? Do you just want that star on your profile and the ability to say "Yeah I'm Diamond" and reap the praise from your friends? The main thing about the system is "YOU WILL GET THERE WHEN YOU DESERVE TO BE" as a general rule. There are a few anomalies, but eventually, you'll get there.
I care about promotion 
Promotion is kind of a reward for improvement. Would you work hard, if you employer tells you: "Well you'll get a salaray some day when i think you earned it, but i don't tell you what you have to do exactly to get a salary and i don't tell you how much progress you did to reach your target".
Climbing up the ligue is easy: the more you play, the higher you get, cause you get more points for wins then for losses ...
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Great article, I'm in bronze right now (78-56 overall record) and ive finally played a bunch of silver players with about a 90 % win rate. Now I'm playing gold level players with a record of about 4-2 so far. If i continue playing gold players with about a 45% win rate will the cpu give me the benefit of the doubt and promote me to gold or will i be a high silver. (A speculation of course)
Thanks
edit: just got promoted, rank 5 silver
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the promotion system feels really strange.
im like 146-101 have beaten every silver i've played in the last 2 weeks, and i can't seem to get out of bronze... lol?
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United States12235 Posts
On January 25 2011 14:15 ntrz wrote:
the promotion system feels really strange.
im like 146-101 have beaten every silver i've played in the last 2 weeks, and i can't seem to get out of bronze... lol?
Leagues are sticky. In order to get promoted out of one league you have to fit well within the boundaries of the next.
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One mistake which I think blizzard did is to have a double promotion where someone is promoted 2 leagues (e.g. silver -> platinum). I would think the ladder system could've just promoted into gold if the moving average suddenly started to move in-between gold and platinum.
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United States12235 Posts
On January 25 2011 15:32 Azzur wrote:
One mistake which I think blizzard did is to have a double promotion where someone is promoted 2 leagues (e.g. silver -> platinum). I would think the ladder system could've just promoted into gold if the moving average suddenly started to move in-between gold and platinum.
Part of the design of the system is that you get to where you should be very quickly. That means if you haven't played many games and you're winning a lot, the system needs to know exactly how high you're going to end up, so the opponents you face get much tougher much faster. For the purposes of the system itself, it's definitely not a design mistake. Diamond and Master players don't have to grind up to that level like they did on ICCup, and Bronze and Silver players (who genuinely belong in those lower leagues) don't have to worry about getting unfairly matched against those Diamond- and Master-caliber players as they rise to their respective leagues. MMR moves very rapidly for this purpose.
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On January 25 2011 15:37 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2011 15:32 Azzur wrote:
One mistake which I think blizzard did is to have a double promotion where someone is promoted 2 leagues (e.g. silver -> platinum). I would think the ladder system could've just promoted into gold if the moving average suddenly started to move in-between gold and platinum. Part of the design of the system is that you get to where you should be very quickly. That means if you haven't played many games and you're winning a lot, the system needs to know exactly how high you're going to end up, so the opponents you face get much tougher much faster. For the purposes of the system itself, it's definitely not a design mistake. Diamond and Master players don't have to grind up to that level like they did on ICCup, and Bronze and Silver players (who genuinely belong in those lower leagues) don't have to worry about getting unfairly matched against those Diamond- and Master-caliber players as they rise to their respective leagues. MMR moves very rapidly for this purpose.
I agree with the MMR moving rapidly for this purpose. However, I think it would've been better to give the players some positive motivation (i.e. getting promoted) rather than waiting for their MMR to settle and then double promoting them.
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quick queston, can you get promoted faster in team games? because i've played 40 games on NA and got promoted, and i don't want to do that in team games just to get into silver....
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.physics.orst.edu/~rubin/TALKS/Blind/gauss.gif)
