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[D] Why divisions aren't comparable - Page 2

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Animostas
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States568 Posts
August 21 2010 17:43 GMT
#21
On August 22 2010 00:05 Alexstrasas wrote:
Btw how come there are different divisions? I mean why not make a single diamond league?


If's sort of a silly thing to help the noobies. When you're judged by with smaller group of people, it isn't as demoralizing.

Think of it like this, is it feels worse to be judged as #30 out of 50 people? Or #300 out of 500?
Yurie
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
12082 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-21 17:49:33
August 21 2010 17:49 GMT
#22
On August 22 2010 02:37 RivalryRedux wrote:
If you're saying that it applies across all divisions exactly the same (ex. two people at 500 in different divisions would get the exact same amount from me if my MMR held constant), then what you're saying needs more explaining if you look at the numbers I posted.

Loss (-6) vs 648d(+0) (110-87 66th in Medic Mu) (+14) +7 without bonus
Loss (-12) vs 737d(+2) (112-90, 8th in Duke Xi) (+24) +12 without bonus

You would basically be saying that my MMR jumped hundreds and hundreds of points after losing games.



As I understand it the -12 loss has lower MMR but higher score than the -6 loss. What is strange?
Fumble
Profile Joined May 2010
156 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-21 18:28:47
August 21 2010 18:27 GMT
#23
I dont think this problem has anything to do with divisions. The rating system simply is not a good indication of skill level at least at this point in time. That may fix itself when the ladder stabilizes. I have a bunch of friends in diamond and I've faced all of them, all of us are in pretty different skill levels and if we hold 1 on 1s, the winner is obvious from start and its pretty 1 sided. If we try to rank ourselves from our ratings from ladder, it does not correlate at all with what we actually know is the ranking in skill amongst us. In fact, one of those friends has over 1000 points while everybody else has under 600 yet he is still not the best amongst us.

The MMR is the only thing that matters but that score is not revealed to us. One example is this friend I have that is way below me in actual skill. When I crush him in 1v1 like always, he says he does not even face opponents of my skill level. However if you look at ladder, we have similar rating.
Barthus
Profile Joined August 2010
21 Posts
August 21 2010 18:33 GMT
#24
On August 22 2010 02:37 RivalryRedux wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 21 2010 21:52 Teddyman wrote:
I still don't see anything that would disprove the simplest and most logical formula: that point gain/loss is decided by the difference between your displayed rating and the opponent's hidden rating (MMR).


If you're saying that it applies across all divisions exactly the same (ex. two people at 500 in different divisions would get the exact same amount from me if my MMR held constant), then what you're saying needs more explaining if you look at the numbers I posted.

Loss (-6) vs 648d(+0) (110-87 66th in Medic Mu) (+14) +7 without bonus
Loss (-12) vs 737d(+2) (112-90, 8th in Duke Xi) (+24) +12 without bonus

You would basically be saying that my MMR jumped hundreds and hundreds of points after losing games.


Isn't it more likely that the player in Medic Mu did not receive bonus points?
RivalryRedux
Profile Joined July 2009
United States173 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-21 20:15:13
August 21 2010 20:14 GMT
#25

Isn't it more likely that the player in Medic Mu did not receive bonus points?


I really doubt because of the -6 and from looking through some other games of his plus other Medic Mu players and even if he didn't get bonus it would still be inconsistent with the lower point player in the next game only receiving +14.


As I understand it the -12 loss has lower MMR but higher score than the -6 loss. What is strange?


If the game is trying to converge your rating with divisions being irrelevant what happened is totally backwards. Giving more points to the guy that has higher points relative to his MMR is COMPLETE THE OPPOSITE of what should be happening in that scenario.

Necrosjef
Profile Joined March 2010
United Kingdom530 Posts
August 21 2010 20:31 GMT
#26
Nice post OP, however I am having trouble really getting a definitive result from your conclusions.

Would it be fair to say that there is no logical way to compare players across divisions without the hidden ranking data? or is that going too far?

If that is the case would it be fair to say that the current points system we have on a website like SC2rankings for example would be relatively accurate or totally innaccurate?

Would it be fair to say that a player in a 'better' division e.g. Medic Mu with less points would likely be more skilled than a player in a division where the average points per player was much lower?

Interested to hear what your response is to this.
Europe Server Diamond Player: ID=Necrosjef Code=957
RivalryRedux
Profile Joined July 2009
United States173 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-21 22:04:26
August 21 2010 21:58 GMT
#27
Would it be fair to say that there is no logical way to compare players across divisions without the hidden ranking data? or is that going too far?


Using points to compare players across divisions is a much rougher estimate than I think the community has given it credit for. With that being said, It's certainly more likely though that good players will get higher points, it's just not nearly as precise as saying I'm xxxx ELO rating or I'm x ICCUP rank.

You could probably could compare players more accurately without the hidden MMR by data mining a lot of games and further looking in to how it affects point gains in different divisions and then factoring that in.

Would it be fair to say that [i]a player in a 'better' division e.g. Medic Mu with less points would likely be more skilled than a player in a division where the average points per player was much lower?


Yea I would say point for point a player from a better division probably has a better ladder results
StaR_Robo
Profile Joined May 2010
Australia229 Posts
August 22 2010 02:08 GMT
#28
The division you are in really has no direct connection to your skill as a player though .. it is a matter of which group of players got put into that division at the same time. The fact is that some of thee arliy divisions probably have strong players because they were the first ones created and it was the best players who were advancing early (with the exception of few that got stuck and couldn't get promoted). The points you get from a game are simply a factor of your hidden MMR and the bonus pool. Eventually MMR rankings should converge to points ranking but it takes a reasonable amount of time - the MMR is supposed to ease the process of getting to your true ranking (or at least that was the idea of it in WoW arena)
Working to spread StarCraft II through http://rts-sanctuary.com - replays, stats, streams and more ...
SpaceYeti
Profile Joined June 2010
United States723 Posts
August 22 2010 02:33 GMT
#29
I wouldn't have a problem with divisions if instead of these seemingly arbitrary points/bonus pool we just saw our "hidden" match-making rating instead. This whole hiding of your actual rating is bullshit if you ask me.
Behavior is a function of its consequences.
RivalryRedux
Profile Joined July 2009
United States173 Posts
August 23 2010 20:09 GMT
#30
The new top 200 provides more evidence that division strength (Based on MMR probably) influences the amount of points you accumulate.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/600592

Gauging division strength is a bit tricky though since it's MMR based and we don't know the exact details of their MMR system other than it's some sort of true skill system.

Just looking at division win rate Dayvie is in the absolute lowest of all diamond divisions (Scout Kilo) among NA at 53.65% and he drops from 1st in points to 41st in Blizzards Ranking. This is very consistent with the #2 in Scout Kilo (Minigun (1240 pts)) who drops from 15th in points to 172 on Blizzards Ranking. That's lower in Blizzards Ranking than the 31'st player in Medic Mu who has 912 points but is at 167th on Blizzards ladder.

If you look at the 2 divisions with the highest win % (Turaxis Yankee and Tassadar Charlie) both of their #1 players are WAY higher on the list than their points would indicate. Filthy from Turaxis Yankee has under 1k points and yet sits at 105 on Blizzards ladder. From my division (Tassardar Charlie) there is Gale at 1062 who ends up right behind Ruff at 55th on the list.
theSAiNT
Profile Joined July 2009
United States726 Posts
August 23 2010 20:19 GMT
#31
My question now is, WHY? Why does points acquisition between divisions vary?

I was under the impression that match making did not depend on what division you were in. In which case, your points acquisition should also be independent.

I'm not challenging the OPs conclusions. I'm just curious about possible mechanisms.
nttea
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Sweden4353 Posts
August 23 2010 20:27 GMT
#32
YOUR PUBLIC RATING VS OPPONENT HIDDEN RATING = YOUR POINT GAIN/LOSE. What division u're in don't matter at all you can certainly compare between divisions at least just as well/bad you can compare within a division. At least this explanation is what makes the most sense to me currently. their top 200 list is simply based on the hidden rating, possibly removing some inactive players and players with very few games.
RivalryRedux
Profile Joined July 2009
United States173 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-23 21:01:17
August 23 2010 20:59 GMT
#33
On August 24 2010 05:27 nttea wrote:
YOUR PUBLIC RATING VS OPPONENT HIDDEN RATING = YOUR POINT GAIN/LOSE.
What division u're in don't matter at all you can certainly compare between divisions at least just as well/bad you can compare within a division. At least this explanation is what makes the most sense to me currently.



I've already posted why that doesn't work out. Just saying it again without showing where I messed up doesn't add anything.


their top 200 list is simply based on the hidden rating, possibly removing some inactive players and players with very few games.


I never disagreed with this. What I'm saying is that a player in Medic Mu with 900 points after 200 games will almost certainly have a higher MMR than a player Scout Kilo with the same points/games (assuming they had equal bonus points). The reasoning for this is that it's harder to gain points in Medic Mu and thus it would require better results to get to 900 points than it would in Scout Kilo. Think of it like the difference you've experienced in gaining points in platinum versus diamond only on a smaller scale.
rauk
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States2228 Posts
August 23 2010 21:07 GMT
#34
i don't understand why it's harder to gain points in medic mu. could you explain?
SichuanPanda
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
Canada1542 Posts
August 23 2010 21:14 GMT
#35
On August 21 2010 13:05 Jermstuddog wrote:
TLDR version: OP got more points beating a platinum player than he did from beating high diamond players.

This alone refutes our understanding of ranking and shows that the entire system is full of bullshit numbers.

I really don't see why they make it this hard to find your world-wide ranking.

The bonus point/division rank system is plenty to stave off noobs. They really don't want to know how bad they are. But people at the top really do want to know how they compare.

Going off ratings should be enough, but I guess they wanted it to be harder than that.


It's just like WC3 Blizzard has a hidden system that we will never ever see and it makes little to no sense. They then explain the system to us in terms that aren't entirely accurate.
i-bonjwa
nickwtf
Profile Joined June 2010
United States27 Posts
August 23 2010 21:31 GMT
#36
I think its obvious that rank (1-100) between divisions is mostly irrelevant, but I don't see how any of this proves that points aren't directly comparable between divisions. How would the division you are in have any effect on how many points you gain/lose in a game?
Teddyman
Profile Joined October 2008
Finland362 Posts
August 23 2010 21:37 GMT
#37
On August 22 2010 02:37 RivalryRedux wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 21 2010 21:52 Teddyman wrote:
I still don't see anything that would disprove the simplest and most logical formula: that point gain/loss is decided by the difference between your displayed rating and the opponent's hidden rating (MMR).


If you're saying that it applies across all divisions exactly the same (ex. two people at 500 in different divisions would get the exact same amount from me if my MMR held constant), then what you're saying needs more explaining if you look at the numbers I posted.

Loss (-6) vs 648d(+0) (110-87 66th in Medic Mu) (+14) +7 without bonus
Loss (-12) vs 737d(+2) (112-90, 8th in Duke Xi) (+24) +12 without bonus

You would basically be saying that my MMR jumped hundreds and hundreds of points after losing games.

The first guy didn't actually have bonus points and it was +14 for him and +12 for the other then?
"Chess is a dead game" -Bobby Fischer 2004
RivalryRedux
Profile Joined July 2009
United States173 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-08-23 22:08:52
August 23 2010 21:42 GMT
#38
On August 24 2010 06:07 rauk wrote:
i don't understand why it's harder to gain points in medic mu. could you explain?


It seems like the game not only looks at your opponents MMR compared to your points but also factors in how strong your opponent is relative to your entire division (MMR wise) before giving/taking away points. So the stronger your division, the harder you would to work for your points and vise versa. It applies to all divisions and not just Medic Mu, I just bring that one up a lot because it's fairly certain that it's a much stronger than average division. Blizzards Rankings have backed this up by being much more favorable towards players in that division compared to how their point totals stack up on a site like SC2ranks.

It's also an alternative way of thinking about why many players here get a ton of points while they're in platinum. It's because they're diamond bound and they're playing people who CRUSH the MMR of the other players in whatever platinum division they're in.



The first guy didn't actually have bonus points and it was +14 for him and +12 for the other then?


Like I said in another post even if he didn't get bonus points (which seems really unlikely) it would still be inconsistent with other results.
Teddyman
Profile Joined October 2008
Finland362 Posts
August 23 2010 22:23 GMT
#39
The only thing you can really compare is opponent point loss/gain vs you within a short period of consecutive games. Then you can assume your MMR is somewhat constant. Looking at those 8 games you listed, only the one in Talematros Eta seems to be strange. Your 2 wins against the platinum guys give them -4 and -2 and the 946d guy gets -13. All your losses are vs 600-750 rated players and get them from +12 to +14 points. I don't really see what could explain why a 479 point guy would only get +7, maybe he was higher in points when you played him (you said data was a couple of days newer than the games.)
"Chess is a dead game" -Bobby Fischer 2004
FearMe.UK
Profile Joined August 2010
United Kingdom6 Posts
August 23 2010 22:37 GMT
#40
The divisions system was a horrible idea. They should resort to an actual ladder like in WC3.
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