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SC2 Ladder Misconceptions FAQ - Page 6

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Klumaster
Profile Joined May 2010
United Kingdom36 Posts
September 23 2010 09:37 GMT
#101
On September 23 2010 15:20 Creation85 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 05 2010 14:43 Excalibur_Z wrote:


Q: What do the different symbols, like the exclamation point, red arrow, and green arrow mean when viewing a division?
A: An exclamation point means that the player has been placed in that division but not played any games last week.


This is wrong, I haven't played any 1v1 games for well over 2 weeks and mine still has a green arrow.


If you mouse over it it will tell you how far it thinks you've climbed. Chances are some people above you just got promoted out of your division (or it's possible a few people above you played very badly and managed to lose points).
The thief, Black Leaf, did not find the poison trap, and I declare her dead.
Valckrie
Profile Joined August 2010
United Kingdom533 Posts
September 23 2010 10:27 GMT
#102
excellent post, clears alot of things out about the ladder system
Fear is a 4 letter word. Why be afraid?
Hikko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States1126 Posts
September 23 2010 11:42 GMT
#103
On September 23 2010 15:12 Dionyseus wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 23 2010 14:31 Hikko wrote:
I've read this a few times over the past couple of weeks including today, and right now I'm really confused as to my status in my 1v1 laddering.

I'm currently rank 1 in my Platinum division, and I've constantly been playing Diamond players that are around rank 40-20 (I haven't checked ELOs). My matches always say "even match" on the load screens. I've also been on a 9-win streak against these same kinds of players, going 15-3 for all of my games today, yet just like this last month I'm still stuck in the top of Platinum.

Will I ever be moved up? I keep playing Diamond players and have been since release, yet I've never been bumped from Platinum . I've never gone on a losing streak more than 4 losses in a row, although you say that that shouldn't matter.


You are Hikko.324 currently a little over 1000pts in platinum correct? If that's you, I see you had a 9 game losing streak just six days ago, that must have caused your mmr to plummet. Today you had an 8 game winning streak but most of the games were against people around your skill level (11 points means practically even I believe) which means your mmr is still not high enough for diamond yet. Even the one game in that winning streak (3rd game in the series) that you got 14 points from, it was against a platinum 900.

I think you will know you're close to getting promoted when you start getting 13-15 points per win more often, as that would mean you're winning against people that the system thinks are better than you.



Thank you so much I've tried to forget about that losing streak, it was a...stupidly stubborn move on my part. Woops!
♥
Dionyseus
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
United States2068 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-23 12:22:21
September 23 2010 12:19 GMT
#104
On September 23 2010 15:20 Creation85 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 05 2010 14:43 Excalibur_Z wrote:


Q: What do the different symbols, like the exclamation point, red arrow, and green arrow mean when viewing a division?
A: An exclamation point means that the player has been placed in that division but not played any games last week.


This is wrong, I haven't played any 1v1 games for well over 2 weeks and mine still has a green arrow.


You are creation.672 correct? If that's you, it is showing that you are ranked 59th, and last week you were ranked 60th, so that's why it has the green arrow. Perhaps the exclamation point only shows up when your rank is both lower and haven't played any games for the past week.
9/5/10 P acct: NA D 10,683 651pts 69w56L http://sc2ranks.com/char/us/290365/LetoAtreides T acct: NA D 16,137 553pts 70w67L http://sc2ranks.com/char/us/1560008/Khrone Z: NA G 16,058 465pts 28w26L http://www.sc2ranks.com/us/1997354/Omnius
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
September 23 2010 15:24 GMT
#105
On September 23 2010 21:19 Dionyseus wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 23 2010 15:20 Creation85 wrote:
On September 05 2010 14:43 Excalibur_Z wrote:


Q: What do the different symbols, like the exclamation point, red arrow, and green arrow mean when viewing a division?
A: An exclamation point means that the player has been placed in that division but not played any games last week.


This is wrong, I haven't played any 1v1 games for well over 2 weeks and mine still has a green arrow.


You are creation.672 correct? If that's you, it is showing that you are ranked 59th, and last week you were ranked 60th, so that's why it has the green arrow. Perhaps the exclamation point only shows up when your rank is both lower and haven't played any games for the past week.


The exclamation point one is admittedly the one I'm least sure about. I thought at first that it just showed that you were new to the division, but many players had exclamation points in my division and others despite having more than 5 games played over a few weeks. Then I refined that by thinking that maybe it requires no games played the previous week. Now I'm not sure what it is, other than it could be a server bug?

The green arrow, red arrow, and dashes I'm more confident about, because hovering over them in-game will show your rank in the division last week, and that seems to be consistent.
Moderator
Bane1998
Profile Joined August 2010
United States21 Posts
September 23 2010 17:32 GMT
#106
On September 05 2010 14:43 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Since the release of SC2 I've noticed a lot of recurring -- in fact, frequently asked -- questions regarding the ladder system.


You will never stop the old wives' tales on how the ladder works. Dude thinks he notices he has to lose 4 times to get promoted. Dude tells his Buddy what he thinks he figured out and Buddy thinks, 'Oh yeah! Me too!' and then Dude and Buddy agree that's how it works. They proceed to tell Other People. Other People thinks it sounds complicated and intelligent and has magic numbers, so it must be right and correct.

No amount of threads explaining MMR, sigma, etc will convince these people, and most of them don't even read forums anyway.

Though, at least now when I hear the hare-brained theories I have an easy link to reply with along with my /facepalm.


Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
September 23 2010 19:28 GMT
#107
On September 24 2010 02:32 Bane1998 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 05 2010 14:43 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Since the release of SC2 I've noticed a lot of recurring -- in fact, frequently asked -- questions regarding the ladder system.


You will never stop the old wives' tales on how the ladder works. Dude thinks he notices he has to lose 4 times to get promoted. Dude tells his Buddy what he thinks he figured out and Buddy thinks, 'Oh yeah! Me too!' and then Dude and Buddy agree that's how it works. They proceed to tell Other People. Other People thinks it sounds complicated and intelligent and has magic numbers, so it must be right and correct.

No amount of threads explaining MMR, sigma, etc will convince these people, and most of them don't even read forums anyway.

Though, at least now when I hear the hare-brained theories I have an easy link to reply with along with my /facepalm.




That's the whole point of this thread and the linked threads. There's no way to force people to read TL or the Bnet forums, though Blizzard has kindly linked this FAQ on the official site from one of their blog entries. Eventually as more people read it, more people get it, and more people can enlighten their friends.

Part of the problem of the ladder system is that it requires a certain level of understanding and explanation. That directly conflicts with most people's nature of wanting to condense and simplify complicated concepts to a few words. It's much easier to hear and follow "you have to lose" than "your uncertainty factor has to drop and your invisible matchmaking rating has to rise beyond the required breakpoint". It may be the case that for a particular person, losing certain matches may stabilize that person faster, but that shouldn't be the hard and fast rule. Eventually threads and information like this one will spread enough that either everyone will get a decent understanding (or at least boil it down to something everyone can follow) or Blizzard will reveal the inner workings of the system (which everyone will read because hey blue posts).
Moderator
strength
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States493 Posts
September 23 2010 19:31 GMT
#108
This is nice. Ty for posting this. Im sure everyone has these questions too =] again, thank you !
AJMcSpiffy
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States1154 Posts
September 23 2010 20:21 GMT
#109
Very awesome post, the matchmaking/promotion system seems very confusing just at face value. Thanks for clearing all of it up
If the quarter was in your right hand, that would've been micro
RAeaLem
Profile Joined August 2008
Singapore4 Posts
September 24 2010 07:58 GMT
#110
i got a question about stabilty.. So as you guys know Sea players have acess to north american server..As most people know the skill level of sea and North america is quite different. i Won my my first 5 placement and got into plat and from there on all my games my opponent was favored which was still ok as they were low diaomonds or mid around 1000< so i got promoted to diamond league with a record of like 20-10 which is pretty bad but heres the problem, once i got into the diamond league i have been facing diaomonds who are like 1300~1500 points(i cant see their MMR so i go by points) and it show that i am slighty favored which is wtf. well i am no where near that level. And its been happening for a while now although i still get some lucky wins. So does this Match making get more stable as we play more games which in the end i would defenfitly lose a lot more games. And when would i be able to face people who are around my level
Ermm.. i dun noe
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
September 24 2010 15:06 GMT
#111
It's probably that the people you've been facing have either evened out or lost a few games, putting their MMR below their rating. Don't forget that the bonus pool is somewhere around 850 by now, so to get "true" rating you have to take into account that they're likely 850 points lower than listed.

That brings up a good point. All you SEA players who transferred to NA should track complete match histories with as much detail as possible on yourself and your opponent. We can do this because you guys have to start from scratch.
Moderator
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
September 30 2010 04:28 GMT
#112
Added more info to the below Bronze Zero MMR question, but apparently it's a bug that's slated to be fixed.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/627980513?page=2#29

...what you're experiencing is indeed a bug and we're in the process of developing a fix. We wanted to make sure that you and any other players experiencing this don't get discouraged. The fix will require you to keep playing once it's applied for it to resolve the cycle you're in, so we hope you'll continue doing just that.
Moderator
babolatt
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Canada312 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-30 06:25:29
September 30 2010 06:23 GMT
#113
I have a question I'm wondering if someone can answer. I've read through these analyses (which are awesome btw) and I find one thing troubling. The system seems to want to show you that your opponent is favored until you play a lot of games at which time it evens out. Are we talking about the MMR or the actual text "you're favored" during matchmaking? If it's the actual text, and not MMR, I'm experiencing the exact opposite of this.

I haven't played a ton of games (less than 100) and ever since the beginning I've actually been favored in almost every game I've played. Maybe 1 in 10 I'm either even or my opponent is favored. I've gone approximately 40-8 in my last 48-50 matches and I haven't been promoted. I'm also not playing any good players. Even my losses were due to either cheese or a big mistake by me. I don't think I've ever played a good player.

In short: It appears that what is supposed to happen is that your opponent will be favored until you play a lot of games, at which time you will even out. Instead, I am almost always favored and very rarely even or unfavored.

Is there something in this analysis that can explain this?
"Alright, Lets poop out a daily" Day9
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
September 30 2010 15:01 GMT
#114
On September 30 2010 15:23 babolatt wrote:
I have a question I'm wondering if someone can answer. I've read through these analyses (which are awesome btw) and I find one thing troubling. The system seems to want to show you that your opponent is favored until you play a lot of games at which time it evens out. Are we talking about the MMR or the actual text "you're favored" during matchmaking? If it's the actual text, and not MMR, I'm experiencing the exact opposite of this.

I haven't played a ton of games (less than 100) and ever since the beginning I've actually been favored in almost every game I've played. Maybe 1 in 10 I'm either even or my opponent is favored. I've gone approximately 40-8 in my last 48-50 matches and I haven't been promoted. I'm also not playing any good players. Even my losses were due to either cheese or a big mistake by me. I don't think I've ever played a good player.

In short: It appears that what is supposed to happen is that your opponent will be favored until you play a lot of games, at which time you will even out. Instead, I am almost always favored and very rarely even or unfavored.

Is there something in this analysis that can explain this?


Are you experiencing the Bronze Zero phenomenon? Can you link to your Bnet profile?
Moderator
babolatt
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Canada312 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-30 15:38:52
September 30 2010 15:35 GMT
#115
I guess it's possible, I am in Bronze... Profile:
+ Show Spoiler +

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1294198/1/Babolatt/


EDIT: Re-reading the explanation, I'm not sure if that's the case here.
"Alright, Lets poop out a daily" Day9
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
September 30 2010 15:44 GMT
#116
On October 01 2010 00:35 babolatt wrote:
I guess it's possible, I am in Bronze... Profile:
+ Show Spoiler +

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/1294198/1/Babolatt/


EDIT: Re-reading the explanation, I'm not sure if that's the case here.


Everything looks normal to me at a glance. You seem to be where the system thinks you should be for now. Extend your win streak more and you'll find yourself playing against tougher players.
Moderator
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
September 30 2010 22:03 GMT
#117
So I asked Bashiok what he meant by the sub-Bronze Zero MMR thing being a bug, because it seems to perform an essential function. This was his response:

So yeah, the fix that’s going in - essentially, upon detection of one of these specific-case players the system will move them to a different division. The intent is to ensure we can resolve these fringe cases, help make sure everyone at all skill levels is having a fun time, and also that the fix not affect the rest of the ladder system. This fix is intended to hit all those notes.


He didn't elaborate. Let the speculation begin!
Moderator
jaeds
Profile Joined September 2010
United States106 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-01 11:07:53
October 01 2010 10:29 GMT
#118
edited, found the answer.

i asked about whether you change in diamond divisions, and found the answer was no 2 months ago. if this has changed let me know, but otherwise i'll know people won't switch divisions
KillerDucky
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States498 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-01 16:35:11
October 01 2010 16:31 GMT
#119
On October 01 2010 07:03 Excalibur_Z wrote:
So I asked Bashiok what he meant by the sub-Bronze Zero MMR thing being a bug, because it seems to perform an essential function. This was his response:

Show nested quote +
So yeah, the fix that’s going in - essentially, upon detection of one of these specific-case players the system will move them to a different division. The intent is to ensure we can resolve these fringe cases, help make sure everyone at all skill levels is having a fun time, and also that the fix not affect the rest of the ladder system. This fix is intended to hit all those notes.


He didn't elaborate. Let the speculation begin!


Special case division, ugh.

ETA: I'll speculate that the sub-Bronze Zero MMR theory is right, and they are responding by calling it a bug, and fixing it by putting them into a special case division where the floor is anchored to an even lower MMR number.
MarineKingPrime Forever!
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
October 01 2010 17:07 GMT
#120
On October 02 2010 01:31 KillerDucky wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 01 2010 07:03 Excalibur_Z wrote:
So I asked Bashiok what he meant by the sub-Bronze Zero MMR thing being a bug, because it seems to perform an essential function. This was his response:

So yeah, the fix that’s going in - essentially, upon detection of one of these specific-case players the system will move them to a different division. The intent is to ensure we can resolve these fringe cases, help make sure everyone at all skill levels is having a fun time, and also that the fix not affect the rest of the ladder system. This fix is intended to hit all those notes.


He didn't elaborate. Let the speculation begin!


Special case division, ugh.

ETA: I'll speculate that the sub-Bronze Zero MMR theory is right, and they are responding by calling it a bug, and fixing it by putting them into a special case division where the floor is anchored to an even lower MMR number.


I wonder if that also means divisions have some kind of predetermined average MMR associated with them. I'm not married to that theory, and I guess we'll see what happens in the future, but hopefully that's not the case.

As if that weren't enough, more wackiness!

Hey Phron. There is an issue causing this delay of a promotion for you which we're currently working to address. The best temporary resolution is to continue playing normally, as you will eventually be promoted based on your performance.


So they're not only changing the Bronze Zero thing but also loosening promotion criteria?? Who knows what else they'll include in this refinement pass?
Moderator
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