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SC2 Ladder Analysis: Division Tiers - Page 23

Forum Index > SC2 General
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SDream
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
Brazil896 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-01 22:55:33
December 01 2010 20:54 GMT
#441
On December 02 2010 05:35 Jonas wrote:
This doesn't make sense at all


I think I understand your doubts.

People that are promoted to diamond division are just learning how to play the game at a reasonably high level. Regardless of whatever super crazy algorithm you think that blizzard has to put better players in better divisions, your hypothesis (and blizzard's algorithm) have no way of taking into account the ability of the players in each division to learn and improve over time relative to each other. Statistically if you put 100 players at random into a divison and compare the rate of improvement of the players in this divison with another division they should be pretty close to each other.


I agree that calling it "skill" is wrong. I'd call it "background". Rank S players share not the same level of skill, but the same background, they all have been winning against diamond players a lot before being promoted to these RANK S divisions. And that's it.

But, you might say, why are there so many good players in some divisons such as medivac alamo or medic mu? Well those are just the players that were able to demonstrate their ability to play at the diamond level to the blizzard matchmaking service the quickest and were correspondingly put in diamond league at about the same time. This means that many good players ended up in the same division.


Good players share the same background, that makes sense

Here is where your mistake is: unless the blizzard matchmaking service is designed to give the players in these divisions less points for winning the same match against an equal point counterpart in other divisions then there is no way that such a bias could exist


Rank S divisions won't get less points, nor more points. They would have more points displayed if they were rank F, and that's it.

Don't forget that Blizzard is making 2 new leagues* next season. One could say that they are fixing what you say is wrong: People will be finally able to be promoted in and out of the "RANK SS" grand master league. People are now stuck, so being in a division S or F means little after some time has passed and people have improved.

Edit: * I did write divisions, not leagues. That's wrong.
Shadowed
Profile Joined August 2010
United States679 Posts
December 01 2010 22:16 GMT
#442
Blizzard will be making two new leagues that do not have divisions. They aren't making two new divisions.

(Wording nitpick)
maize
Profile Joined August 2010
United States38 Posts
December 01 2010 22:49 GMT
#443
question.
does that mean they always have a certain number of divisions with spots open at one time, depending on how many different levels there are (0,63,126,189...) and they are filled simultaneously?
if so, that would mean during the onset of sc2 there were x number of diamond divisions which had preset skill ratings assigned to them
SDream
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
Brazil896 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-01 23:31:31
December 01 2010 22:56 GMT
#444
On December 02 2010 07:16 Shadowed wrote:
Blizzard will be making two new leagues that do not have divisions. They aren't making two new divisions.

(Wording nitpick)


Fixed, thanks. (I knew that, just typed it wrong, you know? :D)

-----------
does that mean they always have a certain number of divisions with spots open at one time, depending on how many different levels there are (0,63,126,189...) and they are filled simultaneously?


No, they aren't filled simultaneously. Also, there is no reason to have at all times a open spot, they can as easily create a new division of the same rank if there is no available spot on "old" ones when a new diamond player "emerges".

Look at this list of all the LA divisions on diamond:

http://sc2ranks.com/div/la/diamond/1/points/0

What does the divisions with less then 80 players have in common??

They are all diferent ranked divisions!

That also means that you can speculate how many RANKS there are calculating how many divisions are there with less than 80 people (at the same time...).

(looking at LA platinun divisions, that also hints for diferent ranks in platinun league as well. Every league must have this system, in fact, a RANK G division could potencially be a platinum division, if enough people give us how much points they lose when they get promotion, we might actually merge all leagues together in a single rank).

----
Edit3: There's also 6 divisions in US diamond with less them 80 players in them. This hint for no much more than 6 ranks in diamond US servers. We could actually put them in order of "win rate" and guess which one is S, which is E lol
Allbeert
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada4 Posts
December 02 2010 14:42 GMT
#445
I lost around 250 points in in my promotion from platinum to Diamond.
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12240 Posts
December 02 2010 17:11 GMT
#446
We can see that there are about 6 divisions in Diamond for NA that aren't close to full, which would seem to suggest 6 different tiers. By contrast, Platinum, Gold, and Silver only have one division that is not full, while Bronze has two. This isn't proof of tiers (or lack thereof) in other leagues necessarily, because it could be that divisions are generated and filled much faster in the lower leagues. Additionally, it's possible that SC2Ranks is missing entire divisions, particularly if they're very new. Shadowed tells me that there will be server upgrades happening later this week, so hopefully that will improve update speed for each division. With any luck, we'll be able to see whether the lower leagues have separate tiers in the same way that Diamond does.
Moderator
SDream
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
Brazil896 Posts
December 02 2010 18:12 GMT
#447
Indeed my friend.

What do you think about the theory that there is a MMR cut for top 200 (so someone with enough points might not have enough mmr so won't get top 200)?
vanick
Profile Joined August 2010
United States53 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-03 06:24:37
December 03 2010 06:07 GMT
#448
On December 03 2010 03:12 SDream wrote:
Indeed my friend.

What do you think about the theory that there is a MMR cut for top 200 (so someone with enough points might not have enough mmr so won't get top 200)?

It's possible but there's no evidence I've seen for it. I'm leaning towards "there is no MMR cut". The information we received from Blizzcon about the Top 200 is the way the top 200 players in diamond league are ranked using the master's/grandmaster's league system which uses points and bonus points, after adjusting points to account for division differences.
SilverBullet
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada79 Posts
December 04 2010 09:11 GMT
#449
This discussion will become outdated with the addition of the masters league I'd imagine. And what does this all really mean, considering:

MMR is independant of this entire system
Points gained/lost is not affected by this system

The only true "effect" as far as I can tell is that you get bonus points for your top 200 ranking based on how good you were perceived to be when you're promoted to diamond.

I mean, it is definitely interesting that the OP was able to deduce all of this, but what are we really supposed to infer from this, other than what I've just said? :S
There is no shame in defeat, so long as the spirit remains unconquored
metalsonic
Profile Joined September 2010
Netherlands95 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-04 21:57:47
December 04 2010 21:39 GMT
#450
Noam
Profile Joined September 2010
Israel2209 Posts
December 04 2010 21:51 GMT
#451
I've been following this thread and its predecessors daily and I just wanted to show my appreciation to everyone that worked to help us understand Blizzard's methods.
Excalibur_Z and everybody else, Thank you!
Liquipedia
metalsonic
Profile Joined September 2010
Netherlands95 Posts
December 04 2010 21:57 GMT
#452
Excalibur_Z ur thinking of who will be in master league is also flawed and ridiculles .
Why are in ur prediction people who got a winrate of 58-109 ( really negative ) who u say will be in master league , explain please , since ur maths don't make any sense at all and if I was you I wouldn't spend to much time figuring this stuff out ---- better take a job at blizzard and find out urself these maths and share , if 1 person can tell us these maths it's a blizzard employee , and if they feel like this needs to be explained they explain it , they just don't see then need . I rather follow blizzard say and not what u say since it doesn't make sense at all !
habbey
Profile Joined September 2010
United States405 Posts
December 05 2010 01:42 GMT
#453
metal sonic, you're confused about two things.

First the "masters league" on sc2ranks right now isn't the masters league that blizzard will be implementing. The master league on sc2ranks is simply the ranking of players (those rankings that are known) based on how blizzard does the top 200. Some people on sc2ranks 'master league' are simply in the division of people that are very good, these people wont' be in blizzards master league.

Second, if excalibur got a job at blizzard they'd almost certainly make him sign a NDA (non disclosure agreement) which would mean he couldn't tell us anything about the system unless blizzard specifically wanted it to be revealed.
Bluetea
Profile Joined August 2010
United States185 Posts
December 05 2010 01:59 GMT
#454
On November 18 2010 18:12 Wargizmo wrote:
If everyone in the division is of the same skill level, then the only way people are going to have more points than others is by playing more games. Your almost NEVER see a guy with 100 games ranked higher than someone with 200 games in the same division. Why? because if the guy with 100 games was significantly better he would be put in a higher tier of division to begin with.


False. Division placement within leagues is arbitrary. The reason so many good players are in the same division is that they went out and bought the game first, played as soon as possible, and all got into the same diamond divisions. You are not placed in specific diamond divisions based on skill, but based on the availability of the division.

If I had started laddering at midnight when I got the game, I would probably be in a higher-skill diamond division. But I didn't, and this says nothing about my skill; it says I didn't start playing immediately.

TLDR: Skill does not determine where you are placed. Availability does.
All these bitches is my sons.
metalsonic
Profile Joined September 2010
Netherlands95 Posts
December 05 2010 14:36 GMT
#455
On December 05 2010 10:42 habbey wrote:
metal sonic, you're confused about two things.

First the "masters league" on sc2ranks right now isn't the masters league that blizzard will be implementing. The master league on sc2ranks is simply the ranking of players (those rankings that are known) based on how blizzard does the top 200. Some people on sc2ranks 'master league' are simply in the division of people that are very good, these people wont' be in blizzards master league.

Second, if excalibur got a job at blizzard they'd almost certainly make him sign a NDA (non disclosure agreement) which would mean he couldn't tell us anything about the system unless blizzard specifically wanted it to be revealed.


true , however I think they don't even need to implent some master leagues , not even clans in SC 2 , atm I got about 0 motivation to play this game anymore after a massive losing streak in P v Z (
( I play P ) and dropped from about 2350 diamond to 2250 diamond purely because of the annoying shit zerg can do to instant kill u , while u can't do the same to zerg since zerg don't even need a tech building to start making spine crawlers , just creep , imagine if P could just build cannons and not needing a forge , I think that would even the game a bit more ah well not supposed to whine about balance here ( the official blizzard forums is a good place to do it ) . What is fun about this game anyways , or atleast P v Z and P v P ( P v T is fine and balanced , go away T OP whiners ) .
P v P : yay my 1 base all in countered ur 1 base all in , or my 2-3 base collosus immortals just killed ur 2-3 base immortals collosus since I had a better composition vs urs ..... lame .

P v Z is just playing overly aggresive since otherwise zerg can spamm drones and easily kill u , while their T 1 units are more cost effective at the stage then the P units ( I mean stalker 125 minerals 50 gas can barely win vs a roach 75 minerals 25 gas ) and if u survive long engough and macro up along with the zerg u just get obbilerated by uncounterable unit compositions like Ultra + zerling unless u gone air , but it seems that it is never appropiate to tech switch to air . I'll just wait till the game settles a bit more and is just less unstable , since I never had a P v Z that felt epic to me or great , same goes for P v P , just borring stuff to play .

User was warned for this post
Silmakuoppaanikinko
Profile Joined November 2010
799 Posts
December 05 2010 16:06 GMT
#456
On November 19 2010 05:34 darmousseh wrote:
Final Note: Blizzard, freaking just make the system simple. Show us our moving MMR. You can even subtract 2* sigma from our mean to make it easy for us to understand. We want to know our rating, not some point thing.
I would assume that one of the reasons they don't do that is that when you can see it change, you can more easily reverse-engineer the algorithm. I wouldn't be surprised if the MMR depends not only on win/loss, but also diversity for instance, wouldn't be surprised that they found a way to still keep it quite low if you literally cannon rushed your way to diamond. Some people would find out artificial ways to increase your MMR.

On December 05 2010 10:59 Bluetea wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 18 2010 18:12 Wargizmo wrote:
If everyone in the division is of the same skill level, then the only way people are going to have more points than others is by playing more games. Your almost NEVER see a guy with 100 games ranked higher than someone with 200 games in the same division. Why? because if the guy with 100 games was significantly better he would be put in a higher tier of division to begin with.


False. Division placement within leagues is arbitrary. The reason so many good players are in the same division is that they went out and bought the game first, played as soon as possible, and all got into the same diamond divisions. You are not placed in specific diamond divisions based on skill, but based on the availability of the division.

If I had started laddering at midnight when I got the game, I would probably be in a higher-skill diamond division. But I didn't, and this says nothing about my skill; it says I didn't start playing immediately.

TLDR: Skill does not determine where you are placed. Availability does.
I would find the counter arguments raised against it to be more convincing than your argumentum ex assertione here.

I always knew that the ladder was essentially skewed in rating players. I had no idea however that Blizzard seems to have gone out of his way to make it unworkable to gauge a player's skill from information on the public profile alone. Not only that, but also giving the impression that it is indeed accurate, solely for the purpose to motivate people to play more. I used to think that leagues + points were quite a good indication, apparently not so much.
Workers and town centres are the ultimate counter to turtles.
ktimekiller
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States690 Posts
December 06 2010 04:37 GMT
#457
A slightly off topic question.

My current account has not caught up to the bonus pool inflation, but from what I've seen as "even" opponents, my MMR seems to be equivalent to roughly 1600-2000 ladder points (depending on the opponents division).

While 1600-2000 ladder points are predominantly my usual opponents, sometimes I face opponents that show up as "even" that are 1000 or less points, or even not in my league, but even up to two whole leagues down showing me as "slightly favored".

Is this a result of my lack of number of games to catch up to the inflation? Maybe it is due to my inconsistent playing that sometimes results in many losses dramatically lowering my mmr? This really isn't significant in any way because I know that to get a more accurate account for my standing, I should play enough to expend all my bonus pool (no time though!).
price
Profile Joined December 2010
United States297 Posts
December 06 2010 06:06 GMT
#458
I was really happy to see this thread as it answered a lot of questions I have been having (and raised some new ones too).

I had originally thought that the rating system was similar to the Chess Elo system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system), but apparently it is very different for the purpose of keeping people from getting frustrated (it seems to me).

So this begs the question: isnt the MMR the real value, and how (well) is it calculated?

And when Blizzard creates the new leagues, masters and grandmasters (or masters and wood, who knows), would the people in those leagues will have killer ladder practice partners while the ones at the very top who did not make it simply have less skilled laddering?
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
vanick
Profile Joined August 2010
United States53 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-12-06 08:12:56
December 06 2010 08:12 GMT
#459
On December 06 2010 01:06 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote:
I always knew that the ladder was essentially skewed in rating players. I had no idea however that Blizzard seems to have gone out of his way to make it unworkable to gauge a player's skill from information on the public profile alone. Not only that, but also giving the impression that it is indeed accurate, solely for the purpose to motivate people to play more. I used to think that leagues + points were quite a good indication, apparently not so much.

The ladder is accurate, but only comparable within your division. Some of the divisions have had their offsets worked out by Excal and others, but the vast majority of divisions have unknown offsets so you can only look within your own division.

I realize this answer is not satisfactory to many posters here but for better or for worse that is how the system currently stands. Divisions are meant to capture subsets of the MMR spectrum within each league so that each person has a reasonable ability to practice, improve, and rank up within their division. Diamond traps the highest-end players (until Master's league debuts) but in lower leagues this is how things work.
papaz
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden4149 Posts
December 06 2010 08:37 GMT
#460
Maybe a bit off topic. But is there stated anywhere whether Master league will have divisions or not?

I'd love to see one final league without divisions where only best of the best duke it out.
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