EPThidden scores/ranks etc. kills competition
sc2/esport/in general...true or false?
[G] Comprehensive SC2 League and Ladder Guide - Page 21
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vvLOSTvv
Norway23 Posts
hidden scores/ranks etc. kills competition sc2/esport/in general...true or false? | ||
Excalibur_Z
United States12252 Posts
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Sek-Kuar
Czech Republic593 Posts
On May 22 2011 10:00 Excalibur_Z wrote: Take it to another thread. Don't clutter up mine. If I might, I sincerely want to ask one question: You explained how is technically possible that both of players can be favored against each other, but... you didnt explain why did Blizzard choose this (IMO totally stupid) system? Why in any sense is this system better than simple comparison of 2 players/teams? Why is it that sum of (12-win_points)+(12-loss_points) =/= 0 ??? | ||
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Excalibur_Z
United States12252 Posts
On May 22 2011 23:37 Sek-Kuar wrote: If I might, I sincerely want to ask one question: You explained how is technically possible that both of players can be favored against each other, but... you didnt explain why did Blizzard choose this (IMO totally stupid) system? Why in any sense is this system better than simple comparison of 2 players/teams? Why is it that sum of (12-win_points)+(12-loss_points) =/= 0 ??? Well, think about the purpose that it serves. If it was a zero sum points system and there was no MMR, it would take much longer for skill to spread out and the entire system would be a lot more grindy. MMR is designed to spread skill out quickly so that everyone has a chance to find fair competition. Points drift toward MMR to illustrate the skill discrepancy. Under the current system, it can find you fair competition in about 5 to 10 games, but if there was no MMR, it could take ten times as long. The same goes for if you've suddenly improved or had some kind of Starcraft epiphany or something -- it's quick to put you against stronger opponents in relatively few games played compared to having to grind out points to reach a certain level (i.e. ICCup). | ||
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JuTo
United States30 Posts
thank you! | ||
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Yurie
12160 Posts
On May 23 2011 03:21 Excalibur_Z wrote: Well, think about the purpose that it serves. If it was a zero sum points system and there was no MMR, it would take much longer for skill to spread out and the entire system would be a lot more grindy. MMR is designed to spread skill out quickly so that everyone has a chance to find fair competition. Points drift toward MMR to illustrate the skill discrepancy. Under the current system, it can find you fair competition in about 5 to 10 games, but if there was no MMR, it could take ten times as long. The same goes for if you've suddenly improved or had some kind of Starcraft epiphany or something -- it's quick to put you against stronger opponents in relatively few games played compared to having to grind out points to reach a certain level (i.e. ICCup). I will have to disagree with the iccup angle. You can reset an account and play A ranked players directly. Nothing stops that. You can in the first game play players of the proper skill level. Getting to a certain rank on ladder is also decently fast. 260 points a game against 4 ranks or higher with 1000 points per rank. Which means 4 games per rank. Most people don't play iccup that way, but it is possible just so you don't have to grind the games up. | ||
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Sek-Kuar
Czech Republic593 Posts
On May 23 2011 03:21 Excalibur_Z wrote: Well, think about the purpose that it serves. If it was a zero sum points system and there was no MMR, it would take much longer for skill to spread out and the entire system would be a lot more grindy. MMR is designed to spread skill out quickly so that everyone has a chance to find fair competition. Points drift toward MMR to illustrate the skill discrepancy. Under the current system, it can find you fair competition in about 5 to 10 games, but if there was no MMR, it could take ten times as long. The same goes for if you've suddenly improved or had some kind of Starcraft epiphany or something -- it's quick to put you against stronger opponents in relatively few games played compared to having to grind out points to reach a certain level (i.e. ICCup). I dint mean this, how would it look w/o MMR... Why cant it just be that game compares MMR vs MMR and then give points based on that? Or am I missing something? Is this MMR vs points comparison required for MMR to exist? Right now if I gain 15 points for win, it means nothing (or better say - afaik everything relevant is hidden) but if it was about MMR vs MMR comparison, then I could say, based on this, which player is better... | ||
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On May 23 2011 05:15 Sek-Kuar wrote: I dint mean this, how would it look w/o MMR... Why cant it just be that game compares MMR vs MMR and then give points based on that? Or am I missing something? Is this MMR vs points comparison required for MMR to exist? Right now if I gain 15 points for win, it means nothing (or better say - afaik everything relevant is hidden) but if it was about MMR vs MMR comparison, then I could say, based on this, which player is better... It's required to accelerate the process of getting players to their respective position in the system. It allows people to come in and out of the system freely without being punished by the system. It's basically required to do this when you have a theoretically zero-sum system (MMR) which is then transformed into a linear progression system with a proper floor (ladder). If Blizzard DID end up going just by MMR vs MMR, we'd see something like a dwarf system, where the top of the ladder would just be stunted. It could also possibly cause a situation where the top players in ladder weren't actually top players, just skilled players who played the most. To address your first point, though, about simply using ONLY a zero-sum system. In any zero-sum rating system, you have to take into account stability and accuracy. However, this stability comes at a cost of speed in terms of how fast one can actually attain a "true" rating. In any Elo based system, there is a modifier on point gains and losses along with some sort of cap on those. In a system where there are literally millions of potential players, it could take as much as 1000 games to realize a significantly high/low and true rating if you account for stability. However, if you did what I suspect Blizzard did with MMR, a truly volatile system which corrects itself with good matchmaking, you can achieve roughly the same accuracy in as little as 10 games for even the best and worst players. However, since the system is relatively volatile compared to a normal Elo system, it wouldn't make ANYBODY feel comfortable playing when they could very well gain or lose a HUGE chunk of their points with one game. Now it's much more apparent why the ladder is in place. While MMR fluctuates wildly without real bounds, the ladder can become a stabilizer for it's participants. Instead of losing 100 points after a couple of really bad games, you only lose 20. Instead of dropping 1000 ranks in 1 bad day, you only drop 15. The ladder acts as a sort of anchor to your actual place in the rankings, while MMR acts more as the wind, shifting more wildly if the situation presents itself. | ||
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sneedling
United States5 Posts
The wording in this section made me read it twice: On February 22 2011 15:13 Excalibur_Z wrote: If you stand to gain 0-4 points or lose 20-24, you are Favored; if you stand to gain 5-9 points or lose 15-19, you are Slightly Favored; if you stand to earn or lose 10-14 points, the Teams are Even. It's not that it doesn't communicate the information correctly; just feel it could be worded better. I think people need to draw from this that while leagues may be relative, personal skill is what they carry from game to game. | ||
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wysoy
17 Posts
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Excalibur_Z
United States12252 Posts
On May 23 2011 06:29 sneedling wrote: Excellent read-- definitely clears up some of my lingering thoughts about the system. The wording in this section made me read it twice: It's not that it doesn't communicate the information correctly; just feel it could be worded better. I think people need to draw from this that while leagues may be relative, personal skill is what they carry from game to game. I'm not sure how else I can word it. A lot of people seem to get confused by that section, so I added the image below to help illustrate what happens. I think people's eyes kind of focus immediately on the numbers and not the explanation of the numbers, then go back and say "well this doesn't make sense!" Not sure how I can fix that though. | ||
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Kambing
United States1176 Posts
http://www.moserware.com/2010/03/computing-your-skill.html | ||
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DiDigital
75 Posts
On May 23 2011 05:15 Sek-Kuar wrote: I dint mean this, how would it look w/o MMR... Why cant it just be that game compares MMR vs MMR and then give points based on that? Or am I missing something? Is this MMR vs points comparison required for MMR to exist? Right now if I gain 15 points for win, it means nothing (or better say - afaik everything relevant is hidden) but if it was about MMR vs MMR comparison, then I could say, based on this, which player is better... I think there are 3 good reasons why blizzard chose a points sytem over a simple displayed mmr system. 1) If they simply displayed MMR after your first game you would start out with an average rating. After a handful of games you would either go up or drop down to your deserved rating. Beyond those early games your rating is not going to change much and is likely to stay in the same general area for the rest of your starcraft 'career.' By using points you start at '0' and every win you move up. This gives all players the illusion of progress, and in a lot of ways the points earned do show progress. If you do actually improve your points will show noticable improvement as well, while if you get worse your points imply stagnate. This is designed to prevent people from getting frustrated with losing or not improving. 2) The MMR statistics itself has a lot of variation. After a short winning streak your MMR can move a league up, and just as quickly down a league after a losing streak. In the long run though the average of your MMR generally stays the same. This is why blizzard promotes based on a moving average of your MMR not simply your MMR. So in this case blizzard opted to give you a league badge representative of your current average skill. So instead of being '1500' one day and '2000' the next, and '1000' a week later you are 'Diamond' until your average rating changes. 3) The league and points system itself - outside of bonus points - is a standalone elo style system. It is simply designed to move much more slowly and cautiously than the actual MMR system. Your ladder ranking is your current progress on the ladder and it gives you your skill level in general terms, because a specific answer to 'what number best SC2 player am I in the world' is not any more accurate than giving you your rating in general terms. | ||
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Kambing
United States1176 Posts
On May 23 2011 10:50 DiDigital wrote: I think there are 3 good reasons why blizzard chose a points sytem over a simple displayed mmr system. 1) If they simply displayed MMR after your first game you would start out with an average rating. After a handful of games you would either go up or drop down to your deserved rating. Beyond those early games your rating is not going to change much and is likely to stay in the same general area for the rest of your starcraft 'career.' By using points you start at '0' and every win you move up. This gives all players the illusion of progress, and in a lot of ways the points earned do show progress. If you do actually improve your points will show noticable improvement as well, while if you get worse your points imply stagnate. This is designed to prevent people from getting frustrated with losing or not improving. 2) The MMR statistics itself has a lot of variation. After a short winning streak your MMR can move a league up, and just as quickly down a league after a losing streak. In the long run though the average of your MMR generally stays the same. This is why blizzard promotes based on a moving average of your MMR not simply your MMR. So in this case blizzard opted to give you a league badge representative of your current average skill. So instead of being '1500' one day and '2000' the next, and '1000' a week later you are 'Diamond' until your average rating changes. 3) The league and points system itself - outside of bonus points - is a standalone elo style system. It is simply designed to move much more slowly and cautiously than the actual MMR system. Your ladder ranking is your current progress on the ladder and it gives you your skill level in general terms, because a specific answer to 'what number best SC2 player am I in the world' is not any more accurate than giving you your rating in general terms. I agree with your points, but I think it's worthwhile to point out that the distinguishing feature of the battle.net ladder is not that your mmr is hidden but instead that matchmaking is determined by a separate statistic than your ranking. In fact, your mmr being hidden is not essential to the system at all and is a conscious design choice on the part of blizzard. For example, wow arena mmr is displayed at the end of each match (http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1820952130). | ||
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Renzin
Australia75 Posts
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random user
85 Posts
On May 23 2011 06:47 Excalibur_Z wrote: I'm not sure how else I can word it. A lot of people seem to get confused by that section, so I added the image below to help illustrate what happens. I think people's eyes kind of focus immediately on the numbers and not the explanation of the numbers, then go back and say "well this doesn't make sense!" Not sure how I can fix that though. (Bah I don't know how to do code in BBCode (if you even can) but maybe make an image out of this) How about something like this: The points you win or lose are shown on this table: Win .......... Status ........... Lose +0-4 ......... Favored ......... -20-24 +5-9 ... Slightly Favored ... -15-19 +10-14 ......... Even .......... -10-14 This formatting sucks but hopefully you get what I'm imagining. | ||
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Takeshi
United States23 Posts
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Excalibur_Z
United States12252 Posts
On May 25 2011 02:16 Takeshi wrote: I had a question about demotions. I've read through this ladder guide a bunch of times, and it didn't answer this particular question. I was demoted, now I'm about to get promoted again, and I'm playing better players than i was before. But, every single match that I have played has been teams even, even against people two leagues above me (I'm in gold, was in plat until I demoted myself). Does the system consider people who have been demoted inherently better than people in their league and still even with people in their old league? I'm just curious about this, as it struck me as kinda odd. Hoping you can answer this. :D In what time period? The leagues have been locked for about 11 days now, so your opponents' league icons may no longer necessarily indicate their actual skill level. | ||
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Takeshi
United States23 Posts
In what time period? The leagues have been locked for about 11 days now, so your opponents' league icons may no longer necessarily indicate their actual skill level. It was happening before the ladder lock I think. I got demoted before that happened, and at first, I was slightly favored, and then it shifted to teams even and has stayed there. I also checked the match history of the people I beat, to see if they were on loss streaks, win streaks, and who they had beaten to try and judge my skill to the best of my ability. I was teams even vs people I should not have been. Most notably vs a Diamond Terran who was 3100 points last season and was not on a loss streak. He was playing people in his own league. I found this very odd, lol | ||
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DiDigital
75 Posts
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