[G] Comprehensive SC2 League and Ladder Guide - Page 67

On January 03 2013 22:51 CaptainCharisma wrote:
Can someone please explain this:

I got promoted to Masters 1v1 about 3 hours before the recent season lock. I didn't play any games after being promoted. I lost my placement match this season and got placed in Diamond, now facing people who placed in Masters.

I thought your MMR needed to stablise in the higher league before you are promoted. How come then I get demoted immediately? I haven't lost any games since being promoted!

On January 04 2013 01:29 CaptainCharisma wrote:
Okay, thanks. If it's of any interest I went 8-5 in the new season and got promoted back to masters.

On January 04 2013 01:32 Excalibur_Z wrote:


This isn't the first I'm hearing of unexpected placements this season, by the way, so it's entirely possible the offsets changed again.

On January 04 2013 08:58 sCCrooked wrote:
A lot of them are in diamond this season. It doesn't last long because obviously they shoot up in MMR quickly but the fact 1700+ masters and 1600+ masters are being put in diamond should tell us something weird is up.

On January 05 2013 00:06 Oshuy wrote:


That part seems strange to me. If the offsets change and their MMR are bellow the new needed value for masters, they should not move back to masters quickly: MMR does not shoot up after a season change, only points.

This would be happening if they had lost a few games on purpose (dumping their MMR) to play again after season change, but I get echoes from master players on the eu server that report the same thing (down to diamond and fast up master), without any loss to report. Some diamond players were also reporting that they had faced ex-masters and lost badly for a few games at season start when they were mid-tier diamond S5 (and never facing master players).

On January 05 2013 03:59 Excalibur_Z wrote:


I do have a couple of theories on this but they don't really hold water. Maybe I can just put these ideas out there to spark some discussion:

Theory #1: The prior redistribution was redone and therefore the offsets changed. This is nothing new, and it's happened several times before. What it doesn't explain necessarily is how people are getting back up to their original league after being placed in a lower league. Everything is anecdotal until we see some hard statistics like the new population distribution from SC2Ranks. MMR only cares about the relative distance between two players and that's how it determines the skill difference. For example, let's say Master requires 2000 MMR (just hypothetical values). You have two players at 2050 and 2150, above the Master boundary. The gap between the two players is 100 and assuming the better player wins 60% of the time (or whatever that gap corresponds to), that gap will stay at 100. Now, if the Master boundary were moved up to 2200, both of those players would drop down into Diamond, but as long as they're playing only each other they won't go up or down because that gap will remain constant. Maybe it's just that some of the less serious players are playing their Day 1 Season games and losing, allowing the more veteran players to climb back up fairly easily?

Theory #2: There was a global MMR "soft-reduction" similar to the "minimum MMR" point-earnings phenomenon. I'll explain that a little bit. When you have 0 points and your opponent has an MMR equivalent to <=0 points in your league, you earn points as if their MMR were equivalent to some minimum nonzero value, previously that was around 73. Therefore, it's actually harder to get stuck at 0 points because your points are being influenced back up toward 73. The reason for this is because after everybody gets placed, they want everyone's points to go up a little bit as an incentive to play. What if they introduced something similar, but for MMR rather than just points? That is, what if you're still being matched against the same MMR opponents as before, but there's some 100-MMR buffer in place that makes you appear to be lower? Let's use the same values as before: Master is 2000, you're 2050. With this buffer you would appear to be 1950 and therefore Diamond, but you're still matched primarily against 2050 opponents (who would also appear to be 1950 and therefore Diamond) and you each earn MMR as though you were a 1950 battling a 2050. If you lose then you'd be a 2025 who appears to be a 1950 still, and if you won you'd be a 2050 who appears to be a 1980. If the buffer gets eaten up by you losing, then the new placement was correct. But, if the buffer gets eaten up by you winning, then you get promoted anyway which feels good.

On January 05 2013 08:19 Defenestrator wrote:
Blizzard's official response:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7415516833?page=8#153

TL;DR is that it's apparently working as intended, but it seems a little more than a "small adjustment" from what I've seen.

On January 05 2013 08:53 sCCrooked wrote:


Responses like what he gave are what really piss me off and deter me from talking to Blizzard. That P.O.S. statement looked like it was a computer-generated "official" response. It lacked depth, explanation or any sort of "human" element.

6 of the top 8 in my diamond division were more than 700 or 1000 points master last season. 5 of those 6 were masters for more than 4 seasons consecutively.

This whole "Let's mess with the system and watch them scurry around trying to figure out what went wrong" thing is getting very old and annoying.

On January 03 2013 22:51 CaptainCharisma wrote:
Can someone please explain this:

I got promoted to Masters 1v1 about 3 hours before the recent season lock. I didn't play any games after being promoted. I lost my placement match this season and got placed in Diamond, now facing people who placed in Masters.

I thought your MMR needed to stablise in the higher league before you are promoted. How come then I get demoted immediately? I haven't lost any games since being promoted!