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On July 27 2013 03:14 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Your placement question is a little off the mark. When you start fresh (5 placements), your placement matches give you a provisional MMR which becomes your actual MMR after you finish. This provisional MMR changes more dramatically in order to narrow down where you belong. In addition, and you can find this in the same Ladder FAQ from May linked earlier, your initial placement is very conservative. The reason they handled it this way is obvious: if you were accidentally placed too high due to playing during a skill peak or just getting lucky, because of the way ladder points are awarded, you could potentially get stuck at or near 0 (or wherever the mean is, 88 or whatever). Beyond your placement matches, your MMR doesn't move quite as quickly, but it never gets cemented anywhere. It's not like the TrueSkill system where once it's reasonably sure you're TS38 that it's going to be very difficult for you to move to TS37 or TS39. If your MMR is even with the MMR of your opponent, then you're gaining about 16 MMR for a victory or losing 16 for a loss. When the offsets between the middle leagues are around 200-300, that can take quite a few games. It's also important to note just how long it was taking you to find matches in WOL, because the longer you're waiting, the wider your search range will be.
If you have any further questions feel free to ask.
This was my point exactly. My point was never that my MMR was completely cemented and never moved at all, but that in my case it moved far, far more slowly once it became confident where I belonged. It seems that it somehow became very, very confident I belonged in bronze, silver, and then gold, even though I clearly did not.
A good example of this are players who did portrait farming in 1v1 in WOL. The premise is, these people would deliberately leave immediately for hundreds of 1v1 games in order to get to the bottom of bronze. Then they would worker rush every game, maintaining about a 50% winrate, in order to ensure many short games in order to mass the thousands of wins required to get the predator and dark voice portraits. After they finished this and played their placement for the next season, they would obviously still be bronze. However, because their MMR was as 'anchored' as it could be by that time, the unknown number of recent games the system looks at (unknown variable X) being completely maxed out, they had to win a great deal of games in order to get promoted out of bronze. I've seen friends and others clearly in this situation, in which they have to amass an amazing number of wins (more than a 100 or even 200 wins) to get promoted, and even then only to gold league. Getting all the way back to masters usually takes 200 hundred games at least, EVEN IF their winrate is very high. Granted, these people did this to themselves, on purpose - It isn't the league system's fault. But I never did portrait farming in WOL, so there isn't any reason why my experience should mirror theirs. The general principle here must be correct: The more games you've played (up to a certain point), the less malleable the system is with promoting you, requiring you to play more games to get promoted.
My point was that for me in WOL and others like me, this clearly somehow became out of whack, because I was stuck in bronze and had to play a similar number of games as the portrait farmers in order to get promoted. Regardless of how the league system works in reality, this isn't an ideal result from a game design perspective. In the old days of WOL, I did sometimes skip a season, but could always get back to diamond after <20 games, even with a winrate than considerably less than 80% (say, 66%). In this season in WOL, getting back to diamond always took 100+ games. If this is an aberration in the system that lasts only one season, I'll be OK with it. But if NEXT season, it places me in bronze AGAIN, and requires another 100+ games to get back to where I belong, then clearly, absolutely, and undeniably, the system has a major problem.
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United States12235 Posts
On August 14 2013 18:03 Eregos wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2013 03:14 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Your placement question is a little off the mark. When you start fresh (5 placements), your placement matches give you a provisional MMR which becomes your actual MMR after you finish. This provisional MMR changes more dramatically in order to narrow down where you belong. In addition, and you can find this in the same Ladder FAQ from May linked earlier, your initial placement is very conservative. The reason they handled it this way is obvious: if you were accidentally placed too high due to playing during a skill peak or just getting lucky, because of the way ladder points are awarded, you could potentially get stuck at or near 0 (or wherever the mean is, 88 or whatever). Beyond your placement matches, your MMR doesn't move quite as quickly, but it never gets cemented anywhere. It's not like the TrueSkill system where once it's reasonably sure you're TS38 that it's going to be very difficult for you to move to TS37 or TS39. If your MMR is even with the MMR of your opponent, then you're gaining about 16 MMR for a victory or losing 16 for a loss. When the offsets between the middle leagues are around 200-300, that can take quite a few games. It's also important to note just how long it was taking you to find matches in WOL, because the longer you're waiting, the wider your search range will be.
If you have any further questions feel free to ask. This was my point exactly. My point was never that my MMR was completely cemented and never moved at all, but that in my case it moved far, far more slowly once it became confident where I belonged. It seems that it somehow became very, very confident I belonged in bronze, silver, and then gold, even though I clearly did not. A good example of this are players who did portrait farming in 1v1 in WOL. The premise is, these people would deliberately leave immediately for hundreds of 1v1 games in order to get to the bottom of bronze. Then they would worker rush every game, maintaining about a 50% winrate, in order to ensure many short games in order to mass the thousands of wins required to get the predator and dark voice portraits. After they finished this and played their placement for the next season, they would obviously still be bronze. However, because their MMR was as 'anchored' as it could be by that time, the unknown number of recent games the system looks at (unknown variable X) being completely maxed out, they had to win a great deal of games in order to get promoted out of bronze. I've seen friends and others clearly in this situation, in which they have to amass an amazing number of wins (more than a 100 or even 200 wins) to get promoted, and even then only to gold league. Getting all the way back to masters usually takes 200 hundred games at least, EVEN IF their winrate is very high. Granted, these people did this to themselves, on purpose - It isn't the league system's fault. But I never did portrait farming in WOL, so there isn't any reason why my experience should mirror theirs. The general principle here must be correct: The more games you've played (up to a certain point), the less malleable the system is with promoting you, requiring you to play more games to get promoted. My point was that for me in WOL and others like me, this clearly somehow became out of whack, because I was stuck in bronze and had to play a similar number of games as the portrait farmers in order to get promoted. Regardless of how the league system works in reality, this isn't an ideal result from a game design perspective. In the old days of WOL, I did sometimes skip a season, but could always get back to diamond after <20 games, even with a winrate than considerably less than 80% (say, 66%). In this season in WOL, getting back to diamond always took 100+ games. If this is an aberration in the system that lasts only one season, I'll be OK with it. But if NEXT season, it places me in bronze AGAIN, and requires another 100+ games to get back to where I belong, then clearly, absolutely, and undeniably, the system has a major problem.
The difference between initial placement and inter-seasonal placement is that inter-season placement does not give you a provisional MMR. Instead, your old MMR (and everything that goes with it) is inherited from the previous season. That's why it feels like it takes forever to get promoted after an inter-seasonal placement, because that could be a reality. We ran a test on this during one of the league locks to try and gather offset data. After I had lost a few dozen games to get to roughly the bottom of Bronze (meaning the system would be pretty sure that's where I belonged), our test subject Insane did not start facing Diamond/Master players until around 100 games later (and those were all wins, so any losses would make it take a bit longer). Now, leagues were locked during this test as I mentioned, but promotions would have been delayed quite a bit for him if this test happened mid-season.
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It seems you've nailed it yet again Excalibur_Z. Your understanding and mine seem to line up exactly. I guess at this point, you might want to look at this thread:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9280238112?page=3
My post is on page 4, near the bottom. But basically everyone is mirroring my complaint about the league system functioning unusually poorly this season. There are a few obvious criticisms one could make of this thread, one is that many people don't understand how league system works. This is to be expected of the b.net forums; But many of the complaints do seem legitimate. Another criticism is that this thread only represents a small minority who are dissatisfied. and most people are still satisfied. In my post earlier this thread (bottom of page 76) I linked to a google doc of a brief and un-comprehensive list of other threads of people complaining. Additionally, subjectively I can say with certainty that virtually everyone I've talked to has also complained, but not actually bothered to make a thread about it. There is a lot of dissatisfaction over this, which will only grow as this problem (most likely) continues into next season.
A third criticism of that thread (and a valid one) is that HOTS league problems should be kept separate from the WOL league problems. From everything I've read, my assessment is that they are indeed a bit different. My main complaint was that it took me (and others) more than 100 games to get promoted in WOL to masters, with an 80%+ winrate after placing bronze/silver. Most of the people in the thread are complaining about placing lower in HOTS - which is partly the fault of the recent change, but also partly that players in HOTS are simply getting more skilled. In any event, promotions in HOTS still do happen more quickly than with some unlucky WOL players like me. However I would maintain that even in HOTS this change still creates a problem because it forces everyone to grind to get back to the league they belong in, which leads to the grinding problem I mentioned in my page #76 post, albeit on a smaller scale. Suffice it to say, good players get easy matches for a while, and poor players get unwinnable matches for a while. The best solution still seems to be to just allow midseason demotions again and erase the whole problem.
Assuming this problem does continue into next season, I'll ask for your help, Excalibur_Z, in helping the community to get blizzard to take this problem seriously. As a moderator and generally influential poster, I think you have more capability to bring the problem to blizzards attention.
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soooooo..........how many points you need to get to silver rank? O.o
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Is there a way of seeing the history of your placement in the league and how your games affected it? I swear I just dropped from top 8 to 40 by winning a game... O.o
(not that the rank matters to me, but that just feels so... wrong...)
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United States12235 Posts
On August 15 2013 20:22 Eregos wrote:It seems you've nailed it yet again Excalibur_Z. Your understanding and mine seem to line up exactly. I guess at this point, you might want to look at this thread: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/9280238112?page=3My post is on page 4, near the bottom. But basically everyone is mirroring my complaint about the league system functioning unusually poorly this season. There are a few obvious criticisms one could make of this thread, one is that many people don't understand how league system works. This is to be expected of the b.net forums; But many of the complaints do seem legitimate. Another criticism is that this thread only represents a small minority who are dissatisfied. and most people are still satisfied. In my post earlier this thread (bottom of page 76) I linked to a google doc of a brief and un-comprehensive list of other threads of people complaining. Additionally, subjectively I can say with certainty that virtually everyone I've talked to has also complained, but not actually bothered to make a thread about it. There is a lot of dissatisfaction over this, which will only grow as this problem (most likely) continues into next season. A third criticism of that thread (and a valid one) is that HOTS league problems should be kept separate from the WOL league problems. From everything I've read, my assessment is that they are indeed a bit different. My main complaint was that it took me (and others) more than 100 games to get promoted in WOL to masters, with an 80%+ winrate after placing bronze/silver. Most of the people in the thread are complaining about placing lower in HOTS - which is partly the fault of the recent change, but also partly that players in HOTS are simply getting more skilled. In any event, promotions in HOTS still do happen more quickly than with some unlucky WOL players like me. However I would maintain that even in HOTS this change still creates a problem because it forces everyone to grind to get back to the league they belong in, which leads to the grinding problem I mentioned in my page #76 post, albeit on a smaller scale. Suffice it to say, good players get easy matches for a while, and poor players get unwinnable matches for a while. The best solution still seems to be to just allow midseason demotions again and erase the whole problem. Assuming this problem does continue into next season, I'll ask for your help, Excalibur_Z, in helping the community to get blizzard to take this problem seriously. As a moderator and generally influential poster, I think you have more capability to bring the problem to blizzards attention.
I finally got a response on this today. Basically, more and more players are upgrading from WoL to HotS. What was already a loose distribution for the WoL ladder is becoming increasingly unstable. They're going to be working on correcting the WoL distribution over time but it's going to have to be an ongoing process.
I did get confirmation that the league distribution is the same for WoL and HotS by the way.
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United States12235 Posts
On August 29 2013 07:43 JustPassingBy wrote:
Is there a way of seeing the history of your placement in the league and how your games affected it? I swear I just dropped from top 8 to 40 by winning a game... O.o
(not that the rank matters to me, but that just feels so... wrong...)
Do you mean that you were X rank and now you played your placement match and ended up in the bottom of your division because you were placed with 0 points? That happens to everyone. Initial placement starts you with 0 points and division rank is determined by your ladder points.
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The SC2 ladder experience is terrible now. I cannot possibly overstate this.
First, let me provide some background:
I joined the SC2 community December 2012, Wings of Liberty. I played ~2/3 of the campaign and then felt ready to hit the ladder as Terran. I had the opportunity to start in the Practice League, which was fun. After 3-4 easy wins I decided to opt out of the practice league and participate in the real ladder. I do not remember my record during placement matches, I believe I went 1-4 and then was placed into bronze league. From game 1 in bronze league, I felt like the matchmaking was fair and it served the exact purpose it was intended to do: match me up against players that I have a 50% chance of winning against.
Granted, I did on occasion run into a portrait farmer or smurf but these experiences were rare. For the most part, I found the games competitive and the matchmaking was fair. After ~3 weeks I was promoted to silver, just before the season lock. I continued to progress and at the start of the next season I was placed into Gold league after winning my placement match, which felt fair, since I was starting to get matched up regularly against golds, and even defeated quite a few. At this time, platinum players I faced seemed to be really good, so I was relatively content in Gold. Nevertheless, I was eventually promoted to platinum for the final season of Wings of Liberty.
Moral of the story: During Wings of Liberty ladder, I felt my league placement matched my level of play and progression. Most of the conditions (opponents, promotions, division rank) felt very fair and likely the best that could be done given the circumstances.
Now, let's fast-forward to Heart of the Swarm...
I started to play ladder on the very first official day (March 12, 2013). I went 3-2 in placements and was placed into Platinum league, which was fine given that is where I finished in Wings of Liberty. For the first week I got my butt kicked in HOTS, losing to many former masters players. It was so bad I believe my record was 5-27 at one point. I actually quit for a few weeks and went back to Wings of Liberty. When I returned to HOTS, the ladder was SO much easier, likely due to the flood of newbs and casuals. I quickly shot up to the top of platinum, was promoted to diamond, and was being matched up against masters players regularly. I was anticipating a promotion to masters after every win (which ultimately never came), based solely on the number of masters players I was queueing (and beating).
That is sufficient background. However, here is my issue now with the HOTS ladder:
1) Terrible matchmaking - the matchmaker is inconsistent, first of all. The range of skill levels I queue is way too broad compared to when I first joined the game. I miss the feeling of knowing that I can likely beat my opponent at least 50% of the time. Now, all of my losses come at the hands of far superior players I don't deserve to play, and wins often come against terrible players I feel legitimately guilty beating. There isn't any predictability now either (like I would expect to eventually queue bad players after a losing streak, but the level of opponent I am matched with seems completely independent of this). It is not unusual to now have a terribly lopsided record with no abuse on my part, simply because the matchmaker isn't finding appropriate opponents
2) Ranked vs. Unranked - this idea was terrible in theory and even worse in execution. It is nearly impossible to know what skill level or style of play to expect from an opponent now. It is unfair to be matched with a player who may be 3-4 leagues higher than you who is having fun beating up on the lower leagues, off-racing, etc. This idea completely defeats the whole purpose of the ladder. There are still enough players where Ranked should queue Ranked, Unranked should face Unranked, with no overlap. This single feature has almost completely ruined the ladder experience for me.
3) Constant Demotions - every season I am demoted to platinum. When I am promoted to diamond I am performing there. I beat diamond level players, occasionally face and beat masters level players, there is absolutely no reason why I should be receiving a demotion at the start of every season. This is particularly frustrating in light of the "no demotion during a season" policy which is completely ridiculous, particularly for the higher leagues. I'm sorry, Master's league is only 2% of the population, it's time for the training wheels to come off. Masters league players should be forced to not only earn their seat there, but maintain it with an acceptable win-rate and level of activity. The fact that people who are underperforming in their leagues get a free pass to stay there, yet I am demoted every single season from a league where I am performing fine is infuriating.
4) Imbalanced, Fluctuating Divisions - When I first started with Wings of Liberty, I basically got a sense that the people who were in the Top 8 or Top 25 in any given division were in a similar boat. Now, there are people in the Top 8 who have so few games played next to players who have played 800+ games in a season. It is a ridiculous comparison and there is too much incentive to abuse the bonus pool (which admittedly, I do, but not on purpose - I simply don't have enough time to play to exhaust it for long). Also, the Leave Division option creates too much chaos in any given division, to the point where I don't even recognize most of the players in my division from Week to Week.
I guess that just about wraps up my ladder rant. I'm very disappointed with the experience now. I can remember watching Filter's Bronze to Masters tutorial series, starting in bronze, and making a slow, steady climb to Diamond league over the course of roughly 800 games. It was fun, and provided an earnest sense of achievement. All I request is to be left alone in diamond league (at least until my performance truly warrants a demotion) so I can pursue a promotion to Master's League. I can't legitimately aim for Master's league, with my current level of activity, because I am spending 2/3 of the season just trying to get back to diamond league. Masters league now feels unattainable, and quite frankly, not even much of an achievement since no effort is needed to maintain a seat there once that goal is reached.
Hopefully Legacy of the Void will fix some of this but I am interested to hear from other casual ladder players if their experiences are also notably worse now in HOTS compared to Wings of Liberty.
Quite frankly, the experience is not fun at all, there is no sense of achievement or direction anymore. I will never make Master's league and quite frankly I don't even want to anymore and that speaks volumes.
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On September 03 2013 07:13 NubainMuscle wrote:
1) Terrible matchmaking
It does feel like matchmaking is looser now, but that's probably mostly because of a decline in the number of players queueing. Matchmaking was always loose when fewer players queued for games.
2) Ranked vs. Unranked
Because a separate MMR is maintained for unranked games, it would be hard for a higher-level player to play unranked just for the purpose of beating lower-level players with their superior play. They'd have to throw games to do it, which is possible, but a lot less common now that Blizzard's made clear it's a violation of their rules. (I personally used to see this every other game, now it's pretty rare.)
As for players who are good at one race playing another, the unranked MMR will put them up against players who tend to beat them half the time, just like the ranked MMR.
Finally, there is value in having those pools of players play each other, because whether an unranked player is playing worse because they're executing screwy strategies or because they're genuinely trying their hardest at an off-race, having those games in the same MMR pool (but accruing to a separate measure per-player) increases the overall accuracy of MMR's prediction of game outcomes.
3) Constant Demotions
Because of the "no demotions" policy, as player performance fluctuates, everyone drifts up over the course of a season, and a good chunk of the player base will have to be adjusted back down at the new season to compensate. I'm pretty sure their thinking on this is motivated by solid research, which probably shows that demotions make people quit the game, so they save them all up to focus all the pain at season boundaries.
Also, Master league targets a 2% range of player MMR, but the no demotions policy means that it grows well beyond that over the course of a season. In other words, if you're playing at a master league level, you're not being denied a promotion because someone else is not getting demoted.
4) Imbalanced, Fluctuating Divisions - When I first started with Wings of Liberty, I basically got a sense that the people who were in the Top 8 or Top 25 in any given division were in a similar boat. Now, there are people in the Top 8 who have so few games played next to players who have played 800+ games in a season. It is a ridiculous comparison and there is too much incentive to abuse the bonus pool (which admittedly, I do, but not on purpose - I simply don't have enough time to play to exhaust it for long). Also, the Leave Division option creates too much chaos in any given division, to the point where I don't even recognize most of the players in my division from Week to Week.
I'm confused. How is not playing "abus[ing]" the bonus pool? The purpose of the bonus pool is to make you drop down the list when you don't play enough games to use it up. It serves that function quite well. In other words, only people who use all their bonus pool are really where they should be on that list. It's an incentive to reward a minimum level of play.
If people in the top 8 are not using their bonus pool and still have enormously more points than the people below them, that indicates that they have a much higher MMR than the rest of the division. Why a division might not have a smooth MMR gradient is an interesting question and might reveal other flaws in the system, but those top 8 are only having their point scores hurt by not using bonus points.
I guess that just about wraps up my ladder rant. I'm very disappointed with the experience now. I can remember watching Filter's Bronze to Masters tutorial series, starting in bronze, and making a slow, steady climb to Diamond league over the course of roughly 800 games. It was fun, and provided an earnest sense of achievement. All I request is to be left alone in diamond league (at least until my performance truly warrants a demotion) so I can pursue a promotion to Master's League. I can't legitimately aim for Master's league, with my current level of activity, because I am spending 2/3 of the season just trying to get back to diamond league. Masters league now feels unattainable, and quite frankly, not even much of an achievement since no effort is needed to maintain a seat there once that goal is reached.
While I feel for you, I think it's important to point out that one's performance at the game, particularly relative to other players, is not something that increases steadily over time. You might take a break or fall out of practice. You might be really intense about maintaining a particular skill for a while (like keeping up on injects or chrono boost) and then feel like you've "solved" that problem and put less effort into it. You might, particularly as you approach the master league range, be behind on the metagame and everyone around you has picked up new strategies to beat the thing you'd found reliable before. Also, as the population for SC2 shrinks, the better players are likely to be the most active who remain, which makes it harder to perform at a certain level against the community.
If you REALLY care about improving, you need to find a metric other than your league by which to measure your play. Get a tool like SC2Gears and track some metrics in your replays that you know impact your actual performance. Talk with other players (preferably players who are better than you) about your choices of strategies and how you're executing them. Pay for an hour of a high-level coach's time to evaluate your play and help you figure out where to improve. (Those people are still out there, and cheaper than ever.)
Once you can distinguish your own improvement from that of your opponents, you'll be able to set up some constant feedback about how you are doing and better ladder ratings will follow.
Edit: Usually, for me, when learning a skill, a skill plateau like you're experiencing is a sign of something deeper, a need for deeper understanding or better execution in some fundamental way. Getting past that isn't easy, and those kinds of barriers are what make Starcraft such a deep game. Good luck!
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United States12235 Posts
By the way, in case anyone missed it, I posted a study of the activity metric in this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=423477
With additional research I will eventually incorporate its findings into this guide. Turns out that measuring activity based on remaining bonus pool produces results pretty close to what Blizzard intends for league population.
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Thanks for linking that. I'd missed it. Also, happy birthday!
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Ok am i crazy or ladder promotions are even more difficult in season 5?
I was platinum on EU ladder last season but i played only few games,before that i was 7 times in a row in platinum (ye i know lol).
So i was placed in silver and got to gold in just a few games.However now im 36-12 with a 12 win streak and still not promoted to plat.
If i remember right in previous seasons one needed 450+ points to get promoted (beside good win loss ratio),or am i wrong?
On the side note,difference in skill between top gold and top platinum players is huge (even mid platinum is quite unskillful).Is gold new bronze or silver.Too many people in there with most various skill levels.
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On September 05 2013 18:08 Liman wrote:
difference in skill between top gold and top platinum players is huge (even mid platinum is quite unskillful).
Speaking as someone who's spent a lot of time in gold & low plat, I feel that's always been the case (except maybe as far back as 2010.)
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On September 05 2013 18:08 Liman wrote:
Ok am i crazy or ladder promotions are even more difficult in season 5?
I was platinum on EU ladder last season but i played only few games,before that i was 7 times in a row in platinum (ye i know lol). So i was placed in silver...
I'm silver and have been playing a lot of people like this in the current season, ranked silver or bronze but previously plat or diamond. It's a bit frustrating!
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On September 05 2013 18:08 Liman wrote:
Ok am i crazy or ladder promotions are even more difficult in season 5?
I was platinum on EU ladder last season but i played only few games,before that i was 7 times in a row in platinum (ye i know lol).
So i was placed in silver and got to gold in just a few games.However now im 36-12 with a 12 win streak and still not promoted to plat.
If i remember right in previous seasons one needed 450+ points to get promoted (beside good win loss ratio),or am i wrong?
On the side note,difference in skill between top gold and top platinum players is huge (even mid platinum is quite unskillful).Is gold new bronze or silver.Too many people in there with most various skill levels.
Yeah the ladder is messed up at the moment. Diamond and Platinum are less than half the size they are supposed to be according to Blizzard's design. Many former Diamonds and Plats have been pushed down a league or so, and that pushes the Golds down, etc., all the way to the bottom.
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On September 15 2013 23:05 Salient wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 18:08 Liman wrote:
Ok am i crazy or ladder promotions are even more difficult in season 5?
I was platinum on EU ladder last season but i played only few games,before that i was 7 times in a row in platinum (ye i know lol).
So i was placed in silver and got to gold in just a few games.However now im 36-12 with a 12 win streak and still not promoted to plat.
If i remember right in previous seasons one needed 450+ points to get promoted (beside good win loss ratio),or am i wrong?
On the side note,difference in skill between top gold and top platinum players is huge (even mid platinum is quite unskillful).Is gold new bronze or silver.Too many people in there with most various skill levels. Yeah the ladder is messed up at the moment. Diamond and Platinum are less than half the size they are supposed to be according to Blizzard's design. Many former Diamonds and Plats have been pushed down a league or so, and that pushes the Golds down, etc., all the way to the bottom. I was wondering if something was weird so that makes sense. I've been seeing a ton of former Master players in Platinum and low Diamond. This season I got placed in Platinum after being high Diamond with a positive winrate last season (though I was not very active. I played about 30 games last season). I figured I was demoted because I hadn't played much but after seeing so many former Master players in Platinum I figured something must be screwy. I played a Gold who was Diamond since season 1 of WoL and Platinums who previously placed in Master for 9-10 seasons. It just didn't make sense. I could see dropping a league because of not playing much, but to see longtime Master players in Platinum and not being promoted made no sense at all.
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On September 15 2013 23:05 Salient wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2013 18:08 Liman wrote:
Ok am i crazy or ladder promotions are even more difficult in season 5?
I was platinum on EU ladder last season but i played only few games,before that i was 7 times in a row in platinum (ye i know lol).
So i was placed in silver and got to gold in just a few games.However now im 36-12 with a 12 win streak and still not promoted to plat.
If i remember right in previous seasons one needed 450+ points to get promoted (beside good win loss ratio),or am i wrong?
On the side note,difference in skill between top gold and top platinum players is huge (even mid platinum is quite unskillful).Is gold new bronze or silver.Too many people in there with most various skill levels. Yeah the ladder is messed up at the moment. Diamond and Platinum are less than half the size they are supposed to be according to Blizzard's design. Many former Diamonds and Plats have been pushed down a league or so, and that pushes the Golds down, etc., all the way to the bottom.
Yea its so strange, I'm in gold league and I almost exclusively face they plat dimaond level players who are now in gold for some really strange reason. This also causes a lot of losses, sometime (very rarely) i face masters players too, but im still stuck in gold >.< Forever noob
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People whining about not getting promoted are just... Well, whining.
They get angry whenever they go on a win streak and don't get promoted, but the fact is if they would only average their match history over a lot of games they would see that their win rates aren't sitting too far above 50%.
I've had friends complain to me as well, telling me they've won 20 out of their last 25 and still aren't promoted. I'd then take a look at their older match history and see that their win rates in their last 100 games hover at 53%.
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On September 17 2013 03:03 Ben... wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2013 23:05 Salient wrote:On September 05 2013 18:08 Liman wrote:
Ok am i crazy or ladder promotions are even more difficult in season 5?
I was platinum on EU ladder last season but i played only few games,before that i was 7 times in a row in platinum (ye i know lol).
So i was placed in silver and got to gold in just a few games.However now im 36-12 with a 12 win streak and still not promoted to plat.
If i remember right in previous seasons one needed 450+ points to get promoted (beside good win loss ratio),or am i wrong?
On the side note,difference in skill between top gold and top platinum players is huge (even mid platinum is quite unskillful).Is gold new bronze or silver.Too many people in there with most various skill levels. Yeah the ladder is messed up at the moment. Diamond and Platinum are less than half the size they are supposed to be according to Blizzard's design. Many former Diamonds and Plats have been pushed down a league or so, and that pushes the Golds down, etc., all the way to the bottom. I was wondering if something was weird so that makes sense. I've been seeing a ton of former Master players in Platinum and low Diamond. This season I got placed in Platinum after being high Diamond with a positive winrate last season (though I was not very active. I played about 30 games last season). I figured I was demoted because I hadn't played much but after seeing so many former Master players in Platinum I figured something must be screwy. I played a Gold who was Diamond since season 1 of WoL and Platinums who previously placed in Master for 9-10 seasons. It just didn't make sense. I could see dropping a league because of not playing much, but to see longtime Master players in Platinum and not being promoted made no sense at all.
You're likely seeing the effects of MMR decay. You were rather inactive if you played 30 games last season. Your MMR dropped down to the next league range. The entire system has been depressing people's leagues, so there's been a lot of people duking it out in the league below getting their +/- 16 points a game trying to gain back 200 pts and fighting others in the same situation. See the post analyzing the effects of this.
It should be clear from the original post that your win/loss being positive is totally beside the point. It offers very little information for extremely active players, and is essentially worthless for more casual ladderers. Secondly, you cannot gauge the strength of your opponents based on peak league achieved or their WoL performance. The game's been out 3 years. You can look at their league last season, but you really should be using MMRStats+Sc2Gears to find the MMR of your opponents.
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EPT
