[G] Comprehensive SC2 League and Ladder Guide - Page 79

On September 22 2013 21:03 Slydie wrote:
Gold league is not what it used to be, that is for sure! It could be that there are less bad players laddering now, so it is harder to farm MMR all the way down. Can anyone check this?

Maybe I should just stop worrying about the promotion and just be happy to find the holes in my own play. No way making 50 svcs at 10 minutes is a sure win anymore!

Unranked Play
Players who elect to play Unranked are matched against both Ranked and Unranked players, except in the case of the highest end of the ladder where the player pools are separate. Unranked uses a separate MMR which is seeded by your current Ranked MMR (or vice versa, if you have never played Ranked before). After your first Unranked game, your two MMRs will remain separate.

On September 03 2013 07:13 NubainMuscle wrote:
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.

On October 27 2013 21:33 Eregos wrote:


This post is so extremely well stated that it fully deserves to be quoted in its entirety. A couple of pages ago (back in the summer) I tried at length to document some of the problems of the league system and hypothesize the causes of the problems and some solutions. But you've managed to summarize the problems better than I ever have. The problems from last season have continued as I expected. I badly wish blizzard would simply fix the league system by returning it to the way it worked in WOL days.

On October 27 2013 00:09 Incognoto wrote:


I think it's less that the ladder is fucked up and more that the entire player base is actually good now.

On November 19 2013 09:16 GunLove wrote:
Man I thought I was going crazy! I have been noticing the exact same thing. Either streamrolling much worse players or getting steamrolled by much better players that are in the same league as I, is my experience as well.

Ive been in EU platinum league for 5 seasons straight. I didnt play at all in season 5, and now I started again, only to be demoted two leagues from my previous placement in season 4 (I got demoted to gold at the start of season and got back into platinum relatively quickly), only to face some insane 140 apm ex-diamond players with actual tight builds etc. In SILVER league no less!!

Utterly defeated and beyond frustrated, I decided to confront my last opponent with my experience and he told me that Im not going crazy but that the league system is somehow completely out of whack. So thats why I started looking around and ended up here.

Anyhow, the two or three games that Ive played so far against gold leaguers were all easy wins. They were inferior players which is reflected in their low apm to some extent, which was around 50 in contrast to my relatively stable 90-100 apm.

Something is definitely not right, and I wish there could be some more attention to this. Im not too attached to my league, really, but being platinum for ages, and being silver the next day, only to get your ass handed to you by players that are better than you've ever encountered in your starcraft career is just too much for me. It frustrating me to no end, and really killing my joy. Steamrolling some scrubs is not enough compensation for getting utterly slaughtered.

Edit:

Just a little addition of anecdotal evidence. Theres a player in my division, a couple places under me who in season 3 was Master league! How can a player go from masters to silver in the course of 2 seasons? I don't believe a players skill can decay that fast, even if he isn't playing for a while.