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Understanding MMR

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[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-14 19:08:41
February 14 2012 18:35 GMT
#1
[image loading]

In this posting I attempt to explain why it's not a good idea to display MMR in the player profiles, and why it is okay to match random teams versus arranged teams.

The match making rating (MMR) was developed by Blizzard to match players so that the winning likelihood of either one is 50% (or close to 50%, if no exact match is found.) This has several implications:

• MMR is not what many guys consider skill: The ability to get ranked high in tournaments. The MMR is blind to the causes of your ladder wins. Some players who have the MMR to get matched versus actual pros, will never win a tournament unless they are going pro, too. "Winning likelihood on ladder" does relate to "skill", but it does not translate 1:1. Displaying MMR would give many guys the false impression that they finally can compare their true skill.

• MMR considers the winning likelihood relative to the current ladder pool. That means, a ranking of 1000 MMR points today relates to much higher skill than lets say four weeks after the release of the game. It's good that without the display of the MMR, no one can brag around with his peak MMR he could got at any point in the past.

• Again, MMR was developed only to get you an opponent which has the same chance of winning the game as you have right now. When win or loss streaks occur, the match maker uses a mechanic to consider short-term slumps or performance explosions without too large impact on the MMR while it still tries to get you opponents close to your current winning likelihood. To do this, the match maker uses a confidence value is widened or narrowed depending on how close you fulfill the match maker's prediction of the outcome of the game. This mechanic uses arbitrary values which are intended to reflect common casual fluctuations of your performance. MMR is not your true skill.


Because of this, the game can match random teams versus arranged teams. If you are a random team player and if you play enough games, your winning ratio will be around 50%. It doesn't matter if the opponent arranged team uses Skype. You are matched against them because your random team still has about 50% to beat the other team. If a team just began to use voice chat and therefore wins some games, their winning streak will be disrupteded when they get too strong opponents. Then this team will lose some games until the MMR reflects the correct winning likelihood. So yes, you can get an opponent which is stronger than his MMR reflects, but you have the same chance to get an opponent who is weaker than his MMR suggests. The MMR is constantly changing.

The top-ranked arranged teams have a very high winning ratio (70% and higher.) This is because there are not enough teams of the same MMR online. Since the top arranged teams have a higher MMR compared to any other team online (regardless if arranged or random), very good arranged teams can sustain a ratio quite a bit above 50%. That also means, the team who is likely to lose (because of its lower MMR) will only lose few points while the arranged team, if it wins as predicted, gains very little points.

While this is frustrating, it's still better than having no game at all. With separate AT / RT pools, the search time would be longer while the matching wouldn't be any closer. This issue only affects a very small ladder population, though. For any widely available MMR level, the shared AT / RT pools allows faster game search and closer winning likelihood matching.


Recommended read: Excalibur_Z's ladder guide.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
Gheed
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States972 Posts
February 14 2012 18:38 GMT
#2
Nobody cares if the MMR makes AT vs RT "even," they care about the horrible games it produces. Why do you insist on posting this everywhere? The idea that nobody would queue for arranged 2s if it had its own bracket is also farcical. It did not take that long to find a game in WC3. In fact, you could argue that more people would play if there was an AT ladder, because the competition would be something other than RT noobs. You could argue that using the same "facts," you are, i.e. none.
LimeNade
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States2125 Posts
February 14 2012 18:40 GMT
#3
Not really sure what the point of the OP is. This is all well known by now O_o. MMR has a cap as well so it would be dumb for people to brag about having the highest MMR as a top pro when in reality if there was no cap the Pros would have an insanely high MMR and never be able to find games. This is what happened with Huk many patches ago and one of the reasons they had to fix the bad MMR system. Now its more evened out so people can find games faster at the highest level but yet pros will win easier games as they may match weaker opponents in the capped MMR range
JD, need I say more? :D
Zhazulo
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Sweden226 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-14 18:42:13
February 14 2012 18:41 GMT
#4
A well written guide, thanks for breaking down MMR into key points. I, for one, always wondered why not Blizzard just displays MMR, but instead chose to create an artificial point system. Now I know some pros and cons to both sides. Also, good structure

Once again, many thanks!
KrsOne
Profile Joined March 2011
United States64 Posts
February 14 2012 18:42 GMT
#5
Good post but I would still like to know what my mmr is.
Life is to short so love the one you got, cause you might get run over or you might get shot-Sublime
LimeNade
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States2125 Posts
February 14 2012 18:56 GMT
#6
On February 15 2012 03:42 KrsOne wrote:
Good post but I would still like to know what my mmr is.


But why? I mean MMR at the highest point is capped from what I am lead to believe. Knowing it makes no difference even if you are playing at the top of ladder because it doesn't reflect skill at all
JD, need I say more? :D
Fortis-Et-Fidus
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States119 Posts
February 14 2012 18:57 GMT
#7
was this whole thread about RT vs AT, or does any of this info apply to 1v1 ladder? im legitly confused right now because i dont think th info is for 1v1 and team games.
"Battle Crusier Operational"
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
February 14 2012 19:00 GMT
#8
On February 15 2012 03:57 Fortis-Et-Fidus wrote:
was this whole thread about RT vs AT, or does any of this info apply to 1v1 ladder? im legitly confused right now because i dont think th info is for 1v1 and team games.
It also applies to 1v1 ladder.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
JaBrOnI
Profile Joined February 2011
Philippines59 Posts
February 14 2012 19:37 GMT
#9
Basically, I think the Blizzard doesn't want us to know our MMR rating for the reason that they don't want players to focus on the technical side of things but rather just play the game and improve.

Most of the players already have "ladder fear" and would just prefer casual/custom/team games to avoid the stress in playing competitive 1v1 ladder. Another proof of that is the removal of the "Loss" stat in a player's profile.

Bottomline, they just want us to play and improve rather than focus on the technicalities (MMR, match making) of the game which I think that they think is just up for them to know internally.
En Taro Tassadar
AndAgain
Profile Joined November 2010
United States2621 Posts
February 14 2012 19:59 GMT
#10
On February 15 2012 03:56 BloodThirsty wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 15 2012 03:42 KrsOne wrote:
Good post but I would still like to know what my mmr is.


But why? I mean MMR at the highest point is capped from what I am lead to believe. Knowing it makes no difference even if you are playing at the top of ladder because it doesn't reflect skill at all


Are you sure about that? I seem to remember Huk having such a high MMR on NA that he had to wait 30 minutes for a game.
All your teeth should fall out and hair should grow in their place!
UniversalMind
Profile Joined March 2011
United States326 Posts
February 14 2012 20:06 GMT
#11
not trying to come off as rude or anything

but I am extremly disapointe that this is not an understanding MMA guide

v.v
Medrea
Profile Joined May 2011
10003 Posts
February 14 2012 20:08 GMT
#12
I love the OP picture.
twitch.tv/medrea
thurst0n
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States611 Posts
February 14 2012 21:50 GMT
#13
Sure mmr is arbitrary but I'd still like to see what it is even if it means nothing. If I brag and the community knows mmr means nothing then my bragging means nothing.

What about my win loss? Win/loss by map and matchup. I understand hiding mmr but this other stuff should not be hidden. Even if its trending toward 50/50. It'd be nice to see that last week I was 22-26, and now I'm 32 and 30..
P.S. I'm nub. If you'd like you can follow me @xthurst but its not worth it ill be honest
Nysze
Profile Joined July 2010
United States111 Posts
February 14 2012 23:07 GMT
#14
You make some good points here and for the most part I agree, however I want to take the chance to correct something that a lot of people have a common misconception of. The ladder does not "attempt to get you a 50% win ratio" it attempts to match you vs someone of equal skill, so if you get 5 wins in a row, bringing your record to 15-10, the ladder system does not say "lets pair this guy vs someone really good, to bring his/her ratio to 50%," instead it says "I should start pairing this guy vs better opponents that match his/her skill level." So if you go on a 5 win streak you will start playing slightly better players, if you didn't just get lucky with your 5 wins and are actually improving you will retain that good win/loss ratio.

I know a lot of people already know this, or think they know this, but I hear people say that they are being paired vs really good players who they can't beat just because they got a win streak a few games ago. Also many more people say that your win loss ratio below masters is meaningless since it's always going to be around 50%, this is not true; if you are improving faster than the other players at your skill level then you will get a slightly higher than 50% win ratio, when that ratio gets high enough then the system promotes you (not based on your ratio, it's just how the numbers work). This is why blizz can release a chart of how many points you need to be promoted, because if your ratio is high enough you will start getting more points than your losing and reach a point where you are playing players that are a higher level then you.
Well butter my biscuit
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
February 15 2012 01:14 GMT
#15
On February 15 2012 08:07 Nysze wrote:
You make some good points here and for the most part I agree, however I want to take the chance to correct something that a lot of people have a common misconception of. The ladder does not "attempt to get you a 50% win ratio" it attempts to match you vs someone of equal skill, so if you get 5 wins in a row, bringing your record to 15-10, the ladder system does not say "lets pair this guy vs someone really good, to bring his/her ratio to 50%," instead it says "I should start pairing this guy vs better opponents that match his/her skill level." So if you go on a 5 win streak you will start playing slightly better players, if you didn't just get lucky with your 5 wins and are actually improving you will retain that good win/loss ratio.


What you say isn't quite accurate... "Attempting to get a 50% win ratio" and pairing players against others of equal skill are basically equivalent for anyone with a stable MMR, which is almost everyone who's not deliberately manipulating theirs.

The internal design of the MMR system, which was designed by some of the same people as Microsoft's TrueSkill system (which I bring up because it has been publicly documented) is based on there being a well-defined prediction of win likelihood that can be calculated from two players' MMRs.

The game tries to find opponents with MMRs that are as close as possible, which will result in as close as possible to a 50% likelihood of a win. While it doesn't look at a player with a five game losing streak and try to give that player five wins, that losing streak will reduce the MMR to some extent and result in a player being paired against lower MMR players on average, until they either make up the losing streak and wind up where they started, or the MMR achieves a lower equilibrium.

Actually achieving a 50% win ratio over the long run is only possible for players whose MMRs are relatively stable. A fundamental improvement in play might bump a player over 50% for a period of time, while a long period without practice might bump a player below 50%.


I know a lot of people already know this, or think they know this, but I hear people say that they are being paired vs really good players who they can't beat just because they got a win streak a few games ago.


A long winning (or losing) streak will definitely have a visible impact on the quality of players you're facing, because that streak will cause your MMR to take an excursion away from its starting value. The matchmaking system may not explicitly examine your recent game history as such when doing its thing, but the MMR number includes that historical information inherently.

Also many more people say that your win loss ratio below masters is meaningless since it's always going to be around 50%, this is not true; if you are improving faster than the other players at your skill level then you will get a slightly higher than 50% win ratio, when that ratio gets high enough then the system promotes you (not based on your ratio, it's just how the numbers work). This is why blizz can release a chart of how many points you need to be promoted, because if your ratio is high enough you will start getting more points than your losing and reach a point where you are playing players that are a higher level then you.


If a player is improving fast enough (or getting worse at fast enough) they'll see a win/loss that's not 50%. However, it IS possible for one's MMR to move while retaining a long-term 50% win/loss ratio depending on their actual opponents and how the games go. For example, if someone's improving and gets paired against a series of increasingly better players, versus whom they go 50/50, they'll tend to gain more points than they lose until their MMR stabilizes. On average, one would normally expect an improving player's ratio to be better than 50%, but it need not be in any specific case, and it wouldn't take much more than a 50% win ratio to have a steadily increasing MMR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
February 15 2012 01:17 GMT
#16
On February 15 2012 03:38 Gheed wrote:
Nobody cares if the MMR makes AT vs RT "even," they care about the horrible games it produces.


If the likelihood of each team to win is 50/50, what is it that makes the games horrible? Not disputing your assessment, I just can't think of why that would particularly be the case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
willoc
Profile Joined February 2011
Canada1530 Posts
February 15 2012 01:24 GMT
#17
I believe this is already covered under:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195273

Please do a search before creating threads.
Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid!
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
February 15 2012 01:40 GMT
#18
On February 15 2012 10:24 willoc wrote:
I believe this is already covered under:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195273

Please do a search before creating threads.


Did you notice that the OP linked to that post? I interpreted this thread to be intended to clear up certain misconceptions, though I agree, there wasn't that much new here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
Rassy
Profile Joined August 2010
Netherlands2308 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-15 01:46:21
February 15 2012 01:42 GMT
#19
MMR is not skill but its as close as you can get to measuring skill.
Mmr measures your performance, and while better skill does not have to lead to a better performance, there is a strong correlation.

MMR , or rather the elo as displayed on the elo lists for top players,basicly expresses a statistical change (a change derived from statistics, instead of calculation the odds directly like with dice sequences)
if both are equal MMR the statistical change to win is 50%.
If mmr works the same as elo, a difference of 700 MMR would translate to a 100% change of winning.

I dont see anny reason for you bashing the mmr, its the best possible number to measure relative skill
People just need to understand where the number comes from and what it is exactly.
We should be able to see our mmr since then we can see how good our results are compared to other players wich is impossible atm
If some john doe manages to get 2600 elo at the ladder while all pros hoover at 2500 then john doe is better then thoose pros and has results to proove it
What are you all afraid of that will happen when displaying the mmr?
That it will show pros only score marginally better results then master players or something else?
That unknown players go brag with high elos?
Well if they have that elo they have the right to brag. You dont get the elo for free, you actually have to win.
there realy is no reason to be afraid of mmr and have not seen one good argument against it.

sry but this mmr fear is the for me most frustrating part of sc.
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-15 01:52:11
February 15 2012 01:50 GMT
#20
On February 15 2012 10:42 Rassy wrote:
If mmr works the same as elo, a difference of 700 MMR would translate to a 100% change of winning.


It does not, though the principle is the same.

What are you all afraid of that will happen when displaying the mmr?


Blizzard's reasoning for not showing the MMR is that it's noisy and doesn't change much for most players over the long run. Their concern is that it would be a disincentive for playing for most players.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
jinixxx123
Profile Joined June 2010
543 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-15 02:02:03
February 15 2012 01:50 GMT
#21
On February 15 2012 03:35 [F_]aths wrote:
[image loading]

In this posting I attempt to explain why it's not a good idea to display MMR in the player profiles, and why it is okay to match random teams versus arranged teams.

The match making rating (MMR) was developed by Blizzard to match players so that the winning likelihood of either one is 50% (or close to 50%, if no exact match is found.) This has several implications:

• MMR is not what many guys consider skill: The ability to get ranked high in tournaments. The MMR is blind to the causes of your ladder wins. Some players who have the MMR to get matched versus actual pros, will never win a tournament unless they are going pro, too. "Winning likelihood on ladder" does relate to "skill", but it does not translate 1:1. Displaying MMR would give many guys the false impression that they finally can compare their true skill.

• MMR considers the winning likelihood relative to the current ladder pool. That means, a ranking of 1000 MMR points today relates to much higher skill than lets say four weeks after the release of the game. It's good that without the display of the MMR, no one can brag around with his peak MMR he could got at any point in the past.

• Again, MMR was developed only to get you an opponent which has the same chance of winning the game as you have right now. When win or loss streaks occur, the match maker uses a mechanic to consider short-term slumps or performance explosions without too large impact on the MMR while it still tries to get you opponents close to your current winning likelihood. To do this, the match maker uses a confidence value is widened or narrowed depending on how close you fulfill the match maker's prediction of the outcome of the game. This mechanic uses arbitrary values which are intended to reflect common casual fluctuations of your performance. MMR is not your true skill.


Because of this, the game can match random teams versus arranged teams. If you are a random team player and if you play enough games, your winning ratio will be around 50%. It doesn't matter if the opponent arranged team uses Skype. You are matched against them because your random team still has about 50% to beat the other team. If a team just began to use voice chat and therefore wins some games, their winning streak will be disrupteded when they get too strong opponents. Then this team will lose some games until the MMR reflects the correct winning likelihood. So yes, you can get an opponent which is stronger than his MMR reflects, but you have the same chance to get an opponent who is weaker than his MMR suggests. The MMR is constantly changing.

The top-ranked arranged teams have a very high winning ratio (70% and higher.) This is because there are not enough teams of the same MMR online. Since the top arranged teams have a higher MMR compared to any other team online (regardless if arranged or random), very good arranged teams can sustain a ratio quite a bit above 50%. That also means, the team who is likely to lose (because of its lower MMR) will only lose few points while the arranged team, if it wins as predicted, gains very little points.

While this is frustrating, it's still better than having no game at all. With separate AT / RT pools, the search time would be longer while the matching wouldn't be any closer. This issue only affects a very small ladder population, though. For any widely available MMR level, the shared AT / RT pools allows faster game search and closer winning likelihood matching.


Recommended read: Excalibur_Z's ladder guide.



the problem with team games have never really been the Arrange team vs Random team issue ,though i do hate it because it makes for really bad games ( either you roll a team effortlessly or you get rolled effortlessly) but whats more of an issue is Partial Arrange teams competing in Random team games.

For instance , if you play a 4v4 Random team game and you are in party of yourself + 2 other people. That means 3 out of 4 people are Arranged, which means its a 75% arranged team and you are getting ranked within random team ladders. Blizzard has put in a system which slightly takes into consideration full blown arrange teams vs random teams to even up things a bit. But they have put absolutely no system in place for Partial arrange team abuse. Who cares for instance if one of your allys are really bad in 4v4 rt ( the randomly given ally), the Arranged 3 players can do very strong cheeses to eliminate none arranged team players out of the game quickly because they dont have the team coordination, they arent talking on vent, they arent saying their builds, its just a fucking mess.

Do me a favor and check all the masters random team profiles you come across and look specifically for the ones that are doing the best. From my experience the guys with the best random team records are the guys playing with the same friends all the time and accepting 1 randomly given ally.

Anyway, i dont really want to get into this anymore as i have said enough about it at the blizzard forums, there are better ways to find matches faster than to encourage arrange team vs random team. but for the very least blizzards needs to stop having "player parties" destroy random team games.
Fred Flintstone
Profile Joined December 2011
Germany73 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-15 01:55:30
February 15 2012 01:55 GMT
#22
i disagree with the AT/RT thing. trust me, its so enfuriating to play vs arranged teams; its practically auto-loss. i dont understand what blizzard was thinking.
Yabba dabba doo!
Rassy
Profile Joined August 2010
Netherlands2308 Posts
February 15 2012 16:48 GMT
#23
What are you all afraid of that will happen when displaying the mmr?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Blizzard's reasoning for not showing the MMR is that it's noisy and doesn't change much for most players over the long run. Their concern is that it would be a disincentive for playing for most players.
Last edit: 2012-02-15 10:52:11

They are dead wrong here, and also aiming for the wrong group of players.
With this they are trying to please the casual non competitive gamer while at the same time displeasing the competitive gamer who loves to know his elo/mmr despite it beeing "low"
Sc is to difficult for casual gamers and they wont be able to please thoose people annyway for a bit longer time.
They should aim to go for the bit more serious player, (more serious does not imply higher skill btw!) and the bit more serious player who likes to be competitive would love to see his elo/mmr
Even if this would show that he would not improve.

If look at the chessworld, peole LOVE their elo.
This not only goes for thoose with high elos, or thoose who are raising their elo fast.
This also goes for all lower levelled players, they all love their elo and their elo not improving is no deterent to play.
Now chess is in a huge slump and less and less people play it but this is NOT due to the elo beeing displayed.
I agree that the elo in sc wil be verry noisy,much more then it is in chess (where it is verry rare to drop more then 100 points on a "loosing streak") but this should not be a deterent,
it just means that there is alot more variance in sc, though most people already noticed this.

i dont mind playing arranged teams btw, i play lots of random 4x4 myself (over 200 games a season) and run into arranged teams or partially aranged teams (where 3 people are from same team) quiet often and it never botherd me.
If the mmr is the same i still have 50% change to win,mmr dont lie
THM
Profile Joined November 2010
Bulgaria1131 Posts
February 15 2012 16:55 GMT
#24
I want to ask a question concerning MMR. Are 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 MMR completely independant from one another?

Meaning, can someone be Master 1v1, but insta leave a few games in 2v2, be placed in Bronze in 2v2, and then get extremely easy opponents in 2v2 from then on until he wins a lot of games.

Or are all the modes dependent on 1v1 MMR?
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
February 15 2012 17:08 GMT
#25
On February 16 2012 01:55 THM wrote:
I want to ask a question concerning MMR. Are 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 MMR completely independant from one another?


When a player places for the first time in a game type, the other MMRs are used as an initial estimate. After that, they are independent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
eighteen8
Profile Joined December 2010
105 Posts
February 15 2012 17:23 GMT
#26
it is/was no secret that displayed ranks only work with a reference to a given time.
are you a blizzard guy or where do you get these information?
it sure is a nice article but there is no evidence your assumptions are correct or incorret.
since the article has some kind of semi-scientific form, i was expecting some serious references to proove your point.

no serious reference: maybe just your personal point of view?

[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-15 17:54:16
February 15 2012 17:52 GMT
#27
On February 16 2012 02:23 eighteen8 wrote:
it is/was no secret that displayed ranks only work with a reference to a given time.
are you a blizzard guy or where do you get these information?
it sure is a nice article but there is no evidence your assumptions are correct or incorret.
since the article has some kind of semi-scientific form, i was expecting some serious references to proove your point.

no serious reference: maybe just your personal point of view?

While the exact MMR formula isn't known, the principle behind it is known. Game designer Sirlin was approached by Blizzard, he blogged about it: http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2010/7/24/analyzing-starcraft-2s-ranking-system.html

Excalibur_Z from the TL community got some clarifications from Blizzard during a Blizzcon. With all things we know, it's reasonable to assume that Blizzard uses a derivation of the Glicko system, which is described: http://www.glicko.net/glicko.html
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-16 15:25:51
February 16 2012 15:08 GMT
#28
On February 16 2012 01:55 THM wrote:
I want to ask a question concerning MMR. Are 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 MMR completely independant from one another?

Meaning, can someone be Master 1v1, but insta leave a few games in 2v2, be placed in Bronze in 2v2, and then get extremely easy opponents in 2v2 from then on until he wins a lot of games.

Or are all the modes dependent on 1v1 MMR?

Each X versus X random team mode has it's own MMR. That means, your 2v2 RT MMR is independent of your 3v3 RT MMR. This is also true for each arranged team. If you play with friend A a 2v2 team and with friend B, too, each team has its own MMR.

You need to play 5 placement matches, and for those matches the match maker considers the MMR from other leagues, if available. (Otherwise the system assumes a default MMR.)
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12235 Posts
February 16 2012 16:39 GMT
#29
On February 16 2012 01:48 Rassy wrote:
What are you all afraid of that will happen when displaying the mmr?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Blizzard's reasoning for not showing the MMR is that it's noisy and doesn't change much for most players over the long run. Their concern is that it would be a disincentive for playing for most players.
Last edit: 2012-02-15 10:52:11

They are dead wrong here, and also aiming for the wrong group of players.
With this they are trying to please the casual non competitive gamer while at the same time displeasing the competitive gamer who loves to know his elo/mmr despite it beeing "low"
Sc is to difficult for casual gamers and they wont be able to please thoose people annyway for a bit longer time.
They should aim to go for the bit more serious player, (more serious does not imply higher skill btw!) and the bit more serious player who likes to be competitive would love to see his elo/mmr
Even if this would show that he would not improve.

If look at the chessworld, peole LOVE their elo.
This not only goes for thoose with high elos, or thoose who are raising their elo fast.
This also goes for all lower levelled players, they all love their elo and their elo not improving is no deterent to play.
Now chess is in a huge slump and less and less people play it but this is NOT due to the elo beeing displayed.
I agree that the elo in sc wil be verry noisy,much more then it is in chess (where it is verry rare to drop more then 100 points on a "loosing streak") but this should not be a deterent,
it just means that there is alot more variance in sc, though most people already noticed this.

i dont mind playing arranged teams btw, i play lots of random 4x4 myself (over 200 games a season) and run into arranged teams or partially aranged teams (where 3 people are from same team) quiet often and it never botherd me.
If the mmr is the same i still have 50% change to win,mmr dont lie


You're correct that they're aiming for the more casual player, and Blizzard can afford to do this because they know that the more competitive players will play the game anyway and they can draw inferences just as some of us have done with the mechanics of the ladder system. If you understand how the system matches, what the division tiers represent, how to read opponent match histories, and how to read point gains and losses, you can get a pretty good idea via looking at trends where you stand as a percentage of the greater population. That's a far cry from your chess Elo rating which you know and everyone else knows because it's visible and easily accessible. However, if you put in the work to solve the riddle of your own MMR, you can get close enough to draft a reasonable conclusion. Typically, that's not an issue at all because competitive players -- even if they want to know their exact skill rating and use it for comparisons -- won't stop playing the game over it.

Casual players I'd imagine see the game like this: place in a league, gain points, try to be the division #1, level out somewhere, play only when bonus pool has accumulated, season roll, repeat. Their points basically only go up, but the better players' points go up faster. Still, all that's visible are points so that's what the casual player has to gauge skill. For about 87.5% of a season, their points are going up via consuming bonus pool which creates an illusion of improvement. Then the season rolls over and they can do it all over again while wondering why they haven't been promoted despite being #1 in their lowest-tier Bronze division. Unlike the competitive player who is more focused on actually being better than his opponents, the casual player wants to witness progress which shows that he is better. Therefore, while a displayed MMR doesn't really affect the competitive player other than satisfying his curiosity, a displayed MMR which practically never changes adversely affects the casual player who would quickly notice that he's not actually improving from season to season.
Moderator
Bijan
Profile Joined October 2010
United States286 Posts
February 16 2012 16:54 GMT
#30
I don't think anyone wants to specifically see their MMR, they just want a ranking system that they can use to compare against any player.

Right now, a Gold and Platinum player have no real way to tell how much of a difference their ranks have. If there was a separate rank that gave a placement as related to every active player, I think a lot of people would be happy.
Names
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Canada328 Posts
February 16 2012 17:04 GMT
#31
I'm not sure if this has been answered already but does the MMR take the matchup in consideration when matching two opponents together? Because I've been matched against pretty fucking good zergs lately and TvZ is my worst matchup so I lose them all. I'm doing fine in other matchups though. I doubt it does I guess?
Shockk
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Germany2269 Posts
February 16 2012 18:27 GMT
#32
It's amazing that after what must have been more than a dozen posts in the other thread by now, you still haven't realized that the issue most of us have with AT vs. RT is the horrible quality of games and the massive potential for abuse. Just like in the other thread, you completely ignore this abuse, you refuse to accept the statistical evidence (teams with 90%+ or even 100% win rates, overall MUCH higher AT win rates compared to RT), and you have yet to admit that just like the rest of us, you're in the dark as to how exactly the MMR works.

I realize I had initially promised not to reply to your posts any longer; I make an exeption since you've even gone so far as to open a new thread on this subject. That you have the nerve to repost this without acknowledging any of the points brought up before is ... bold, to stay diplomatic.
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-17 13:39:18
February 17 2012 12:44 GMT
#33
On February 17 2012 03:27 Shockk wrote:
It's amazing that after what must have been more than a dozen posts in the other thread by now, you still haven't realized that the issue most of us have with AT vs. RT is the horrible quality of games and the massive potential for abuse. Just like in the other thread, you completely ignore this abuse, you refuse to accept the statistical evidence (teams with 90%+ or even 100% win rates, overall MUCH higher AT win rates compared to RT), and you have yet to admit that just like the rest of us, you're in the dark as to how exactly the MMR works.

It is not necessary to know the exact MMR formula because the principle behind MMR is known. We know what MMR can do and what it can't do. Not all details are known, for example how the average team MMR is calculated from all random team members. The arithmetic average would be a bad idea. I assume that Blizzard found a way to get to a somewhat reliable average calculation. It isn't hard to check the expected winning likelihood with the actual one and then finetune the calculation of the team average MMR. But even if Blizzard's average MMR caluclation is flawed, it still doesn't matter since then you will lose so many games to have an random MMR so low that you no longer get matched versus ATs which are too strong.

If there aren't enough top teams online to match them, they are set versus lesser-skilled teams since this is the only way to allow for a game. Your statistical evidence covers only a very small part of the population. The last time I looked at sc2ranks, I saw that many master ATs had just slightly above 50% win rates (about 55% wn rate.) Some arranged teams however were able to sustain win ratios above 70% for umpteen games, but as expected those teams are mostly found in the top ranks. Those win rates are only possible because they play teams with lesser MMR. Mixing AT and RT is a separate issue.

There is a conjunction though, since all top teams are arranged, not random teams. But putting AT only versus AT solves nothing because it's the MMR which should be equal. When there are no other teams of the same strength online, the stronger team will likely win their match even if they play a weaker AT.

You see that I am actively avoiding a discussion about "horrible quality" of games because this is a matter of taste. How can separate team player pools improve the game quality anyway?

Getting a "good" experience is difficult within a random team. I guess many players participate in team games because they want a laid-back experience. In my experience, they are not really willing to cooperate, but they demand protection from the team when they are attacked. How can it improve game quality if you match RT only versus RT? To save them from being stomped by an AT? When teams with same MMR (regardless if AT or RT) are matched, the winning likelyhood is even. I cannot see the abuse here.

With random teams you can be lucky to get paired with a good player who carries the team, or unlucky since you get a scrub who doesn't talk until he is attacked, then he demands help from the team only to quit 30 seconds later after he publicly declared his team is noob. This luck factor per single game even increases when RTs are only paired versus RTs because both sides are unstable. If you match an RT of stronger individual players versus an AT of weaker individual players, compensated by better player cooperation, at least one side isn't that much luck-based.

Unless I made a big logical blunder I dare to say that luck-based one-sided game results are an issue of random teaming, not of putting them against ATs.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
rd
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States2586 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-02-18 00:04:47
February 17 2012 13:26 GMT
#34
On February 15 2012 03:38 Gheed wrote:
Nobody cares if the MMR makes AT vs RT "even," they care about the horrible games it produces. Why do you insist on posting this everywhere? The idea that nobody would queue for arranged 2s if it had its own bracket is also farcical. It did not take that long to find a game in WC3. In fact, you could argue that more people would play if there was an AT ladder, because the competition would be something other than RT noobs. You could argue that using the same "facts," you are, i.e. none.


AT vs RT isn't that bad. It really makes no difference in 2v2 until the highest of levels where you'll never be evenly matched with the best of the best 2v2 teams, unless you and your random partner are actually that much better to bridge the "mmr" gap. Random teammates at the top levels are also much less prone to be retarded and carried to that level. You might walk into one every 10-15 queues but I simply don't see them. All of my games as random are fairly even and I've enjoyed a 60-70% win ratio three seasons straight (barring this one cause my mmr tanked out of the top).

Anything, ANYTHING below the highest of the high in the region, let alone diamond is simply muddied with too many other variables that disallow an accreditation to AT vs RT. It's highly likely the AT had better players than you and your random partner, not your random partner alone. MMR depicts your current trends relative to other players around your rating, not your relative skill.

Keep in mind, below the top levels of MMR, in lets say diamond, the AT may be using skype and might be winning more often because of their coordination. Their mechanics/strategies are not the best and they WILL eventually be placed against random players who ARE better, and they WILL break even at 50% UNTIL they start queuing against the highest MMR's in the region. Until then, all of your complaints about RT's are delusional. Also, this assumes everyone in an AT (in 3v3/4v4) is suddenly competent and AT's are never carrying a weaker player beyond his rating through coordination via skype.

edit: Also the AT's with seemingly massive win rates are simply not playing enough games to be placed within the right MMR. 2v2 is a much more fleshed out league mmr wise and teams with massive win rates will break even very fast if they aren't destined to hit the ceiling of masters. 3v3/4v4 there are a boat load of teams that play less than 20-30 games and go like, 20-2. They aren't playing enough games to be moved to their MMR. It could be possible a lot of these diamond+ teams should be placed within the highest of masters. Not enough matches are played from any one team, and 3v3/4v4 in general is very murky when it comes to what level of MMR depicts a team's skill; It's the exact opposite of 1v1 which has a very clean, rising trend of MMR levels.
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