With Heart of the Swarm, Starcraft II has undergone some changes with regard to how ladder information is procured.
First, let's take a look at the Bonus Pool.
Bonus Pool
Q: Is the Bonus Pool accumulation rate different in Heart of the Swarm? A: Yes. It's now 180 per week for Master/Grandmaster, 104.4 per week for lower leagues, 66% of the normal rate for Arranged 2v2, and 33% of the normal rate for Arranged 3v3/4v4.
Q: Blizzard said the Bonus Pool will be consumed twice as fast now, what does that mean? A: The Bonus Pool now not only doubles your earned points for wins, but any points you would have lost due to losing a game are now absorbed by your Bonus Pool as well.
Q: Doesn't this make it harder to reach the top of a division? A: No. Your Bonus Pool is still practically a decay mechanism. Functionally, the Bonus Pool is still just unrealized points. It's just easier to spend 30 Bonus Pool by going 10+10, -10+10, 10+10 than going 10+10, -10, 10+10, -10, 10+10. The end result is you still end up with 40 points, it just takes less games.
Unranked Play
Unranked play is a new addition to Starcraft II HotS and WoL 2.0.4. There are a number of Blizzard posts scattered about which explain it, but they only go into so much detail. I'm still fielding a lot of questions about what exactly Unranked is and what its effect is on the ladder as a whole. Below I'll cover some of the more basic questions as well as some speculation as to the impact that this new feature has on Ranked play.
Q: What is Unranked Play? A: Unranked is functionally the same thing as Ranked play. It uses the same automatic matchmaking system and the same rules for matching players. The only difference is that you aren't assigned a league or division and you don't earn or lose points for Unranked play. You also don't carry a bonus pool.
Q: How does the matchmaker pair me with players when I queue Unranked? A: You already know that matchmaking works by finding players of similar hidden MMR. If you have no prior history (primer: if you have to play 5 placement matches instead of one, the matchmaker has no prior history for you meaning your MMR returns to the default starting value around the middle of the ladder), then you inherit the MMR from your pre-existing value. For example, if I'm Gold in Ranked and I play my first Unranked match, I'll be starting Unranked from Gold. After the first match, the MMRs can diverge and will remain separate. Your next Ranked game will have no impact on your newly-established Unranked MMR, and vice versa.
For most players, this will be a one-way transition from using Ranked data to establish an Unranked MMR. However, technically it does work the other way around as well, just something to keep in mind.
Q: How can you tell which games were Unranked in a player's match history? A: This can be quite tricky. There's a lot more research involved now. 1. Unranked games don't award any points, that's the first thing to watch for. 2. The next thing is to find out whether a game was a Placement Match or not, and usually you will find this out based on the number of placement matches leading up to that game type. If a player has any remaining Placement Matches in his profile, there's no way to know for sure. If he's already in a league, it's possible it was an Unranked match. 3. If the game was a Loss, you have to find out whether the player has any Bonus Pool remaining in that game format. If he does, it's possible it was a Ranked game where the lost points were absorbed by the Bonus Pool (this doesn't make it into match history). If he has no Bonus Pool remaining, then either it was a Ranked match that used up the remaining Bonus Pool, or it was an Unranked match.
Q: Can Unranked players play against Ranked players? A: Yes. Ranked and Unranked players are part of the same pool.
Q: If Unranked players can play against Ranked players, won't they feed rating to the Ranked players since Unranked players generally won't be playing as seriously? A: This is yet to be determined. Assuming this is true, there would be an initial upward swing for Ranked players as the Unranked players drop in MMR on their way to their Unranked skill level (this can mean many things, from offracing to build practice to casual stress relief). This is just one possibility.
Leave League
Patch 2.0.4 also introduced a strange new button called "Leave League".
Q: What does this shiny, scary button do? A: "Leave League" does exactly what it says, ejects you from the ladder. You can rejoin at any time. You play your Placement Match again and are assigned a new league.
Something rather critical about this: some players report having to play one Placement Match (meaning MMR is not reset) and others report having to play five Placement Matches (meaning MMR is reset). I don't have enough information now to determine which is intended.
Q: Can I use Leave League to force a promotion/demotion? A: League changes (promotions/demotions) require an element of stability. By leaving the league, you sidestep this requirement. However, it's also possible that initial placements are conservative.
Portrait Borders
Maybe you've noticed that some players have a border around their player portrait now.
Q: How do I get one of those cool portrait borders and what do they mean? A: The portrait borders reflect your 1v1 league. If you don't have one, it's because you're not in a Ranked 1v1 division. This border persists into team games as well as chat channels.
Favored System
In the pre-game screen, the "Favored" indicator has disappeared.
Q: How do I know how many points the match is worth for me now that the indicator's gone? A: Now you can't. Instead, you can only see the opponent's portrait border signifying 1v1 league, but of course that doesn't necessarily tell you about his current MMR. That Gold-bordered opponent could be on his way up to your Platinum division, or maybe he's on a losing streak and hasn't been demoted to Bronze yet. On the plus side, now that bug with the pre-game and score screen Favored indicators not matching up is finally fixed! Note that the way points are determined is still unchanged: your current adjusted points compared to the opponent's MMR, and his adjusted points compared to your MMR. Also, because Unranked players can be matched against Ranked players, he may have a Platinum Unranked MMR but a Master-bordered portrait.
Leaving one's league sounds like a great option. I've often taken breaks only to come back and not want to play just so I wouldn't get demoted - glad it's in there. Hopefully it's an MMR reset all the time rather than what you mentioned.
Q: For example I am at Gold in Ranked play the left the league and played Unranked all throughout the season (or forever), will my MMR change and can be matched with Diamond/Masters assuming I really increased my skills?
On March 01 2013 18:09 Godofsilver wrote: Leaving one's league sounds like a great option. I've often taken breaks only to come back and not want to play just so I wouldn't get demoted - glad it's in there. Hopefully it's an MMR reset all the time rather than what you mentioned.
The thing that scares me about that, is in 4v4 with some really bad friends, we are in bronze. Image now that a group of 4v4 masters league people just reset the MMR to go "trolling" for the day and throwing their 5 placement matches. It's already frustrating to deal with the number of people that do it, but at least that'll take them forever to be able to play a real game again, so some people are hesitant to do so. If MMR resets, they can basically do it without worry about being able to play real games again the next day.
Is the portrait border visible/displayed when I start a ranked game and the map is being loaded? What about unraked and team games? Can we see based on this the league of our opponent?
On March 01 2013 17:58 Excalibur_Z wrote: Q: How does the matchmaker pair me with players when I queue Unranked? A: You already know that matchmaking works by finding players of similar hidden MMR. If you have no prior history (primer: if you have to play 5 placement matches instead of one, the matchmaker has no prior history for you meaning your MMR returns to the default starting value around the middle of the ladder), then you inherit the MMR from your pre-existing value. For example, if I'm Gold in Ranked and I play my first Unranked match, I'll be starting Unranked from Gold. After the first match, the MMRs can diverge and will remain separate. Your next Ranked game will have no impact on your newly-established Unranked MMR, and vice versa.
Is this really true? For me the unranked mmr seems to start with a clean table regardless of my ranked mmr. First I get matched with bronze-silver and then after 10-15 straight wins it's diamond/masters again. It was same for both my US and EU accounts. My US account had ~50 ranked games played this season and solid diamond ranking. My EU account had no ranked games played this season (1 placement match) low masters last season.
Im facing silvers/gold in unranked and Im a master in ranked 1v1.
also if Im facing ranked players when im playing unranked, isnt it possible to drop mmr by offracing or leave on purpose and then use that in my ranked matches to get a higher rank because I now get to play way below my actual mmr?
On March 01 2013 18:26 Dakota_Fanning wrote: Is the portrait border visible/displayed when I start a ranked game and the map is being loaded? What about unraked and team games? Can we see based on this the league of our opponent?
Ranked team games show portrait borders based on 1v1 league ranking.
On March 01 2013 18:37 NEEDZMOAR wrote: Im facing silvers/gold in unranked and Im a master in ranked 1v1.
also if Im facing unranked nad mmy unranked mmr connects with my ranked mmr, isnt it possible to drop like hell in mmr by play offrace or leave on purpose and then use that in my ranked matches to get a higher rank but I only have to play way below my actual mmr?
I think unranked starts off by picking up your ranked MMR, if you have one, and then independently changes.
Basically rather than starting with 0 unranked MMR, it does a carry over to get you a somewhat reasonable unranked level. And then the two MMRs develop separately.
Although according to the above it's not working for picking up the initial MMR.
On March 01 2013 17:58 Excalibur_Z wrote: Q: Blizzard said the Bonus Pool will be consumed twice as fast now, what does that mean? A: The Bonus Pool now not only doubles your earned points for wins, but any points you would have lost due to losing a game are now absorbed by your Bonus Pool as well.
Wow I finally know why I never lose any points on HotS beta...
sounds good my only concern with the leave league thing is this. Wont it make it quite easy to smurf? For example a diamond who want to have some "fun" ripping up bronzes leaves leagues, loses placement matches, places in bronze and there we go. If he want to go back to diamond he'll be there in a week since he'll just crush everything game after game up till he hits high plat...
and wouldnt this make portrait farming quite easy too, with the same technique... if you are a decent player you just go for it, once you get to much competition, leave league and restart from bronze...
On March 01 2013 19:04 Soundwave12 wrote: sounds good my only concern with the leave league thing is this. Wont it make it quite easy to smurf? For example a diamond who want to have some "fun" ripping up bronzes leaves leagues, loses placement matches, places in bronze and there we go. If he want to go back to diamond he'll be there in a week since he'll just crush everything game after game up till he hits high plat...
and wouldnt this make portrait farming quite easy too, with the same technique... if you are a decent player you just go for it, once you get to much competition, leave league and restart from bronze...
I think most times leave a league only put you into one placement match. But OP suggests there are other possibilities so you might stand a point.
Been playing vs nothing but Masters in Unranked... Guess there haven't been many queuing for it on SEA. Not that i'm too worried, I barely play now anyway, just an annoyance when they destroy me
On March 01 2013 19:04 Soundwave12 wrote: sounds good my only concern with the leave league thing is this. Wont it make it quite easy to smurf? For example a diamond who want to have some "fun" ripping up bronzes leaves leagues, loses placement matches, places in bronze and there we go. If he want to go back to diamond he'll be there in a week since he'll just crush everything game after game up till he hits high plat...
and wouldnt this make portrait farming quite easy too, with the same technique... if you are a decent player you just go for it, once you get to much competition, leave league and restart from bronze...
I think most times leave a league only put you into one placement match. But OP suggests there are other possibilities so you might stand a point.
Yeah, I think MMR fully resetting is a bug... It sounds like it should just kick you from your current league (the way a season reset does).
The one thing I'd like would be a way to reset unranked MMR (without dumping games).
Something I would realy like is to be able to start a new league with another race. So for example if your main is masters zerg you could then do placement matches again for Protoss and Terran. Then you could practice your offraces against the same level of your play without sinking your main. Ofcourse this would be too easily abused so it'll never happen
In the beta leave league gave me 1 placement match, but in WoL after the patch it gives me 5. Though granted I wasn't placed the season before so that might have an effect on it, such that if you had to play 5 placement matches to start the season, leave league gives 5 placement matches, but if you only had to do 1, then it gives 1.. I dunno my theory based on limited information.
Im liking the new changes in general, but how about giving us some stats, like: - matchup winrate, - map winrate, - matchup map winrate, Put it on loading screen plus some tab in a profile to browse? Easy stuff and so much helpful. Anyone on this?
EDIT: And vs players history if applicable. I would love them stats!
I started playing unranked in WoL and noticed the matchmaker began matching me against bronze and silver players, so I think it might not be working the way they said. I feel like I'm playing new placement with my unranked, everyone I've played against so far has been Plat or below and my mmr is much higher than that.
On March 01 2013 20:30 TmzZ666 wrote: Im liking the new changes in general, but how about giving us some stats, like: - matchup winrate, - map winrate, - matchup map winrate, Put it on loading screen plus some tab in a profile to browse? Easy stuff and so much helpful. Anyone on this?
EDIT: And vs players history if applicable. I would love them stats!
You haven't checked your profile page right...? There are already map and MU stats in patch 2.0.4.
On March 01 2013 17:58 Excalibur_Z wrote: Q: Is the Bonus Pool accumulation rate different after 2.0.4? A: No. It's still 90 per week for Master/Grandmaster, 52.2 per week for lower leagues, 66% of the normal rate for Arranged 2v2, and 33% of the normal rate for Arranged 3v3/4v4.
That is going to become outdated rather quickly. It's going to double once 2013 Season 2 starts (Source). Other than that, nicely done.
i doubt unranked uses a similar MMR as starting point or MMR at all... as in WoL im a top 100 GM, and in unranked WoL i get bronze-gold players in the first few times I tried for unranked.
On March 01 2013 21:50 KiF1rE wrote: i doubt unranked uses a similar MMR as starting point or MMR at all... as in WoL im a top 100 GM, and in unranked WoL i get bronze-gold players in the first few times I tried for unranked.
Maybe it works differently in WoL and the HotS beta. In the beta, I got demolished when I tried to offrace, getting matched against master opponents because I'm masters in ranked. My MMR quickly dropped around platinum, and then stabilized.
The one semi-annoying thing about playing ranked ladder now is that I seem to face a lot more players picking random, who I assume are mostly playing unranked.
Just to be sure. I have two profile in plat, and my wife want to test sc2 in multi (before she was just playing against AI). Now with "leaving league", could i sent one of my profile into bronze ?
On March 01 2013 22:47 Wertheron wrote: Just to be sure. I have two profile in plat, and my wife want to test sc2 in multi (before she was just playing against AI). Now with "leaving league", could i sent one of my profile into bronze ?
Two 1v1 ladders? That doesn't seem likely. Or are you talking about 2v2?
On March 01 2013 22:47 Wertheron wrote: Just to be sure. I have two profile in plat, and my wife want to test sc2 in multi (before she was just playing against AI). Now with "leaving league", could i sent one of my profile into bronze ?
Two 1v1 ladders? That doesn't seem likely. Or are you talking about 2v2?
Yes i have two accounts in Plat 1v1. I wanted to demote the training account (now i have unranked to play without pressure) for her in bronze. If "leaving league" is faster than 54 free looses, could be cool
every change is good, especially faster eating through the bonus pool and leave league. Except there is one thing which is just horrid: unranked and ranked matchmaking puts them against each other, and the guy playing ranked gets the points.... that is stupid and needs to be removed
I think Unranked in the Ranked player pool with just have an advantage for the Ranked player. I know that I'll be using Unranked play to practice my off races, which are Bronze/Silver level compared to my Platinum level Zerg play. I'll probably lose Unranked games and I'm okay with that, but hopefully that initial boost of ranked players doesn't stay for too long
On March 01 2013 18:12 zenkicker wrote: Q: For example I am at Gold in Ranked play the left the league and played Unranked all throughout the season (or forever), will my MMR change and can be matched with Diamond/Masters assuming I really increased my skills?
Yes. Supposedly, anyway.
On March 01 2013 18:26 Dakota_Fanning wrote: Is the portrait border visible/displayed when I start a ranked game and the map is being loaded? What about unraked and team games? Can we see based on this the league of our opponent?
It always shows your 1v1 Ranked position. If it's supposed to reflect the mode you're currently queued for, it's not doing that now.
Is this really true? For me the unranked mmr seems to start with a clean table regardless of my ranked mmr. First I get matched with bronze-silver and then after 10-15 straight wins it's diamond/masters again. It was same for both my US and EU accounts. My US account had ~50 ranked games played this season and solid diamond ranking. My EU account had no ranked games played this season (1 placement match) low masters last season.
It's supposed to use your current Ranked MMR as a reference point in that case, yes.
On March 01 2013 18:37 NEEDZMOAR wrote: Im facing silvers/gold in unranked and Im a master in ranked 1v1.
also if Im facing ranked players when im playing unranked, isnt it possible to drop mmr by offracing or leave on purpose and then use that in my ranked matches to get a higher rank because I now get to play way below my actual mmr?
No, because if you're Silver Unranked and Master Ranked, then when you queue for Ranked, you would be facing other Master players and wouldn't get matched with anyone in Silver. They're separate.
On March 01 2013 19:04 Soundwave12 wrote: sounds good my only concern with the leave league thing is this. Wont it make it quite easy to smurf? For example a diamond who want to have some "fun" ripping up bronzes leaves leagues, loses placement matches, places in bronze and there we go. If he want to go back to diamond he'll be there in a week since he'll just crush everything game after game up till he hits high plat...
and wouldnt this make portrait farming quite easy too, with the same technique... if you are a decent player you just go for it, once you get to much competition, leave league and restart from bronze...
It's not much easier than the method a lot of players used to use, which was to intentionally lose dozens of games to get to the bottom of Bronze and then gradually work their way back up again. In that regard, Leave League is basically just a timesaver. We still need to know whether 1 or 5 Placements is intended though (I asked PressureTested to Leave League and it only gave him one Placement).
On March 01 2013 19:25 onPHYRE wrote: In the beta leave league gave me 1 placement match, but in WoL after the patch it gives me 5. Though granted I wasn't placed the season before so that might have an effect on it, such that if you had to play 5 placement matches to start the season, leave league gives 5 placement matches, but if you only had to do 1, then it gives 1.. I dunno my theory based on limited information.
I have a working theory on this which might fit. Did you have any Unranked games played when you hit Leave League? It's possible that it was using your Unranked MMR as a starting point for Ranked, which would explain the one Placement Match. This would also fit with PressureTested's one Placement Match (he had played one Unranked game to establish his Unranked MMR). I'd like to do more data collection on this.
On March 01 2013 19:31 battleboy wrote: Does the bonuspool only drops for losing in HotS or also in WoL now?
As of 2.0.4, WoL as well.
On March 01 2013 20:30 TmzZ666 wrote: Im liking the new changes in general, but how about giving us some stats, like: - matchup winrate, - map winrate, - matchup map winrate, Put it on loading screen plus some tab in a profile to browse? Easy stuff and so much helpful. Anyone on this?
EDIT: And vs players history if applicable. I would love them stats!
That's already in, aside from the stats against individual players. That could be a neat idea.
On March 01 2013 17:58 Excalibur_Z wrote: Q: Is the Bonus Pool accumulation rate different after 2.0.4? A: No. It's still 90 per week for Master/Grandmaster, 52.2 per week for lower leagues, 66% of the normal rate for Arranged 2v2, and 33% of the normal rate for Arranged 3v3/4v4.
That is going to become outdated rather quickly. It's going to double once 2013 Season 2 starts (Source). Other than that, nicely done.
I thought they had backpedaled on that but if they stick with it, I'll update the OP.
I am master in Ranked but I'm playing against some really, really bad players in Unranked. A guy didn't even build orbital command for his 1-base-4-barracks-1-factory-1-starport-no-attack play.
I thought the MMR carries over to unranked?
Does this mean I have to keep playing until I face people closer to my league in unranked?
That 4/1/1 play is deadly, man. I don't know what you're talking about.
Seriously though, it seems like there's an issue in WoL where the MMR doesn't carry over to unraked. In HotS it certainly does. Were you playing WoL or HotS?
On March 01 2013 19:25 onPHYRE wrote: In the beta leave league gave me 1 placement match, but in WoL after the patch it gives me 5. Though granted I wasn't placed the season before so that might have an effect on it, such that if you had to play 5 placement matches to start the season, leave league gives 5 placement matches, but if you only had to do 1, then it gives 1.. I dunno my theory based on limited information.
I have a working theory on this which might fit. Did you have any Unranked games played when you hit Leave League? It's possible that it was using your Unranked MMR as a starting point for Ranked, which would explain the one Placement Match. This would also fit with PressureTested's one Placement Match (he had played one Unranked game to establish his Unranked MMR). I'd like to do more data collection on this.
I had played an unranked game in both the HotS Beta and in WoL when I did leave league, but it had a different amount of placement matches between the two. The only difference is I was ranked in 1v1 in HotS Beta, and had played 2v2 the season before in HotS Beta. While in WoL before now my last ladder game was almost a year ago so everything was reset. To clarify in the WoL instance I played 2v2 with a friend and we both left the league and had 5 placement matches. Meanwhile in HotS Beta I played 1v1 and 2v2 RT, with past season MMR still active (unlike WoL which was reset completely) and I left both 1v1 and 2v2 leagues at least 15 times, and it was always just 1 placement match. My MMR did not seem to reset in either WoL or HotS Beta either, based on the competition, and despite the difference in placement match requirements.
Edit: As a weird and random side note, I noticed some wonky stuff with my unranked MMR translating to my ranked MMR (which I know is not supposed to happen). Me and a buddy went 10-0 in unranked before we started ladder, starting vs bronzies and playing masters by the end. Despite my account being reset and him not being very highly ranked (like silver MMR) we started of vs masters players right away in our placement matches. Found that very strange since my MMR was reset (was masters 1v1 and 2v2/3v3/4v4 before).
On March 02 2013 02:30 Deckard.666 wrote: That 4/1/1 play is deadly, man. I don't know what you're talking about.
Seriously though, it seems like there's an issue in WoL where the MMR doesn't carry over to unraked. In HotS it certainly does. Were you playing WoL or HotS?
Q: How do I get one of those cool portrait borders and what do they mean? A: The portrait borders reflect your 1v1 league. If you don't have one, it's because you're not in a Ranked 1v1 division. This border persists into team games as well as chat channels.
This is a really good idea for team games and ums since it will make frantically looking at all the profiles of my teammates in a monobattles lobby a thing of the past.
I really like a lot of the other changes too, just more steps in the right direction in my opinion.
I've got a low master's MMR in WoL, and when I went to play 2 unranked games I was matched against gold players. I think it's because I did the 3 "placement" matches against AI before, that placed me in AI gold league (lulz), and the system might be stupid and/or broken. Sorry to the 2 goldies that played a depressing game because of that
I just came back from months and months of not playing WoL and my MMR was fully reset (as expected) and I played 5 placement matches and am now in a league.... I havn't played any Unranked matches, so if you want me to Leave League and test out your theory about it using Unranked MMR if it can (causing 1 placement match) and resetting if it can't (causing 5 placement matches), let me know. I would expect to play 5 more in this case.
On March 01 2013 22:47 Wertheron wrote: Just to be sure. I have two profile in plat, and my wife want to test sc2 in multi (before she was just playing against AI). Now with "leaving league", could i sent one of my profile into bronze ?
Two 1v1 ladders? That doesn't seem likely. Or are you talking about 2v2?
Yes i have two accounts in Plat 1v1. I wanted to demote the training account (now i have unranked to play without pressure) for her in bronze. If "leaving league" is faster than 54 free looses, could be cool
Don't play any ranked game including team games on that account for an entire season and your MMR will be reset aka 5 placement matches. Don't try losing streak to demote youself tho, it's against the ToS and could get you banned.
Or she can just play in unranked, it would only take a few losses to stablize her unranked MMR.
On March 02 2013 04:24 ffadicted wrote: I just came back from months and months of not playing WoL and my MMR was fully reset (as expected) and I played 5 placement matches and am now in a league.... I havn't played any Unranked matches, so if you want me to Leave League and test out your theory about it using Unranked MMR if it can (causing 1 placement match) and resetting if it can't (causing 5 placement matches), let me know. I would expect to play 5 more in this case.
On March 01 2013 20:30 TmzZ666 wrote: Im liking the new changes in general, but how about giving us some stats, like: - matchup winrate, - map winrate, - matchup map winrate, Put it on loading screen plus some tab in a profile to browse? Easy stuff and so much helpful. Anyone on this?
EDIT: And vs players history if applicable. I would love them stats!
You haven't checked your profile page right...? There are already map and MU stats in patch 2.0.4.
Sorry, not logged to WoL since got Beta in my hands Its time to go with it. Still i would see more statistics, gotta just love them.
EDIT: Where the fuck is my profile, its gone?! Nice patch (
On March 01 2013 19:04 Soundwave12 wrote: sounds good my only concern with the leave league thing is this. Wont it make it quite easy to smurf? For example a diamond who want to have some "fun" ripping up bronzes leaves leagues, loses placement matches, places in bronze and there we go. If he want to go back to diamond he'll be there in a week since he'll just crush everything game after game up till he hits high plat...
and wouldnt this make portrait farming quite easy too, with the same technique... if you are a decent player you just go for it, once you get to much competition, leave league and restart from bronze...
I imagine "Leave League" is exactly the same as playing the first match of a season. The Placement match does absolutely nothing to determine your league, it just effects your MMR the same as any other game.
So your diamond player would leave his league, play his placement, throw it, and then...get placed back wherever his MMR determines is correct.
The only time your MMR is reset is after a very long break, as in several months/multiple season, which isn't very abusable.
On March 02 2013 04:24 ffadicted wrote: I just came back from months and months of not playing WoL and my MMR was fully reset (as expected) and I played 5 placement matches and am now in a league.... I havn't played any Unranked matches, so if you want me to Leave League and test out your theory about it using Unranked MMR if it can (causing 1 placement match) and resetting if it can't (causing 5 placement matches), let me know. I would expect to play 5 more in this case.
By all means, if you don't mind doing that =)
Hmm interesting... I left the league, and the message that popped up clearly said it would not affect my MMR... yet when I go to matchmaking, it now tells me I have 5 placement matches remaining (as expected).... not sure what to make of that, I wonder if it will start my placement matches at my regular MMR maybe?
On March 02 2013 04:24 ffadicted wrote: I just came back from months and months of not playing WoL and my MMR was fully reset (as expected) and I played 5 placement matches and am now in a league.... I havn't played any Unranked matches, so if you want me to Leave League and test out your theory about it using Unranked MMR if it can (causing 1 placement match) and resetting if it can't (causing 5 placement matches), let me know. I would expect to play 5 more in this case.
By all means, if you don't mind doing that =)
Hmm interesting... I left the league, and the message that popped up clearly said it would not affect my MMR... yet when I go to matchmaking, it now tells me I have 5 placement matches remaining (as expected).... not sure what to make of that, I wonder if it will start my placement matches at my regular MMR maybe?
I did some playing around with this today too.. (on a "new" global play account). After joining and leaving a league I had to play 5 placement matches. (Did this twice.) However, they started out vs higher league opponents (i.e. the opponent level that I probably would have faced if I had not left my league). I had played one unranked match before my my initial league placement. If I get time I'll try later on yet another new account.
Excalibur_Z do you think they raised the diamond / master player mmr break point? Didn't play for like 2 months or so, it only asked me to play one placement match, last time i played ladder I was around 1000 point master random player, and been placed in masters every season by just playing one placement match for the last 2 years,but yesterday after I won my placement match I got placed into diamond.
On March 04 2013 01:01 rei wrote: Excalibur_Z do you think they raised the diamond / master player mmr break point? Didn't play for like 2 months or so, it only asked me to play one placement match, last time i played ladder I was around 1000 point master random player, and been placed in masters every season by just playing one placement match for the last 2 years,but yesterday after I won my placement match I got placed into diamond.
The MMR break point for leagues would have to be constantly changing in order to keep the % of players in each division consistent as total player numbers in a region fluctuates. So if you played far less over the previous season thusly stagnating your MMR it's quite possible due to population fluctuations and MMR's of the population you feel.
It's also possible it didn't fluctuate much at all and you were at or near demotion at the time you left. When you came back it did what it might of done previously.
All point stuff aside, look back to your history and see what leagues your opponents were in before you stopped playing. Assuming you at least placed and played some games every season (or else MMR could reset).
If they were all vs masters players then it would stand to reason it's more likely the MMR break point moved. If many of them were vs diamond players then it'd stand to reason you were already nearing demotion.
You could even go as far as to see what types of opponents your masters opponents were playing to try to surmise if those players were nearing demotion.
Seeing as you can not physically see your MMR because blizzard is paranoid people would figure out ways to game the system there is no way with 100% certainty you'd be able to figure out exactly why you feel, merely speculate.
So now i can leave league until i get into diam/masters from placement matches. Neat especially if you belong in higher leagues but games only match you with a league or so below because no1 else was available
These are pretty neat changes...I kindof wish they just stole the new Riot system though. I personally like how much more clear it is in terms of promotions to higher leagues.
On March 04 2013 02:17 TAMinator wrote: So now i can leave league until i get into diam/masters from placement matches. Neat especially if you belong in higher leagues but games only match you with a league or so below because no1 else was available
Assuming leave league resets your MMR, you feasibly could play unranked until you were good enough to be masters then place masters.
I however do not understand the statement "especially if you belong in higher leagues but games only match you with a league or so below". Do you mean your say plat and you think your a D/M? Or are you referencing being say plat and playing a gold or silver player here or there?
I'd only ask this because if you were saying your league is wrong I'd disagree with you. There is very very few instances in which someone is in the wrong league for any significant amount of time. Not unless they themselves have done something like race switch to make it so.
When you play a 1v1 match and hit the search it's looking for the closest available player to your current MMR. By current MMR I don't mean when you logged on, but the number it's floating around as you win and lose games. Which is why if you go on a significant losing or winning streak you can play up or down leagues as the system tries to derive where your skill is at.
On March 04 2013 01:01 rei wrote: Excalibur_Z do you think they raised the diamond / master player mmr break point? Didn't play for like 2 months or so, it only asked me to play one placement match, last time i played ladder I was around 1000 point master random player, and been placed in masters every season by just playing one placement match for the last 2 years,but yesterday after I won my placement match I got placed into diamond.
The MMR break point for leagues would have to be constantly changing in order to keep the % of players in each division consistent as total player numbers in a region fluctuates. So if you played far less over the previous season thusly stagnating your MMR it's quite possible due to population fluctuations and MMR's of the population you feel.
It's also possible it didn't fluctuate much at all and you were at or near demotion at the time you left. When you came back it did what it might of done previously.
All point stuff aside, look back to your history and see what leagues your opponents were in before you stopped playing. Assuming you at least placed and played some games every season (or else MMR could reset).
If they were all vs masters players then it would stand to reason it's more likely the MMR break point moved. If many of them were vs diamond players then it'd stand to reason you were already nearing demotion.
You could even go as far as to see what types of opponents your masters opponents were playing to try to surmise if those players were nearing demotion.
Seeing as you can not physically see your MMR because blizzard is paranoid people would figure out ways to game the system there is no way with 100% certainty you'd be able to figure out exactly why you feel, merely speculate.
not much diamond players at all when i last played.
On March 01 2013 18:26 Dakota_Fanning wrote: Is the portrait border visible/displayed when I start a ranked game and the map is being loaded? What about unraked and team games? Can we see based on this the league of our opponent?
It always shows your 1v1 Ranked position. If it's supposed to reflect the mode you're currently queued for, it's not doing that now.
I don't think it's supposed to reflect your current mode. Besides informing you and others about your current 1v1 league, I see it also as a kind of reward and in current UI design you constantly see your portrait, level and border in lower left corner of the screen (except in-game). It would be quite confusing to change it depending on your current mode, and what to display in vsAI/arcade/FFA menus/loading screens? Probably there should be no border in these situations - doable, but again, somewhat confusing and less of a reward.
But what is more interesting for me is this - I believe in HotS you will be able to play in 2 1v1 leagues: HotS and WoL (for compatibility with players who didn't buy HotS), so which border will be displayed?
On March 01 2013 18:26 Dakota_Fanning wrote: Is the portrait border visible/displayed when I start a ranked game and the map is being loaded? What about unraked and team games? Can we see based on this the league of our opponent?
It always shows your 1v1 Ranked position. If it's supposed to reflect the mode you're currently queued for, it's not doing that now.
I don't think it's supposed to reflect your current mode. Besides informing you and others about your current 1v1 league, I see it also as a kind of reward and in current UI design you constantly see your portrait, level and border in lower left corner of the screen (except in-game). It would be quite confusing to change it depending on your current mode, and what to display in vsAI/arcade/FFA menus/loading screens? Probably there should be no border in these situations - doable, but again, somewhat confusing and less of a reward.
But what is more interesting for me is this - I believe in HotS you will be able to play in 2 1v1 leagues: HotS and WoL (for compatibility with players who didn't buy HotS), so which border will be displayed?
Precisely the league/game variant that you are queued up for. If you are GM in WoL and masters in HotS, you should get a GM border when you queue up for WoL and masters border when you queue up for HotS. If you queue up with a team, you should see the border earned by the team. Solo team queue, your solo team queue rank, etc.
This is all what should be displayed in the loading screen/score screen of a particular game, so the league/game variant context exists. It's not clear what should be displayed when you are sitting outside of a game (e.g., the max of all your current leagues?), so for now it's showing only your 1v1 rank.
On March 05 2013 01:04 Kambing wrote: Precisely the league/game variant that you are queued up for. If you are GM in WoL and masters in HotS, you should get a GM border when you queue up for WoL and masters border when you queue up for HotS. If you queue up with a team, you should see the border earned by the team. Solo team queue, your solo team queue rank, etc.
This is all what should be displayed in the loading screen/score screen of a particular game, so the league/game variant context exists. It's not clear what should be displayed when you are sitting outside of a game (e.g., the max of all your current leagues?), so for now it's showing only your 1v1 rank.
But why? It makes more sense to me to just have it display 1v1 ranking. As far as I'm concerned, a player's 1v1 rating is more indicative of their actual skill level than the league of some arranged 2v2 team they happen to play in. And the point of the border seems to be primarily be to communicate a rough idea of your opponent's skill level. The "reward" of having a "cool border" on your portrait should be secondary.
Q: Can Unranked players play against Ranked players? A: Yes. Ranked and Unranked players are part of the same pool
Can someone more experienced in playing with these changes explain this to me? This seems AWFUL. Since unfortunately ladder anxiety is a real thing to people, I assume many players will shift to the unranked ladder. Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league? I can't imagine those playing on unranked will play as seriously... they will likely use unranked as a training ground either to practice new builds, try corny off the wall stuff, or just troll around due to having no real consequence. Doesn't this change hurt those using the ladder as a competitive outlet?
I guess in the end ladder shouldn't be as serious as I'm portraying it in this post. Just seems odd you can have people trolling about without risking anything (precious ladder points) while others are putting their MMR/Win Rate/Points on the line.
Ranked player: I wager 10 ladder points, 2 ranks in my division and 15 hidden MMR!
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Q: Can Unranked players play against Ranked players? A: Yes. Ranked and Unranked players are part of the same pool
Can someone more experienced in playing with these changes explain this to me? This seems AWFUL. Since unfortunately ladder anxiety is a real thing to people, I assume many players will shift to the unranked ladder. Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league? I can't imagine those playing on unranked will play as seriously... they will likely use unranked as a training ground either to practice new builds, try corny off the wall stuff, or just troll around due to having no real consequence. Doesn't this change hurt those using the ladder as a competitive outlet?
I guess in the end ladder shouldn't be as serious as I'm portraying it in this post. Just seems odd you can have people trolling about without risking anything (precious ladder points) while others are putting their MMR/Win Rate/Points on the line.
Ranked player: I wager 10 ladder points, 2 ranks in my division and 15 hidden MMR!
Unranked player: I wager nothing! GL HF!
O_O
I thought the same untill i read your post and then it clicked into place.
Your MMR and his Troll MMR are similar, he isnt bronze level trolling you when your masters level (well...this is what blizzard hopes to achieve) so basically he will be doing his batshit crazy stuff at a level that is challenging for you.
The thing is, this is provided the player has played a decent enough amount of unranked games for his unranked MMR to slot into place with his level of "unranked skill" so there will be a ton of people just playing the odd unranked for trolly purposes and bolstering ranked players points.
Also it sorta brings about the "anti-smurf" people who bolster their MMR up high then go troll mode it all the way down again in unranked.
Its a flawed system. In theory it works, IF everyone played their (lets say) 25 unranked games and didnt fuck about abusing the hidden MMR. but 1) people wont play their 25 games and WILL troll and 2) people love to fuck about with shit, Hidden or not.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Q: Can Unranked players play against Ranked players? A: Yes. Ranked and Unranked players are part of the same pool
Can someone more experienced in playing with these changes explain this to me? This seems AWFUL. Since unfortunately ladder anxiety is a real thing to people, I assume many players will shift to the unranked ladder. Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league? I can't imagine those playing on unranked will play as seriously... they will likely use unranked as a training ground either to practice new builds, try corny off the wall stuff, or just troll around due to having no real consequence. Doesn't this change hurt those using the ladder as a competitive outlet?
I guess in the end ladder shouldn't be as serious as I'm portraying it in this post. Just seems odd you can have people trolling about without risking anything (precious ladder points) while others are putting their MMR/Win Rate/Points on the line.
Ranked player: I wager 10 ladder points, 2 ranks in my division and 15 hidden MMR!
Unranked player: I wager nothing! GL HF!
O_O
I would imagine if you play an unranked player you wouldn't gain or lose points, it'd just be a game. Now if there is a significant portion of players playing unranked and many ranked games end up being unranked it could become a problem.
If points are gained or lost for the ranked player playing the unranked player, then this system is entirely a dumb idea.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Q: Can Unranked players play against Ranked players? A: Yes. Ranked and Unranked players are part of the same pool
Can someone more experienced in playing with these changes explain this to me? This seems AWFUL. Since unfortunately ladder anxiety is a real thing to people, I assume many players will shift to the unranked ladder. Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league? I can't imagine those playing on unranked will play as seriously... they will likely use unranked as a training ground either to practice new builds, try corny off the wall stuff, or just troll around due to having no real consequence. Doesn't this change hurt those using the ladder as a competitive outlet?
I guess in the end ladder shouldn't be as serious as I'm portraying it in this post. Just seems odd you can have people trolling about without risking anything (precious ladder points) while others are putting their MMR/Win Rate/Points on the line.
Ranked player: I wager 10 ladder points, 2 ranks in my division and 15 hidden MMR!
Unranked player: I wager nothing! GL HF!
O_O
I would imagine if you play an unranked player you wouldn't gain or lose points, it'd just be a game. Now if there is a significant portion of players playing unranked and many ranked games end up being unranked it could become a problem.
If points are gained or lost for the ranked player playing the unranked player, then this system is entirely a dumb idea.
I don't think as the ranked player you know if your opponent queued unranked or ranked, you get points just as you would a standard opponent.*
*this could be wrong I haven't played HOTS in a long time.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league?
Perhaps, but it also improves the integrity of the unranked league for those wanting serious practice and competition without the burden of ladder points.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Q: Can Unranked players play against Ranked players? A: Yes. Ranked and Unranked players are part of the same pool
Can someone more experienced in playing with these changes explain this to me? This seems AWFUL. Since unfortunately ladder anxiety is a real thing to people, I assume many players will shift to the unranked ladder. Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league? I can't imagine those playing on unranked will play as seriously... they will likely use unranked as a training ground either to practice new builds, try corny off the wall stuff, or just troll around due to having no real consequence. Doesn't this change hurt those using the ladder as a competitive outlet?
I guess in the end ladder shouldn't be as serious as I'm portraying it in this post. Just seems odd you can have people trolling about without risking anything (precious ladder points) while others are putting their MMR/Win Rate/Points on the line.
Ranked player: I wager 10 ladder points, 2 ranks in my division and 15 hidden MMR!
Unranked player: I wager nothing! GL HF!
O_O
I would imagine if you play an unranked player you wouldn't gain or lose points, it'd just be a game. Now if there is a significant portion of players playing unranked and many ranked games end up being unranked it could become a problem.
If points are gained or lost for the ranked player playing the unranked player, then this system is entirely a dumb idea.
You earn points based on your points versus opponent MMR whether that opponent is Ranked or Unranked, it doesn't matter.
The ladder should be more serious and I think that's why Unranked was added in the first place, so that serious players could play Ranked and the ladder could become more competitive. However if there are a lot of Unranked players who aren't playing seriously and who can play against Ranked players, then that would seem to go against this goal to an extent.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league?
Perhaps, but it also improves the integrity of the unranked league for those wanting serious practice and competition without the burden of ladder points.
I would ask if that's worth it? Is it good to sacrifice integrity of your only built in ranking mechanism so that your 'practice' more 'casual' game mode can be more challenging?
It's very strange to have one person queuing up while putting it all on the line (dramatic sorry) and another queuing up with nothing to lose.
I don't think this will effect the highest tiers, but all the middle ground maybe from gold to mid master seems like a disaster. Unranked players just joining games doing stupid builds with nothing to lose.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Q: Can Unranked players play against Ranked players? A: Yes. Ranked and Unranked players are part of the same pool
Can someone more experienced in playing with these changes explain this to me? This seems AWFUL. Since unfortunately ladder anxiety is a real thing to people, I assume many players will shift to the unranked ladder. Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league? I can't imagine those playing on unranked will play as seriously... they will likely use unranked as a training ground either to practice new builds, try corny off the wall stuff, or just troll around due to having no real consequence. Doesn't this change hurt those using the ladder as a competitive outlet?
I guess in the end ladder shouldn't be as serious as I'm portraying it in this post. Just seems odd you can have people trolling about without risking anything (precious ladder points) while others are putting their MMR/Win Rate/Points on the line.
Ranked player: I wager 10 ladder points, 2 ranks in my division and 15 hidden MMR!
Unranked player: I wager nothing! GL HF!
O_O
I would imagine if you play an unranked player you wouldn't gain or lose points, it'd just be a game. Now if there is a significant portion of players playing unranked and many ranked games end up being unranked it could become a problem.
If points are gained or lost for the ranked player playing the unranked player, then this system is entirely a dumb idea.
However if there are a lot of Unranked players who aren't playing seriously and who can play against Ranked players, then that would seem to go against this goal to an extent.
This is exactly what I think is going to happen. With active ladder participants going down every season since release (correct me if I'm wrong), I think unranked will bring a lot of people back. While more people playing is better, having all of the players in the same pool seems incredibly short sighted and nonsensical. I believe the only reason they would group them up is fear over queue times. They must really lack confidence in how many people will be ranked ladder only and fear the queues will spike to levels higher than blizzard would like. They must not think there are enough active players in both leagues (ranked/unranked) to sustain both 'ladders'. That's the only reason I can think of for grouping them together. I know that's the justification they gave in beta, but in beta it made sense. For release? I am really against this.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league?
Perhaps, but it also improves the integrity of the unranked league for those wanting serious practice and competition without the burden of ladder points.
I would ask if that's worth it? Is it good to sacrifice integrity of your only built in ranking mechanism so that your 'practice' more 'casual' game mode can be more challenging?
It's very strange to have one person queuing up while putting it all on the line (dramatic sorry) and another queuing up with nothing to lose.
I don't think this will effect the highest tiers, but all the middle ground maybe from gold to mid master seems like a disaster. Unranked players just joining games doing stupid builds with nothing to lose.
If it's worth it depends on the number of unranked players and how many of them that just want to fool around. It may be better to dilute the unranked players into the larger ladder pool than to keep them separate and turn unranked play into a useless monkey house. That would turn inexperienced players away (and those with the now somewhat worn expression "ladder anxiety"). The latter is a big reason for the implementation of unranked play I think.
Allot of people seems to misunderstand what ranked and unranked is, and their difference between them. Ranked and unranked are the same as if you would have two accounts with their own ladder rank with the only difference that one of the accounts wouldn't show your actual ranking or the amount of points you would gain or lose for each played game. And that's basically it, Blizzard has given you a "mini" account inside your main account.
On March 05 2013 06:12 Integra wrote: Allot of people seems to misunderstand what ranked and unranked is, and their difference between them. Ranked and unranked are the same as if you would have two accounts with their own ladder rank with the only difference that one of the accounts wouldn't show your actual ranking or the amount of points you would gain or lose for each played game. And that's basically it, Blizzard has given you a "mini" account inside your main account.
You're forgetting the most important part. While the 'mini' account inside your main account won't show your rank or effect your displayed points etc., you WILL be effecting someone elses 'real' account. So while you try new builds, maybe play less serious or off race on your 'mini' account you will be giving free points or taking points from peoples 'main' accounts while risking nothing yourself. You're playing stress free when you queue unranked, while your ranked opponent is more likely to be trying their very hardest to win because they have something at stake. That's the entire debate. I think we all understand how the modes work. We are arguing the merits of having unranked and ranked players being able to match each other on ladder.
The krux of this issue for me seems to comedown to playerbase. Blizzard must have determined the playerbase wouldn't be large enough to sustain two independant leagues. Otherwise, I see absolutely no reason to merge the two. For an analogy, Valve added 'Team Match Making' to dota 2, it's an entirely seperate MMR and ladder than the standard match making. You won't queue with your TEAM and get 5 friends who queued together for the normal ladder. It's completely seperate. You will only match against other TEAMS on the TEAM ladder. How awkward would it be to get pub players, or random groups of friends that give you +ranking when you're playing on your TEAM ladder? Same concept really. Having the entire popluation in the same pool where x% are playing for rank and x% are playing for whatever is bad design. Moba games (eww bad term) have always had seperate ladders, ranked, unranked, public, easy mode, etc., and they never crossed each other. I fail to see why a 1v1 game would need to do so.
On March 05 2013 06:12 Integra wrote: Allot of people seems to misunderstand what ranked and unranked is, and their difference between them. Ranked and unranked are the same as if you would have two accounts with their own ladder rank with the only difference that one of the accounts wouldn't show your actual ranking or the amount of points you would gain or lose for each played game. And that's basically it, Blizzard has given you a "mini" account inside your main account.
You're forgetting the most important part. While your 'mini' account inside your main account won't show your rank or effect your displayed points etc., you WILL be effecting someone elses 'real' account. So while you try new builds, maybe play less serious or off race on your 'mini' account you will be giving free points or taking points from peoples 'main' accounts while risking nothing yourself. You're playing stressfree when you queue unranked, while your ranked opponent is more likely to be trying their very hardest to win, they have something at stake. That's the entire debate. I think we all understand how the modes work. We are arguing the merits of having unranked and ranked players being able to match each other on ladder.
You are risking your own MMR just like any other on ranked, if you play bad and do stupid stuff you get punished by getting your unranked MMR lowered and you will face worse opponents. MMR still decides what opponents you meet. And regardless if its hidden for you or not you will notice if you are mostly being matched against Masters or just gold players.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league?
Perhaps, but it also improves the integrity of the unranked league for those wanting serious practice and competition without the burden of ladder points.
I would ask if that's worth it? Is it good to sacrifice integrity of your only built in ranking mechanism so that your 'practice' more 'casual' game mode can be more challenging?
It's very strange to have one person queuing up while putting it all on the line (dramatic sorry) and another queuing up with nothing to lose.
I don't think this will effect the highest tiers, but all the middle ground maybe from gold to mid master seems like a disaster. Unranked players just joining games doing stupid builds with nothing to lose.
If it's worth it depends on the number of unranked players and how many of them that just want to fool around. It may be better to dilute the unranked players into the larger ladder pool than to keep them separate and turn unranked play into a useless monkey house. That would turn inexperienced players away (and those with the now somewhat worn expression "ladder anxiety"). The latter is a big reason for the implementation of unranked play I think.
But in the viewpoint of ranked player the shared matchmaking pool is awful (of course user base of WoL will crash after release of HotS so it may be ok for WoL, but future HotS user base should be large enough so queues would not become too long). Since patch I have played 57 ranked games on EU server & 44 on NA server and even with such a small sample many of the abuse scenarios I anticipated are happening commonly (my earlier post, note that it is written before I knew about unranked MMR):
Some unranked players seem to use their ranked main race but with considerably lower unranked MMR than their ranked MMR to get easy wins. Some unranked players are leaving games for various reasons: they want to play certain match-up --> leave immediately, mess their build order --> leave when happens, something outside the game happens where you would normally pause --> leave, get behind but not yet decisive --> leave. Also amongst unranked people there seems to be more BM:s. I feel sorry for people in lower leagues, as the change is likely more visible there (high ranked players dropping their unranked MMR to low leagues to smurf without affecting their ranked MMR & visible stats).
I like having unranked and ranked in the same queue. I don't think most people playing unranked games will be totally monkeying around, and if they do their unranked MMR will fall to a level where the games will still be close.
I like it because: 1) Shorter queue times 2) Integrity of unranked games. Let's say I want to try out a new build on ladder, but I don't want to have it tank my real MMR while I'm getting used to it. I'd like to be able to play regular games, but not risk my rank on a build I'm unfamiliar with. With this set-up, I can queue unranked and get good practice in.
From my perspective, I'm not to worried about beating up the occasional player who is monkeying around doing crazy stuff. I have found on the HotS beta that the players I play against who queue unranked are still trying hard to win, and that it has worked out just fine (I'm mid-masters for reference).
On March 05 2013 06:12 Integra wrote: Allot of people seems to misunderstand what ranked and unranked is, and their difference between them. Ranked and unranked are the same as if you would have two accounts with their own ladder rank with the only difference that one of the accounts wouldn't show your actual ranking or the amount of points you would gain or lose for each played game. And that's basically it, Blizzard has given you a "mini" account inside your main account.
You're forgetting the most important part. While your 'mini' account inside your main account won't show your rank or effect your displayed points etc., you WILL be effecting someone elses 'real' account. So while you try new builds, maybe play less serious or off race on your 'mini' account you will be giving free points or taking points from peoples 'main' accounts while risking nothing yourself. You're playing stressfree when you queue unranked, while your ranked opponent is more likely to be trying their very hardest to win, they have something at stake. That's the entire debate. I think we all understand how the modes work. We are arguing the merits of having unranked and ranked players being able to match each other on ladder.
You are risking your own MMR just like any other on ranked, if you play bad and do stupid stuff you get punished by getting your unranked MMR lowered and you will face worse opponents. MMR still decides what opponents you meet. And regardless if its hidden for you or not you will notice if you are mostly being matched against Masters or just gold players.
That isn't a real risk. When someone is risking their position on the ladder (likely their only real competitive outlet) and you're risking a match making rating that is never displayed and entirely hidden, you're effective risking nothing. There is an impact if you lose 60 points (50 mmr for argument sake) and 15 ladder ranks in your division. There is no impact in losing 50 mmr on your unranked account other than you might get a few easy games until you reach your appropriate mmr again. I'm not sure why you don't get this.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league?
Perhaps, but it also improves the integrity of the unranked league for those wanting serious practice and competition without the burden of ladder points.
I would ask if that's worth it? Is it good to sacrifice integrity of your only built in ranking mechanism so that your 'practice' more 'casual' game mode can be more challenging?
It's very strange to have one person queuing up while putting it all on the line (dramatic sorry) and another queuing up with nothing to lose.
I don't think this will effect the highest tiers, but all the middle ground maybe from gold to mid master seems like a disaster. Unranked players just joining games doing stupid builds with nothing to lose.
If it's worth it depends on the number of unranked players and how many of them that just want to fool around. It may be better to dilute the unranked players into the larger ladder pool than to keep them separate and turn unranked play into a useless monkey house. That would turn inexperienced players away (and those with the now somewhat worn expression "ladder anxiety"). The latter is a big reason for the implementation of unranked play I think.
But in the viewpoint of ranked player the shared matchmaking pool is awful (of course user base of WoL will crash after release of HotS so it may be ok for WoL, but future HotS user base should be large enough so queues would not become too long). Since patch I have played 57 ranked games on EU server & 44 on NA server and even with such a small sample many of the abuse scenarios I anticipated are happening commonly (my earlier post, note that it is written before I knew about unranked MMR):
Some unranked players seem to use their ranked main race but with considerably lower unranked MMR than their ranked MMR to get easy wins. Some unranked players are leaving games for various reasons: they want to play certain match-up --> leave immediately, mess their build order --> leave when happens, something outside the game happens where you would normally pause --> leave, get behind but not yet decisive --> leave. Also amongst unranked people there seems to be more BM:s. I feel sorry for people in lower leagues, as the change is likely more visible there (high ranked players dropping their unranked MMR to low leagues to smurf without affecting their ranked MMR & visible stats).
But people do the same stuff in ranked ladder in WoL. There's nothing stopping people from trolling lower ranked players, from doing coinflippy builds, from leaving games randomly, etc. in ranked ladder. I think the goal here is to just provide the same ladder experience but without the ladder anxiety. Trolls will be trolls regardless of how it is set up.
On March 05 2013 06:12 Integra wrote: Allot of people seems to misunderstand what ranked and unranked is, and their difference between them. Ranked and unranked are the same as if you would have two accounts with their own ladder rank with the only difference that one of the accounts wouldn't show your actual ranking or the amount of points you would gain or lose for each played game. And that's basically it, Blizzard has given you a "mini" account inside your main account.
You're forgetting the most important part. While your 'mini' account inside your main account won't show your rank or effect your displayed points etc., you WILL be effecting someone elses 'real' account. So while you try new builds, maybe play less serious or off race on your 'mini' account you will be giving free points or taking points from peoples 'main' accounts while risking nothing yourself. You're playing stressfree when you queue unranked, while your ranked opponent is more likely to be trying their very hardest to win, they have something at stake. That's the entire debate. I think we all understand how the modes work. We are arguing the merits of having unranked and ranked players being able to match each other on ladder.
You are risking your own MMR just like any other on ranked, if you play bad and do stupid stuff you get punished by getting your unranked MMR lowered and you will face worse opponents. MMR still decides what opponents you meet. And regardless if its hidden for you or not you will notice if you are mostly being matched against Masters or just gold players.
That isn't a real risk. When someone is risking their position on the ladder (likely their only real competitive outlet) and you're risking a match making rating that is never displayed and entirely hidden, you're effective risking nothing. There is an impact if you lose 60 points (50 mmr for argument sake) and 15 ladder ranks in your division. There is no impact in losing 50 mmr on your unranked account other than you might get a few easy games until you reach your appropriate mmr again. I'm not sure why you don't get this.
Of course it is a risk, unranked is still putting a grade on your performance and lowers or increases it accordingly to your skill, just like ranked. The only valid argument I can find from you is that people now have two rankings and therefore can discard the other but what about people who has two accounts or the fact that they can play on more than one server, won't they inflict the same kind of damage? Your statement is to general and can be applied unto many things.
On March 05 2013 06:12 Integra wrote: Allot of people seems to misunderstand what ranked and unranked is, and their difference between them. Ranked and unranked are the same as if you would have two accounts with their own ladder rank with the only difference that one of the accounts wouldn't show your actual ranking or the amount of points you would gain or lose for each played game. And that's basically it, Blizzard has given you a "mini" account inside your main account.
You're forgetting the most important part. While your 'mini' account inside your main account won't show your rank or effect your displayed points etc., you WILL be effecting someone elses 'real' account. So while you try new builds, maybe play less serious or off race on your 'mini' account you will be giving free points or taking points from peoples 'main' accounts while risking nothing yourself. You're playing stressfree when you queue unranked, while your ranked opponent is more likely to be trying their very hardest to win, they have something at stake. That's the entire debate. I think we all understand how the modes work. We are arguing the merits of having unranked and ranked players being able to match each other on ladder.
You are risking your own MMR just like any other on ranked, if you play bad and do stupid stuff you get punished by getting your unranked MMR lowered and you will face worse opponents. MMR still decides what opponents you meet. And regardless if its hidden for you or not you will notice if you are mostly being matched against Masters or just gold players.
That isn't a real risk. When someone is risking their position on the ladder (likely their only real competitive outlet) and you're risking a match making rating that is never displayed and entirely hidden, you're effective risking nothing. There is an impact if you lose 60 points (50 mmr for argument sake) and 15 ladder ranks in your division. There is no impact in losing 50 mmr on your unranked account other than you might get a few easy games until you reach your appropriate mmr again. I'm not sure why you don't get this.
I'd argue there isn't a real risk either way. For me personally, I don't like losing. I play pretty much the same whether I'm playing ranked or unranked, although I try out new builds on unranked. But either way, the only "real risk" I feel is the risk of losing a game of SC2, which I don't like doing. It happens 50% of the time so I have to deal with it, but I always try my best to win.
On March 05 2013 05:15 crms wrote: Now, since you're still matched with ranked players, doesn't this hurt the integrity of the ranked league?
Perhaps, but it also improves the integrity of the unranked league for those wanting serious practice and competition without the burden of ladder points.
I would ask if that's worth it? Is it good to sacrifice integrity of your only built in ranking mechanism so that your 'practice' more 'casual' game mode can be more challenging?
It's very strange to have one person queuing up while putting it all on the line (dramatic sorry) and another queuing up with nothing to lose.
I don't think this will effect the highest tiers, but all the middle ground maybe from gold to mid master seems like a disaster. Unranked players just joining games doing stupid builds with nothing to lose.
If it's worth it depends on the number of unranked players and how many of them that just want to fool around. It may be better to dilute the unranked players into the larger ladder pool than to keep them separate and turn unranked play into a useless monkey house. That would turn inexperienced players away (and those with the now somewhat worn expression "ladder anxiety"). The latter is a big reason for the implementation of unranked play I think.
But in the viewpoint of ranked player the shared matchmaking pool is awful (of course user base of WoL will crash after release of HotS so it may be ok for WoL, but future HotS user base should be large enough so queues would not become too long). Since patch I have played 57 ranked games on EU server & 44 on NA server and even with such a small sample many of the abuse scenarios I anticipated are happening commonly (my earlier post, note that it is written before I knew about unranked MMR):
Some unranked players seem to use their ranked main race but with considerably lower unranked MMR than their ranked MMR to get easy wins. Some unranked players are leaving games for various reasons: they want to play certain match-up --> leave immediately, mess their build order --> leave when happens, something outside the game happens where you would normally pause --> leave, get behind but not yet decisive --> leave. Also amongst unranked people there seems to be more BM:s. I feel sorry for people in lower leagues, as the change is likely more visible there (high ranked players dropping their unranked MMR to low leagues to smurf without affecting their ranked MMR & visible stats).
But people do the same stuff in ranked ladder in WoL. There's nothing stopping people from trolling lower ranked players, from doing coinflippy builds, from leaving games randomly, etc. in ranked ladder. I think the goal here is to just provide the same ladder experience but without the ladder anxiety. Trolls will be trolls regardless of how it is set up.
Not in same magnitude as many care about their visible stats. With unranked mode everyone can do it without compromising their visible stats. And yes. Even with so small sample of games I have after the patch, the laddering experience has changed to worse due to the unranked players here and there (seeing uncommon strategies is refreshing but in my sample there were more abusers than people using uncommon strats).
On March 05 2013 06:12 Integra wrote: Allot of people seems to misunderstand what ranked and unranked is, and their difference between them. Ranked and unranked are the same as if you would have two accounts with their own ladder rank with the only difference that one of the accounts wouldn't show your actual ranking or the amount of points you would gain or lose for each played game. And that's basically it, Blizzard has given you a "mini" account inside your main account.
You're forgetting the most important part. While your 'mini' account inside your main account won't show your rank or effect your displayed points etc., you WILL be effecting someone elses 'real' account. So while you try new builds, maybe play less serious or off race on your 'mini' account you will be giving free points or taking points from peoples 'main' accounts while risking nothing yourself. You're playing stressfree when you queue unranked, while your ranked opponent is more likely to be trying their very hardest to win, they have something at stake. That's the entire debate. I think we all understand how the modes work. We are arguing the merits of having unranked and ranked players being able to match each other on ladder.
You are risking your own MMR just like any other on ranked, if you play bad and do stupid stuff you get punished by getting your unranked MMR lowered and you will face worse opponents. MMR still decides what opponents you meet. And regardless if its hidden for you or not you will notice if you are mostly being matched against Masters or just gold players.
That isn't a real risk. When someone is risking their position on the ladder (likely their only real competitive outlet) and you're risking a match making rating that is never displayed and entirely hidden, you're effective risking nothing. There is an impact if you lose 60 points (50 mmr for argument sake) and 15 ladder ranks in your division. There is no impact in losing 50 mmr on your unranked account other than you might get a few easy games until you reach your appropriate mmr again. I'm not sure why you don't get this.
I'd argue there isn't a real risk either way. For me personally, I don't like losing. I play pretty much the same whether I'm playing ranked or unranked, although I try out new builds on unranked. But either way, the only "real risk" I feel is the risk of losing a game of SC2, which I don't like doing. It happens 50% of the time so I have to deal with it, but I always try my best to win.
You're right, in my first post on the topic I even preface that I'm taking the ladder too seriously for the purpose of this discussion. In the end though, assuming the playerbase can sustain both ranked and unranked I see no reason to make the two cross each other. Whether you and I see value in ladder points or division ranks doesn't really matter, because that is the method in which Blizzard has built the competitive aspect of the game for the masses. The ladder is the highest competitive aspect of SC2 for MOST players. I think it should be a closed competitive system where you have to risk something (as insignificant as ladder points and rank might be) to compete.
Every moba (yuk) I've played: dota1, HoN, some LoL and now Dota 2 has ranked, unranked and even more unique independant ladder modes. These are games that involve 6 to 10 players and they can maintain independence and small queue times. How a 1v1 game seamingly can't is confusing. This leads me to believe the reason they went this route is they don't believe they have the playerbase to sustain both options. Which to me, is sad. :/
On March 05 2013 06:24 korona wrote: But in the viewpoint of ranked player the shared matchmaking pool is awful.
If shared pool is awful separating the pools would make unranked play even more awful as I said, and in that case unranked play as an idea has failed. I'm pretty sure a big reason was to reduce pressure and get people back to the game, and if these people can't play serious games it's useless.
I've played the beta for months (at lower levels) and I haven't seen any of the things you are concerned about. Everyone played seriously and tried to win. I would argue that global play is a bigger risk, because you get not one but several extra accounts for free. Not many are complaining about that, but I can assure you that there are many smurfs from other regions fooling around.
On March 05 2013 06:24 korona wrote: But in the viewpoint of ranked player the shared matchmaking pool is awful.
If shared pool is awful separating the pools would make unranked play even more awful as I said, and in that case unranked play as an idea has failed. I'm pretty sure a big reason was to reduce pressure and get people back to the game, and if these people can't play serious games it's useless.
I've played the beta for months (at lower levels) and I haven't seen any of the things you are concerned about. Everyone played seriously and tried to win. I would argue that global play is a bigger risk, because you get not one but several extra accounts for free. Not many are complaining about that, but I can assure you that there are many smurfs from other regions fooling around.
The end result might be that this feature has little impact, hopefully that's the case. I just don't understand the point of it at all. Can you think of any other competitive system where essentially 'practice' games can increase your rank within the competitive league? Can you imagine a sports game where 1 team is risking it's W/L and ranking in the league while the other team is only scrimmaging? Or a tennis player playing an unoffical match vs a fellow player and having the results increase or decrease his world rank? I know these examples are far fetched, but it's exactly what Blizzard is doing by merging the two systems.
I also don't think if the unranked system was completely seperate the unranked ladder would be an unplayable trollfest. I think it would be mostly people who are scared of ladder but want to improve. Or those that want to practice new strategies against similarily skilled opponents, that aren't ready to risk playing these strategies on their main accounts, where as we've discussed, they have somethign to lose (rank, points, etc.) Then of course, you would have trolls, just as you do on ranked ladder, but at least they aren't trolling in actual rated games.
On March 05 2013 06:24 korona wrote: But in the viewpoint of ranked player the shared matchmaking pool is awful.
If shared pool is awful separating the pools would make unranked play even more awful as I said, and in that case unranked play as an idea has failed. I'm pretty sure a big reason was to reduce pressure and get people back to the game, and if these people can't play serious games it's useless.
I've played the beta for months (at lower levels) and I haven't seen any of the things you are concerned about. Everyone played seriously and tried to win. I would argue that global play is a bigger risk, because you get not one but several extra accounts for free. Not many are complaining about that, but I can assure you that there are many smurfs from other regions fooling around.
It is good to remember that MMR:s in HotS were not established but were often all over the board. Even in lower levels there were higher level players 'naturally'. Also the player base of the beta was generally much more competitive and much more smaller than player base of WoL.
I would argue that the shared pool even increases the ladder anxiety of ranked players due to the luck factor on what kind of unranked players they face. And if they are lucky & get free wins, the wins themselves are not that satisfying (the system itself still aims for 50% win ratio --> less satisfying wins and about same amount of losses). And if the pools are separated the unranked mode would not be failure. It would give matchmaking based practice area / low-pressure games even if the matchmaking would not be so precise + it would not affect the ranked laddering negatively.
Since today the ladder is locked so neither a promotion nor a demotion is achievable. But what i dont know is the following. If my mmr hits the promotion requirement and i leave my league to get another placement match, is it possible to get promoted even if the season is locked?
On March 05 2013 14:15 aidosae wrote: Dont know if the question was already ask or not:
Since today the ladder is locked so neither a promotion nor a demotion is achievable. But what i dont know is the following. If my mmr hits the promotion requirement and i leave my league to get another placement match, is it possible to get promoted even if the season is locked?
Yes. You can be placed into a different league following your placement match.
On March 02 2013 04:24 ffadicted wrote: I just came back from months and months of not playing WoL and my MMR was fully reset (as expected) and I played 5 placement matches and am now in a league.... I havn't played any Unranked matches, so if you want me to Leave League and test out your theory about it using Unranked MMR if it can (causing 1 placement match) and resetting if it can't (causing 5 placement matches), let me know. I would expect to play 5 more in this case.
By all means, if you don't mind doing that =)
Hmm interesting... I left the league, and the message that popped up clearly said it would not affect my MMR... yet when I go to matchmaking, it now tells me I have 5 placement matches remaining (as expected).... not sure what to make of that, I wonder if it will start my placement matches at my regular MMR maybe?
I did some playing around with this today too.. (on a "new" global play account). After joining and leaving a league I had to play 5 placement matches. (Did this twice.) However, they started out vs higher league opponents (i.e. the opponent level that I probably would have faced if I had not left my league). I had played one unranked match before my my initial league placement. If I get time I'll try later on yet another new account.
Update: I continued to do this several times on my "new" EU account. Each time I had to play 5 placement matches.
I decided to try with my original account on AM and only had to play one (1) placement match to get into a new league. Not sure if this is due to having a more stable MMR or, more likely, due to the fact that I "originally" had to play only one placement match to get into my league (I had MMR carry-over from the previous season).
Might try this with other accounts if anyone wants to further info (I have a "long term" EU and "new" AM available to me).
Sorry for bumping the thread, but I just wanted to point out that inheriting your rating from ranked mode to unranked play is probably not true. I'm masters normally but constantly get matched against bronze/silver/gold players in unranked play. This sucks because I want to use unranked play to get better with other races.
edit: Oh, it just hit me. Maybe Blizzard uses different MMRs for different races in unranked mode?
On March 20 2013 02:28 heishe wrote: Sorry for bumping the thread, but I just wanted to point out that inheriting your rating from ranked mode to unranked play is probably not true. I'm masters normally but constantly get matched against bronze/silver/gold players in unranked play. This sucks because I want to use unranked play to get better with other races.
edit: Oh, it just hit me. Maybe Blizzard uses different MMRs for different races in unranked mode?
Are you playing WoL or HotS? Are you playing Unranked before having an established Ranked MMR?
On March 20 2013 02:28 heishe wrote: Sorry for bumping the thread, but I just wanted to point out that inheriting your rating from ranked mode to unranked play is probably not true. I'm masters normally but constantly get matched against bronze/silver/gold players in unranked play. This sucks because I want to use unranked play to get better with other races.
edit: Oh, it just hit me. Maybe Blizzard uses different MMRs for different races in unranked mode?
Are you playing WoL or HotS? Are you playing Unranked before having an established Ranked MMR?
When I played 4 unranked WoL test games on NA while testing the MMR tool when v 2.0.4 was released, I had a hypothesis that Blizzard uses the established ranked MMR as starting point, but you play hidden 'placement matches' where the system tests you against different level opponents and your unranked MMR changes rapidly and after those matches it takes a while before the unranked MMR is stabilized (just like if you started a fresh ranked character in HotS now. Except the starting MMR before first match would be your established MMR from the other mode): 1) first opponent was 2 leagues lower in ranked. I left the game, 2) second opponent was 3 leagues lower in ranked. He left the game, 3) third opponent was same league in ranked. He left the game. 4) fourth opponent was 1 league lower in ranked. I left the game. In ranked mode I never got opponents from such wide MMR range (except first 5 placements). I have not played unranked since, but many have written descriptions that could support my earlier hypothesis.
On March 20 2013 02:28 heishe wrote: Sorry for bumping the thread, but I just wanted to point out that inheriting your rating from ranked mode to unranked play is probably not true. I'm masters normally but constantly get matched against bronze/silver/gold players in unranked play. This sucks because I want to use unranked play to get better with other races.
edit: Oh, it just hit me. Maybe Blizzard uses different MMRs for different races in unranked mode?
Are you playing WoL or HotS? Are you playing Unranked before having an established Ranked MMR?
When I played 4 unranked WoL test games on NA while testing the MMR tool when v 2.0.4 was released, I had a hypothesis that Blizzard uses the established ranked MMR as starting point, but you play hidden 'placement matches' where the system tests you against different level opponents and your unranked MMR changes rapidly and after those matches it takes a while before the unranked MMR is stabilized (just like if you started a fresh ranked character in HotS now. Except the starting MMR before first match would be your established MMR from the other mode): 1) first opponent was 2 leagues lower in ranked. I left the game, 2) second opponent was 3 leagues lower in ranked. He left the game, 3) third opponent was same league in ranked. He left the game. 4) fourth opponent was 1 league lower in ranked. I left the game. In ranked mode I never got opponents from such wide MMR range (except first 5 placements). I have not played unranked since, but many have written descriptions that could support my earlier hypothesis.
That could very well be, but wouldn't it also allow you to leapfrog your Ranked MMR by doing 5 Ranked placements (win all) -> 5 Unranked games (win all) -> Leave League -> 1 Ranked Placement? If the change per game is dramatically different in your first few Unranked games just as it is for Ranked, then this might be possible. Were you sure that the games you played were against Ranked/Unranked/Placement competition (that is, are you confident their league icons represented their MMR)?
I know people have been asking for different Unranked MMRs per race/per matchup for a long time, I don't think they've done this but it's even more hidden than Ranked so anything is possible.
On March 20 2013 02:28 heishe wrote: Sorry for bumping the thread, but I just wanted to point out that inheriting your rating from ranked mode to unranked play is probably not true. I'm masters normally but constantly get matched against bronze/silver/gold players in unranked play. This sucks because I want to use unranked play to get better with other races.
edit: Oh, it just hit me. Maybe Blizzard uses different MMRs for different races in unranked mode?
Are you playing WoL or HotS? Are you playing Unranked before having an established Ranked MMR?
When I played 4 unranked WoL test games on NA while testing the MMR tool when v 2.0.4 was released, I had a hypothesis that Blizzard uses the established ranked MMR as starting point, but you play hidden 'placement matches' where the system tests you against different level opponents and your unranked MMR changes rapidly and after those matches it takes a while before the unranked MMR is stabilized (just like if you started a fresh ranked character in HotS now. Except the starting MMR before first match would be your established MMR from the other mode): 1) first opponent was 2 leagues lower in ranked. I left the game, 2) second opponent was 3 leagues lower in ranked. He left the game, 3) third opponent was same league in ranked. He left the game. 4) fourth opponent was 1 league lower in ranked. I left the game. In ranked mode I never got opponents from such wide MMR range (except first 5 placements). I have not played unranked since, but many have written descriptions that could support my earlier hypothesis.
That could very well be, but wouldn't it also allow you to leapfrog your Ranked MMR by doing 5 Ranked placements (win all) -> 5 Unranked games (win all) -> Leave League -> 1 Ranked Placement? If the change per game is dramatically different in your first few Unranked games just as it is for Ranked, then this might be possible. Were you sure that the games you played were against Ranked/Unranked/Placement competition (that is, are you confident their league icons represented their MMR)?
I know people have been asking for different Unranked MMRs per race/per matchup for a long time, I don't think they've done this but it's even more hidden than Ranked so anything is possible.
I have a feeling that I checked at least the lowest league player and he seemed legit player for that league (had lots of ranked games under his belt). And that was well before the league lock period.
I just checked his last season profile. He had ended with w56-l38 so his MMR had likely risen... But the MMR difference from the lower border of his league at that time was ~1030 MMR points & high border ~680 MMR points (MMR tool scale). That meant roughly from 65 to 43 straight wins against equal MMR level opponents to close that gap. Even if he had ~20 wins more than loses at that point, the MMR gap in ranked mode was likely large.
He had skipped couple of seasons before last season, so his MMR might have been reset. But he had been even lower league before that (affects the case if his mmr had not been reset). But at that point he had played 50 to 100 94 ranked matches, so his MMR was not moving rapidly anymore if there had been MMR reset. Also according to his match history when he played ranked matches, he mostly played against players from his league.
But I would have needed to play much more unranked games to be able to speculate how unranked MMR behaves. And my main motivation at that time was just to test if the unranked detection for the tool worked.
Edit: Perhaps if a field containing info of ranked/unranked mode is found in the future from replay file (current web profile based detection is not 100%) & when current league offsets have been accurately enough solved, I could add unranked profiles to the tool (or a special version without mode detection whose user would be responsible that he only plays unranked with it)--> It would show how unranked MMR behaves... But this will not likely happen in near future...
Edit2: that match was his last match of last season & likely in ranked mode.
On March 01 2013 17:58 Excalibur_Z wrote: For example, if I'm Gold in Ranked and I play my first Unranked match, I'll be starting Unranked from Gold.
I don't think this is true.. I'm towards the top of master league and played my first three unranked games yesterday and got matched against silver league players.
On March 20 2013 02:28 heishe wrote: Sorry for bumping the thread, but I just wanted to point out that inheriting your rating from ranked mode to unranked play is probably not true. I'm masters normally but constantly get matched against bronze/silver/gold players in unranked play. This sucks because I want to use unranked play to get better with other races.
edit: Oh, it just hit me. Maybe Blizzard uses different MMRs for different races in unranked mode?
Are you playing WoL or HotS? Are you playing Unranked before having an established Ranked MMR?
HotS, and I was already placed in ladder although I only had about 30 games total.
dont understand unranked at all, the mmr u get there is so bogus, 162 freewins now given and still playing vs masterleague players, i wanna play random and ve no clue about protoss or zerg but mmr is not changing one bit -_-
On March 22 2013 22:53 Skidmeyer wrote: I play ranked at a plat level and in unranked i get paired against Diamond and Masters Players even after losing numerous games to them.
Those diamond/masters ranked players may have been playing unranked. The border displayed on the loading screen is their ranked 1v1 league. The only way to tell if they are playing unranked is to go into their match history after the fact and check to see if they received a point delta for the game.
And as an aside, it looks like match history only reports point deltas for won games, so if they lost a game, you can't tell if it was a loss via a ranked or unranked game.
On March 22 2013 22:53 Skidmeyer wrote: I play ranked at a plat level and in unranked i get paired against Diamond and Masters Players even after losing numerous games to them.
Those diamond/masters ranked players may have been playing unranked. The border displayed on the loading screen is their ranked 1v1 league. The only way to tell if they are playing unranked is to go into their match history after the fact and check to see if they received a point delta for the game.
And as an aside, it looks like match history only reports point deltas for won games, so if they lost a game, you can't tell if it was a loss via a ranked or unranked game.
As long as they have bonus pool remaining that is (so someone with bonus pool 12 who was going to lose 12 points would have that game listed as "Loss", whereas someone with no bonus pool who was going to lose 12 points would have it listed as "Loss (-12)"). The rest is completely accurate.
how many bonus pool points must be acquired to drop out of GM now? is it the same as before, meaning half the time it takes to get booted, or was it raised proportionally?
also reading that unranked and ranked can match together kind of blew my mind
On March 22 2013 22:53 Skidmeyer wrote: I play ranked at a plat level and in unranked i get paired against Diamond and Masters Players even after losing numerous games to them.
Those diamond/masters ranked players may have been playing unranked. The border displayed on the loading screen is their ranked 1v1 league. The only way to tell if they are playing unranked is to go into their match history after the fact and check to see if they received a point delta for the game.
And as an aside, it looks like match history only reports point deltas for won games, so if they lost a game, you can't tell if it was a loss via a ranked or unranked game.
As long as they have bonus pool remaining that is (so someone with bonus pool 12 who was going to lose 12 points would have that game listed as "Loss", whereas someone with no bonus pool who was going to lose 12 points would have it listed as "Loss (-12)"). The rest is completely accurate.
I dont mind playing unranked in ranked because frankly it makes almost no difference. Even before unranked you'd get guys doing random shit/f-10 n'ing after 2 seconds.
Just play your game and stop making excuses about why you can't climb the ladder.
On March 23 2013 00:19 Zelniq wrote: how many bonus pool points must be acquired to drop out of GM now? is it the same as before, meaning half the time it takes to get booted, or was it raised proportionally?
also reading that unranked and ranked can match together kind of blew my mind
Nothing's been confirmed yet by Blizzard. We likely won't know until the first GMs of the season start rolling over.
On March 23 2013 00:25 vaderseven wrote: 2. Bonus pool going down for loses might mean its easier for a boosted player to stay in gm even if they can't win games at all.
It should actually be trivial for a boosted person to stay in GM. They just need to play the requisite number of games to keep their bonus pool low.
Because you spend bonus pool when you lose, I wouldn't be surprised if the GM point threshold is the same under the pretense that you also dump your bonus pool via losses as well.
Thanks for your work and anyone else who worked with you(if you did). I was quite curious on some of the new features and this cleared up most of my ignorance.
On March 23 2013 00:19 Zelniq wrote: how many bonus pool points must be acquired to drop out of GM now? is it the same as before, meaning half the time it takes to get booted, or was it raised proportionally?
also reading that unranked and ranked can match together kind of blew my mind
My guess is it's 360 now but we haven't heard anything. I think we'll just have to find out as the season goes on.
Is there proof on the ranked and unranked MMR being tied to each other until your first game in the opposite game type? For example, I have been facing Masters players consistently in unranked, but I just played 2 of my ranked placements and they were both against Bronze players - one who was currently unranked but had a past history of Bronze, and one who was currently a Bronze player this season.
Am I misunderstanding what you've stated in this portion of your thread, or do we have conflicting experiences?
On March 27 2013 00:26 yokohama wrote: Is there proof on the ranked and unranked MMR being tied to each other until your first game in the opposite game type? For example, I have been facing Masters players consistently in unranked, but I just played 2 of my ranked placements and they were both against Bronze players - one who was currently unranked but had a past history of Bronze, and one who was currently a Bronze player this season.
Am I misunderstanding what you've stated in this portion of your thread, or do we have conflicting experiences?
However, I use "proof" in quotations because I don't believe there have been any Blizzard posts on the matter since Heart of the Swarm launched. I know that was the plan and they didn't expect to change it, but they also said they'd keep an eye on it (as they always do).
On March 27 2013 00:26 yokohama wrote: Is there proof on the ranked and unranked MMR being tied to each other until your first game in the opposite game type? For example, I have been facing Masters players consistently in unranked, but I just played 2 of my ranked placements and they were both against Bronze players - one who was currently unranked but had a past history of Bronze, and one who was currently a Bronze player this season.
Am I misunderstanding what you've stated in this portion of your thread, or do we have conflicting experiences?
However, I use "proof" in quotations because I don't believe there have been any Blizzard posts on the matter since Heart of the Swarm launched. I know that was the plan and they didn't expect to change it, but they also said they'd keep an eye on it (as they always do).
I know what that says, but im a High master player and I'm facing gold and plat in unranked. Thats the kind of stuff I dont understand
On March 01 2013 17:58 Excalibur_Z wrote: Favored System
In the pre-game screen, the "Favored" indicator has disappeared.
Q: How do I know how many points the match is worth for me now that the indicator's gone? A: Now you can't. Instead, you can only see the opponent's portrait border signifying 1v1 league, but of course that doesn't necessarily tell you about his current MMR. That Gold-bordered opponent could be on his way up to your Platinum division, or maybe he's on a losing streak and hasn't been demoted to Bronze yet. On the plus side, now that bug with the pre-game and score screen Favored indicators not matching up is finally fixed! Note that the way points are determined is still unchanged: your current adjusted points compared to the opponent's MMR, and his adjusted points compared to your MMR. Also, because Unranked players can be matched against Ranked players, he may have a Platinum Unranked MMR but a Master-bordered portrait.
I don't know if this has been covered in this thread so forgive me if it has...
You can still see "Favored/Unfavored" after a match by hovering your mouse cursor over the +/- points in the top right of the score screen...after a second or so a tooltip will pop up and let you know if you were favored/unfavored...etc.
Hi, Excalibur_Z, I once again read this thread. I think something is wrong, or Blizzard changed something.
I am a high level master on EU (1350 points, ~ top 400) and I wanted to have fun today playing offrace in lower league. So I started to leave unranked games. I left 18 games right now, and I noticed something : ALL MY OPPONENTS WERE PLAYING UNRANKED TOO! did they change something in the player pool ? Ranked vs Ranked only and Unranked vs Unranked only ?
The first 2-3 unranked games I played I had gold opponents, so it doesn't seem to get my Ranked MMR to find Unranked game, I only play against unranked opponents, no matter what their leagues are.
Did Blizzard changed how it works ?
Can someone confirms ?
I will try to keep leaving game to see if my MMR changes, but I doubt it now.
Well, I left 25 games, I still meet unranked players only and my MMR can't go down...Blizzard definitely changed something.
@ SoniC_eu : it should be called "Leave Division" because your MMR stays the same. I tried it. I don't know if it's a bug or not, but I had to do 5 placements matches after "leaving league", I kept meeting opponents of my skill level.
There's a bug currently with the achievement/XP server, could it affects unranked MMR maybe ?
On April 13 2013 22:57 SoniC_eu wrote: Does anyone ahve the final word on "Leave League" button? Lolled at the part which said "shiny scary button" hehe I aint gonna press it...i think
I've done it twice to see how it worked. Both times it made play 5 placement matches. It feels like you get your mmr reset and tested again, because I played like 2 masters sliver, and 2 plats.
On April 13 2013 22:57 SoniC_eu wrote: Does anyone ahve the final word on "Leave League" button? Lolled at the part which said "shiny scary button" hehe I aint gonna press it...i think
I've done it twice to see how it worked. Both times it made play 5 placement matches. It feels like you get your mmr reset and tested again, because I played like 2 masters sliver, and 2 plats.
In my experience the amount of placement matches you had to play is equal to the number you had to play at the start of the current season.
On an account that only had 1 placement match at start (last season of wol) I had to replay 1 placement match to get a new division.
On an account that had 5 placement matches I had to play all 5 placement matches after leaving.
On April 13 2013 22:54 Shade_FR wrote: Hi, Excalibur_Z, I once again read this thread. I think something is wrong, or Blizzard changed something.
I am a high level master on EU (1350 points, ~ top 400) and I wanted to have fun today playing offrace in lower league. So I started to leave unranked games. I left 18 games right now, and I noticed something : ALL MY OPPONENTS WERE PLAYING UNRANKED TOO! did they change something in the player pool ? Ranked vs Ranked only and Unranked vs Unranked only ?
The first 2-3 unranked games I played I had gold opponents, so it doesn't seem to get my Ranked MMR to find Unranked game, I only play against unranked opponents, no matter what their leagues are.
Did Blizzard changed how it works ?
Can someone confirms ?
I will try to keep leaving game to see if my MMR changes, but I doubt it now.
It's very difficult to say. I don't have a contact anymore and until I get one, I won't have any official answers. Blizzard's also not volunteering this information on their blogs.
On April 13 2013 22:54 Shade_FR wrote: Hi, Excalibur_Z, I once again read this thread. I think something is wrong, or Blizzard changed something.
I am a high level master on EU (1350 points, ~ top 400) and I wanted to have fun today playing offrace in lower league. So I started to leave unranked games. I left 18 games right now, and I noticed something : ALL MY OPPONENTS WERE PLAYING UNRANKED TOO! did they change something in the player pool ? Ranked vs Ranked only and Unranked vs Unranked only ?
The first 2-3 unranked games I played I had gold opponents, so it doesn't seem to get my Ranked MMR to find Unranked game, I only play against unranked opponents, no matter what their leagues are.
Did Blizzard changed how it works ?
Can someone confirms ?
I will try to keep leaving game to see if my MMR changes, but I doubt it now.
It's very difficult to say. I don't have a contact anymore and until I get one, I won't have any official answers. Blizzard's also not volunteering this information on their blogs.
Oh ok, thanks for the quick-reply anyway. I guess we'll have to do more reverse-engineering to figure it out.
Okay, I kept losing Unranked ladder games and I now noticed something :
- When I play Unranked and my opponents are playing a Ranked Game (they won points for the game I left), they have a low MMR (arround silver currently) - When I play Unranked and my opponents are playing an Unranked Game too (they didn't win points for the game I left), they have my ranked MMR ! (High Master / GM)
This trend is confirmed and I think the ladder is seriously bugged and not working as intended right now. I MP-ed some Blizz community managers about this, I was very confused and confusing because of this, but now there is a confirmed trend. I hope they will fix this.
Does MMR from Wings have any impact on HotS MMR? Seems like it doesn't but just curious. I started HotS playing a lot of unranked and matched with all leagues from Bronze to Masters.
EPT
