Not as much as WoL bronze. If player skill is a bell curve, the lower 20% has a huge range of skill (from "what is a starcraft" to "vaguely recognizable as someone trying to play SC2"). But HotS gold is from the 28th to 60th percentile, which is the center of the bell curve, so the differential is lower.

graNite

Germany4434 Posts

March 11 2013 18:41 GMT

#24

haha so funny how apollo almost laughed when the oracle started killing

Targe

United Kingdom14103 Posts

March 11 2013 18:44 GMT

#25

On March 12 2013 03:08 vultdylan wrote:
I feel like this is going to lower the skill level for silver/gold, allowing for players that may not be skilled enough for Platinum league to get promoted by playing players who were formerly bronze/silver in skill.

Your league has nothing to do with who you are going to play, it is a result of who you have played.

RaZorwire

Sweden718 Posts

March 11 2013 18:50 GMT

#26

On March 12 2013 03:23 Inori wrote:
Wouldn't that mean that there will be a huge variety of skill level at gold league?

It will be bigger than before, at least. If what they are saying is true, that the Gold skill range was too narrow in WoL, maybe it won't be "huge", though.

NubainMuscle

South Africa423 Posts

March 11 2013 21:06 GMT

#27

I'm not at all a fan of this adjustment. There are so many better solutions.

1) There should be a cutoff point established somewhere to protect the real practice league level newbs from smurfs, trolls, and farmers. For example, if an account reaches Gold level (league or MMR) they are no longer permitted to be matched up against bronze league level players.

As it stands, a bronze league consisting of 8% of the player-base will consist almost entirely of trolls and smurfs, greatly increasing the likelihood that a brand new player encounters these people and becomes readily discouraged. The lower leagues should be protected, similar to the practice league, to ensure that experienced and advanced level players cannot demote themselves to that level but with an 8% bronze league this only increases the likelihood.

2) It undermines the accomplishment of reaching Gold league, significantly. Promotions are fun and rewarding, for any player. The 20/20/20/20/18/2 system makes each promotion feel valuable and increases the level of difficulty needed to attain each subsequent promotion. With the majority of the player base in the middle of the spectrum at gold, the only meaningful promotions are now platinum and above.

Snoodles

401 Posts

March 11 2013 21:18 GMT

#28

This is a very reasonable move. There's a big difference between a Gheed bronze and a higher tier bronze who knows what to do in the game but just isn't good at it. When I started playing starcraft 2 I didn't know hotkeys, produced nothing whenever I was moving my army, took 15 minutes to expand, and didn't know what units countered what. It's my first RTS. When I was at the top of bronze I knew I needed to macro and knew what every unit in the game did, but my execution was just bad and didn't know how to hold a cheese.

Plansix

United States60190 Posts

March 11 2013 21:22 GMT

#29

Sounds way better. They should just go for the full system that Riot uses and make 5 divisions in Bronze, Silve, Gold, Plat and so on. Riot's system makes progression much more attinable and makes climb out of Bronze league more than just going on a sick winning streak. It would be fine for SC2 as well.

Oukka

Finland1683 Posts

March 11 2013 21:24 GMT

#30

Clever idea by Blizzard. Deifinitely makes HotS more casual friendly and rewarding at the lower level whilst not affecting the top level of play (or actually the uppermost 40%) at all. Bronze now works as a some sort of introductory league rather than a sign of ones total inability to play starcraft. I like this!

MarkCJ

Canada239 Posts

March 11 2013 21:32 GMT

#31

more of a normal distribution is better imo

Excalibur_Z

United States12240 Posts

March 12 2013 02:27 GMT

#32

The funny thing about this change is that I bet when we look at the total distribution (like SC2Ranks takes, as opposed to Blizzard's "active player" metric) Bronze through Gold will probably look like 20%/20%/20%.

For a long time, Bronze has always had the most accounts. For some reason people get to Bronze and then just sit there, and there could be any number of reasons for this. Right now it's close to 35% in Bronze and around 23% in Silver and 18% in Gold in total accounts. Now, the intended ranges are 20%/20%/20%, so if they change this to 8%/20%/32% for active players, then the total accounts numbers may shift toward 20%/20%/20%, which would be pretty funny.

As to the reasoning behind this change, my guess is that the bottom 8% or so are probably portrait farmers, so perhaps Blizzard wants people who actually try to play the game for real to be Silver and above.

bGr.MetHiX

Bulgaria511 Posts

March 12 2013 02:46 GMT

#33

On March 12 2013 03:16 Treehead wrote:
Just another example of Blizzard shamelessly catering to casuals. I personally feel offended by the amount of work I had to put into playing at the Gold level to have it just GIVEN to horrible players.

i loled right there.

personally i like the change

Kishin2

United States7534 Posts

March 12 2013 02:52 GMT

#34

So now people who get in bronze know they REALLY suck.

felisconcolori

United States6168 Posts

March 12 2013 05:34 GMT

#35

They have a point about the distribution - Bronze has a huge range from people that have no clue and can't expand, to having people that have a reasonable idea but are hampered by something in their execution. The distribution really doesn't change much (compared to Masters/GM, we're ALL horrible and have no idea how to play from Bronze through at least Platinum and only slightly better at Diamond) except maybe make some people feel a little better because their border will be shiny shiny or canary yellow.

(I only this season made Gold. I am in no way upset by the change. Maybe if I had just made Masters and they changed that end of the distribution...)

gronnelg

Norway354 Posts

March 12 2013 07:39 GMT

#36

I just want to throw it in there:
The old distribution were supposed to be 20-20-20-20-18-2.
But in reality (I checked several times on sc2ranks.com) The distribution was more something like 40-18-15-14-9-4.
So now well have an inflation of gold (which totally makes sense according to a Bell-curve btw), and less bronzies. But still probably more than the 8% planned (since 20% became 40%+ in wol).

7 Posts

March 12 2013 08:00 GMT

#37

sweet, i just made it to gold!

TAMinator

Australia2706 Posts

March 12 2013 08:06 GMT

#38

Sounds good, that'll help newbies feel less alienated and "promote" easier so they feel like they're progressing and have less chance of getting bronze account trollers.

xyzz

567 Posts

March 12 2013 08:18 GMT

#39

Speaking of leagues, the player placement in leagues today is pretty funny. Everyone in platinum was atleast mid masters last season, while the grandmasters and top masters are in diamond. You'll find many masters players in gold too.

Big J

Austria16289 Posts

March 12 2013 08:24 GMT

#40

On March 12 2013 02:13 InfCereal wrote:
So it's going to more like a bell curve now?

No complaints, really.

Cool observation. Agree with the change!