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On November 12 2013 07:45 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2013 05:51 CakeSauc3 wrote:
I didn't realize just how serious of an issue this was until now.
While I was lucky to keep my primary account in diamond (masters before Hots, but whatever, there was inflation then anyway) I recently created a second account to off-race as Zerg. I won my placements and got put in Silver, then played a good amount of games there and won almost every game quite easily.
Then, I played my placement today and got put into gold, and almost every game now I'm playing ex masters players, players who are probably way better than I'll ever be. Kind of ridiculous, these leagues/divisions mean nothing now.
Has anyone come up with a practical explanation as to why Blizzard decided to put this in? I don't buy the whole "It makes players feel motivated to play because they're in lower leagues than they used to be" nonsense. Now that we know this exists, it would be much more interesting to understand why.
The why is very simple. It sucks to come back after a long break and get worked by players you used to be able to go 50-50 with. That doesn't happen for everybody, and in those cases, those players will be able to get back to where they used to be without too much trouble. The outcry of "I came back and I'm rusty, and now I lose all my games" was actually pretty common, so this decay is designed to gradually scale you downward so that you don't feel that sharp jolt of losing game after game when you return. In that sense, I don't think a lot of players have a problem that decay exists, but rather the degree of impact that it has. If you look at what MMR is and means, it's just a number. On its own, it's meaningless. However, the gap between two players' MMR values is defined as a predictor of the outcome of a game. Depending on how the system is tuned, dropping that ~300 rating for a month of inactivity and creating an artificial 300-rating penalty could result in your new opponents being players that you used to beat 60%, 70%, 75% of the time. If you think about it in that sense, it feels more reasonable. "I took a month off, so try me out against people I used to beat 3 out of 4 times instead of 1 out of 2 times." The major thing people don't like about it is that it takes so long through only getting ~16 rating per win to counteract the decay, so they're playing these easier opponents for a lot longer than they think they should be. I'm actually having some difficulty getting another seasonal breakdown from SC2Ranks (Shadowed just sold it to a new owner, good for him!) so I need to find a new contact there who will provide me with data. In any event, we're reasonably sure now that the decay happens in terms of real time inactivity as opposed to bonus pool accumulation, meaning the metric for internal league apportionment and the metric for decay are different. The decay happens over uninterrupted inactivity periods, starting at 2 weeks and capping out at 4. I'm going to update the OP with this info soon.
If I don't play for 4 weeks and my MMR drop X points, then play 1 game, then don't play for another 4 weeks, do I lose another X points for a total of 2X?
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On November 12 2013 13:32 Scarecrow wrote:
I think the biggest issue is no mid-season demotions so the grind back up feels much longer as there are limited spots in masters.
No. There are no limitations. Blizzard uses static league thresholds that they adjust very rarely. For example the known adjustments during HotS era are in the beginning of first HotS season (S 12) and in the beginning of season 14 (early June).
Regarding this season it is still too early to tell. But in few days at least if there has been larger changes is known from MMR tool data --> If there is large changes the tool gives erratic results. But if the changes were very small, it takes few weeks to verify. But they usually do not make small changes... (except that WoL bronze-silver offset was changed in beginning S12 and I did not notice it before early last season as they kept all other offsets the same. But WoL has very low amount of MMR tool users. If there were as many as there are HotS users, I would have noticed it much faster).
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On November 12 2013 09:48 korona wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2013 09:36 bertu wrote:
I could see a little bit.... play low diamond-league players instead of high diamond-league players, but why do you go from high master-league to gold or silver? That's just ridiculous.
I am very skeptic of the descriptions of "high masters playing gold" because of mmr decay. I've never seen it happen. A few of my friends didn't play any games after the beggining of last season, and dropped from playing masters to playing diamonds.It happened to me in my account in a different server. It's also against of all the information we have so far about the caps on the decay. I would guess those descriptions are just off-racing players in unranked games. No it actually happens. You just need several inactivity periods in a row. One maximum decay drops your MMR little over one league range when you come back. If after playing couple of games you go inactive again and come back after maximum decay has been reached for second time, you will be little over 2 league ranges lower than you were before your first inactivity period. Of course master league has huge MMR range compared to the other leagues. For example on EU it would take 2.56 x maximum decays to drop a borderline GM to diamond (on NA only 1.6 max decays would be needed). Some weeks ago I saw a former GM playing ranked on EU with mid-platinum MMR. As it takes about 20 wins more than losses to overcome the max decay (e.g. 20 win - 0 loss), many do not reach their former MMR level before going back to hiatus. And thus over several seasons they drop several league ranges in MMR (their actual skill remains about the same even if they become little rusty). S16 is the fifth HotS season. Every season the ladder becomes more messed up, unless Blizzard makes some corrective changes. For example in this situation it might be a good idea to adjust the decay mechanic to have smaller impact (or remove it entirely) and then reset everyone's MMR. The MMR changes much more rapidly if it starts from a blank state.
Interesting. Does this means decays can stack?
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I don't play ranked anymore because of this absurd system. Unranked is fun and you meet people of your level that play ranked anyway. You got matched vs people of your MMR level so what's the point going ranked anyway unless you want that cocky icon in front of your name.
From unranked perspective, what I can tell from my matches is that I encountered almost only masters last season and now the people of same MMR than mine all fallen to diamond. The only consequence to this is people are cheesing their way to go back easy to the league they belong. It's the same since last season at each season reset the amount of cheeses is ridiculously high.
Hope blizzard will fix this shit once for all because this impact a lot the in game strategies we see in the games. My last session was a 15-2 win ratio only facing cheeses proxy reapers proxy thors, ling bling allin , roach ling bling allin , and all the protoss fest of allins. No game lasted more than 12 minutes. I want to work my macro game but I really can't atm. SO to enjoy macro games do we have now to wait the mid season?
It's the worst ranking system for any game I played so far.
Fix it or at least allow me to face only unranked players....
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You could always play customs with friends if you want nr 15.
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On November 12 2013 19:37 klup wrote:
I don't play ranked anymore because of this absurd system. Unranked is fun and you meet people of your level that play ranked anyway. You got matched vs people of your MMR level so what's the point going ranked anyway unless you want that cocky icon in front of your name.
From unranked perspective, what I can tell from my matches is that I encountered almost only masters last season and now the people of same MMR than mine all fallen to diamond. The only consequence to this is people are cheesing their way to go back easy to the league they belong. It's the same since last season at each season reset the amount of cheeses is ridiculously high.
Hope blizzard will fix this shit once for all because this impact a lot the in game strategies we see in the games. My last session was a 15-2 win ratio only facing cheeses proxy reapers proxy thors, ling bling allin , roach ling bling allin , and all the protoss fest of allins. No game lasted more than 12 minutes. I want to work my macro game but I really can't atm. SO to enjoy macro games do we have now to wait the mid season?
It's the worst ranking system for any game I played so far.
Fix it or at least allow me to face only unranked players.... I usually do my placement and maybe three or for matches then don't play for the first few days or so of a season to avoid this. It's been like this forever. People getting mad about being demoted so they cheese every game to try and get back. The funny thing is that this will likely reinforce their demotion because people will hold their stupid cheese/gimmick builds and cause them to lose where if they had played how they normally do they would have had a better chance.
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Kinda funny how the timing in games played affect the decay. I just played my placement in 3:3 and got Master. A friend also played and got Plat. He played twice as much as I did last season and had better win % but he dropped down and I didnt.
I assume that I managed to time in my games so that I didnt drop so much in mmr while he had a longer break. Another factor could be that I had a higher mmr to start out with.
Do the mmr drop in 1:1 if you play teamgames ect? It seems like it but I'm not sure. My AT teams usually gets super demoted.
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On November 12 2013 05:32 korona wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2013 02:56 Mintograde wrote:It took me about 100 games to get back into the league. What confuses me most is that if Blizzard's argument for having MMR decay is "a player's skill is highly volatile," wouldn't that also mean that the player's MMR uncertainty should also be changed after the decay? I feel that an MMR decay with a corresponding uncertainty increase would be a nice compromise. Inactive players who have kept their skill would be able to quickly get back to their previous MMR, and inactive players who have lost their skill would quickly settle into their correct MMR. Blizzard has not publicly commented MMR decay at all. Neither they have denied it. Or do you have a public source?
I was just speculating on Blizzard's possible reasoning for implementing MMR decay, and giving a possible additional change to reduce the negative impact of MMR decay.
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On November 12 2013 23:35 Eatme wrote:
Kinda funny how the timing in games played affect the decay. I just played my placement in 3:3 and got Master. A friend also played and got Plat. He played twice as much as I did last season and had better win % but he dropped down and I didnt.
I assume that I managed to time in my games so that I didnt drop so much in mmr while he had a longer break. Another factor could be that I had a higher mmr to start out with.
Indeed. Nowadays if you don't have time to play, it is more beneficial for you just leave one game during one period of less than 2 weeks. One loss drops your MMR less than the decay.
On November 12 2013 23:35 Eatme wrote:
Do the mmr drop in 1:1 if you play teamgames ect? It seems like it but I'm not sure. My AT teams usually gets super demoted.
Something prevents it for sure (exact rules what prevents it are unknown). There were multiple character accounts that had not faced decay during S14, even if they had had inactivity period of more than 3 weeks. Actually one of my own accounts is such. During that time frame it was inactive, I from time to time watched replays and tested things in custom games (no opponent or AI opponent). I think I played one unranked match (left immediately) during that 49 days time frame as I tested if Blizzard had unranked/ranked identifiers in their web API (they don't have).
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From my personal experience it seems that each AT has its own MMR and will decay despite you playing on other ATs: I play ATs every weekend, but in general with different teams (as different people happen to be online), and very often we have to grind through a series of maybe 10 very easy wins before we hit any resistance at all, while if we happen to be the same team as last weekend, we don't run into that problem as much.
I am ofc only one person though, so I am not reliable statistics on my own. 
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personally i think the decay is too extreme. how is it i go from platinum to bronze or silver? it's like it automatically drops you a league every new season.
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Thank god for the decay... I haven't played in months and I'm playing in silver (after previously being in Platinum) and I belong there. These silver/gold players can macro now. They actually have units! wtf!
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On November 13 2013 08:58 VillageBC wrote:
Thank god for the decay... I haven't played in months and I'm playing in silver (after previously being in Platinum) and I belong there. These silver/gold players can macro now. They actually have units! wtf!
I think it's rather real bronze/silvers quitting and gold/plats dropping down that makes you feel like you belong there.
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If you want to know what standard wol league you actually play in, just look at your opponent profile. It's not rare to have some platinium or diamond that were actually 9 time masters.
Basically Gold seems the hard league atm because it's a concentration of very different skilled people. The top gold is definitively old diamonds and the bottom gold are actual gold.
Maybe Blizzard should introduce system like lol with gold 1 gold 2 etc... But fixing ladder feels really urgent. Most of my lower league friends are giving up because this system is too hard on them.They were on the verge to rise to platinium at the end of wol and now they are fighting in gold/silver.
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This is so frustrating.
Last season I was in Diamond.. admittedly I was having a hard time and this season (I was very active last season) I was demoted to platinum.
However…It’s very discouraging to be playing former perennial masters game after game. Looking at each of the profiles EVERYone I play has been masters multiple times. But they’re in platinum and they’re wrecking my face. These games are not close.
The decay should be in relation to the actual skill drop in respects to the time off. Meaning.. if you take a month or two off it doesn’t mean you’re fundamentals have dropped you 2 or 3 whole leagues. Perhaps a half a league? The decay seems to be way too dramatic.
I just get the impression they can’t make up their minds.
First they adjusted the range of players you can be matched against.. having legit masters playing platinums just for variety.. yeaaa..
Then Two seasons it was super easy to get promoted. I made it to masters and I should not be in masters.. I’m barely diamond.
Then they adjust it so you can’t get demoted in mid season.. what prompted that?
Now this decay is completely falsifying the ranking at the start of the each season.
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Decay probably shouldn't exist. Or it should be less aggressive -- maybe dropping you by a maximum of half a league every season unless you play at least some minimal number of games (like 50 games for the season). That way causal players aren't pushed away from the game just because they have lives.
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Yeah, I'm in gold and wrecking face because I'm actually a diamond/low masters player who didn't play for the last 2 seasons.
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Can anyone tell me if this decay is working indipendently for each bracket (1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4) or not? I mean: do I still have to play some games now and then in team brackets to prevent them from decaying, while still playing 1v1 at a reasonable pace (or the other way around)? Does it change for random and arrange teams?
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On November 14 2013 00:20 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
I just get the impression they can’t make up their minds.
First they adjusted the range of players you can be matched against.. having legit masters playing platinums just for variety.. yeaaa..
Then Two seasons it was super easy to get promoted. I made it to masters and I should not be in masters.. I’m barely diamond.
Then they adjust it so you can’t get demoted in mid season.. what prompted that?
Now this decay is completely falsifying the ranking at the start of the each season.
If you think a moment you realize that most of these things are connected.
First they made MMR ranges of each league considerably smaller in beginning of HotS (S12). They also seemed to abandon moving average regarding promotions (you seem to be promoted immediately when you cross league thresholds). E.g. if you were low to mid gold league player and had a win streak of 10, you would likely have been promoted to platinum. Similar loss streak would have dropped your MMR to low to mid silver. 15 to 20 losses would have dropped you to high bronze MMR range. As leagues were small, demotions would have been much more frequent. They adjusted the league sizes in beginning of third HotS season (S14). The MMR ranges are now larger, but still small compared to MMR ranges of WoL era leagues:
+ Show Spoiler +End of WoL offsets in MMR tool scale (bronze-silver, s-g, g-p, p-d, d-m, master-gm. Note that the dynamic GM entry barrier is much higher than the offset would suggest):
585, 345, 345, 255, 380, 590
HotS S12-S13:
200, 185, 180, 185, 200, 290
HotS S14 -:
280, 300, 280, 250, 250, 400
I have not checked if the max decay was smaller during S12 to S13. If it was & as leagues were smaller, it would have been faster to overcome it (less games). I wonder did they increase the max decay in comparable size to the league size increase.
Second they introduced MMR decay in beginning of HotS (it is possible that already in 2.0.x patch that was applied ~month before HotS). If there were mid season demotions, then the decay would be immediately evident when you come back from a hiatus - You would likely have been demoted immediately. It seems that Blizzard wanted that players would not know about the decay mechanism - They are still avoiding to acknowledge it, even if even the most casual end of players who don't read community forums have likely noticed that something is wrong.
Third they adjusted the matchmaker. It now picks primarily opponents from your own league who have similar MMR as you (secondarily from other leagues). Thus if you are in gold, but your MMR is e.g. in low silver, you are still most of the time matched against gold players (golds that have low silver MMR). This mechanism was likely added to hide possible MMR decay (+ decrease amount of complaints such as 'I am in silver, why I am matched against a gold player'). E.g. if a mid gold MMR player faces max decay his MMR drops to low to mid silver. If this mechanism was not implemented then most of his opponents would be silver players. But now as the opponents are mostly from gold, the decayed player won't necessarily even realize that he is not anymore a gold player based on MMR. He is still able to get very high rank in his gold division, especially as now he plays against players with much lower MMR than before (his adjusted points are much higher than typical non-decayed player with so low MMR would have).
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An official announcement would be awesome so we would know how many games we must play to avoid this (and when we must play those games). Due Process FTW.
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EPT
