• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 09:04
CEST 15:04
KST 22:04
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins Maestros of the Game 238ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12TL.net Map Contest #22 - Voting & Ladder Map Selection7
Community News
BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion5BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion5Weekly Cups (June 29-July 5): Solar Doubles0MC vs IdrA, Boxer vs Nal_rA to be Legacy Matches @ BlizzCon445.0.16 Hotfix (June 30) - Balance + Bug Fixes40
StarCraft 2
General
Most successful SC2 players of Q2 2026 Serral wins Maestros of the Game 2 MC vs IdrA, Boxer vs Nal_rA to be Legacy Matches @ BlizzCon Is the larve respawn broken? 5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start)
Tourneys
RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event GSL CK #5 Race War HomeStory Cup 29 Vespene Cup #1 — $300+ USD, July 10 Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond)
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
New Map Maker - Looking for Advice - Love or Hate Work In Progress Melee Maps [D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3
External Content
Mutation # 533 Die Together The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 532 Nuclear Family Mutation # 531 Experimental Artillery
Brood War
General
ASL 22 Proposed Map Pool ASL22 General Discussion BW General Discussion BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion
Tourneys
[ASL22] Wildcard Qualifier [Megathread] Daily Proleagues IPSL Spring 2026 Top 4! CSLAN 4 is Coming!
Strategy
Fighting Spirit mining rates Simple Questions, Simple Answers Creating a full chart of Zerg builds Relatively freeroll strategies
Other Games
General Games
Summer Games Done Quick 2026! General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Dawn of War IV
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance TL Mafia Community Thread TL Mafia Power Rank Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread UK Politics Mega-thread YouTube Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club The HerO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! Series you have seen recently...
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread McBoner: A hockey love story Tennis[sport] Formula 1 Discussion TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop How to clean a TTe Thermaltake keyboard? Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Major Shifts in the Gaming I…
TrAiDoS
An Exploration of th…
waywardstrategy
Gauntlet SC2: A Retrospectiv…
Ctone23
ramps on octagon
StaticNine
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Evil Gacha Games and the…
ffswowsucks
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 4739 users

Ladder Deflation and MMR Decay - Page 22

Forum Index > SC2 General
Post a Reply
Prev 1 20 21 22 23 24 33 Next All
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
January 01 2014 17:45 GMT
#421
On January 01 2014 11:01 Spirit09 wrote:
This seems to have taken me from Diamond (and MMR going up, according to MMR tool) in one season to Silver in the next.


Note that the league distributions have changed as well, so it's not all inactivity delay that took you from Diamond to Silver. Currently, Silver and Bronze make up about the bottom 60% of active players.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
korona
Profile Joined October 2009
1098 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-01 19:12:48
January 01 2014 19:08 GMT
#422
On January 02 2014 02:45 Lysenko wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 01 2014 11:01 Spirit09 wrote:
On January 01 2014 06:56 korona wrote:
Yes. Many seem to have experienced similar (no MMR reset even if skipped full season in every mode). Also some of these cases seem to have experienced 'chain decay' when they came back.


I'm one. I've had at least one season (several I think) where I've not played and then when I've come back in the following season its only been 1 placement match contrary to the stated MMR reset.

Not sure what chain decay is, but before this issue was public I had a period where I could only play 2-3 games in a month, which lasted for about 3 months. Now we know about decay it seems this is the absolute worst thing I could have done as I must of triggered several periods of maximum deflation. From my match history I can identify 2 periods of 4 weeks of complete inactivity. This seems to have taken me from Diamond (and MMR going up, according to MMR tool) in one season to Silver in the next.

Note that the league distributions have changed as well, so it's not all inactivity delay that took you from Diamond to Silver. Currently, Silver and Bronze make up about the bottom 60% of active players.

League offsets and thresholds were changed last time nearly half years ago in start of June.

What he describes sounds valid. He has two longer than 4 weeks inactivity periods. If his MMR originally was in low diamond range, the first max decay would drop his MMR around high gold / low platinum range. The second decay would drop his MMR to ~ mid to high silver MMR range. Of course this presumes he did not play much when he came back before the last inactivity period (his MMR did not increase much from the high gold/low plat range).


Edit: Based on the Blizzard's recent article one could expect that the offsets & thresholds will changed in couple of days when the new season begins. Interesting to see if they are the only changes.
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
January 02 2014 00:57 GMT
#423
On January 02 2014 04:08 korona wrote:
League offsets and thresholds were changed last time nearly half years ago in start of June.


That may be, but their article strongly implied that today's odd distribution was not primarily due to their inactivity decay change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
BurningRanger
Profile Joined January 2012
Germany303 Posts
January 02 2014 01:05 GMT
#424
On January 02 2014 09:57 Lysenko wrote:
That may be, but their article strongly implied that today's odd distribution was not primarily due to their inactivity decay change.

Well, what else do you expect than them playing it down? They can't admit that all this crap is their fault alone, right?
The odd distribution is not due to decay directly, that's true. But indirectly it affected thousands of players that got matched against decayed players.
My Livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/burningranger | My youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/BurningR4nger
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
January 02 2014 01:13 GMT
#425
On January 02 2014 10:05 BurningRanger wrote:
Well, what else do you expect than them playing it down? They can't admit that all this crap is their fault alone, right?


Wow, hold up there. I don't see them blaming gremlins or cosmic rays for it. Obviously it's the result of something they changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
Chocolate
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States2350 Posts
January 02 2014 01:27 GMT
#426
I just started playing again after a long hiatus and this is frustrating. I was diamond way back in the day, and pretty middle-of-the-road as far as diamond players go. Now I'm in bronze and while my skill has probably legitimately decreased, this is just dumb. I've been 4gating every match (is this still a thing anymore?), winning about 60%, losing my last two against a former masters player. It's so stupid that I can't get out of bronze because whenever I go on a winning streak I play against some former masters player who actually knows their shit and blows me out of the water. ARG
korona
Profile Joined October 2009
1098 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-02 02:52:44
January 02 2014 02:41 GMT
#427
On January 02 2014 09:57 Lysenko wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 02 2014 04:08 korona wrote:
League offsets and thresholds were changed last time nearly half years ago in start of June.


That may be, but their article strongly implied that today's odd distribution was not primarily due to their inactivity decay change.

They have long history of watering down 'negative sounding things' in their articles. Thus their articles should never be taken word for word. E.g. in the same article they claim that the effect of maximum decay would be ~10 times smaller than it actually is: "At its maximum value, the adjustment is small; it’s the equivalent of losing a few games." (there was community speculation did they mean max decay for each day during the 2 to 4 weeks time frame, so their claim would be 'true' if looked at from certain viewpoint)

The actual maximum decay is worth about 20 losses (unless they have changed it silently this season just before the article. I was going to check this via MMR tool data, but its server has been down since Dec 18th and I had not downloaded the most recent data. My old data that was taken 4.5 to 5 weeks after the launch of this season did not contain suitable decayed accounts). This (~20 losses) has been verified via both MMR tool data and even by looking at plain character profiles. For example there are lots of characters out there that have played until they have been promoted (MMR has risen over the threshold). Then they have gone inactive for more than 4 weeks and after the inactivity have played their placements for new season. Their league placement has been 1 to 2 leagues lower just like you would expect (the max decay is little more than MMR range of 1 typical league). Some of these accounts have immediately gone inactive again and once again have dropped 1 to 2 leagues in start of the following season (depending on which league range their MMR has dropped. Size of the MMR range of different leagues differs). If the max decay was only worth of 'few matches', then these character accounts would not have dropped multiple leagues (and such drastic league threshold changes are out of the question). To pass one league MMR range it usually requires ~ 20 wins more than losses (you can find plenty of empirical examples regarding this). That is not 'few matches'.

There is a chance that there could have been very small adjustments regarding the offsets since beginning of June. But they would have been so small that it has not been worth e.g. to adjust MMR tool offsets (larger offset changes are usually almost immediately visible from MMR tool data and user graphs would go erratic). It is likely that there has been no changes since start of June. Of course there are multiple other logically minor things that affect the ladders too, such as player base slowly decreasing, unranked mode, global play (as these accounts are played less, they also more likely face decay), new players, players who faced full MMR reset (did not play for full season), MMR abusers, etc.
Mantaza
Profile Joined January 2011
Germany87 Posts
January 02 2014 12:45 GMT
#428
On December 30 2013 01:33 ImperialFist wrote:
the mmr decay does not seem to be that huge, I only played one game last season to be placed (in masters), played my placement for this season just now and got masters again, after all I've been hearing I thought I would get plat or something.

maybe you really had a huge mmr before ?
I was top 25 masters then the next season i played only 1 game and still was masters after that season i did it again only played 1 game and wup plat ! :D
korona
Profile Joined October 2009
1098 Posts
January 02 2014 14:04 GMT
#429
On January 02 2014 21:45 Mantaza wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 30 2013 01:33 ImperialFist wrote:
the mmr decay does not seem to be that huge, I only played one game last season to be placed (in masters), played my placement for this season just now and got masters again, after all I've been hearing I thought I would get plat or something.

maybe you really had a huge mmr before ?

Master league is indeed huge regarding size of its MMR range compared to other leagues. E.g. MMR range from low border of master to low border of GM fits roughly 2.3 times max decay on EU server and 1.4 times max decay on NA server.
On January 02 2014 21:45 Mantaza wrote:
I was top 25 masters then the next season i played only 1 game and still was masters after that season i did it again only played 1 game and wup plat ! :D

Yes. If your MMR was near the low border of master range then max decay would drop it to high platinum range.
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-02 14:41:53
January 02 2014 14:41 GMT
#430
On January 02 2014 11:41 korona wrote:
They have long history of watering down 'negative sounding things' in their articles. Thus their articles should never be taken word for word.


I'm not talking about trying to read tea leaves in their tone.


Right before we launched Heart of the Swarm, we announced that we were changing our targets for player distribution across leagues. For various reasons since that announcement, the distribution of players across leagues slowly shifted to no longer match those desired targets. Currently the lower leagues like bronze and silver have a larger percentage of players than desired. Meanwhile the upper leagues like platinum and diamond are under-represented. One of the reasons this occurred is due to the way that we maintain those target percentages.


"The way [we] maintain those target percentages" is almost certainly not a reference to MMR decay, and it's not an oblique language question like whether "a few" means "twenty" either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
korona
Profile Joined October 2009
1098 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-02 16:09:31
January 02 2014 15:49 GMT
#431
Response to sarcastic remark by Lysenko:
+ Show Spoiler +
On January 02 2014 23:41 Lysenko wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 02 2014 11:41 korona wrote:
They have long history of watering down 'negative sounding things' in their articles. Thus their articles should never be taken word for word.


I'm not talking about trying to read tea leaves in their tone.

To 'water down' has nothing to do with tea leaves.

Merriam-Webster definition of WATER DOWN:
'to reduce or temper the force or effectiveness of'

thefreedictionary.com definition of watered down:
'Diminished in force or effect'

I am not a native English speaker. Maybe it means in your slang 'making tea'?


And response more related to the topic:
On January 02 2014 23:41 Lysenko wrote:
Show nested quote +

Right before we launched Heart of the Swarm, we announced that we were changing our targets for player distribution across leagues. For various reasons since that announcement, the distribution of players across leagues slowly shifted to no longer match those desired targets. Currently the lower leagues like bronze and silver have a larger percentage of players than desired. Meanwhile the upper leagues like platinum and diamond are under-represented. One of the reasons this occurred is due to the way that we maintain those target percentages.


"The way [we] maintain those target percentages" is almost certainly not a reference to MMR decay, and it's not an oblique language question like whether "a few" means "twenty" either.

Then what do you propose was the reason for distribution changes? The static offsets / thresholds that are used to maintain the league ranges have not changed since June.
Firkraag8
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden1006 Posts
January 02 2014 16:20 GMT
#432
Re-introduce demotions, remove MMR-decay. Problem solved.
Too weird to live, too rare to die.
Liman
Profile Joined July 2012
Serbia681 Posts
January 07 2014 13:12 GMT
#433
Im starting to wonder if Blizzard gives a flying fuck about this game... I mean really,how long does it take to solve one problem?
And its not the firs time they took so long to fix things that are unrelated to balance.
Maybe they will start to do their jobs when we start to pay money for each month to play SC2,oh wait,there are free games to play.
Wake the fuck up Blizzard!
Freelancer veteran
Ben...
Profile Joined January 2011
Canada3485 Posts
January 07 2014 16:59 GMT
#434
On January 03 2014 01:20 Firkraag8 wrote:
Re-introduce demotions, remove MMR-decay. Problem solved.
Ideally they will do that, but knowing how they have handled things in the past, they will do 4-5 spectacularly dumb changes before finally admitting defeat and simply going back to the old system or listening to the community. It's the Blizzard way.
"Cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide" -Tastosis
Butterednuts
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States859 Posts
January 07 2014 17:25 GMT
#435
On January 07 2014 22:12 Liman wrote:
Im starting to wonder if Blizzard gives a flying fuck about this game... I mean really,how long does it take to solve one problem?
And its not the firs time they took so long to fix things that are unrelated to balance.
Maybe they will start to do their jobs when we start to pay money for each month to play SC2,oh wait,there are free games to play.
Wake the fuck up Blizzard!


Blizzard is slow with every patch, change, and response. This shouldn't be news to you.
Chameleons Cast No Shadows
bri9and
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States246 Posts
January 07 2014 18:34 GMT
#436
On January 03 2014 01:20 Firkraag8 wrote:
Re-introduce demotions, remove MMR-decay. Problem solved.


Demotions still exist.. I tested this theory a few days ago to see how MMR was being calculated. I was in Gold league (been diamond/platinum since season 1). I intentionally lost games until I was demoted to Bronze.. from that point, I reset my record and started playing. I am 25-1 right now and only starting to play gold level players again but have already been promoted to silver. So demotions/promotions exist..
I don't have time to play with myself
Cheerio
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Ukraine3178 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-07 19:03:06
January 07 2014 18:57 GMT
#437
Now, 6 weeks is pretty generous when you're talking about someone being an active player, so it's a pretty safe bet that the actual activity metric is below this. The fact that only 22% of Bronze players meet this criteria means that if you're playing at a Bronze level, 22% of the time your random opponent may be actual Bronze-level, while 60% or more of the time it may be an inactive Silver.

Bronze league has the biggest margin between the top and the bottom, probably as big as 1000 MMR. Assuming the distribution is proportional, 70% of those in Bronze have a really low chance to play a decayed Silver (only if he was low Silver and will be favoured, and only for those top of the 70%). So 60% chance to meet Silver is a huge overkill. The logic applies only to high-Bronze. Because of a range of factors (no demotion, MMR decay, more populated Silver than Bronze, big difference in MMR between Bronze, more active Silver players) high-Bronze players will be very likely to play Silvers, probably even more likely than 60% of the time.
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12248 Posts
January 07 2014 19:21 GMT
#438
On January 08 2014 03:34 bri9and wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 03 2014 01:20 Firkraag8 wrote:
Re-introduce demotions, remove MMR-decay. Problem solved.


Demotions still exist.. I tested this theory a few days ago to see how MMR was being calculated. I was in Gold league (been diamond/platinum since season 1). I intentionally lost games until I was demoted to Bronze.. from that point, I reset my record and started playing. I am 25-1 right now and only starting to play gold level players again but have already been promoted to silver. So demotions/promotions exist..


The season just rolled over so that's why you were demoted to Bronze. When people say "demotions don't exist" they mean mid-season demotions, like actual demotions as in "after this game you moved from your current league to this lower league", not re-placing into a lower league.
Moderator
Ctone23
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
United States1841 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-01-07 19:22:54
January 07 2014 19:22 GMT
#439
It's really quite simple, in my opinion it's demoralizing. The explanations, graphs, all the justification, seem way inadequate.

The goal for me, and other players I have talked to who also got demoted, is to someday break masters league (or diamond, whatever) and it's SO demoralizing to get demoted at the beginning of a season. I and other players have been active the whole time, so decay explains nothing. Why demote players down a league? Makes no sense and it sucks because I really want more people to play the game.

Edit: I have seen Painuser get demoted mid season from Diamond to Plat on one of his marathon streams with no sleep, so yea, they exist still.
TL+ Member
Cheerio
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Ukraine3178 Posts
January 07 2014 22:10 GMT
#440
On January 08 2014 04:22 Ctone23 wrote:
It's really quite simple, in my opinion it's demoralizing. The explanations, graphs, all the justification, seem way inadequate.

The goal for me, and other players I have talked to who also got demoted, is to someday break masters league (or diamond, whatever) and it's SO demoralizing to get demoted at the beginning of a season. I and other players have been active the whole time, so decay explains nothing. Why demote players down a league? Makes no sense and it sucks because I really want more people to play the game.

In order to stay at the same level in rankings you need to be constantly improving to compensate for: 1) other players improving, 2) lower level players giving up on the game faster than hardcore gamers, so better ranked players take their spots in lower leagues, while their spots are taken by others and so on. This is how competition works, take it or leave it.
Prev 1 20 21 22 23 24 33 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Sparkling Tuna Cup
10:00
Weekly #137
herO vs ByuNLIVE!
CranKy Ducklings365
CranKy Ducklings SOOP30
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Ryung 998
Rex 156
MindelVK 22
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 59017
Calm 8015
Hyuk 1343
Shuttle 1119
Jaedong 1094
Mini 540
Soma 526
EffOrt 444
BeSt 374
Light 314
[ Show more ]
firebathero 278
Stork 241
actioN 209
Last 199
ZerO 157
hero 118
ggaemo 115
Soulkey 113
Mong 97
ToSsGirL 67
Sharp 51
Sea.KH 47
soO 34
scan(afreeca) 33
Free 31
sorry 29
HiyA 27
Aegong 26
Killer 20
Sacsri 16
Sexy 15
Hm[arnc] 12
ajuk12(nOOB) 12
Rock 11
Noble 10
Purpose 7
zelot 7
Icarus 6
Dota 2
Gorgc7025
Dendi844
qojqva390
Counter-Strike
x6flipin322
Sick176
kRYSTAL_71
Other Games
FrodaN5628
B2W.Neo598
Happy366
DeMusliM348
crisheroes305
Pyrionflax273
KnowMe217
Livibee75
ZerO(Twitch)16
Organizations
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 16
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 12 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• StrangeGG 24
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• Michael_bg 8
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Upcoming Events
IPSL
2h 56m
Bonyth vs Hawk
OSC
10h 56m
GSL
21h 56m
Monday Night Weeklies
1d 2h
Replay Cast
1d 10h
WardiTV Weekly
1d 21h
The PondCast
2 days
Replay Cast
3 days
CrankTV Team League
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
[ Show More ]
CrankTV Team League
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
RSL Revival
5 days
Clem vs Lambo
Scarlett vs Cure
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
RSL Revival
6 days
Classic vs Trap
herO vs SHIN
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

ASL Season 22: Wild Card Qualifier
HSC XXIX
Eternal Conflict S2 E1

Ongoing

IPSL Spring 2026
Acropolis #4
YSL S3
CSL 2026 Summer (S21)
RSL Revival: Season 6
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
SCTL 2026 Spring
Eternal Conflict S2 E2
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S3: W3
ASL S22 SEASON OPEN Day 1
Escore Tournament S3: W4
ASL S22 SEASON OPEN Day 2
Escore Tournament S3: W5
CSLAN 4
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
Light Tournament 2026
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale
Eternal Conflict S2 E3
Logitech G Connect 2026
StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.