|
United States12235 Posts
On March 27 2014 22:42 Malhavoc wrote:
Yeah, SC2Ranks in fact failed to track my account for many weeks, and just recently decided to work again. Another thing I felt strange is that it's considering me in the top 100-200 of Silver players (and that should still be true even if it considers inactive silver players).. while the MMR tools say I'm still short of 100-150 MMR points to get into gold (which seems quite a lot).
Does one need to so completely crash his league competitors to advance? It didnt seem so in the past... I almost never see other silver divisions where there's someone with more points than me, and still I very rarely confront gold players on ladder (and win around 9-10 points against other silvers). I know well that points and MMR are different things, but on the long run, they should converge in some way..
EDIT: talking about promotions.. nios.kr places me #91 out of 52.000 players on EU Silver (and I even have pool points left atm). Are there so few players left in SC2 that you really need to massive outplay your current league to ladder up?
It's possible that you're closer to a promotion than the MMR-Stats tool reports. Rather than knowing the actual offsets used, the MMR-Stats tool collects data from the players that use it in order to produce relative markers (like if 100 players were between 942-950 and after their win they were between 951-958 but in a new league, then the boundary must be at 951). This allows the tool to get pretty accurate estimates based on the number of players using it. The trouble is that relatively few Bronze-Gold players use the tool, so the estimates are a little spottier.
You said that you are #91 out of 52,000 EU Silver players in terms of points, but you still have bonus pool left. If you were to lose your next dozen games, your bonus pool would be consumed, your #91/52,000 rank would still be about the same, but your MMR would be lower.
|
On March 28 2014 01:41 Greenei wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2014 01:12 Salient wrote:On March 28 2014 01:01 Spirit09 wrote:
Irrespective of why players have different skill levels the "whining" is IMO due to the illogical and misleading manner in which blizzard set the system up abd have changed it over time. Any semi serious review of the ladder would conclude it isnt even a ladder at all. People dont think they are better than they are (unless the ladder tells them so which isnt their fault) but they do get confused and frustrated, and I think its clear that is blizzards fault.
I cant speak for others but I wasnt whining, I was criticising. There is a difference and im.surprised you didnt notice that. And even if you feel it was whine my points about the community bolt ons being evidence of blizzard failing to deliver still stand. Blizzard should look to competitive chess for inspiration. Chess has various ranks (such as GM, IM, etc.) based on a player's Elo rating. The Elo rating is determined by a mathematical formula. Both the formula and the Elo ratings are public. Blizzard's MMR is actually better than Elo. They just need to show it...
whether or not mmr is visible what they should do is deliver ranks that are linked to it, not obscured by bonus and offsets etc. But that is a discussion of ladder and there is no hope they'll ever implement a proper ladder I think. What I do hope for is a restoration of the matchmaking and that requires the removal of deflation, not the odd change of boundaries when things get super bad.
If my opponents mmr may be deflated or based on matches with deflated players then how can I expect to be matched with similar players let alone get meaningful information from their current league? If there are players with skill in excess of gold but mmr in gold how can I get out of gold even if im better than gold? Instead of bad ladder and good matchmaking we now have awful ladder and bad matchmaking. I fail to see the improvement blizzard apparently believes is there.
|
On March 28 2014 02:05 Spirit09 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2014 01:41 Greenei wrote:On March 28 2014 01:12 Salient wrote:On March 28 2014 01:01 Spirit09 wrote:
Irrespective of why players have different skill levels the "whining" is IMO due to the illogical and misleading manner in which blizzard set the system up abd have changed it over time. Any semi serious review of the ladder would conclude it isnt even a ladder at all. People dont think they are better than they are (unless the ladder tells them so which isnt their fault) but they do get confused and frustrated, and I think its clear that is blizzards fault.
I cant speak for others but I wasnt whining, I was criticising. There is a difference and im.surprised you didnt notice that. And even if you feel it was whine my points about the community bolt ons being evidence of blizzard failing to deliver still stand. Blizzard should look to competitive chess for inspiration. Chess has various ranks (such as GM, IM, etc.) based on a player's Elo rating. The Elo rating is determined by a mathematical formula. Both the formula and the Elo ratings are public. Blizzard's MMR is actually better than Elo. They just need to show it... whether or not mmr is visible what they should do is deliver ranks that are linked to it, not obscured by bonus and offsets etc. But that is a discussion of ladder and there is no hope they'll ever implement a proper ladder I think. What I do hope for is a restoration of the matchmaking and that requires the removal of deflation, not the odd change of boundaries when things get super bad. If my opponents mmr may be deflated or based on matches with deflated players then how can I expect to be matched with similar players let alone get meaningful information from their current league? If there are players with skill in excess of gold but mmr in gold how can I get out of gold even if im better than gold? Instead of bad ladder and good matchmaking we now have awful ladder and bad matchmaking. I fail to see the improvement blizzard apparently believes is there.
No matter how they dress up an MMR with bonus pool or league divisions, it still remains the same MMR.
Either it never decays and people stay in masters playing only 1 game every 1-2 months, or it decays and masters players drop to bronze for only playing 1-2 games a month. Pick which one you're philosophically okay with and accept it while ignoring the dressing it is draped in.
There will always be a group upset that there is decay and there will always be a group that get upset that there's no decay. And within each of those two groups will be subgroups upset that either the decay is too harsh or not harsh enough. There is no balance that will make people happy. Pretending there is a balance that can be reached is silly and pointless.
|
On March 28 2014 02:18 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2014 02:05 Spirit09 wrote:On March 28 2014 01:41 Greenei wrote:On March 28 2014 01:12 Salient wrote:On March 28 2014 01:01 Spirit09 wrote:
Irrespective of why players have different skill levels the "whining" is IMO due to the illogical and misleading manner in which blizzard set the system up abd have changed it over time. Any semi serious review of the ladder would conclude it isnt even a ladder at all. People dont think they are better than they are (unless the ladder tells them so which isnt their fault) but they do get confused and frustrated, and I think its clear that is blizzards fault.
I cant speak for others but I wasnt whining, I was criticising. There is a difference and im.surprised you didnt notice that. And even if you feel it was whine my points about the community bolt ons being evidence of blizzard failing to deliver still stand. Blizzard should look to competitive chess for inspiration. Chess has various ranks (such as GM, IM, etc.) based on a player's Elo rating. The Elo rating is determined by a mathematical formula. Both the formula and the Elo ratings are public. Blizzard's MMR is actually better than Elo. They just need to show it... whether or not mmr is visible what they should do is deliver ranks that are linked to it, not obscured by bonus and offsets etc. But that is a discussion of ladder and there is no hope they'll ever implement a proper ladder I think. What I do hope for is a restoration of the matchmaking and that requires the removal of deflation, not the odd change of boundaries when things get super bad. If my opponents mmr may be deflated or based on matches with deflated players then how can I expect to be matched with similar players let alone get meaningful information from their current league? If there are players with skill in excess of gold but mmr in gold how can I get out of gold even if im better than gold? Instead of bad ladder and good matchmaking we now have awful ladder and bad matchmaking. I fail to see the improvement blizzard apparently believes is there. No matter how they dress up an MMR with bonus pool or league divisions, it still remains the same MMR. Either it never decays and people stay in masters playing only 1 game every 1-2 months, or it decays and masters players drop to bronze for only playing 1-2 games a month. Pick which one you're philosophically okay with and accept it while ignoring the dressing it is draped in. There will always be a group upset that there is decay and there will always be a group that get upset that there's no decay. And within each of those two groups will be subgroups upset that either the decay is too harsh or not harsh enough. There is no balance that will make people happy. Pretending there is a balance that can be reached is silly and pointless.
Im not interested in a system that makes everyone happy. Im interested in a system that works.
Anyway your two options offered are not the only ones. For example why not have a system that deflates your displayed rank for inactivity but doesnt deflate your mmr? That keeps inactive players out of masters but doesnt hit matchmaking. Im not advocating this as a solution but its not a case of pick the imperfect system you least duslike but they are all valid like you make out. Rather there are right ways of doing things and Blizz interferes so much that the system they have is hugely away from a good way of operating in multipe parts of its implementation.
|
On March 28 2014 02:27 Spirit09 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2014 02:18 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 28 2014 02:05 Spirit09 wrote:On March 28 2014 01:41 Greenei wrote:On March 28 2014 01:12 Salient wrote:On March 28 2014 01:01 Spirit09 wrote:
Irrespective of why players have different skill levels the "whining" is IMO due to the illogical and misleading manner in which blizzard set the system up abd have changed it over time. Any semi serious review of the ladder would conclude it isnt even a ladder at all. People dont think they are better than they are (unless the ladder tells them so which isnt their fault) but they do get confused and frustrated, and I think its clear that is blizzards fault.
I cant speak for others but I wasnt whining, I was criticising. There is a difference and im.surprised you didnt notice that. And even if you feel it was whine my points about the community bolt ons being evidence of blizzard failing to deliver still stand. Blizzard should look to competitive chess for inspiration. Chess has various ranks (such as GM, IM, etc.) based on a player's Elo rating. The Elo rating is determined by a mathematical formula. Both the formula and the Elo ratings are public. Blizzard's MMR is actually better than Elo. They just need to show it... whether or not mmr is visible what they should do is deliver ranks that are linked to it, not obscured by bonus and offsets etc. But that is a discussion of ladder and there is no hope they'll ever implement a proper ladder I think. What I do hope for is a restoration of the matchmaking and that requires the removal of deflation, not the odd change of boundaries when things get super bad. If my opponents mmr may be deflated or based on matches with deflated players then how can I expect to be matched with similar players let alone get meaningful information from their current league? If there are players with skill in excess of gold but mmr in gold how can I get out of gold even if im better than gold? Instead of bad ladder and good matchmaking we now have awful ladder and bad matchmaking. I fail to see the improvement blizzard apparently believes is there. No matter how they dress up an MMR with bonus pool or league divisions, it still remains the same MMR. Either it never decays and people stay in masters playing only 1 game every 1-2 months, or it decays and masters players drop to bronze for only playing 1-2 games a month. Pick which one you're philosophically okay with and accept it while ignoring the dressing it is draped in. There will always be a group upset that there is decay and there will always be a group that get upset that there's no decay. And within each of those two groups will be subgroups upset that either the decay is too harsh or not harsh enough. There is no balance that will make people happy. Pretending there is a balance that can be reached is silly and pointless. Im not interested in a system that makes everyone happy. Im interested in a system that works. Anyway your two options offered are not the only ones. For example why not have a system that deflates your displayed rank for inactivity but doesnt deflate your mmr? That keeps inactive players out of masters but doesnt hit matchmaking. Im not advocating this as a solution but its not a case of pick the imperfect system you least duslike but they are all valid like you make out. Rather there are right ways of doing things and Blizz interferes so much that the system they have is hugely away from a good way of operating in multipe parts of its implementation.
I'm sorry, but your suggestion of a system that changes what your rank looks like but doesn't drop your actual ranks sounds like a fake system. Could you imagine the GM playing vs a Bronze player and thinking "??????" because that's just stupid.
If what you want is a system that doesn't decay but decays what the window dressing looks like, that's sounds arbitrary. The other options is a system that decays your MMR but doesn't change the window dressing--that is also arbitrarily stupid sounding.
These are the options.
-Decay
-No Decay
-Decay, ranking doesn't change
-No Decay, ranking changes
Pick your poison.
|
On March 28 2014 02:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2014 02:27 Spirit09 wrote:On March 28 2014 02:18 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 28 2014 02:05 Spirit09 wrote:On March 28 2014 01:41 Greenei wrote:On March 28 2014 01:12 Salient wrote:On March 28 2014 01:01 Spirit09 wrote:
Irrespective of why players have different skill levels the "whining" is IMO due to the illogical and misleading manner in which blizzard set the system up abd have changed it over time. Any semi serious review of the ladder would conclude it isnt even a ladder at all. People dont think they are better than they are (unless the ladder tells them so which isnt their fault) but they do get confused and frustrated, and I think its clear that is blizzards fault.
I cant speak for others but I wasnt whining, I was criticising. There is a difference and im.surprised you didnt notice that. And even if you feel it was whine my points about the community bolt ons being evidence of blizzard failing to deliver still stand. Blizzard should look to competitive chess for inspiration. Chess has various ranks (such as GM, IM, etc.) based on a player's Elo rating. The Elo rating is determined by a mathematical formula. Both the formula and the Elo ratings are public. Blizzard's MMR is actually better than Elo. They just need to show it... whether or not mmr is visible what they should do is deliver ranks that are linked to it, not obscured by bonus and offsets etc. But that is a discussion of ladder and there is no hope they'll ever implement a proper ladder I think. What I do hope for is a restoration of the matchmaking and that requires the removal of deflation, not the odd change of boundaries when things get super bad. If my opponents mmr may be deflated or based on matches with deflated players then how can I expect to be matched with similar players let alone get meaningful information from their current league? If there are players with skill in excess of gold but mmr in gold how can I get out of gold even if im better than gold? Instead of bad ladder and good matchmaking we now have awful ladder and bad matchmaking. I fail to see the improvement blizzard apparently believes is there. No matter how they dress up an MMR with bonus pool or league divisions, it still remains the same MMR. Either it never decays and people stay in masters playing only 1 game every 1-2 months, or it decays and masters players drop to bronze for only playing 1-2 games a month. Pick which one you're philosophically okay with and accept it while ignoring the dressing it is draped in. There will always be a group upset that there is decay and there will always be a group that get upset that there's no decay. And within each of those two groups will be subgroups upset that either the decay is too harsh or not harsh enough. There is no balance that will make people happy. Pretending there is a balance that can be reached is silly and pointless. Im not interested in a system that makes everyone happy. Im interested in a system that works. Anyway your two options offered are not the only ones. For example why not have a system that deflates your displayed rank for inactivity but doesnt deflate your mmr? That keeps inactive players out of masters but doesnt hit matchmaking. Im not advocating this as a solution but its not a case of pick the imperfect system you least duslike but they are all valid like you make out. Rather there are right ways of doing things and Blizz interferes so much that the system they have is hugely away from a good way of operating in multipe parts of its implementation. I'm sorry, but your suggestion of a system that changes what your rank looks like but doesn't drop your actual ranks sounds like a fake system. Could you imagine the GM playing vs a Bronze player and thinking "??????" because that's just stupid. If what you want is a system that doesn't decay but decays what the window dressing looks like, that's sounds arbitrary. The other options is a system that decays your MMR but doesn't change the window dressing--that is also arbitrarily stupid sounding. These are the options. -Decay -No Decay -Decay, ranking doesn't change -No Decay, ranking changes Pick your poison.
You really dont like criticism of blizzard but you dont address that criticism directly.
I dont think you read what I posted, or you read it but heard only what you wanted to hear. I specifically said im not suggesting that as I already suspected youd jump on it but you ignored my point and jumped on it anyway and now we're back to your "here are two choices pick one" attiude. There are plenty of other options you seem fixated on this simply as it allows you to claim the current system is no better or worse than any other option except in personal preference. That is clearly not true in the extreme.
Perhaps you personally prefer it when low leagues have little to no meaning wrt relative skill and matchmaking is impacted by decay, especially team matchmaking, but all the evidence would suggest that very few people would agree with you. Maybe you are in master league and it doesnt really affect you, well lucky for you I guess. Denying the facts is not an argument however, and the facts are blizz complicated the system for vague self interest reasons and with good intentions or bad have made it more complicated and less skill related with subsequent changes and the criticisms raised here are legitimate.
Im not even sure what your point is. Do you like the system as it is? If so why dont the concerns raised bother you? Do they just not affect you? Because they do affect others.
Edit
You also keep demanding I pick an option but I already stated several time I'd settle for a return to the pre deflation situation where at least matchmaking works even if ranks do not. Since ranks dont work with deflation either there is no down side. A better solution is a rank that is directly related to mmr no bonus no division offsets no nothing. Just mmr and no. games played nothing more. Since thats not a realistic prospect however I see no point advocating it.
|
On March 28 2014 03:25 Spirit09 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2014 02:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 28 2014 02:27 Spirit09 wrote:On March 28 2014 02:18 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 28 2014 02:05 Spirit09 wrote:On March 28 2014 01:41 Greenei wrote:On March 28 2014 01:12 Salient wrote:On March 28 2014 01:01 Spirit09 wrote:
Irrespective of why players have different skill levels the "whining" is IMO due to the illogical and misleading manner in which blizzard set the system up abd have changed it over time. Any semi serious review of the ladder would conclude it isnt even a ladder at all. People dont think they are better than they are (unless the ladder tells them so which isnt their fault) but they do get confused and frustrated, and I think its clear that is blizzards fault.
I cant speak for others but I wasnt whining, I was criticising. There is a difference and im.surprised you didnt notice that. And even if you feel it was whine my points about the community bolt ons being evidence of blizzard failing to deliver still stand. Blizzard should look to competitive chess for inspiration. Chess has various ranks (such as GM, IM, etc.) based on a player's Elo rating. The Elo rating is determined by a mathematical formula. Both the formula and the Elo ratings are public. Blizzard's MMR is actually better than Elo. They just need to show it... whether or not mmr is visible what they should do is deliver ranks that are linked to it, not obscured by bonus and offsets etc. But that is a discussion of ladder and there is no hope they'll ever implement a proper ladder I think. What I do hope for is a restoration of the matchmaking and that requires the removal of deflation, not the odd change of boundaries when things get super bad. If my opponents mmr may be deflated or based on matches with deflated players then how can I expect to be matched with similar players let alone get meaningful information from their current league? If there are players with skill in excess of gold but mmr in gold how can I get out of gold even if im better than gold? Instead of bad ladder and good matchmaking we now have awful ladder and bad matchmaking. I fail to see the improvement blizzard apparently believes is there. No matter how they dress up an MMR with bonus pool or league divisions, it still remains the same MMR. Either it never decays and people stay in masters playing only 1 game every 1-2 months, or it decays and masters players drop to bronze for only playing 1-2 games a month. Pick which one you're philosophically okay with and accept it while ignoring the dressing it is draped in. There will always be a group upset that there is decay and there will always be a group that get upset that there's no decay. And within each of those two groups will be subgroups upset that either the decay is too harsh or not harsh enough. There is no balance that will make people happy. Pretending there is a balance that can be reached is silly and pointless. Im not interested in a system that makes everyone happy. Im interested in a system that works. Anyway your two options offered are not the only ones. For example why not have a system that deflates your displayed rank for inactivity but doesnt deflate your mmr? That keeps inactive players out of masters but doesnt hit matchmaking. Im not advocating this as a solution but its not a case of pick the imperfect system you least duslike but they are all valid like you make out. Rather there are right ways of doing things and Blizz interferes so much that the system they have is hugely away from a good way of operating in multipe parts of its implementation. I'm sorry, but your suggestion of a system that changes what your rank looks like but doesn't drop your actual ranks sounds like a fake system. Could you imagine the GM playing vs a Bronze player and thinking "??????" because that's just stupid. If what you want is a system that doesn't decay but decays what the window dressing looks like, that's sounds arbitrary. The other options is a system that decays your MMR but doesn't change the window dressing--that is also arbitrarily stupid sounding. These are the options. -Decay -No Decay -Decay, ranking doesn't change -No Decay, ranking changes Pick your poison. You really dont like criticism of blizzard but you dont address that criticism directly. I dont think you read what I posted, or you read it but heard only what you wanted to hear. I specifically said im not suggesting that as I already suspected youd jump on it but you ignored my point and jumped on it anyway and now we're back to your "here are two choices pick one" attiude. There are plenty of other options you seem fixated on this simply as it allows you to claim the current system is no better or worse than any other option except in personal preference. That is clearly not true in the extreme. Perhaps you personally prefer it when low leagues have little to no meaning wrt relative skill and matchmaking is impacted by decay, especially team matchmaking, but all the evidence would suggest that very few people would agree with you. Maybe you are in master league and it doesnt really affect you, well lucky for you I guess. Denying the facts is not an argument however, and the facts are blizz complicated the system for vague self interest reasons and with good intentions or bad have made it more complicated and less skill related with subsequent changes and the criticisms raised here are legitimate. Im not even sure what your point is. Do you like the system as it is? If so why dont the concerns raised bother you? Do they just not affect you? Because they do affect others. Edit You also keep demanding I pick an option but I already stated several time I'd settle for a return to the pre deflation situation where at least matchmaking works even if ranks do not. Since ranks dont work with deflation either there is no down side. A better solution is a rank that is directly related to mmr no bonus no division offsets no nothing. Just mmr and no. games played nothing more. Since thats not a realistic prospect however I see no point advocating it.
I do not care what the system is. I'm simply saying that it doesn't matter which one is implemented. No one will be happy with it.
If we went back to the old system, as many people will whine that people never drop in rank. If we stay in this system, people will whine that players drop in rank. Your current disposition is nothing of note, people will be unhappy either or.
|
On March 28 2014 03:42 Thieving Magpie wrote:
I do not care what the system is. I'm simply saying that it doesn't matter which one is implemented. No one will be happy with it.
I assume you mean "not everyone" rather than "no one". I'm not disputing that (but I'm VERY much disputing that it doesn't matter which is implemented). I'm not even talking about it because like you I know you can't please everyone so what is the point of trying to? We are in agreement, but this is not what the discussion is about.
On March 28 2014 03:42 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Your current disposition is nothing of note, people will be unhappy either or.
The discussion is (given that you can't please everyone) what is an efective ladder and matchmaking system? My argument that decay as Bizzard introduced is bad is a valid argument irrespective of whether someone might be happy or unhappy with decay, so of course what I'm saying is of note.
Saying it is not of note is like saying that there is nothing of note in a discussion over which kind of cars are more or less good for the environment because some people will be unhappy whatever you do. You are saying there is no point in advocating electric cars because someone will be upset so there is nothing of note in the argument, as long as someone would be upset then there is no way to decide one option is better than any other option. If you apply the logic you are applying you would actually conclude that no argument is ever valid ... because all arguments will make someone somewhere unhappy. Thats clearly not the case.
So.... if we can agree that its ok to discuss whether decay is a good or bad idea without reference to whether or not everyone will be happy with or without decay then I will state that I am opposed to decay because:
1. It means mmr is inaccurate for players experiencing decay
2. It means mmr is inaccurate for all other players because they play against players experiencing decay
3. Its particularly bad for low leagues and team games
4. It is yet anther way that displayed rank is taken further from what it is implied to players that it is, which is a rank based on skill (and we already have far too many ways that displayed rank =/= skill we don't need yet another one)
I will acknowledge that some high ranked players might see benefits to decay and not really be bothered by all the downsides. Seems a huge price to pay just to give slight benefits to what I believe is a very small number of players however.
I will also acknowledge that neither decay nor bonus pool nor any of the other idiotic inventions of blizzard completely turn the ladder or matchmaking upside down... even with these things the ladder and matchmaking still kinda work. What I claim is that they work much much less well than they would otherwise do. EDIT: Also working well or not, blizz system is not what the community wants as proven by the lengths the community then goes to with creating things like sc2ranks, MMR tool and ggtracker which attempt to view real skill unedited by Blizzard, real ranking, and proper assessment and analysis of skills and performance in games.
That is my case.
|
United States12235 Posts
It's true that you can't make a system to please everyone. What Blizzard attempted to do with SC2 was learn from their mistakes in WoW Arena, War3, and BW.
Arena v1 was straight Elo but there were exploits regarding swapping in new members to your team and feeding them free high-rating rewards each week.
Arena v2 added personal rating requirements so you had to build yourself up to where the rest of your team was before you got anything.
Arena v3 adjusted the reward curve and made it less desirable for bad players to just create a new team at the default rating each week (since their rating after playing games each week would naturally fall below the starting value). Therefore they started all teams off at 0 but left their MMR at the default, so they had to build up to it before they started seeing returns.
War3 had a fun RPG themed leveling system but people started gaming the ELL. ELL is similar to MMR in that it becomes a skill estimate to lead your experience point gains. If your level is 5 but your ELL is 30 then you will play against level 30s and earn experience accordingly, which is much more than you would earn against other true level 5s. Because there were no account limits, players would keep creating new accounts until they had one with the highest win ratio they could muster, which made their ELL high and sent then higher up the ladder faster. Blizzard added a decay requirement of x games per week or your experience points would start falling but it accomplished little.
BW had a similar problem by allowing infinite accounts because of wintrading. BW was straight Elo and was actually the most transparent.
Blizzard needed to balance the demands of players (where do I stand) with the demands of a healthy ladder (keep everyone playing). That's why SC2 has stuff like points and bonus pool. You can see over the years how they've continued to tweak it, like by removing demotions and adding decay and adding race XP, anything to incentivize playing and keep the game from stagnating. That's no easy task.
|
Thanks for the background, thats really helpful in understanding their logic (which I struggle to do!  )
On March 28 2014 04:11 Excalibur_Z wrote:
That's no easy task.
Granted.
However, given that you say the problem with BW was infinite accounts and SC2 doesn't have that unless you have infinite money it doesn't seem to be clear cut that bonus pool or division offsets were necessary. I feel that they needed to make displayed ranks/leagues much more closely tied to real skill and the main problem faced right from the launch and still going on now of players displeased because they thought they were good (ladder said so) and then they got demoted or didn't get a promotion is due to that. (EDIT: I guess your main point is that these things are about incentivising activity rather than preventing abuse... well ok but where is the evidence that the game would have stagnated if they didn't have this sort of stuff? Without evidence I'm not sure how Blizz could defend against accusations that they got the balance wrong here. They probably shouldn't be adding just 5 new XP levels when people had been maxed at 30 for near a year either... if they truly beleived this is critical to keeping the player base interested that is.)
But we're specifically talking about decay here and I fail to see how it benefits anyone apart from master level players who spend all their bonus pool who get a small benefit in that they don't have to feel like some of their fellow master players are "fakes". Ok, so its supposed to make returning to playing easier, but you could argue thats a non problem really.
What decay does do is cause significant other effects. The crux of the problem is that the benefits (if there really are any) aren't even remotely comparable to the negative impacts it has had, and it was relatively obvious it would have had if some proper assessment had been done before implementing it.
In short, I'm not sure Blizzard's experience can excuse implementing decay and certainly cannot excuse that it still hasn't been addressed by them this long since the problems started to arise.
And its not just that its bad but that they handle this kind of thing badly as well e.g. by introducing it by stealth, by denying it is a big deal, by not addressing concerns, by then making posts about other low priority things while people wanted decay to be the #1 priority, by introducing a fix that only gives the appearance of a solution...
Its a lot to answer for really.
EDIT2:
There is another way of looking at this. Decay is another method of promoting activity and was only sold to players as giving other benefits since Blizz couldn't really say "we want you to play more so we'll take your rank away if you don't". This is a kind of cynical view I guess but it fits with what Excal is saying about how they have constantly made these kind of changes, and it explains their attitude to the complaints, i.e. they might even agree with the complaints but whether they do or not this is a decision they've taken as part of their ongoing management of activity so its here to stay. It could even explain why they didn't assess the impact on the ladder. Basically they did assess it, but what they assessed was impact on activity not impact on distribution or matchmaking. Seeing things this way means what happened makes a lot more sense to me on a number of levels actually!
|
Why don't they just have every1 play 5 placement matches each season? Not to calculate their MMR from scratch each time, just to make them play more (than just 1 game per season). Then get rid of the decay.
Also people that actually got worse from not playing regularly will usually lose most of those 5 games, dropping their MMR further than from just 1 (with just 1 placement match) loss.
|
As a quick update:
I did check in the beginning of this month that the MMR decay mechanism is still there. It is not yet confirmed if the max decay values are the same as before thought. Also note that the size of MMR ranges for different leagues now differ more than before from each others. Thus the old generalization "max decay is little more than one league range" cannot be applied to generic leagues any more. For example the size of the diamond league range now is almost 1.5 times the old max decay (old max decay ~310, current estimates of sizes of new league ranges: b 280, s 260, g 290, p 235, d 450).
As the NA and EU web profiles have been having problems for a month (data is often updated out-of-sync, which leads to lots of bad match data + before the MMR tool was updated it also sometimes lead to false positive 'unranked detection' results that caused that some of the matches were ignored completely), I have not tried to determine if there were changes to the max values.
Edit: fixed old max decay from 320 to 310. Was a typo.
|
Thieving Magpie wrote:
No matter how they dress up an MMR with bonus pool or league divisions, it still remains the same MMR.
Either it never decays and people stay in masters playing only 1 game every 1-2 months, or it decays and masters players drop to bronze for only playing 1-2 games a month. Pick which one you're philosophically okay with and accept it while ignoring the dressing it is draped in.
There will always be a group upset that there is decay and there will always be a group that get upset that there's no decay. And within each of those two groups will be subgroups upset that either the decay is too harsh or not harsh enough. There is no balance that will make people happy. Pretending there is a balance that can be reached is silly and pointless.
the current system does not work. also, why are the extremes the only solutions? there is *absolutely* no reason for a masters level player to be in bronze, you can't disagree with that. decay can be fine, the current iteration is just way too aggressive and has no floor apparently. you should only decay a certain amount and then stop, forever, until your mmr increases to where it was before the decay.
Excalibur_Z wrote:
...
You can see over the years how they've continued to tweak it, like by removing demotions and adding decay and adding race XP, anything to incentivize playing and keep the game from stagnating. That's no easy task.
it's kind of funny then that the current system implemented with hots turns a lot of casual players off. getting dropped into the scrub leagues just because you aren't active enough is tiresome. i'm sure you're well aware of the mmr mis-match (ie, masters players falling into the lower leagues and being matched with real newbs) that results that surely has been mentioned time and time again in this thread and many others.
|
On March 28 2014 18:22 CycoDude wrote:Show nested quote +Thieving Magpie wrote:
No matter how they dress up an MMR with bonus pool or league divisions, it still remains the same MMR.
Either it never decays and people stay in masters playing only 1 game every 1-2 months, or it decays and masters players drop to bronze for only playing 1-2 games a month. Pick which one you're philosophically okay with and accept it while ignoring the dressing it is draped in.
There will always be a group upset that there is decay and there will always be a group that get upset that there's no decay. And within each of those two groups will be subgroups upset that either the decay is too harsh or not harsh enough. There is no balance that will make people happy. Pretending there is a balance that can be reached is silly and pointless. the current system does not work. also, why are the extremes the only solutions? there is *absolutely* no reason for a masters level player to be in bronze, you can't disagree with that. decay can be fine, the current iteration is just way too aggressive and has no floor apparently. you should only decay a certain amount and then stop, forever, until your mmr increases to where it was before the decay. Show nested quote +Excalibur_Z wrote:
...
You can see over the years how they've continued to tweak it, like by removing demotions and adding decay and adding race XP, anything to incentivize playing and keep the game from stagnating. That's no easy task. it's kind of funny then that the current system implemented with hots turns a lot of casual players off. getting dropped into the scrub leagues just because you aren't active enough is tiresome. i'm sure you're well aware of the mmr mis-match (ie, masters players falling into the lower leagues and being matched with real newbs) that results that surely has been mentioned time and time again in this thread and many others.
Because the complaint would be the same if the masters players only dropped to diamond. Its not necessarily that people drop to Bronze from GM, but that people drop at all giving lower level players the feeling that they can blame MMR decay on why they lost any given match.
A scaled down decay will change the vitriol from "masters players dropping to bronze" to "silver player going to bronze" and the complaints will be the same regardless.
If they don't make the decay harsh enough to drop a player's league then people will talk non-stop about how the people in masters leagues are "taking up space" and that is what is preventing them from ranking up.
The truth is that no matter the system the player base will always complain and use it to blame their low ranks.
|
Ok, I managed getting into gold after reaching #4 in silver EU. The MMR Rating Tool thresholds seems fine, I actually HAD to get there. Also the silver threshold was absolutely perfect: got into silver as soon as I passed it.
In the end, I was gold before MMR decay, was put into deep bronze (almost 0 MMR I think..) and it took the entire season, 120 wins and 100 losses to get back to where I was.. definitely too much decay for having being inactive a couple of months with just an handful of games in between (what's even more unresonable is that I had NOT played that few games, I wouldn't have decayed so much...)
BTW, is then true that to avoid any further decay, we can also do unranked games? So, especially for team games, we just have to enter an unranked game of that league every 2 weeks at most, and just immediately leave to avoid decay?
|
On March 28 2014 04:11 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It's true that you can't make a system to please everyone. What Blizzard attempted to do with SC2 was learn from their mistakes in WoW Arena, War3, and BW.
Arena v1 was straight Elo but there were exploits regarding swapping in new members to your team and feeding them free high-rating rewards each week.
Arena v2 added personal rating requirements so you had to build yourself up to where the rest of your team was before you got anything.
Arena v3 adjusted the reward curve and made it less desirable for bad players to just create a new team at the default rating each week (since their rating after playing games each week would naturally fall below the starting value). Therefore they started all teams off at 0 but left their MMR at the default, so they had to build up to it before they started seeing returns.
War3 had a fun RPG themed leveling system but people started gaming the ELL. ELL is similar to MMR in that it becomes a skill estimate to lead your experience point gains. If your level is 5 but your ELL is 30 then you will play against level 30s and earn experience accordingly, which is much more than you would earn against other true level 5s. Because there were no account limits, players would keep creating new accounts until they had one with the highest win ratio they could muster, which made their ELL high and sent then higher up the ladder faster. Blizzard added a decay requirement of x games per week or your experience points would start falling but it accomplished little.
BW had a similar problem by allowing infinite accounts because of wintrading. BW was straight Elo and was actually the most transparent.
Blizzard needed to balance the demands of players (where do I stand) with the demands of a healthy ladder (keep everyone playing). That's why SC2 has stuff like points and bonus pool. You can see over the years how they've continued to tweak it, like by removing demotions and adding decay and adding race XP, anything to incentivize playing and keep the game from stagnating. That's no easy task.
there was no blizzard ladder in BW, what are you saying? iccup, WGT and PGT were all community made, and it was a transparent system. At first everyone starts at the bottom, then you climb as you win. Over time it stabilizes and the ranks mean something, not at the time of any given game, but as a "my max rank is/was X". But this is only for competition, it s really bad for the casual base. (I therefore agree with yoru post on most points)
|
On March 29 2014 01:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2014 18:22 CycoDude wrote:Thieving Magpie wrote:
No matter how they dress up an MMR with bonus pool or league divisions, it still remains the same MMR.
Either it never decays and people stay in masters playing only 1 game every 1-2 months, or it decays and masters players drop to bronze for only playing 1-2 games a month. Pick which one you're philosophically okay with and accept it while ignoring the dressing it is draped in.
There will always be a group upset that there is decay and there will always be a group that get upset that there's no decay. And within each of those two groups will be subgroups upset that either the decay is too harsh or not harsh enough. There is no balance that will make people happy. Pretending there is a balance that can be reached is silly and pointless. the current system does not work. also, why are the extremes the only solutions? there is *absolutely* no reason for a masters level player to be in bronze, you can't disagree with that. decay can be fine, the current iteration is just way too aggressive and has no floor apparently. you should only decay a certain amount and then stop, forever, until your mmr increases to where it was before the decay. Excalibur_Z wrote:
...
You can see over the years how they've continued to tweak it, like by removing demotions and adding decay and adding race XP, anything to incentivize playing and keep the game from stagnating. That's no easy task. it's kind of funny then that the current system implemented with hots turns a lot of casual players off. getting dropped into the scrub leagues just because you aren't active enough is tiresome. i'm sure you're well aware of the mmr mis-match (ie, masters players falling into the lower leagues and being matched with real newbs) that results that surely has been mentioned time and time again in this thread and many others. Because the complaint would be the same if the masters players only dropped to diamond. Its not necessarily that people drop to Bronze from GM, but that people drop at all giving lower level players the feeling that they can blame MMR decay on why they lost any given match. A scaled down decay will change the vitriol from "masters players dropping to bronze" to "silver player going to bronze" and the complaints will be the same regardless. If they don't make the decay harsh enough to drop a player's league then people will talk non-stop about how the people in masters leagues are "taking up space" and that is what is preventing them from ranking up. The truth is that no matter the system the player base will always complain and use it to blame their low ranks.
This has nothing to do with feelings or complaints. You have to understand that decay has the effect of introducing a random number generator into mmr that wasnt there before. Worse its random but always in one direction, so it skews the population as well.
Its got nothing to do with what you are talking about which is a psychological issue about how players rationalise their performance and is completely seperate to how mmr is implemented.
|
I would suggest straight up ELO number like broodwar. Broodwar had unlimited accounts, whereas SC2 you have to dish a bit of money to get another account, and hence much harder to farm points.
|
On March 31 2014 19:23 Spirit09 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2014 01:01 Thieving Magpie wrote:On March 28 2014 18:22 CycoDude wrote:Thieving Magpie wrote:
No matter how they dress up an MMR with bonus pool or league divisions, it still remains the same MMR.
Either it never decays and people stay in masters playing only 1 game every 1-2 months, or it decays and masters players drop to bronze for only playing 1-2 games a month. Pick which one you're philosophically okay with and accept it while ignoring the dressing it is draped in.
There will always be a group upset that there is decay and there will always be a group that get upset that there's no decay. And within each of those two groups will be subgroups upset that either the decay is too harsh or not harsh enough. There is no balance that will make people happy. Pretending there is a balance that can be reached is silly and pointless. the current system does not work. also, why are the extremes the only solutions? there is *absolutely* no reason for a masters level player to be in bronze, you can't disagree with that. decay can be fine, the current iteration is just way too aggressive and has no floor apparently. you should only decay a certain amount and then stop, forever, until your mmr increases to where it was before the decay. Excalibur_Z wrote:
...
You can see over the years how they've continued to tweak it, like by removing demotions and adding decay and adding race XP, anything to incentivize playing and keep the game from stagnating. That's no easy task. it's kind of funny then that the current system implemented with hots turns a lot of casual players off. getting dropped into the scrub leagues just because you aren't active enough is tiresome. i'm sure you're well aware of the mmr mis-match (ie, masters players falling into the lower leagues and being matched with real newbs) that results that surely has been mentioned time and time again in this thread and many others. Because the complaint would be the same if the masters players only dropped to diamond. Its not necessarily that people drop to Bronze from GM, but that people drop at all giving lower level players the feeling that they can blame MMR decay on why they lost any given match. A scaled down decay will change the vitriol from "masters players dropping to bronze" to "silver player going to bronze" and the complaints will be the same regardless. If they don't make the decay harsh enough to drop a player's league then people will talk non-stop about how the people in masters leagues are "taking up space" and that is what is preventing them from ranking up. The truth is that no matter the system the player base will always complain and use it to blame their low ranks. This has nothing to do with feelings or complaints. You have to understand that decay has the effect of introducing a random number generator into mmr that wasnt there before. Worse its random but always in one direction, so it skews the population as well. Its got nothing to do with what you are talking about which is a psychological issue about how players rationalise their performance and is completely seperate to how mmr is implemented.
Yes, and I'm certain that players never dropping in rank will produce more "objective" complaints #lol
|
United States12235 Posts
On March 31 2014 18:40 WGT-Baal wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2014 04:11 Excalibur_Z wrote:
It's true that you can't make a system to please everyone. What Blizzard attempted to do with SC2 was learn from their mistakes in WoW Arena, War3, and BW.
Arena v1 was straight Elo but there were exploits regarding swapping in new members to your team and feeding them free high-rating rewards each week.
Arena v2 added personal rating requirements so you had to build yourself up to where the rest of your team was before you got anything.
Arena v3 adjusted the reward curve and made it less desirable for bad players to just create a new team at the default rating each week (since their rating after playing games each week would naturally fall below the starting value). Therefore they started all teams off at 0 but left their MMR at the default, so they had to build up to it before they started seeing returns.
War3 had a fun RPG themed leveling system but people started gaming the ELL. ELL is similar to MMR in that it becomes a skill estimate to lead your experience point gains. If your level is 5 but your ELL is 30 then you will play against level 30s and earn experience accordingly, which is much more than you would earn against other true level 5s. Because there were no account limits, players would keep creating new accounts until they had one with the highest win ratio they could muster, which made their ELL high and sent then higher up the ladder faster. Blizzard added a decay requirement of x games per week or your experience points would start falling but it accomplished little.
BW had a similar problem by allowing infinite accounts because of wintrading. BW was straight Elo and was actually the most transparent.
Blizzard needed to balance the demands of players (where do I stand) with the demands of a healthy ladder (keep everyone playing). That's why SC2 has stuff like points and bonus pool. You can see over the years how they've continued to tweak it, like by removing demotions and adding decay and adding race XP, anything to incentivize playing and keep the game from stagnating. That's no easy task.
there was no blizzard ladder in BW, what are you saying? iccup, WGT and PGT were all community made, and it was a transparent system. At first everyone starts at the bottom, then you climb as you win. Over time it stabilizes and the ranks mean something, not at the time of any given game, but as a "my max rank is/was X". But this is only for competition, it s really bad for the casual base. (I therefore agree with yoru post on most points)
You don't remember the Blizzard ladder in BW? You had to create a game with game type Ladder using a name like "1v1 1050++++++++ no map", you'd see the rating of whoever joined and their record, then decide whether to kick them or start the game. The ladder had only a small handful of maps (what did you think the \Starcraft\maps\ladder\" folder was?) and those were the only ones that could be used for the Ladder game type. There were no matchmaking bots, no maps of the week, none of that. Your ladder rating was displayed next to your name in chat channels (mine was 1337 which I held until my account became inactive) and your chat icon background flair became more elaborate and impressive the higher up you got.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
