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On November 21 2013 01:23 FFW_Rude wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2013 22:48 Psychobabas wrote:On November 20 2013 19:44 ZAiNs wrote:On November 20 2013 16:52 Psychobabas wrote:
If you are playing on NA, there is a great deal of Korean and EU smurfs there. Not so much on EU server as the lag between Europe and Korea is too much. You aren't going to play vs Korean pro smurfs in Platinum lol. never said pro. just lots of smurfs in every league. Hey at HSC they said that jjakji was silver on his EU account or something like that :p Also yeah i'm in bronze right now with Diamond to GM spending skill and overing at 160-180apm playing zerg. - I did my placement match and ended up in Bronze. I played till i was rank1. - Get to sleep. Played 4days later. Got back 1 (i was like 50). - Didn't touch the game for a week. Played one night and got rank1 bronze again. etc... I have like 40games or so played and 1 defeat. Still a bronzie :p (I was plat before played a lot of diamond and low masters so i was maybe close to diamond). Some guys from a clan i know are in gold and was master the season before. They are slowing coming back to their league but it seems to take time because they lose a lot of games against silver/gold that are ex masters.
That is definitely another factor that is worth mentioning, promotion is too rarely given, which I think is a consequence of that demotion cannot happen anymore.
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Yep same here. I finally got promoted to Diamond on Season 3 (I think) of this year as Zerg. Then I offraced in the SEA server as Terran for one season and came back last season as gold as Terran. Towards the end of the season I finally got to Platinum but this season I'm back in gold. I figured maybe it's because I switched races but when I switched back to Z I've been winning more as T.
Good to know everyone else is dropping to lower leagues. haha
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On November 21 2013 00:55 iggym wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 00:48 ffadicted wrote:On November 21 2013 00:43 iggym wrote:On November 21 2013 00:29 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
the distribution is that way BECAUSE of mmr decay.. not because the countless number or people complaining have suddenly got bad at the game. No, it is because the bottom has dropped out of the ladder. My argument isn't that players have gotten worse — because that is absurd — but that they've gotten better on average. There is no doubt that MMR decay will cause some ladder deflation, but people spin it way, way, way too hard. It doesn't kick in until two weeks of inactivity, you drop about a league after four weeks of inactivity, and there has always been decay/reset if you take entire seasons off. Do you have numbers to support this though? For which part? The player base is smaller, and it makes sense that a higher proportion of people who have stopped playing were lower skilled. The decay info is straight out of Excalibur's post here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=429734
I just ran the numbers. 5/6th of all players are in gold and below. just 16.9% of the people are in platinum or higher.
source: http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/league
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/5o6aq.png)
35% (bronze) +28.31% (silver) +19.79% (gold) = 83.1%
0.53%(GM) + 3.02% (mas) + 5.29% (dia) + 8.06% (plat) = 16.9%
100/16.9 = 5.9 times = 1/6th.
then for verification: 1/6 = 0.167
0.167 * 5 = 83.33333333%
well, damn.
So no, it's not "ermahgerd there's no players!". The ladder is just fucked up, lol.
edit: for reference, here are the intended ratio's:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Battle.net_Leagues
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/5o7x0.png)
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I was in master's three times in WoL and haven't gotten back since, but my play time is down. Still, it feels like there are a lot of KR/EU smurfs/whatever making it harder to get master's. I've profiled diamond and platinum players several times to see they were once in master's too.
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I am in diamond league on EU (always been there^^) and started smurfing on NA servers.
I'm still in gold in NA with a 76% winratio after 50 games, facing other gold players that clearly have a diamond league level.
i have absolutely no idea how and when I will be promoted to platinium O_o
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On November 21 2013 00:27 Ctone23 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 00:25 TheSubtleArt wrote:
How is there no reward? If anything, a harder ladder means there is much more of a reward to improving now. Getting into diamond was incredibly easy, and hence meant almost nothing. Increasing the skill required to enter each league can now make it feel meaningful to hit plat / diamond / masters. Better than masters / high diamond being everybody who knows how to play, and every league below diamond consisting of casual players who have no idea what they're doing Diamond was NOT easy to get into during WoL. I'm just saying there isn't a lot of reward when you get demoted several times for no apparent reason, only to play really skilled opponents in GOLD league, haha, yea no reward there.
Why not? Leagues are completely arbitrary anyway. If I'm playing skilled people in Gold, then it'll actually feel meaningful to jump to platinum, then diamond, then masters. If the skill required to get to the upper leagues is so low, how are they at all rewarding? Hitting diamond means a lot more now.
The upper ends of a ladder should be really, really hard to reach anyway. Are you saying the Brood War ICCup ladder wasn't rewarding at all? Any former D+ player on ICCup (including myself) could breeze into masters in Sc2.
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On November 21 2013 02:07 cptjibberjabber wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 00:55 iggym wrote:On November 21 2013 00:48 ffadicted wrote:On November 21 2013 00:43 iggym wrote:On November 21 2013 00:29 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
the distribution is that way BECAUSE of mmr decay.. not because the countless number or people complaining have suddenly got bad at the game. No, it is because the bottom has dropped out of the ladder. My argument isn't that players have gotten worse — because that is absurd — but that they've gotten better on average. There is no doubt that MMR decay will cause some ladder deflation, but people spin it way, way, way too hard. It doesn't kick in until two weeks of inactivity, you drop about a league after four weeks of inactivity, and there has always been decay/reset if you take entire seasons off. Do you have numbers to support this though? For which part? The player base is smaller, and it makes sense that a higher proportion of people who have stopped playing were lower skilled. The decay info is straight out of Excalibur's post here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=429734 I just ran the numbers. 5/6th of all players are in gold and below. just 16.9% of the people are in platinum or higher. source: http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/league35% (bronze) +28.31% (silver) +19.79% (gold) = 83.1% 0.53%(GM) + 3.02% (mas) + 5.29% (dia) + 8.06% (plat) = 16.9% 100/16.9 = 5.9 times = 1/6th. then for verification: 1/6 = 0.167 0.167 * 5 = 83.33333333% well, damn. So no, it's not "ermahgerd there's no players!". The ladder is just fucked up, lol.
So if masters was the top 20% before, then former masters players would realistically be found from gold - masters now?
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Decay definitely plays a strong part. A while after I got into masters about 6 months ago and had to quit because of wrist problems, the next game I played some 2-3 months later placed me into gold after winning my placement. From here I just tore bitches apart and often made them angry  . Still couldn't keep playing cause of my wrist anyway.
I agree with having the decay (a 3 month inactive masters is likely not the same calibur of an active masters) , but I do think it decays too quickly and too far.
On November 21 2013 02:15 TheSubtleArt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2013 02:07 cptjibberjabber wrote:On November 21 2013 00:55 iggym wrote:On November 21 2013 00:48 ffadicted wrote:On November 21 2013 00:43 iggym wrote:On November 21 2013 00:29 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
the distribution is that way BECAUSE of mmr decay.. not because the countless number or people complaining have suddenly got bad at the game. No, it is because the bottom has dropped out of the ladder. My argument isn't that players have gotten worse — because that is absurd — but that they've gotten better on average. There is no doubt that MMR decay will cause some ladder deflation, but people spin it way, way, way too hard. It doesn't kick in until two weeks of inactivity, you drop about a league after four weeks of inactivity, and there has always been decay/reset if you take entire seasons off. Do you have numbers to support this though? For which part? The player base is smaller, and it makes sense that a higher proportion of people who have stopped playing were lower skilled. The decay info is straight out of Excalibur's post here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=429734 I just ran the numbers. 5/6th of all players are in gold and below. just 16.9% of the people are in platinum or higher. source: http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/league35% (bronze) +28.31% (silver) +19.79% (gold) = 83.1% 0.53%(GM) + 3.02% (mas) + 5.29% (dia) + 8.06% (plat) = 16.9% 100/16.9 = 5.9 times = 1/6th. then for verification: 1/6 = 0.167 0.167 * 5 = 83.33333333% well, damn. So no, it's not "ermahgerd there's no players!". The ladder is just fucked up, lol. So if masters was the top 20% before, then former masters players would realistically be found from gold - masters now?
Top 20%? I don't think that's right, hasn't it always been the top 2%?
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Oh! That's probably why I have been demoted from plat to gold and I started losing much more than before. I was consistently beating diamond players, now I find 120 apm silver players on the ladder, and they are kinda tough.
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On the flip side of things i think the highest end of ladder is easier than it used to be. Got in gm this season while barely being in the top 100 masters players last season and currently having a very easy time beating gms that are ~rank 80 and above
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On November 20 2013 20:36 graNite wrote:
They also made the master league so much smaller, from 20% when it was introduced to 2,5% now...
Pretty sure master league was never top 20%
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Northern Ireland26718 Posts
Striking me as teething problems, it does seem wacky ATM. Still better than the demotion-free system we had a whole back.
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On November 20 2013 19:56 TigerKarl wrote:
Sure it's getting harder. Who else is playing this dead game nowadays, besides the try hards?
User was warned for this post
I am sorry guys, but he is right. In Fact i recognized that A LOT players are tryhards and copy everything progamers do. I have been myself a tryhard till i asked myself: do i enjoy this game anymore? the answer was no, so i quit sc2 with the new season.
Blizzard has also speed up the entire process by messing up the league system. The result is that only "very good" players enjoy playing ladder anymore and everybody else is quitting this game.
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4713 Posts
Well, a lot of people in this thread, myself including, seem to have been demoted after long periods of inactivity. I think if you play enough games to polish off the rust then you should be able to get back to your former league, though it probably depends on the league and the length of the break.
I do believe ladder is getting a bit harder as time passes, because people do naturally get better over time if they play consistently.
The thing on my mind though, is that, players bellow Masters, may not be playing consistently enough for their skill level to improve and thus they get stuck in a sort of limbo, so in that sense I don't think the ladder is getting harder.
Atm the most likely explanation is the really aggressive MMR decay, which means that if a large number of good people go inactive for long, they could drop 1 or 2 leagues and artificially inflate the skill level of the league. Of course these players, if they are good enough and play with some measure of dedication, should be able to reach their former highest leagues eventually, which could normalize the lower leagues again.
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@Destruction
the system will never normalize, because PLAYERS QUIT. The reason is that league % decides if you are master or not. the more "new or bad" players leave this game the harder it becomes to get into the top X% of players.
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I'm surprised this didn't come up, but what you're likely experiencing is for the majority of WoL, there was a larger percentage of players overall in masters and diamond.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120604210116/http://sc2ranks.com/stats
In June of 2012, there were 4% of players in masters compared to 3%, and 11.6% of players in diamond (assuming we're talking about NA) compared to the current 5.12%. So if you were low masters you were dropped to diamond, and if you were in the lower half of diamond you were dropped to platinum. And this doesn't even include the newly formed MMR decay.
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Northern Ireland26718 Posts
On November 21 2013 03:00 foreign2 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2013 19:56 TigerKarl wrote:
Sure it's getting harder. Who else is playing this dead game nowadays, besides the try hards?
User was warned for this post I am sorry guys, but he is right. In Fact i recognized that A LOT players are tryhards and copy everything progamers do. I have been myself a tryhard till i asked myself: do i enjoy this game anymore? the answer was no, so i quit sc2 with the new season. Blizzard has also speed up the entire process by messing up the league system. The result is that only "very good" players enjoy playing ladder anymore and everybody else is quitting this game.
No he isn't right, numbers aren't terrible for a start. Secondly it just strikes me as somebody who is butthurt because he's bad at the game. 'I'm losing due to these tryhards who copy pro builds and have no life, nothing to do with me'.
By all means, it's your right to not enjoy the game, but stop making up all these reasons.
Blizzard IMO messed up the league system by implementing leagues in the first place. People became fixated with their icons, over having good enjoyable games vs those of equivalent ability.
At the other end, players deranked so they could stomp bronze players to get icons and portraits. Yeah Blizzard maybe should have anticipated the downside of bringing in little things like icons, but let's not pretend its anything other than the playerbase damaging the experience for others.
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There's a lot less people playing the game that there was originally, so the depth is a lot weaker, but it would perhaps be harder to get promoted since the numbers are a lot less.
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On November 21 2013 03:10 HeavenResign wrote:I'm surprised this didn't come up, but what you're likely experiencing is for the majority of WoL, there was a larger percentage of players overall in masters and diamond. https://web.archive.org/web/20120604210116/http://sc2ranks.com/statsIn June of 2012, there were 4% of players in masters compared to 3%, and 11.6% of players in diamond (assuming we're talking about NA) compared to the current 5.12%. So if you were low masters you were dropped to diamond, and if you were in the lower half of diamond you were dropped to platinum. And this doesn't even include the newly formed MMR decay.
It probably didn't come up because those percentages from WoL are much closer to the intended percentages than we have now, so it's not much of a justification, just states what we already know: there has been a mass drop of league levels by a lot of players
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/d62A2hA.png)
