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Decay By The Numbers: Season 16 Analysis - Page 2

Forum Index > SC2 General
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quebecman77
Profile Blog Joined February 2013
Canada133 Posts
December 28 2013 21:58 GMT
#21
Was Grandmaster 1 year ago before hots ( at the start of the patchzerg era )

Then only played placement match after

Dropped one league to diamond ( did not know why this was strange but was thinking people got higher mmr since im inactive ) and now played my placement today and I'm currently gold....

Played about 10 games after = 10-0 .... People I'm playing are really not my level even if I was not playing for one year....

That really not fair for the poor guy I'm destroying too....and boring for me !!

Yeah, you hear it right, Grandmaster to gold while playing only placement

And blizzard tells people this changes nothing, I'm not even feeling like restarting to play at any time now.....

That's the biggest fuck you from blizzard for restarting to play they could give me... Yeah like I'm gold level now because I was inactive for 1 year....

Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
December 29 2013 17:31 GMT
#22
On December 29 2013 06:58 quebecman77 wrote:
Yeah, you hear it right, Grandmaster to gold while playing only placement


Didn't MMR get reset completely at the start of HOTS? So, if you've played only placements, it made some midrange assumption about how good you were based on some placements and you haven't really moved far from there. Why would you be anywhere but gold?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
Matisyahu
Profile Joined April 2011
Sweden42 Posts
December 29 2013 19:24 GMT
#23
It´s not just this rating system that is wrong. Everything is wrong with this game. The complete lackness of listening to sc2 players is the problem. Who wants to play a game, where u can cheat and win? Nothing has been done in this issue. Who wants to play a game that constantly change the metagame? Who wants to play a game when the only real option is 1v1, teamgames are so not in the money. etc etc etc etc. alot of factors, all due to Blizz.
kckkryptonite
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
1126 Posts
December 29 2013 22:46 GMT
#24
On December 20 2013 08:07 Excalibur_Z wrote:
This is a little closer to what I expected. On a per-player basis, high-level players play a lot more games.

Or it could mean people who play more, get into higher leaguesm
RIP avilo, qxc keyboard 2013, RIP Nathanis keyboard 2014
thurst0n
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
United States611 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-30 02:05:25
December 30 2013 02:01 GMT
#25
Sometimes I wonder what terrible dark place we'd all be in if it wasn't for Excalibur_Z's phenomenal efforts.

What I'm curious about, lets say someone was diamond league and they decayed down to plat or gold or even silver, shouldn't that then open up more spots in diamond for easier promotion to whomever? It seems like it doesn't or isn't. Cause I don't hear about ANYONES promotions... But maybe this is just another byproduct of everything being completely jacked.
P.S. I'm nub. If you'd like you can follow me @xthurst but its not worth it ill be honest
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12240 Posts
December 30 2013 02:54 GMT
#26
On December 30 2013 11:01 thurst0n wrote:
Sometimes I wonder what terrible dark place we'd all be in if it wasn't for Excalibur_Z's phenomenal efforts.

What I'm curious about, lets say someone was diamond league and they decayed down to plat or gold or even silver, shouldn't that then open up more spots in diamond for easier promotion to whomever? It seems like it doesn't or isn't. Cause I don't hear about ANYONES promotions... But maybe this is just another byproduct of everything being completely jacked.


Thanks for the kind words! Again, there are no "slots" in leagues. Let's say you're a 1500 MMR Diamond player who decays down to 1200 MMR (the Diamond promotion threshold is 1400, let's say). There's one less person in Diamond and one more person in Platinum (that's you). But, someone else doesn't get bumped up to Diamond as a result because they haven't earned 1400 MMR. In fact, it may make it even more difficult for others to get promoted into Diamond depending on how often you play, because if your skills haven't actually deteriorated to a 1200 level, then you won't stay there very long, and anyone you beat will lose MMR. If you go right back to decaying, the cycle repeats.
Moderator
-Kaiser-
Profile Blog Joined November 2011
Canada932 Posts
December 30 2013 03:12 GMT
#27
The MMR decay is ridiculously overdone. I work full time. I go out on the weekends. If my schedule doesn't line up and I don't get a game in for a few weeks, I drop from master down to diamond. It takes me a hundred games or more with a 60% winrate to get back into master.
3 Hatch Before Cool
ratty
Profile Joined July 2011
New Zealand275 Posts
December 30 2013 03:50 GMT
#28
On December 20 2013 23:18 Wertheron wrote:
Was diamond, didn't play during 3 months, now i'm silver. I crush every real silver and gold players and play against a lot of other diamond or plat players who have the same problem (they are silver).

Poor silver and bronze, they now have a tons of plat and diam players in their league.


as a silver for life player this is the most annoying bit about the whole ladder system atm. i happily go along with like a 50% win rate at like high to mid silver then every so often i come up against people still in silver who crush me. you can just feel that the system is broken atm. it gets really annoying ( for both parties i imagine) i don't mind losing that's fine but when the ladder fucks me and i get stomped it gets rather annoying
no. monkeys land on their feet, they're like masturbating cats ~ #~hyvaa~#~
Subversive
Profile Joined October 2009
Australia2229 Posts
December 30 2013 05:01 GMT
#29
Really good write-up thanks Excalibur_Z.

I was wondering why the leagues felt so wonky recently.
#1 Great fan ~ // Khan // FlaSh // JangBi // EffOrt //
odem
Profile Joined August 2011
143 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-30 15:41:45
December 30 2013 15:14 GMT
#30
On December 30 2013 04:24 Matisyahu wrote:
It´s not just this rating system that is wrong. Everything is wrong with this game. The complete lackness of listening to sc2 players is the problem. Who wants to play a game, where u can cheat and win? Nothing has been done in this issue. Who wants to play a game that constantly change the metagame? Who wants to play a game when the only real option is 1v1, teamgames are so not in the money. etc etc etc etc. alot of factors, all due to Blizz.


this!

i dont understand what blizzard is doing actually. its like LoL lobbyists paying blizzard staff members to fuck up the whole multiplayer sc2 section. especially ladder system/ no punishment for maphackers/ no support for teamgame section/ ridicule protss PvT buffs (ez defense + ez harass + ez deathball - IQ level put into protoss: zero). these are exactly the points which make the game worse. thus having no hope for better times since blizzard seems learning resistent
Nimix
Profile Joined October 2011
France1809 Posts
December 30 2013 15:18 GMT
#31
I'm still in gold on NA playing half legit gold half masters people so not catching up to my mmr fast at all rofl. Just played a masters terran that was definitely pretty good, lost to him with my terrible zerg. But the decay is definitely annoying to put it mildly, or total bullshit to be honest. Hope they just remove it, I'm more frustrated never knowing which level my opponent is than losing a bit when I'm coming back to the game.
Ctone23
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
United States1839 Posts
December 30 2013 15:21 GMT
#32
Excalibur_Z does a fantastic job shuffling through all the data.

I have to agree with some of the pessimists though. Just because we can explain what's happening doesn't make it any better. Hopefully the new patch helps!
TL+ Member
StarStruck
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
25339 Posts
December 30 2013 15:26 GMT
#33
On December 20 2013 08:15 Littlesheep wrote:
I'm most surprised how active the lower ladder is, that's the most interesting piece of data in my opinion.


I'm not because I keep hearing a lot of guys talk about how they got placed in silver after extended breaks heh.
justnny
Profile Joined October 2010
United States171 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-30 15:33:19
December 30 2013 15:32 GMT
#34
On December 30 2013 11:54 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 30 2013 11:01 thurst0n wrote:
Sometimes I wonder what terrible dark place we'd all be in if it wasn't for Excalibur_Z's phenomenal efforts.

What I'm curious about, lets say someone was diamond league and they decayed down to plat or gold or even silver, shouldn't that then open up more spots in diamond for easier promotion to whomever? It seems like it doesn't or isn't. Cause I don't hear about ANYONES promotions... But maybe this is just another byproduct of everything being completely jacked.


Thanks for the kind words! Again, there are no "slots" in leagues. Let's say you're a 1500 MMR Diamond player who decays down to 1200 MMR (the Diamond promotion threshold is 1400, let's say). There's one less person in Diamond and one more person in Platinum (that's you). But, someone else doesn't get bumped up to Diamond as a result because they haven't earned 1400 MMR. In fact, it may make it even more difficult for others to get promoted into Diamond depending on how often you play, because if your skills haven't actually deteriorated to a 1200 level, then you won't stay there very long, and anyone you beat will lose MMR. If you go right back to decaying, the cycle repeats.


This is an important point to make, actually. The bottom-biased ladder is not only directly caused by the decayed players decaying into those leagues, but indirectly as their decayed MMR allows them to win against players that shouldn't be matched together. That, in turn, pushes the lower MMR players even lower.

I personally experienced this, in fact. I went from 3rd in Platinum down to 28th, winning only 2 games in 20. I'm an active player, mind you. I raged, quit the league, then was re-placed into Gold. I then went on a winning streak... According to MMR stats, I lost one complete league. According to the b.net profiles, I lost to a LOT of ex-masters players with twice my APM (I check after every loss).

The matchmaking system is creating a frustrating and hostile environment. Being pitted against a bunch of decayed players causes even greater loss streaks followed by corresponding win streaks as the system tries to correct the win/loss ratio.

The ladder decay is compounded further by people coming back for the holidays, Blizzard putting SC2 on sale, and EU players seeking Master in AM.
digmouse
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
China6330 Posts
December 30 2013 15:34 GMT
#35
On December 31 2013 00:26 StarStruck wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 20 2013 08:15 Littlesheep wrote:
I'm most surprised how active the lower ladder is, that's the most interesting piece of data in my opinion.


I'm not because I keep hearing a lot of guys talk about how they got placed in silver after extended breaks heh.

That's one reason I stopped laddering for 2 weeks and counting, 1v1 ladder isn't a enjoyable place to go any more.
TranslatorIf you want to ask anything about Chinese esports, send me a PM or follow me @nerddigmouse.
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45365 Posts
December 30 2013 15:47 GMT
#36
Thanks for the write up, Excalibur_Z Awesome as always.

I can understand the initial impetus for MMR Decay; Blizzard wants to slowly cleanse the higher leagues of players who are no longer active, opening up more spots for those who are still playing a lot and working hard to move up the ladder.

But I think this level of decay is absolutely overkill. The decay is just too fast. Why doesn't Blizzard work to adjust the rate of decay so that it doesn't actually present a futile situation for those who can only play a game or two every other week (or those who are playing team games but still have the MMR of their other teams lowered, etc.). It just seems like there are so many glaring issues that can be tinkered with to find a more comfortable solution for all parties involved, and Blizzard is just making ladder useless and unenjoyable.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Cheerio
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Ukraine3178 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-30 16:25:33
December 30 2013 16:15 GMT
#37
I usually play Random 2v2s and 3v3s and this decay thing has messed things up like huge. First of all there are numerous players with insane win ratios even in platinum (50-5 insane, and those are random partner team games). I feel like the introduction of the decay has brought up a new type of playing SC strategy. People constantly switch between servers, ranked/unranked modes, and 1v1's 2v2s 3v3s to be severely underMMRed and have a very high win ratio. Whenever their win ratio falls they just switch mode and have fun again. As a result even a light % of people using the strategy fu** up ladders big time because of their high skill and high activity. As a result MMR predicts the outcome to a much lesser extent, so it's much harder to keep your high MMR up than it was before. Which makes all ladders much closer in terms of points. From my observation the #1 platinum on EU 2v2 random ladder is usually just 100 points over the bonus pool.
StatixEx
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United Kingdom779 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-30 16:30:46
December 30 2013 16:28 GMT
#38
the decay is something ur going to have to get used to. Can we all not accept that this is going to happen. I watch a lot of streamers on twitch do the so called Bronze to masters series and they seem to do it in around 40 - 60 games, im assuming a lot of the delay on this may be down to accounts already with an mmr, making me think there are other ratings going on we simply dont know about. Anyway . .what im saying is, the system cannot be broken when ur actually playing as these people consistently get to their master league (or GM if ur puck, i cant count now how many times he did this over the last few months) Now then i use myself as an example. I was a dia player in wol on my NA account and in plat in EU but playing dias and masters all of the time, it was great i thought i was soon to get that masters league (or at least dia) but it didnt and hots came out. I stopped playing as much as i did and was forever platnGold facing the odd dias. I then started going on other servers (and have myself 3 accounts) so i was playing all over the place and not that long on any. Last month(maybe 7 weeks ago now) i streamed my own bronze to whatever i called it and made sure i had 6 solid hrs to do it, (i may do it again tonight as ive switched to terran and want to see how far i can get in 50ish games as a brand new nub race player) and i got to platinum by the time id finished and played 12 dia iconned players and 2 masters. Im back to where i was. I dont think its broke really BUT ur right in the sense i stopped playing for 7 weeks on that account, left the league the other day and hgot put in silver on beating a plat placement match. so i played about 6 games and played silvers and golds from then on but i made a point of looking at their last leagues achieved and noone was sub dia out of all of the 6 i played. what im saying here is i think the system is working but you are all mad at that icon next to ur name indicating ur league. they simply need to get rid of it. If you lose out of 18 games 8 games (this is my tally) are you REALLY in that league anyway? id say no. ive lost to some straight up gold level players in this last week and have no shame I DIDNT play to my potential so deserved to loose. these lower players arent that bad if you play stupid as well. There is a lad on stream called winter and he tried trolling a few games the other day and lost to some silver and gold level players. i regard him as excellent at this game but if you dont respect the player on the other end you are going to loose games and then get mad saying you should be in this league anyway, i want to avoid all this goofy play.

god i love having says off i just waste it relplying to threads . . .but i love it oh and noone gives a fuck about team games , ,,who really fucking cares, just double cheese every game, masters in a day as proved nearly evertime ive done it with a real bronzie on my team . . .fucking stupid way to judge improvement, team games should have the most basic of basic mmr or loosly go off 1v1 with nothing affected
ZenithM
Profile Joined February 2011
France15952 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-30 16:48:44
December 30 2013 16:46 GMT
#39
I would be fine with it if the decay was computed on your overall activity (including all servers if possible), and not individually computed on all possible queues. I get that you don't want people to stay in master only playing a 4v4 every 2 weeks, but at least don't destroy the match making for the other players. I don't care if too many players are master league, but I would like my opponents to have a pretty consistent level.
Nowadays it ranges from legit gold who do random strats to barcode with 300 APM. I'm pretty active in teamgames with my friends, but less in 1v1, but it doesn't drive me to do more 1v1 if I am to play with basically no ELO matchmaking at all...
big_aug
Profile Joined April 2013
United States14 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-30 16:51:10
December 30 2013 16:48 GMT
#40
How often are people TRULY playing people they have no chance at beating? I just started playing again after a year. The last time I played I was high plat playing some diamond players. I'm bronze now. I'm certainly not seeing many plat/diamond/masters players there. And let's be serious, anyone who is plat or lower IS going to see a massive drop in performance from not playing. It would affect everyone, but it affects the lower league players in a more significant way.

So people start playing again and they're too good for the league they're in? So what? They play some games and they are back up there playing opponents they should be playing. You get beat up on by some former master? So what? Those people won't be playing you for long as they'll be moving back up. I feel like the system generally does a pretty good job of matching me up with like opponents. A few hiccups are to be expected though.

I completely believe the 6% of games statistic which is not a huge amount when spread across 6 leagues and thousands of players.
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