Decay By The Numbers: Season 16 Analysis - Page 3
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SCguineapig
Netherlands289 Posts
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big_aug
United States14 Posts
On December 31 2013 01:51 SCguineapig wrote: lol mmr decay is stupid, used to be diamond then got demoted to play in season 2 of HOTS and now i got demoted to silver due to decay, yet i own everyone in silver i am currently 17-1 with a 12 win streak. its just retarded and not fun for the people in the lower leagues who get demolished. You went 17-1 and you're still playing silver players? | ||
MilExo
South Africa139 Posts
On December 31 2013 01:57 big_aug wrote: You went 17-1 and you're still playing silver players? You guys know the ladder is locked at the moment, right? So even if you go 100 - 0 you're not going to get promoted. Just keep on playing and you'll get the promotion next season. | ||
big_aug
United States14 Posts
On December 31 2013 01:59 MilExo wrote: You guys know the ladder is locked at the moment, right? So even if you go 100 - 0 you're not going to get promoted. Just keep on playing and you'll get the promotion next season. Its not about the league youre in at the moment. You won't get promoted but you'll play better players if you win. Thats how the whole system works unless I'm mistaken. | ||
SCguineapig
Netherlands289 Posts
On December 31 2013 01:59 MilExo wrote: You guys know the ladder is locked at the moment, right? So even if you go 100 - 0 you're not going to get promoted. Just keep on playing and you'll get the promotion next season. was 14-1 before the lock. | ||
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Excalibur_Z
United States12224 Posts
On December 31 2013 00:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Thanks for the write up, Excalibur_Z ![]() 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understand the initial impetus for MMR Decay; Blizzard wants to slowly cleanse the higher leagues of players who are no longer active, opening up more spots for those who are still playing a lot and working hard to move up the ladder.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. Well, first of all, like I said above, there are no slots in leagues. Your reasoning for decay is predicated on a belief that Blizzard primarily cares about the size of the leagues. However, Blizzard sees things a lot more simply. The reason for the decay mechanic is all about competitive matchmaking and keeping their players in the game. The design is intended to give players gradually weaker opponents at a rate which corresponds to perceived skill deterioration, and according to their Situation Report, that part is working fine (who knows if it really is or not, only they know for sure). The effect on the leagues is collateral, and I don't want to say "unforeseen" but everyone's been posting that damn chart comparing June to now. As for how the design was planned out, I have a theory. They probably went through parses of players who hadn't played games in 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, and beyond. Then, they looked at the win rates of those players after they returned. They probably found that most players who had spent 4 or more weeks away from the game were beating equal-MMR players 25% of the time. Because the ladder system uses an Elo model, it's simple mathematics to adjust the returning player's MMR so that it reflects a value which corresponds to that 25% win rate -- that is, 315 rating lower. They probably did the same for 1 week, 2 weeks and 3 weeks and crafted a model around it until they arrived at the linear decay we have now (1 week was probably still 50%, 2 weeks still 50%, 3 weeks 36%, and so on). One suggestion I've seen a lot is allowing rapid rebounding for decaying players. That is, if you haven't played for 4 weeks, is it really going to take 20 wins over losses for you to return to your old skill level? That's probably a variable that could be added and tweaked. Maybe it only takes 5 games, maybe 10, who knows? | ||
-Kaiser-
Canada932 Posts
On December 31 2013 01:57 big_aug wrote: You went 17-1 and you're still playing silver players? That's what we're all saying. When I get demoted from master to diamond due to inactivity I've gone a legit 15-0 my first 15 games and still been playing diamond players, and diamond is a SMALL division. | ||
Lysenko
Iceland2128 Posts
On December 31 2013 01:48 big_aug wrote: 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. I peaked at Platinum in Wings of Liberty and I'm currently something like top-8 Silver. In the meantime, I haven't played much, and I haven't improved much. I'm still making the mistakes I was making back in the day. That said, I agree that I haven't seen the "ringers" in the Silver league that other people report. I'm mostly matched against people with records that are mostly gold & platinum going all the way back before the recent shift in the distribution, and the games are mostly pretty close. Once or twice I've been completely owned by someone with an extremely well-executed all-in, but even those people aren't former Master league players in disguise. I think that the Bronze and Silver league boundaries being lowered by various changes has equipped players with new excuses for their losses, but I don't think that the characterization that Silver-level matching matches players of wildly different skill levels is in fact very accurate. | ||
justnny
United States171 Posts
On December 31 2013 01:48 big_aug wrote: 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. At the top of Platinum, it felt like 20-30% of my games were against decayed players. Oddly enough, at the top of Gold it is closer to 10%. Here are my last games: League, highest League-# number of times (G=Gold, P=Plat, etc) example (me): G, D-4 means I am currently in Gold and have finished as high as Diamond four times. G, P-4 G, D-1 G, D-4 G, D-8 G, P-2 G, D-3 P, M-2 * G, G-1 G, P-2 G, D-3 G, P-1 D, D-8 G, D-5 G, P-3 G, D-3 G, M-8 * S, <no career finishes> G, P-4 G, <no career finishes> G, D-1 * These guys played on a level far surpassing mine. Granted this is a small sample set, but this data yields 10% of my last 20 games were affected by decay or, more accurately, completely mismatched MMR. | ||
deacon.frost
Czech Republic12128 Posts
Though what is more important(or interesting?) - I got rarely an easy opponent. If I say that 9 of 10 games were against better opponent than me I could not go wrong. I know, I know - I get better playing better opponents, but I want to enjoy my playing. I do not want to get better, I am good enough for me :-) | ||
StatixEx
United Kingdom779 Posts
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sM.Zik
Canada2543 Posts
Edit : Guess I should add that I don't mass games like a freak, I play about 0 to 20 games a week and anything in between... | ||
Ctone23
United States1839 Posts
On December 31 2013 02:22 Excalibur_Z wrote: One suggestion I've seen a lot is allowing rapid rebounding for decaying players. That is, if you haven't played for 4 weeks, is it really going to take 20 wins over losses for you to return to your old skill level? That's probably a variable that could be added and tweaked. Maybe it only takes 5 games, maybe 10, who knows? That would be great if they implemented that. I really appreciate your efforts in explaining the current metrics for the MMR system. I definitely feel like tweaks could be made after researching this a bit, and the main issue seems to be morality within the community. The initial approach had the right intentions, matching players with lesser skill after an absence from the game, it's easy to infer the potential of keeping players playing. They don't possess a crystal ball, so they had no way of knowing the league percentages seasons down the line. Thanks again xD | ||
y0su
Finland7871 Posts
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