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Decay By The Numbers: Season 16 Analysis - Page 3

Forum Index > SC2 General
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SCguineapig
Profile Blog Joined January 2013
Netherlands289 Posts
December 30 2013 16:51 GMT
#41
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.
broodwar wasn't perfect
big_aug
Profile Joined April 2013
United States14 Posts
December 30 2013 16:57 GMT
#42
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
Profile Joined September 2011
South Africa139 Posts
December 30 2013 16:59 GMT
#43
On December 31 2013 01:57 big_aug wrote:
Show nested quote +
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?


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
Profile Joined April 2013
United States14 Posts
December 30 2013 17:02 GMT
#44
On December 31 2013 01:59 MilExo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 31 2013 01:57 big_aug wrote:
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?


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
Profile Blog Joined January 2013
Netherlands289 Posts
December 30 2013 17:08 GMT
#45
On December 31 2013 01:59 MilExo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 31 2013 01:57 big_aug wrote:
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?


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.
broodwar wasn't perfect
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12248 Posts
December 30 2013 17:22 GMT
#46
On December 31 2013 00:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
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.


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?
Moderator
-Kaiser-
Profile Blog Joined November 2011
Canada932 Posts
December 30 2013 17:25 GMT
#47
On December 31 2013 01:57 big_aug wrote:
Show nested quote +
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?


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.
3 Hatch Before Cool
Lysenko
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Iceland2128 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-30 19:07:03
December 30 2013 19:06 GMT
#48
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
justnny
Profile Joined October 2010
United States171 Posts
December 30 2013 19:11 GMT
#49
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
Profile Joined February 2013
Czech Republic12131 Posts
December 30 2013 21:57 GMT
#50
Yup, I can agree, that it is somewhere between 10 and 20 %. I cant get more precise numbers, since I stopped playing because of the broken MM => so it is more feeling than anything else.

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 :-)
I imagine France should be able to take this unless Lilbow is busy practicing for Starcraft III. | KadaverBB is my fairy ban mother.
StatixEx
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United Kingdom779 Posts
December 30 2013 22:36 GMT
#51
ur mostly playing against urself anyway, was ur build the best it can be? i think if we arent competing in qualifiers and shit like that, i doint think it really matters . . so why do we care about this so much? Ive always winced when people say i want to get better and improve. .woah now hold ur horses . . in comes the fire . . let me explain. I want to get better at guitar, my band which makes me money would be able to play more songs, so i practice more and try harder things more often. I practice my maths so it aids me with my job which i get paid . . i want to improve at starcraft . .. . . . . why? Just so i can be better at it? What does it really matter
sM.Zik
Profile Joined June 2011
Canada2553 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-30 23:00:28
December 30 2013 22:59 GMT
#52
I must be blessed by the gods because I don't have any problems with the ladder.. Ive been diamond the past 3 seasons and thats where I should be, the first two seasons of HoTS I was master because THEN the ladder had problems... everyone was masters and it shouldnt be like that.

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...
Jaedong Fighting! | youtube.com/ZikGaming
Ctone23
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
United States1841 Posts
January 22 2014 00:20 GMT
#53
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
TL+ Member
y0su
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
Finland7871 Posts
January 22 2014 08:43 GMT
#54
I want to see what the 2.1 changes do but I can't imagine it fixing the situation. I dropped a league after taking a few weeks off. Played over 120 games in the past two weeks and then got promoted after beating someone in a league lower (two leagues lower after the promotion - they were playing ranked).

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