Demoted! Anyone else?

On April 15 2014 19:02 CoraBlue wrote:
I can't speak to masters, because I'm not that good, but I am also frustrated. I ended the season at bottom of plat, won my placement match, and got placed in silver. Its not a big deal because I'm going to roll kids, its just annoying and destroys my enthusiasm to play.

On April 15 2014 19:12 xsnac wrote:
well i started this season 2-12 and i'm still facing high masters . ( was inactive for last 3 months ) . i think you guys need to play more before complainng how you got demoted but you had a positive score last season. I dont think 20 games in an entire season is enough to keep your spot and neighter your skill at master level if you were around mid master.

On April 15 2014 19:05 reapsen wrote:


Why? Just don't give a fuck, play a couple of games and i promise you'll be back where you were in no time.

Its just a friggin placement at the beginning of the season, that has absolutely no meaning at all.... just try thinking of it from this perspective: "This way you get to see a promotion screen once again!"

On April 15 2014 19:21 CoraBlue wrote:


Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but the max amount of promotions you can get in a season is 2 isn't it? If there's no limit then I'm retarded and nevermind, but being bumped down to silver and realizing you won't improve in ranking for a whole season no matter what you do is... disheartening?

On April 15 2014 19:23 korona wrote:

No limits regarding promotions.

On April 15 2014 19:40 reapsen wrote:
Yeah definetly no limits for promotions.. have played myself from bronze to plat in one season and saw pros breeze from silver to masters in something around 40-60 games.

So no worries there.

I actually can't understand why people make such a big deal out of it. If you belong in masters, then you'll be back in masters in no-time. Just be happy to grab a couple of easy wins and the more challenging opponents will come to you sooner than you think.

Some guys in here almost act like they are now worse human beeings or sth

On April 15 2014 19:45 korona wrote:

Maximum decay roughly equals 20 loss. It takes time to overcome it especially if you face other decayed players. Minimum amount would be ~20 straight wins. With 60 % winrate it would already take ~100 matches.

On April 15 2014 19:51 reapsen wrote:

But it is highly unlikely for someone how played some games last season to suffer from the maximum decay deficit. And for someone who got demoted more than one league it should be easy to maintain a 85+% winrate.

Take myself for an example: http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/617358/1/reapsen/

I was a solid platinum player for 5 consecutive seasons in row.. stopped playing for a couple of seasons, mmr decay brought me all the way down to bronze(!). Last season i played only 23 games, of which i won 21, which was enough to get me back into gold. If i had the time to grind a couple of games more i am sure, i could be well set in plat already.

On April 15 2014 18:55 korona wrote:
The old max decay was ~310. The value was not verified after last season's offset changes, but it should be close or the same. The league MMR range size estimates last season were: b 280, s 260, g 290, p 235, d 450. Master range before low GM border was ~2.3 times max decay for EU and ~1.4 times max decay for NA

On April 15 2014 19:52 digmouse wrote:
Stopped playing a month ago in Silver, probably back in Bronze again.

On April 15 2014 16:52 MrMotionPicture wrote:
Well since you can no longer be demoted during the season, I think they do this to reset the ladder a little and make sure everyone is where they should be. I'm sure you'll get back to master in no time :3

On April 15 2014 18:45 AlaxWayLaxed wrote:
Forever diamond. No change. Even lost my placement

On April 15 2014 16:59 Scarecrow wrote:
Well if the overall player pool is declining then Masters will get a smaller allocation. Combine this with no demotions in the season and you get a lot at the end. I haven't seen the stats but I wouldn't be surprised if the lower ranks were bleeding players to LoL, and especially Diablo/HS after recent releases. I expect it may eventually become like ICCUP where ranks like gold/platinum are ultra-competitive as the casuals continue to emigrate.

On April 15 2014 20:14 DarkLordOlli wrote:
I got to rank 1 diamond on three separate occasions with ~1500 points on both EU and NA, no promotions or anything. Got demoted on EU, still diamond on NA.

Blizzard, why D:

On April 15 2014 20:58 Detri wrote:



anywhere to see the actual numbers of players?

On April 15 2014 21:19 Incand wrote:
Bonuspool for last season was 2441 so anything below that is probably low master and will get demoted at start. If you started out in dia you got another 73 fake points so thats anything below 2514. Also if you look at nios.kr you can see that on eu we currently have 4:05% masters.. thats double the size it should be. Now masters are problably more active so that number will decrease slightly, maybe even get close to 2% but it's by no means small.

On April 15 2014 18:34 oGoZenob wrote:
I went 15-3 last season and get demoted last night -_-

On April 15 2014 21:41 Mahanaim wrote:
Got back to masters in 11 games.
I guess it's somewhat easy to go back as well?

On April 15 2014 21:52 Dunmer wrote:
Don't forget ladder populations is based off percentages so until more and more people play placement games the population in leagues has to be much smaller than at the end of a league. If 10K people played on day one then 2% is not a lot of people compared to the 100k at the end of a season. Also take into account the 200 Gm that take the Masters spots

On April 15 2014 21:41 Mahanaim wrote:
Got back to masters in 11 games.
I guess it's somewhat easy to go back as well?

On April 15 2014 21:35 Amazonic wrote:


That's the problem, you only played 18 games

On the topic: This has happened to me every season, get master, get ~top 30, get demoted next season, play 10 games, back in masters, rinse and repeat.

On April 15 2014 22:25 DinoMight wrote:
My friend got demoted to Silver, but was back in Gold 1 game later. No demotions in the middle of the season is pretty silly.

On April 15 2014 22:50 reapsen wrote:
And what kind of marketing would that be, if it pisses a lot of people off?

It's also not really a "trick" but just basic human behaviour, if you give a group of people different rankings and statuses, the individuals will put in a lot of effort to improve their rank or maintain it if they are on top.

The only difference is, that in reality the rankings like "CEO" or "Member of the Board" will most likely enable you to lead a pretty carefree and pleasent life, while having the rank "Masters" or "Diamond" just means that you invested alot of time in a videogame (and you hopefully had fun doing so).

On April 15 2014 22:53 DifuntO wrote:
I was gold last season and had over 400 bonus pool but i'm still gold.

I didn't play much.I had a pretty good winrate(70%,not sure if that is relevant),and I played 2-3 games per week.Maybe the system thought i was an active player.

On April 15 2014 16:52 MrMotionPicture wrote:
Well since you can no longer be demoted during the season, I think they do this to reset the ladder a little and make sure everyone is where they should be. I'm sure you'll get back to master in no time :3

On April 15 2014 19:22 EnPo wrote:
Yeah. 2300pts masters and demoted to diamond. Takes out your fun of laddering pretty nicely, when I feel like total chobo...
I'd propably get back to masters if I wanted, but I don't feel like laddering in diamond :S

On April 15 2014 23:20 kaluro wrote:


Points say very little, nothing actually.
Say I idle for 3 weeks everytime to get a -300 MMR decay, and just clear out my bonus pool everytime. I repeat this process until the end of the season, I'd have the points of a top masters player, but the MMR or a high diamond or so. (This is just an extreme example).

On April 15 2014 23:20 kaluro wrote:
What happened is:

At the start of the previous season the MMR treshold to get a masters promotion was 1320 MMR.
At the start of the current season, the MMR tresold to get a masters promotion is 1520 MMR, which used to be mid masters.

On April 15 2014 23:06 mvdunecats wrote:
Blizz should put mid-season demotions back in and reduce the number of new season demotions. It's far more demoralizing to get placed down a league at the beginning of the new season than it is to get demoted during a bad run of losses in the middle of a season.

On April 15 2014 19:02 CoraBlue wrote:
I can't speak to masters, because I'm not that good, but I am also frustrated. I ended the season at bottom of plat, won my placement match, and got placed in silver. Its not a big deal because I'm going to roll kids, its just annoying and destroys my enthusiasm to play.

On April 15 2014 23:49 Raziers wrote:



Then what about the Silver players that gets destroyed by you and have there enthusiasm crashed, pretty sure it hurts more to lose hard than win easy.

On April 15 2014 23:20 BisuDagger wrote:
I guess I need to wait for all you pros to go up a few leagues before I start laddering.

On April 16 2014 00:04 NKexquisite wrote:
So much crying about being demoted...

If you think you deserve to be in a higher league, play some damn ladder games and prove it...

On April 16 2014 02:03 ReMinD_ wrote:
Why do people care so much about league placement?

On April 16 2014 01:56 BisuDagger wrote:

I've been supporting sc2 since the first gsl. Bought a year pass in 2011. Stopped paying for sc2 when blizzard ruined wings in 2012. I'd be more active with proleague if it didn't run during my work hours! I miss 2-3 am SPL! So while I still follow all sc2 I dedicate energy to sc1. But my goal is to ladder in both sc1 and 2 start of May xD. I really want sc2 to be a great game and still grasp to some hope for LotV.

On April 16 2014 02:03 ReMinD_ wrote:
Why do people care so much about league placement?

On April 15 2014 23:46 Ahli wrote:
Also, I assume you have a higher chance in being promoted to a higher league that you wouldn't normally reach with that system. So, people that are "stuck" in their league forever might be able to enter the higher league in one season with a lot of luck & playing a lot early season before the normally higher, but demoted guys re-enter their skill-level leagues. But that's just speculation on my side.

On April 16 2014 03:02 Shousan wrote:
Isn't getting demoted better overall? You'll start playing vs "weaker" opponents, that should help a little in the MMR department and if you're consistent you should go back to where you were before with a slightly higher MMR.

On April 16 2014 02:22 Faust852 wrote:
^Yeah it's Blizzards fault you aren't good enough to stay in diamond.

On April 16 2014 03:02 Shousan wrote:
Isn't getting demoted better overall? You'll start playing vs "weaker" opponents, that should help a little in the MMR department and if you're consistent you should go back to where you were before with a slightly higher MMR.

On April 16 2014 03:24 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It seems that demotion has no affect to your MMR. So you have the MMR, but not the rank. You play exactly the same opponents as before, only that ether you or they are fooled by your displayed rank. And you play 1-5 games and your rank is back to what it was before. What is the point of this? Only thing I can think off is that as a side effect of the no demotion thing that blizzard has going on, blizzard has decided to demote half the active ladder players. Why is Blizzard so afraid of simply promoting and demoting people according to their current MMR? None of this no demotion, wait till Blizzard is certain of your MMR crap that makes it so some players have lower league but higher MMR.

On April 16 2014 03:33 Faust852 wrote:
@korona, it's kind of the player fault not playing enough and getting demoted then, If you are aware if the MMR decay, try to play at least every 2 weeks. If you don't play at all, don't cry because you have to win 20 times to get where you were before, 20 wins is nothing, it's achievable in one day if you are decided to and it also meant you weren't that good in the said league if it take only 20 loss to get demoted too.

On April 16 2014 03:02 Shousan wrote:
Isn't getting demoted better overall? You'll start playing vs "weaker" opponents, that should help a little in the MMR department and if you're consistent you should go back to where you were before with a slightly higher MMR.

On April 16 2014 03:18 Ctone23 wrote:



I think it's more of the cycle that the players are going through each season. Lets say they start in Gold, play hard and get a promotion to plat, and end the season in top 8 Platinum. The next season starts... back in Gold again.

It really boils down to how much stock you put into what your league is. Some people don't mind, and prefer to play vs weaker opponents, as you said, for the mmr help, but others view it as demoralizing, and some even state they lose desire to play. My experience was that it took about 4-5 games to get promoted back to my league, so hopefully people will get over the disappointment and just ladder.

Simply put, you can't please everyone.

On April 16 2014 03:21 korona wrote:
People activate in the beginning of each season. If you have faced decay you can be sure that you will be matched against others who have faced decay too. Blizzard's aim was that you would be matched against clearly weaker opponents to get easier wins. But if you are facing lots of other decayed players who are at similar skill level or even better than you, you will not necessarily win that much. With a 60% winrate it would take roughly 100 matches (60w-40l) to get back to your pre-decay MMR. Many do not even play that many matches in a season.

Of course if you skill-wise belong to top echelon of players it is easier to get up. There were less equally skilled or better players to begin with. Thus it is not so hard to keep high winrate when grinding back up. Yes grinding - It takes lots of matches for MMR to rise unless you have a fresh account.

On April 16 2014 02:19 JamazVu wrote:
My goal was to get into Masters last season I couldnt and I was doing acceptable/good for diamond...I was top8-15 most of the time, I took a free week during season lock, came back to this new season(yesterday) and.... DEMOTED to platinum? wtf, I played few games(some games vs GOLD players wtf) but I was so demotivated that the last game I just alt-f4(because of so many mistakes) and dont think im gonna come back again(till something magical happens), thank you so much Blizzard.

On April 16 2014 03:31 korona wrote:

No. The league you are placed in reflects your MMR. If you are placed e.g. in gold, then your MMR at that moment was in gold league range. And when you cross the league threshold you are pretty much immediately promoted. Exception to this are fresh accounts that are placed lower than their actual MMR is but at the 25th match (If they win as you can only be promoted with a win), they are promoted to their actual league at the latest.

On April 16 2014 03:44 Shousan wrote:

After giving it some thought, I still think it's not a big deal at all because they got rid of demotions mid season. Meaning that by the end of last season, they were many many players in a league "above" their actual level, so if you're a top player on your league and got demoted, you'll be facing mostly these other players, making it relatively easy to get promoted again (like some players mentioned in this thread, between 5-15 games to get back) but if you're not a top player on your league and got demoted, then that's just your new level, it might feel demoralizing, but it shouldn't. People will always trick themselves into thinking they're better than what they actually are (not just in SC2, this holds true in everything), and that's why this system feels "unfair" and lead to not wanting to play, but just because it gives you a reality check on how your play and others changed throughout 3 months doesn't mean it's not accurate. Bottom line is, it doesn't matter, just forget about your avatar border and focus on having fun. This is a game, people. Enjoy it.

On April 16 2014 05:02 Dangermousecatdog wrote:

Anecdotal evidence of the sheer number of people being demoted, only to shortly be promoted back in 5 games or less suggest that MMR and league you are placed in after the first placement game is no longer true. Also, Blizzard waits till MMR is stabilised, meaning that normally it is impossible to bounce between leagues, also meaning that it is possible for your MMR to be at a different league, and that the leagues appear to have a lot of overlap depending on what division you are in (don't ask my why Blizzard does this). Yeah, so the league you are placed in has never accurately reflected MMR, and the strange demotion mechanic that Blizzard has going on makes it even worse.

On April 16 2014 05:22 MiCroLiFe wrote:
i see some ppl say its the mmr decay.. yeh i had 700 games last season! hell yeah its the mmr decay

On April 15 2014 23:36 korona wrote:


The offsets changed few days after last season started. Those numbers are not directly comparable. Actually the relative master threshold remained the same, but everything else was lowered. The current diamond range begins relatively from old high gold range. Diamond league's MMR range almost doubled. But the decay still pushes general population downwards... It is interesting to see if Blizzard does another 'smoke and mirrors fix' in the future (they only changed offsets/thresholds, not fixed the causes for the problem) .

On April 16 2014 05:41 kaluro wrote:


This is correct, but it also means that people who started playing last season, got into masters where they otherwise would've gotten into diamond. Since there are no mid season demotions, they got into diamond this season.

On April 16 2014 05:37 Chocolate wrote:
Can't wait to ladder during the summer... haven't played since early January, and was diamond then. Yay

Can we agree at least that, these days, diamond is at least a somewhat respectable ranking? Back in the day it was "masters (sometimes with a specific rank ie top 8) or gtfo, but now I'm not sure if that is really fair

On April 16 2014 05:29 ApocAlypsE007 wrote:
I'm well beyond my Masters WoL glory days. Got demoted to Gold from Plat (damn PvT), got back to plat after 5 games. Go figure...

On April 16 2014 05:23 korona wrote:

Incorrect. After the placement match you are placed in a league that reflects your MMR at that moment (fresh accounts that start from blank MMR are exceptions to this rule as they are placed conservatively). Also you might not know that I have been the main developer of the MMR tool for more than a year. I do have access to plenty of hard data to back up what I am saying.

And regarding promotions after the placement match: During the WoL era Blizzard clearly used some kind of MMR moving average regarding the promotions (stabilization period, exact formulas have never been revealed). But after HotS was released the character accounts have been promoted pretty much immediately when they cross the thresholds. But also during the WoL era it was possible to get immediately promoted one match after the placement match if you crossed the threshold.

On April 16 2014 06:55 Faust852 wrote:


Not really sure about that tbh. If you said 2 years, certainly but if I take my case as an exemple, I didn't play that much on hots, I think I got worst since the end of WoL (my APM dropped from ~150 to ~100) and i'm still usually toping the top8 master every season I play seriously.

On April 16 2014 07:00 Dangermousecatdog wrote:

Or you know, maybe just maybe you don't have the monopoly on just how Blizzard ladder operates. Blizzard can change whatever they like without telling anyone, and that is exactly what they do. There is a lot of people mysteriously being demoted, only to be promoted shortly afterwards. it could be anything causing this effect, but you have fixed assumptions.

On April 16 2014 07:00 Dangermousecatdog wrote: So it's fairly clear that league you are in does not reflect your MMR. Like seriously, you can't even be demoted. I think that's a serious case of league not representing the MMR. You really can't argue otherwise.

On April 16 2014 07:15 Faust852 wrote:


However, at the begining of hots everyone could be master since there was a bug and over 8% of the player pool was in master league. Now there is already over 1k master and it represents only 2%, with a lot of people being demoted this season.

On April 16 2014 08:35 Kiernan wrote:
I was like Plat, then I got demoted because I did not play enough. Then I was gold and did not play because its no fun to beat real gold-leaguers.
Now I'm in Silver and well, its even less fun. I won 2 games by just making two fucking Reapers and that killed like their whole Mineral-Line....
I guess I wait until I'm in Bronze, huh? After Bronze I get domoted back to Plat, right?

On April 15 2014 16:52 MrMotionPicture wrote:
Well since you can no longer be demoted during the season, I think they do this to reset the ladder a little and make sure everyone is where they should be. I'm sure you'll get back to master in no time :3

On April 15 2014 18:34 oGoZenob wrote:
I went 15-3 last season and get demoted last night -_-

On April 16 2014 07:00 Dangermousecatdog wrote:

Or you know, maybe just maybe you don't have the monopoly on just how Blizzard ladder operates. Blizzard can change whatever they like without telling anyone, and that is exactly what they do. There is a lot of people mysteriously being demoted, only to be promoted shortly afterwards. it could be anything causing this effect, but you have fixed assumptions. a So it's fairly clear that league you are in does not reflect your MMR. Like seriously, you can't even be demoted. I think that's a serious case of league not representing the MMR. You really can't argue otherwise.

On April 16 2014 10:24 bri9and wrote:


You can absolutely be demoted mid season.. no idea where this idea came from but I hear it a lot.

On April 16 2014 11:05 surreal1600 wrote:

Since when? I remember Blizz saying they removed the possibility a long time ago. Did they change their minds?

On April 16 2014 10:30 bri9and wrote:


18 games in a season = not nearly enough games to avoid decay.

On April 16 2014 11:07 Zenbrez wrote:

No, I think bri9and is misinformed. Cannot get demoted mid season (although I'm open to the possibility that I'm misinformed)

On April 16 2014 18:46 -Celestial- wrote:
Haven't even checked this season but probably back in Bronze again. Felt really bad about it last time that happened, not because I demoted but because I was constantly demolishing newbies through to Gold (got bored after about 20 games, no fun destroying new players with random stuff).

Its very annoying. Ok, people lose skill over time of not using it...but not THAT much.

On April 16 2014 23:41 KingAlphard wrote:
Every season this thread appears... wow.
It's really, really simple actually.
People can't be demoted during the season, but they can be promoted, that means that during the season there are more players than it should in higher leagues. So at the beginning of each season, many people in higher leagues get demoted.
Of course you get demoted only if you are at the bottom of your league. And don't start telling things like "b-but I was top 8" it doesn't mean anything.

On April 16 2014 23:55 Ctone23 wrote:



False. A lot of players that were in top 8 did get demoted. It's not that hard to get promoted again after the demotion, but it's definitely more wide-spread than you think.

On April 17 2014 00:13 KingAlphard wrote:


If you actually read the post, you'll notice that I didn't say that you can't be demoted as top 8, but that being top 8 doesn't matter anything.

On April 16 2014 16:12 MiCroLiFe wrote:
Plansix: im 23-13 or somthing and im stil dia, playin last seasons masters...

On April 16 2014 23:41 KingAlphard wrote:
Every season this thread appears... wow.
It's really, really simple actually.
People can't be demoted during the season, but they can be promoted, that means that during the season there are more players than it should in higher leagues. So at the beginning of each season, many people in higher leagues get demoted.
Of course you get demoted only if you are at the bottom of your league. And don't start telling things like "b-but I was top 8" it doesn't mean anything.

On April 17 2014 01:10 Excalibur_Z wrote:


The reason this thread appears is simple, as you say, and for the reason you say as well. Generally, the players who post that they were demoted at the start of the following season are the ones who would have been demoted midseason had demotions not been disabled.

Some have questioned why midseason demotions are disabled at all, and ask what purpose that change serves. I think that's equally simple. Without any evidence or metrics to back me up, I'd guess that a lot of players who saw the demotion message midseason probably just gave up for the rest of the season. "Screw this game, I'll just try again next season." With MMR decay introduced at the same time, that probably would have made things even more confusing because players could get demoted potentially multiple leagues after a single game following an inactivity period. So, since season rolls are times of great uncertainty for the community anyway, just postpone any demotions until then.

On April 17 2014 01:34 DjayEl wrote:



It just does not work like that and I have evidence of this. I started last season in plat due to MMR decay and won my way back to diamond with a 60% win ratio. Then my win ratio started to stabilize around 53% as I took more losses, but NEVER EVER get below 53%. Yes I was in top diamond, and no I don't give a f*ng crap it still means I'm in the bottom of my league, cause my win ratio was above 50% and my opponents were tough. I played every day and got 350+ games played, so no MMR decay should happen.

Yet, I won my placement match and got placed into plat again, facing bad players (plats, even golds, true ones not guys who decayed or some crap), thus my ratio is now above 60% as I start climbing again (70% against some races), and only in top plat I started facing opponents who took me games.

This whole 'its the same thing league mean nothing, just play' beautiful theory is awesome, but it does not explain my situation. Why would I face worse opponents just because of the season change ? That does not make sense. If my MMR is the same, then I should be around 50% all the time, no matter my league placement.

And I can hear some pleople go on with their "just play then you'll get back in diamond in no time", well no. I payed good money for a game which ranking system doesn't work like adverstised, Blizzard owes me an explanation. It was like that the 3 previous seasons. Either they change this or communicate better on this, but something is obviously affecting my MMR down beside the supposed decay (not possible, I play every day) or me loosing too much (never went on a loose streak, never went under the 50% win ratio).

Upping MMR takes time and commitment, even if I can "get back" to diamond, why would I be happy to get my hard-earned points (MMR points) just vanish like this for no reason. Its like you play the shit ouf of the game, struggling each game, investing time and energy, and all of the sudden the system says "BAM here is 20 free losses for you" (again, NOT MMR decay, or not in the way it should happen by common knowledge). And the argument would be "just get back where you were, EZPZ!". You would'nt autoquit 20 times in Ranked ladder just for the lulz and then try to re-win everything because you love wasting your time, would you? I don't either.

Something is obviously horribly wrong with this system and right now I'm fed up with Blizzard. Yes, I play for fun cause I love the games not only for the point, but hell why would you use a ranking system then if it does not even work like a proper ranking system ? Half of the season I must take time to "rewin" my points, I'm done with that shit.

Fuck Blizzard.

On April 17 2014 01:34 DjayEl wrote:



It just does not work like that and I have evidence of this. I started last season in plat due to MMR decay and won my way back to diamond with a 60% win ratio. Then my win ratio started to stabilize around 53% as I took more losses, but NEVER EVER get below 53%. Yes I was in top diamond, and no I don't give a f*ng crap it still means I'm in the bottom of my league, cause my win ratio was above 50% and my opponents were tough. I played every day and got 350+ games played, so no MMR decay should happen.

Yet, I won my placement match and got placed into plat again, facing bad players (plats, even golds, true ones not guys who decayed or some crap), thus my ratio is now above 60% as I start climbing again (70% against some races), and only in top plat I started facing opponents who took me games.

This whole 'its the same thing league mean nothing, just play' beautiful theory is awesome, but it does not explain my situation. Why would I face worse opponents just because of the season change ? That does not make sense. If my MMR is the same, then I should be around 50% all the time, no matter my league placement.

And I can hear some pleople go on with their "just play then you'll get back in diamond in no time", well no. I payed good money for a game which ranking system doesn't work like adverstised, Blizzard owes me an explanation. It was like that the 3 previous seasons. Either they change this or communicate better on this, but something is obviously affecting my MMR down beside the supposed decay (not possible, I play every day) or me loosing too much (never went on a loose streak, never went under the 50% win ratio).

Upping MMR takes time and commitment, even if I can "get back" to diamond, why would I be happy to get my hard-earned points (MMR points) just vanish like this for no reason. Its like you play the shit ouf of the game, struggling each game, investing time and energy, and all of the sudden the system says "BAM here is 20 free losses for you" (again, NOT MMR decay, or not in the way it should happen by common knowledge). And the argument would be "just get back where you were, EZPZ!". You would'nt autoquit 20 times in Ranked ladder just for the lulz and then try to re-win everything because you love wasting your time, would you? I don't either.

Something is obviously horribly wrong with this system and right now I'm fed up with Blizzard. Yes, I play for fun cause I love the games not only for the point, but hell why would you use a ranking system then if it does not even work like a proper ranking system ? Half of the season I must take time to "rewin" my points, I'm done with that shit.

Fuck Blizzard.

How do you know your MMR dropped? You don't really have any proof of that. Since the season just started, there are likely people who have not done their placement match yet, and as a result the overall population that has been placed on the ladder is likely smaller right now, which means in order to get their magical percentages of players filling each league, Blizzard would need to adjust what MMR range corresponds with what league so that they can get the league distribution they want. As more people do their placements and the ladder fills out again, things will go back to normal.

That is a different matter, one better explained by this post: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/12506541134

Maybe you could look it over and report your adjusted points for last season?

On April 17 2014 03:20 DjayEl wrote:


Hard to say, it still does not explain why my opponents are far worse than the ones I was facing at the end of the other season.




I will go through that for sure, but for now I can attest that for me it is not an enjoyable experience at all and I believe Bizzard should be more transparent about this. Or display true MMR or something. It's too much disturbing, it's a hassle each time to understand where you belong and how do you compare with, say, your friends in other divisions.

On April 17 2014 03:28 vult wrote:
This thread has officially derailed.

Remember, guys. You are so upset over a game with already-arbitrary rankings.

On April 17 2014 04:23 Qwerty85 wrote:
Yeah I think that post from MVP on us forums is correct. Last season bonus pool for sub master league was around 1460 if I read it correctly (that same guy said it in some other thread). I finished the season with 0 bonus pool and had 1596 points which means that I was still in the positive even if I remove the bonus pool. So as a result I stayed in my league and didn't get demoted.

It seems that win rate percentage, points, division rank etc. are actually more misleading than if we never had any of those.You actually think you are doing better (oh look at me, I am top 8 dia) and then you suddenly get demoted. Then the eyebrows get raised....

Personally I would love to have a visible MMR graph to track my current progress. Only true way to know if your MMR is rising.

I mean, even if I get matched vs players of higher league (for example master) and win, even if I check their match history and see that they are playing vs masters, I still can't know if I am getting close to promotion because as far as I know, because of no mid-season demotions, all those guys could just be diamonds (in MMR) with a master league badge.

They really made tracking progress almost impossible after they prevented mid-season demotions.Right now, only thing you can kind of tell (when you subtract bonus pool points) is if you will stay in the league or get demoted but you basically can't tell if you will get promoted or not.I guess getting more points for a win is an indicator of a sort because it suggests you are playing against a favored opponent, but still not really a reliable way of knowing.As a result, you basically feel happy when you do a placement match and see you didn't get demoted, it is really an awkward situation to be in.

If they want to insist on no mid-season demotions, they should give us visible MMR with thresholds for each league.
But returning mid-season demotions is probably more realistic.

On April 24 2014 02:30 ant-1 wrote:
Was demoted too, don't care (so don't treat me like a whiner), just trying to understand. Is blizzard really wanting such ratios for leagues (from nios):
League Distr. (Global):
GM: 0.48%
Master: 2.10%
Diamond: 8.78%
Platinum: 8.30%
Gold: 20.74%
Silver: 33.70%
Bronze: 25.91%

I thought they wanted to make bronze the smallest (outside of GM-M, to make noobs happy) and gold the largest. These distributions really do seem weird.

On April 24 2014 02:30 ant-1 wrote:
Was demoted too, don't care (so don't treat me like a whiner), just trying to understand. Is blizzard really wanting such ratios for leagues (from nios):
League Distr. (Global):
GM: 0.48%
Master: 2.10%
Diamond: 8.78%
Platinum: 8.30%
Gold: 20.74%
Silver: 33.70%
Bronze: 25.91%

I thought they wanted to make bronze the smallest (outside of GM-M, to make noobs happy) and gold the largest. These distributions really do seem weird.

On April 24 2014 03:25 Amazonic wrote:
I would expect the lower league players haven't played enough games to make the wanted distribution really kick in. They've made the threshold lower to get out of bronze, the players have to actually step over that threshold and bronzies aren't the most active of folks.

On April 17 2014 03:20 DjayEl wrote:


Hard to say, it still does not explain why my opponents are far worse than the ones I was facing at the end of the other season.




I will go through that for sure, but for now I can attest that for me it is not an enjoyable experience at all and I believe Bizzard should be more transparent about this. Or display true MMR or something. It's too much disturbing, it's a hassle each time to understand where you belong and how do you compare with, say, your friends in other divisions.

On April 24 2014 23:05 Ctone23 wrote:
Have to admit, I posted in here saying that promotion is relatively easy after the season starting demotion, but hasn't been the case for me this season, and I couldn't be more fucking frustrated.

Just because I'm older now, full time job, and only play one-three games a day during the week(more on weekend), doesn't mean I should be fucking demoted every season. I was diamond in wol and had a great experience with about a 50% win rate, exactly what blizz wanted. Now, I constantly get demoted to where this season i'm in gold, yet I play versus masters and diamonds all the time.

I love the game, but fuck me, so annoying to deal with, especially when the community bases your knowledge on the color of the border on your portrait. It really shouldn't matter, but it does. I don't understand the logic here, I guess maybe they want people to stick around and play longer ladder sessions. That tactic is backfiring with me personally, I lose desire to play. I worked hard to earn my league in wol, and it just seems like all that work with my mmr is completely useless, and blizz is deciding how my activity represents my skill. BOO!

On April 24 2014 23:29 Wombat_NI wrote:

I feel your pain man. As a working single parent of sorts I still have maintained a decent overall mechanical level but I can't play enough to ever outdo the MMR decay it seems!

A session is infrequent and tends to start with me stomping bad players, start hitting guys who are good, be out of time and the process repeats next time I log. Then I post my complaints in here and people somehow get the impression I give a fuck about the portrait beside my name :S

On April 24 2014 23:45 Wombat_NI wrote:

I'd imagine for the more active player this isn't an issue, but for those with a lot of RL commitments it really tanks the fun out of laddering.

On April 24 2014 23:53 RampancyTW wrote:
So much of the complaining in this thread is placebo effect, delusion, or outright lies.

If you have been playing frequently enough to avoid MMR decay and got placed into a lower league to start the season, and are playing "worse" opponents, than before-- THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR LEAGUE. Your MMR determines who you play against, not your league. And your MMR is unaffected by the fact you got demoted to start the season.

On April 25 2014 00:21 Ctone23 wrote:



Spot on right there.



EDIT: Oops, read that wrong. Disagree completely. How is it that I end the previous season top 8 plat, playing 50% of my games vs Diamond, win the placement match vs a plat terran, and get gold? Also, how can you explain how I continue to play diamond and masters league opponents. I'm sick of people hailing MMR as the all-knowing source, when in reality its broken.

On April 24 2014 23:53 RampancyTW wrote:
So much of the complaining in this thread is placebo effect, delusion, or outright lies.

If you have been playing frequently enough to avoid MMR decay and got placed into a lower league to start the season, and are playing "worse" opponents, than before-- THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR LEAGUE. Your MMR determines who you play against, not your league. And your MMR is unaffected by the fact you got demoted to start the season.

On April 25 2014 00:21 Ctone23 wrote:
EDIT: Oops, read that wrong. Disagree completely. How is it that I end the previous season top 8 plat, playing 50% of my games vs Diamond, win the placement match vs a plat terran, and get gold? Also, how can you explain how I continue to play diamond and masters league opponents. I'm sick of people hailing MMR as the all-knowing source, when in reality its broken.

On April 25 2014 00:36 korona wrote:


Actually after HotS launch the league has mattered. The matchmaking is still MMR based, but it seems to prefer opponents from your own league. E.g. if there are two available opponents in close MMR range - one from lower league and one from your league, the matchmaker generally picks the one from your league.

When you drop into lower league MMR range during the season, you are still most of the time facing others from your league, whose MMR has also dropped either naturally via losing or via MMR decay. But in the start of the new season you are placed into the lower league based on your MMR and most of your opponents will be from that league. And population in the lower league is now a mix of those whose MMR dropped there during the previous season and those who already were there. Those who dropped into the lower league are likely generally more skilled than the players who already were there.

On April 25 2014 00:38 -stOpSKY- wrote:
I don't wanna be that guy but.... why does it matter? You should be playing to have fun and find challenging opponents. If you are being challenged in whatever league you're in I don't see why it should matter.

Example: OP was masters but is in diamond now. If OP still faces challenging diamond/masters opponents I don't see why it matters if hes in diamond. They should just have an invisible MMR with no leagues so people stop talking about them IMO.

On April 25 2014 00:38 -stOpSKY- wrote:
I don't wanna be that guy but.... why does it matter? You should be playing to have fun and find challenging opponents. If you are being challenged in whatever league you're in I don't see why it should matter.

Example: OP was masters but is in diamond now. If OP still faces challenging diamond/masters opponents I don't see why it matters if hes in diamond. They should just have an invisible MMR with no leagues so people stop talking about them IMO.

On April 25 2014 00:27 RampancyTW wrote:
Wait, what?

So you're still playing the same level of players that you were before? Sounds like your MMR is working exactly as intended. The leagues may be a little wonky, but that won't affect the quality of player you play against.

On April 25 2014 00:46 Ctone23 wrote:


I don't buy that, and that is just too complicated. I think the main issue is that the player pool is dropping and blizz wants to fill all of the leagues and allow for promotions, which is frustrating for someone working over 40 hours a week who can't play a lot.

As for your example of MMR, I don't think me playing vs diamond and masters players in the previous system indicates your scenario. I think they simply want to fill the leagues and probably pick players with fewer than X amount of games to be demoted. Who knows..

On April 25 2014 01:24 korona wrote:

Blizzard has changed league offsets 3 times during the HotS era. At launch, at start of the third HotS season and few days after the start of last season. I have not verified if there are changes for this season, but a quick look at the MMR tool user profiles shows that there are no larger changes at least (likely no changes at all). So it is not that 'Blizzard wants to fill the leagues'. After the placement match you are placed into some league based on your MMR at that moment (fresh accounts starting from blank MMR are exceptions and are placed conservatively).

And the lower league player would still be matched against higher league players who have close MMR from time to time. To ensure quick matchmaking e.g. if there are no available master opponents who have close MMR for the master player, it would then pick an opponent with close MMR from the other leagues for him.

The league preference of the matchmaker was quite clear during last summer / early fall based on the MMR tool user profiles. People who faced max decay were still mostly matched against opponents from their league until their MMR dropped close to the low border of the lower league. Then their opponent's leagues started to mix up more (the lower your MMR sinks, the lower the amount of people from higher leagues with that low MMR becomes). Based on the matchmaking results the league preference of the matchmaker has not been that clear during the last few seasons, but that is more likely due that general player activity is likely dropping (less available opponents at a given time).

On April 25 2014 01:56 Ctone23 wrote:


Again, I think it's just too complicated. My mmr at that moment wasn't gold, seeing how I play against diamond opponents on a regular basis. I guess you could speculate that those diamond league opponents had similar mmr because of the absence of mid season demotion, but to me that just adds to the confusion. Adding to the fact I got demoted after my placement victory, it all but seems that my placement was pre-determined no matter the outcome.

I'd love to see them re work the ladder system a little bit, something that involves a little more reward, with less confusion.

On April 25 2014 02:22 korona wrote:

No. Your MMR was in gold league range when you were placed there (unless your account had less than ~25 matches after starting from blank MMR). And if you did not have inactivity periods that lasted more than 2 weeks (MMR decay only activates if you have longer than 2 weeks inactivity period in a certain game mode), then also your most recent pre-placement opponents had ~gold range MMR.

Also remember that if and when there is a league preference feature in the matchmaker then in a high gold MMR range as a gold player you may be more likely to face a diamond players than a platinum players. Why? That close to the platinum threshold there are plenty of platinums for the plat player to be matched against. For the diamond player there are not that many diamonds with so low MMR... And that diamond player will often be matched against golds and plats. Also if the league lock is not in effect and you face an opponent from two leagues lower who has not just started from blank MMR, you can be pretty sure your MMR is at least in the lower league range (very rare for the matchmaker to pick opponent with more than a league range lower MMR).

But in general it is often hard to estimate where your MMR is even if you know how the system works. Even if the adjusted points give hints regarding this, they may be considerably off. Easiest way at the moment is to use the MMR tool. Or wait for a promotion (you just passed the lower threshold of that league) / placement match (you are somewhere in that league's range). When you are placed into a new league, you know your MMR is in that league's range (exception fresh accounts that just started from blank MMR.).

On April 25 2014 04:30 Ctone23 wrote:


As you said, it's hard to estimate where your MMR is, so why should I believe your paragraphs explaining MY situation? For the record I use MMR tools.

Basically what you're saying is that my MMR must have been gold, despite being in top platinum league with MMR tools showing my MMR above the diamond threshold, and playing 50% of my matches vs diamonds, with about a 40% win ratio. Somehow, you think my MMR had to be gold, because MMR is always correct, in your opinion.

Okay, I get your argument, but I disagree. You think MMR is perfect, I don't. End of story. Agree to disagree.

On April 25 2014 01:28 Kiernan wrote:
Its very bad. Because for people like me that play not that often your MMR drops quite a bit, but my skill does not drop so much, even though I did not play the last 2 seasons. I'm in Silver now, but I pretty much roflstomp most of my Opponents, so its not even fun. And because its not fun to stomp Newbies I will never play enough to get my MMR back to Plat/Diamond to make Games fun.

On April 25 2014 04:30 Ctone23 wrote:


As you said, it's hard to estimate where your MMR is, so why should I believe your paragraphs explaining MY situation? For the record I use MMR tools.

Basically what you're saying is that my MMR must have been gold, despite being in top platinum league with MMR tools showing my MMR above the diamond threshold, and playing 50% of my matches vs diamonds, with about a 40% win ratio. Somehow, you think my MMR had to be gold, because MMR is always correct, in your opinion.

Okay, I get your argument, but I disagree. You think MMR is perfect, I don't. End of story. Agree to disagree.

On April 27 2014 05:20 SatedSC2 wrote:

So I now have a 75% win-rate with ~50 games played (all those games against Diamond players, with a few Masters thrown in) and it still insists that I am "evenly matched" with mid-league Diamond players who have an equal win/loss ratio. Seriously pissing me off right now =/

Ironically, every time I do get against a Masters player, I seem to get cheesed. That much just be karma punishing me for all the cheesy buildings that I use xD

On April 27 2014 08:18 SatedSC2 wrote:

That's ridiculous.

MMR decay needs to be removed and demotion during the season needs to be reinstated. Blizzard had a perfectly fine ladder system and they've ballsed it up. Undeniably so. I just played (and beat) someone who is 59-4 and still in Diamond, which in a sense makes me feel better because that's even worse than my experience, but in a sense pisses me off even more because that's fucking ridiculous.

On April 27 2014 08:18 SatedSC2 wrote:

That's ridiculous.

MMR decay needs to be removed and demotion during the season needs to be reinstated. Blizzard had a perfectly fine ladder system and they've ballsed it up. Undeniably so. I just played (and beat) someone who is 59-4 and still in Diamond, which in a sense makes me feel better because that's even worse than my experience, but in a sense pisses me off even more because that's fucking ridiculous.

On April 27 2014 13:15 Excalibur_Z wrote:


Now, when you say "59-4 and still in Diamond", how do you know he started off in Diamond?

On April 27 2014 17:40 phodacbiet wrote:
Are you guys sure its mmr decay? Since there are less people playing each season its harder to get into higher leagues and more demotion happen. Just look at it this way, now you have more reasons to play the game because you can get into a higher league! Now if you are stuck in your league with a 50/50 win ratio or somewhere around there, then maybe you're just not as good as you thought you were?

On April 27 2014 19:55 Geiko wrote:
I'm something like 60-5 currently and still in diamond.

I've been in Master league as far as I can remember, but since MMR decay things have been getting a bit tough...

I think it's because I play 1 game, then nothing for 1 month, then a couple of games, then nothing. I got set back all the way to gold league.

Things are pretty ridiculous now, all my games I send my probe to the opponent's base, then build my first pylon in front of their base in plain sight, then proceed to proxy gate and play a normal game after that, and I still have a ridiculous win ratio.

Might as well have some fun since I can't play enough to get my MMR bake to a normal level