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Leagues being adjusted

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RavingRaver
Profile Joined May 2014
Canada57 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 22:46:40
May 10 2014 18:49 GMT
#1
There have been a wave of promotions recently due to Blizzard attempting to adjust the leagues to closely match proposed league percentages. I was one of those who got promoted as I went from Gold to Platinum. It appears that Bronze and Silver are shrinking, while Gold, Platinum, Diamond and Masters are slowly growing.

Personally, I find that this is a good change as it's bringing leagues closer to how they were in WoL, which is superior to how it was in HotS for the most part. My question to you is do you feel that this change is warranted as leagues were straying too far from proposed percentages, is it making leagues lose their value or it doesn't matter either way as long as the match making system is working properly?

Sources:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/12674208900

http://nios.kr/

http://www.sc2ranks.com/stats/league


Poll: What do you think of the recent league adjustments?

I don't care either way (184)
 
56%

I think they were long overdue (100)
 
31%

Unnecessary, leagues were fine (42)
 
13%

326 total votes

Your vote: What do you think of the recent league adjustments?

(Vote): I think they were long overdue
(Vote): Unnecessary, leagues were fine
(Vote): I don't care either way

InFluenza
Profile Joined January 2014
Netherlands55 Posts
May 10 2014 18:50 GMT
#2
I'm in diamond now so I can't say I'm unhappy about the new changes!
Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?
Zenbrez
Profile Joined June 2012
Canada5973 Posts
May 10 2014 18:53 GMT
#3
I don't care, and don't know why anybody should care. Getting promoted doesn't mean you got any better, especially under these circumstances.
Refer to my post.
Waise
Profile Joined June 2013
3165 Posts
May 10 2014 18:56 GMT
#4
On May 11 2014 03:53 Zenbrez wrote:
I don't care, and don't know why anybody should care. Getting promoted doesn't mean you got any better, especially under these circumstances.

yep, i agree 100%. but at the same time i understand the psychology behind people fixating over their leagues, so i don't put too much thought into it. people want to play with their toys
Dingodile
Profile Joined December 2011
4135 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 19:05:11
May 10 2014 19:00 GMT
#5
I don't care. I play unranked and I get opponent's from diamond to silver and my experience says silver zerg>terran top8diamond. I was pretty shocked yesterday how weak terran and protoss are in higher league (until diamond) than zerg from lower leagues. I played yesterday first time offrace protoss and got a top16 diamond terran (>150 laddergames this season), he needed 32min to beat me.

edit: Blizziard should disable the color notification (which league) on loadscreen before game starts. I become anxious if I see my opponent is bronze/silver league players und pretty happy if diamond/platin. diamond/platin makes more fun and produce much more balanced games for me.
Grubby | ToD | Moon | Lyn | Sky
Xinzoe
Profile Joined January 2014
Korea (South)2373 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 19:01:20
May 10 2014 19:01 GMT
#6
why does league adjustment matter? Ur supposed to get matched with people of similar MMR anyway. I could care less if I had a diamond badge or a master badge or grandmaster, as long as im playing players of similar skill.
Blargh
Profile Joined September 2010
United States2103 Posts
May 10 2014 19:02 GMT
#7
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?
banjoetheredskin
Profile Blog Joined November 2012
United States744 Posts
May 10 2014 19:08 GMT
#8
league doesn't matter, I'm shit either way
Writer#1 CJ fan | http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/508947-wcs-dreamhack-austin-interviews
Ercster
Profile Joined August 2011
United States603 Posts
May 10 2014 19:11 GMT
#9
On May 11 2014 04:02 Blargh wrote:
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?

Well that's not quite true. You need the leagues to show how many points you have in said league, and that combo means a lot. Sure you could set the scale with just pure ELO, but that would make it way more unappealing. And on a less technical note, the leagues provide a great way for people to focus on improving. When I played regularly, my end goal was always to hit Master (started as a lowly bronze) and being able to hit the milestones of the next league were such a boost. It makes you feel like your hard work isn't all for nothing.
“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson
virpi
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Germany3598 Posts
May 10 2014 19:11 GMT
#10
On May 11 2014 04:08 banjoetheredskin wrote:
league doesn't matter, I'm shit either way

damn, I wanted to post this!
first we make expand, then we defense it.
ZenithM
Profile Joined February 2011
France15952 Posts
May 10 2014 19:12 GMT
#11
I don't care about leagues, but please remove the goddamn decay.
Waise
Profile Joined June 2013
3165 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 19:14:52
May 10 2014 19:14 GMT
#12
On May 11 2014 04:11 Ercster wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 04:02 Blargh wrote:
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?

Well that's not quite true. You need the leagues to show how many points you have in said league, and that combo means a lot. Sure you could set the scale with just pure ELO, but that would make it way more unappealing. And on a less technical note, the leagues provide a great way for people to focus on improving. When I played regularly, my end goal was always to hit Master (started as a lowly bronze) and being able to hit the milestones of the next league were such a boost. It makes you feel like your hard work isn't all for nothing.

well, if you need leagues and care about "points," that's fine. but a lot of us are able to improve and set goals without unreliable trinkets and badges such as league placement. whatever works for you though!
Superouman
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
France2195 Posts
May 10 2014 19:14 GMT
#13
On May 11 2014 04:02 Blargh wrote:
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?

What if I told you should get some psychology courses?
Search "[SO]" on B.net to find all my maps ||| Cloud Kingdom / Turbo Cruise '84 / Bone Temple / Eternal Empire / Zen / Purity and Industry / Golden Wall / Fortitude / Beckett Industries / Waterfall
Froadac
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States6733 Posts
May 10 2014 19:15 GMT
#14
I mean the average skill level on ladder is way higher, this is somewhat reflective in any case.
Faust852
Profile Joined February 2012
Luxembourg4004 Posts
May 10 2014 19:19 GMT
#15
I don't care since i'm master. Others might be happy now.
aZealot
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
New Zealand5447 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 19:28:17
May 10 2014 19:27 GMT
#16
On May 11 2014 04:08 banjoetheredskin wrote:
league doesn't matter, I'm shit either way


I tried to tell a friend this, that almost all of us are just bad at this game, and it annoyed him. He is a bronze player who sometimes gets matched with silvers and he felt like I was putting down his play. Different people see this in different ways.
KT best KT ~ 2014
GoldenH
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
1115 Posts
May 10 2014 19:28 GMT
#17
If people are about the same skill, they should be in the same league. % is meaningless. If everyone's on a bell curve, then whatever % blizz uses is meaningless, then why would anyone care?
"(Dudes are) not going to say "Buy this game — I cried at the end". (...) I suppose the secret is to find a game that makes you shoot eight million fuckin' dudes and then cry about how awesome it is to shoot eight million fuckin' dudes." - Tim Rogers
digmouse
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
China6330 Posts
May 10 2014 19:35 GMT
#18
I can say I'm indeed getting adjusted, was Silver/Bronze for the last 3 seasons but was promoted to Gold in 5 games this season.
TranslatorIf you want to ask anything about Chinese esports, send me a PM or follow me @nerddigmouse.
imJealous
Profile Joined July 2010
United States1382 Posts
May 10 2014 19:36 GMT
#19
I guess this explains why I laddered for the first time since the D3 expansion yesterday, lost 3 games, then had my opponent surrender from a winning position because he had to leave on my 4th game, and got promoted from that one win :D
... In life very little goes right. "Right" meaning the way one expected and the way one wanted it. One has no right to want or expect anything.
BjoernK
Profile Joined April 2012
194 Posts
May 10 2014 20:13 GMT
#20
I am in Diamond for the first time after 5-6 seasons of Platin. I haven't played since being promoted partly due to not having time, partly due to feeling not belonging there skill-wise.
Integra
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
Sweden5626 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 20:30:27
May 10 2014 20:30 GMT
#21
So everyone except the GM's gets a free promotion? That sucks.
+ Show Spoiler +
Shameless brag thread
"Dark Pleasure" | | I survived the Locust war of May 3, 2014
Ercster
Profile Joined August 2011
United States603 Posts
May 10 2014 20:39 GMT
#22
On May 11 2014 04:14 Waise wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 04:11 Ercster wrote:
On May 11 2014 04:02 Blargh wrote:
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?

Well that's not quite true. You need the leagues to show how many points you have in said league, and that combo means a lot. Sure you could set the scale with just pure ELO, but that would make it way more unappealing. And on a less technical note, the leagues provide a great way for people to focus on improving. When I played regularly, my end goal was always to hit Master (started as a lowly bronze) and being able to hit the milestones of the next league were such a boost. It makes you feel like your hard work isn't all for nothing.

well, if you need leagues and care about "points," that's fine. but a lot of us are able to improve and set goals without unreliable trinkets and badges such as league placement. whatever works for you though!

Well the combo of league and points are essentially ELO, which is your skill rank. So the only unreliable part is with leagues being adjusted, and they're doing that to make things much more accurate for the outside viewer.
“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson
ThePastor
Profile Joined February 2012
New Zealand380 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 20:47:44
May 10 2014 20:41 GMT
#23
To be honest the change kind of makes me sad. I had been working really hard on the KR server at trying to get better, I was up the top of diamond mostly matched against Masters players. I saw a promotion as being a stamp of approval of improvement, if it just gets given tome I will be sad. Currently I have a broken arm so I can't play but if this means I get in there easier it will be disappointing.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25727 Posts
May 10 2014 20:50 GMT
#24
What are the current percentages per league they're looking for?

Neither for or against, as long as Master league doesn't get massively overfilled again, as it should be something for your average joe to aspire towards.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
frajen86
Profile Joined February 2014
168 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 21:20:36
May 10 2014 21:15 GMT
#25
On May 11 2014 03:49 RavingRaver wrote:
Personally, I find that this is a good change as it's bringing leagues closer to how they were in WoL, which is superior to how it was in HotS for the most part.

Do you realize that the nios.kr league distributions are for ALL players and not "active" players?

The true distributions are not any closer to WoL right now. Blizzard's desired ladder distributions are only for active players.

Bonus pool as activity metric: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/423477-ladder-analysis-activity-metric

My own analysis isn't as accurate as the bonus pool analysis, but there are tens of thousands of players that haven't done more than 10 games on ladder this season. These "inactive" players inflate (at least!) the bronze and silver league percentages: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/448455-sc2rankscom-official-thread#10
TTBest
Profile Joined September 2013
Germany74 Posts
May 10 2014 21:21 GMT
#26
I have been promoted in Gold league now and even playing against Platinum for the first time ever! It's quite a motivation for me right now to play a bit more...
aZealot
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
New Zealand5447 Posts
May 10 2014 21:30 GMT
#27
On May 11 2014 05:50 Wombat_NI wrote:
What are the current percentages per league they're looking for?

Neither for or against, as long as Master league doesn't get massively overfilled again, as it should be something for your average joe to aspire towards.


I don't think it directly answers your question, but I think you'd find it interesting:

http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/254uj2/ladder_so_far_in_numbers/
KT best KT ~ 2014
frajen86
Profile Joined February 2014
168 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 21:36:13
May 10 2014 21:34 GMT
#28
On May 11 2014 05:50 Wombat_NI wrote:
What are the current percentages per league they're looking for?

http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/10059616/
From Masters-to-Bronze:
2/18/20/32/20/8

These distributions are not going to be directly visible from nios or sc2ranks because those sites look at "ALL" players and not "active" players.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25727 Posts
May 10 2014 21:51 GMT
#29
Thanks for the links, I was more wondering what Blizzard's actual intended breakdowns would be, although ofc how the ladders themselves look is good information to know!
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
frajen86
Profile Joined February 2014
168 Posts
May 10 2014 21:53 GMT
#30
On May 11 2014 06:51 Wombat_NI wrote:
Thanks for the links, I was more wondering what Blizzard's actual intended breakdowns would be, although ofc how the ladders themselves look is good information to know!

The post above yours show Blizzard's actual intended breakdowns
CrazyPieGuy
Profile Joined March 2012
United States41 Posts
May 10 2014 21:55 GMT
#31
I think it's good. Moving up the ladder gives me milestones to hit as I improve. With the new distribution, the milestones are spaced at a more even pace for me to achieve.
Yes
TRaFFiC
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Canada1448 Posts
May 10 2014 22:00 GMT
#32
Because of smurfing, a lot of spots in plat, di, ML are held by people from other servers. Maybe this is their way to counteract this. I think they should just kill the smurfs.
2v2, 1v1, Zerg, Terran http://www.twitch.tv/trafficsc2
imre
Profile Blog Joined November 2011
France9263 Posts
May 10 2014 22:22 GMT
#33
On May 11 2014 07:00 TRaFFiC wrote:
Because of smurfing, a lot of spots in plat, di, ML are held by people from other servers. Maybe this is their way to counteract this. I think they should just kill the smurfs.


i don't think smurfing is a pbm but the league with the higher percent of alt accounts is definitely gm :p
Zest fanboy.
RavingRaver
Profile Joined May 2014
Canada57 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 22:52:00
May 10 2014 22:45 GMT
#34
On May 11 2014 06:15 frajen86 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 03:49 RavingRaver wrote:
Personally, I find that this is a good change as it's bringing leagues closer to how they were in WoL, which is superior to how it was in HotS for the most part.

Do you realize that the nios.kr league distributions are for ALL players and not "active" players?

The true distributions are not any closer to WoL right now. Blizzard's desired ladder distributions are only for active players.

Bonus pool as activity metric: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/423477-ladder-analysis-activity-metric

My own analysis isn't as accurate as the bonus pool analysis, but there are tens of thousands of players that haven't done more than 10 games on ladder this season. These "inactive" players inflate (at least!) the bronze and silver league percentages: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/448455-sc2rankscom-official-thread#10


I know nios.kr isn't 99% reliable, but it's better than SC2 ranks because it constantly updates imo. Each site has their pros and cons though and I'll post the SC2 ranks website to offer a more varied perspective. I do wonder what the actual ladder distributions are though based on active players.
frajen86
Profile Joined February 2014
168 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-10 23:59:37
May 10 2014 23:53 GMT
#35
On May 11 2014 07:45 RavingRaver wrote:
I know nios.kr isn't 99% reliable, but it's better than SC2 ranks because it constantly updates imo. Each site has their pros and cons though and I'll post the SC2 ranks website to offer a more varied perspective. I do wonder what the actual ladder distributions are though based on active players.


My point isn't really about update time although that is kind of important if we were trying to get ladder distributions every day. The point is that if you assume that the nios.kr league distributions are the same as Blizzard's target distributions then you are wrong.

Even if SC2ranks website is off by even a week, the fact that 71% of the players in bronze league divisions have played less than 10 games and 55% have played 5 or less games should suggest to you that there is a lot of inactivity in the low leagues.

If you actually read the "activity metric" thread you will see some analysis that Excalibur Z did on 2013 Season 4 which proves that if you only look at players with relatively small bonus pool, the league distributions are a lot closer to what the Blizzard targets are.

1 bonus week: Master - 5.4%, Diamond - 15.27%, Platinum - 18.95%, Gold - 28.84%, Silver - 20.26%, Bronze - 11.26%
2 bonus weeks: Master - 5.56%, Diamond - 15.34%, Platinum - 19.37%, Gold - 29.58%, Silver - 20.07%, Bronze - 10.05%
3 bonus weeks: Master - 5.62%, Diamond - 15.06%, Platinum - 19.53%, Gold - 30.31%, Silver - 20.18%, Bronze - 9.26%
4 bonus weeks: Master - 5.64%, Diamond - 14.57%, Platinum - 19.46%, Gold - 31.27%, Silver - 20.46%, Bronze - 8.57%
5 bonus weeks: Master - 5.53%, Diamond - 13.87%, Platinum - 19.21%, Gold - 31.94%, Silver - 21.17%, Bronze - 8.25%
6 bonus weeks: Master - 5.09%, Diamond - 12.60%, Platinum - 18.35%, Gold - 31.96%, Silver - 22.93%, Bronze - 9.03%
Blargh
Profile Joined September 2010
United States2103 Posts
May 11 2014 00:09 GMT
#36
On May 11 2014 04:14 Superouman wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 04:02 Blargh wrote:
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?

What if I told you should get some psychology courses?

I have actually taken two, both of which were pretty useless, in my opinion. Just like leagues!

Obviously, people want to have some sort of symbolic representation of their skill, like MASTER LEAGUE, but it really does not make any difference, as the ladder is terrible at appropriately ranking people, except for Grandmaster League in Korea.

Honestly, if people want leagues, instead of just having an accurate rating, then it should be divided evenly (20/20/20/20/20), and possibly further tiered (tier 1 Masters, tier 2 Masters, etc.) as that would make the clearest "milestones" for people.
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 00:26:48
May 11 2014 00:25 GMT
#37
On May 11 2014 09:09 Blargh wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 04:14 Superouman wrote:
On May 11 2014 04:02 Blargh wrote:
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?

What if I told you should get some psychology courses?

I have actually taken two, both of which were pretty useless, in my opinion. Just like leagues!

Obviously, people want to have some sort of symbolic representation of their skill, like MASTER LEAGUE, but it really does not make any difference, as the ladder is terrible at appropriately ranking people, except for Grandmaster League in Korea.

Honestly, if people want leagues, instead of just having an accurate rating, then it should be divided evenly (20/20/20/20/20), and possibly further tiered (tier 1 Masters, tier 2 Masters, etc.) as that would make the clearest "milestones" for people.

Even GM in Korea only reflects ladder skills, not tournament skills – which is, what really counts.

20/20/20/20/20 has some downs. Have a look at the bell curve. The middle 20% would be extremely close in skill while the outer 20% would include extreme deviations.

Leages should give a very rough, but still useful classification. And they actually provide that.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
RavingRaver
Profile Joined May 2014
Canada57 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 00:37:51
May 11 2014 00:26 GMT
#38
On May 11 2014 08:53 frajen86 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 07:45 RavingRaver wrote:
I know nios.kr isn't 99% reliable, but it's better than SC2 ranks because it constantly updates imo. Each site has their pros and cons though and I'll post the SC2 ranks website to offer a more varied perspective. I do wonder what the actual ladder distributions are though based on active players.


My point isn't really about update time although that is kind of important if we were trying to get ladder distributions every day. The point is that if you assume that the nios.kr league distributions are the same as Blizzard's target distributions then you are wrong.

Even if SC2ranks website is off by even a week, the fact that 71% of the players in bronze league divisions have played less than 10 games and 55% have played 5 or less games should suggest to you that there is a lot of inactivity in the low leagues.

If you actually read the "activity metric" thread you will see some analysis that Excalibur Z did on 2013 Season 4 which proves that if you only look at players with relatively small bonus pool, the league distributions are a lot closer to what the Blizzard targets are.

1 bonus week: Master - 5.4%, Diamond - 15.27%, Platinum - 18.95%, Gold - 28.84%, Silver - 20.26%, Bronze - 11.26%
2 bonus weeks: Master - 5.56%, Diamond - 15.34%, Platinum - 19.37%, Gold - 29.58%, Silver - 20.07%, Bronze - 10.05%
3 bonus weeks: Master - 5.62%, Diamond - 15.06%, Platinum - 19.53%, Gold - 30.31%, Silver - 20.18%, Bronze - 9.26%
4 bonus weeks: Master - 5.64%, Diamond - 14.57%, Platinum - 19.46%, Gold - 31.27%, Silver - 20.46%, Bronze - 8.57%
5 bonus weeks: Master - 5.53%, Diamond - 13.87%, Platinum - 19.21%, Gold - 31.94%, Silver - 21.17%, Bronze - 8.25%
6 bonus weeks: Master - 5.09%, Diamond - 12.60%, Platinum - 18.35%, Gold - 31.96%, Silver - 22.93%, Bronze - 9.03%


I don't assume that nios.kr and SC2 ranks league distributions are the same as Blizzard's target distributions. Statistics sites such as nios.kr and SC2 ranks should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure that the actual distributions are closer to the target distributions than the statistics sites would have you believe. I assume that Blizzard has looked solely at the active player base's league distribution upon making their decision to change the league percentages.
Waise
Profile Joined June 2013
3165 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 00:51:46
May 11 2014 00:50 GMT
#39
On May 11 2014 05:39 Ercster wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 04:14 Waise wrote:
On May 11 2014 04:11 Ercster wrote:
On May 11 2014 04:02 Blargh wrote:
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?

Well that's not quite true. You need the leagues to show how many points you have in said league, and that combo means a lot. Sure you could set the scale with just pure ELO, but that would make it way more unappealing. And on a less technical note, the leagues provide a great way for people to focus on improving. When I played regularly, my end goal was always to hit Master (started as a lowly bronze) and being able to hit the milestones of the next league were such a boost. It makes you feel like your hard work isn't all for nothing.

well, if you need leagues and care about "points," that's fine. but a lot of us are able to improve and set goals without unreliable trinkets and badges such as league placement. whatever works for you though!

Well the combo of league and points are essentially ELO, which is your skill rank. So the only unreliable part is with leagues being adjusted, and they're doing that to make things much more accurate for the outside viewer.

your "skill rank" is impossibly subjective. the only thing that actually matters is identifying flaws in your play and improving upon them. statistically i would be the best player in bronze league but the worst player in grandmaster, and conversely there might be people who have never even played starcraft but would be better than me if they started. who needs these useless direct numerical comparisons other than the most self-serving and insecure gamers? do people really play starcraft just to feel "better than others"?
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland25727 Posts
May 11 2014 00:53 GMT
#40
Unless you're playing purely for the fun, or are focused on tournament prep it's quite nice to know where you're at on a competitive ladder? It's really not that complex an idea, some people place perhaps too much stock into it but that's their problem.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Ben...
Profile Joined January 2011
Canada3485 Posts
May 11 2014 01:50 GMT
#41
On May 11 2014 04:12 ZenithM wrote:
I don't care about leagues, but please remove the goddamn decay.

I think this sums my opinion up nicely. Sometimes I get busy and don't have time to play for a couple weeks. Two weeks off SC2 doesn't equate to losing a whole league of skill. Maybe a few rusty games at most, but that's about it.
"Cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide" -Tastosis
FT.aCt)Sony
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States1047 Posts
May 11 2014 01:56 GMT
#42
Blizzard still actually tries to do something with the leagues?

The system has been flawed since day 1 and there are still numerous changes that they should do especially with Grandmasters and the aspect of "rolling MMR" at the start of each season. Should be a hard reset and then you'll truly see who belongs where.
Blargh
Profile Joined September 2010
United States2103 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 03:51:36
May 11 2014 03:48 GMT
#43
On May 11 2014 09:25 [F_]aths wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 09:09 Blargh wrote:
On May 11 2014 04:14 Superouman wrote:
On May 11 2014 04:02 Blargh wrote:
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?

What if I told you should get some psychology courses?

I have actually taken two, both of which were pretty useless, in my opinion. Just like leagues!

Obviously, people want to have some sort of symbolic representation of their skill, like MASTER LEAGUE, but it really does not make any difference, as the ladder is terrible at appropriately ranking people, except for Grandmaster League in Korea.

Honestly, if people want leagues, instead of just having an accurate rating, then it should be divided evenly (20/20/20/20/20), and possibly further tiered (tier 1 Masters, tier 2 Masters, etc.) as that would make the clearest "milestones" for people.

Even GM in Korea only reflects ladder skills, not tournament skills – which is, what really counts.

20/20/20/20/20 has some downs. Have a look at the bell curve. The middle 20% would be extremely close in skill while the outer 20% would include extreme deviations.

Leages should give a very rough, but still useful classification. And they actually provide that.

While the bell-curve portion is a good point, I think people are more concerned with where they are relative to other people, not so much what "skill range" they are at. Like, I might want to know whether I am in the top 1% of SC2 players, because that sounds impressive. It is the "being better than X% of people" part that is appealing. So, by having equal distributions for each league, it is clearer to the individual that they are better than at least 20/40/etc. % of people. Obviously, the same would apply to weighted distributions like 10/20/40/20/10, except that it wouldn't seem quite as nice, with this really large league in the middle.

Again, I think it'd be better to have even more precise tiers than just the 5.5 leagues (bronze - grandmasters). Or just giving an exact (MEANINGFUL) rating and percentile.
TRaFFiC
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Canada1448 Posts
May 11 2014 04:29 GMT
#44
On May 11 2014 07:22 sAsImre wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 07:00 TRaFFiC wrote:
Because of smurfing, a lot of spots in plat, di, ML are held by people from other servers. Maybe this is their way to counteract this. I think they should just kill the smurfs.


i don't think smurfing is a pbm but the league with the higher percent of alt accounts is definitely gm :p

I wouldn't say that. A lot of the NA gms don't have the time or skill to get gm on EU, especially mid season where there are few spots available and you have to be in the top masters to qualify. The EU gms have no reason to get gm on NA since the skill level is lower. And on KR, there are only a handful of foreigner accounts (though recently maybe a dozen).

Master league on the other hand, relatively easy to achieve and it's a HUGE league in terms of difference in skill. So basically impossible to get to GM. Most people don't even try. They just go on another server and put another account into master.
2v2, 1v1, Zerg, Terran http://www.twitch.tv/trafficsc2
Kiernan
Profile Joined April 2014
101 Posts
May 11 2014 04:50 GMT
#45
I played like 10 Games and I'm back in Plat, was Silver before :x
CutTheEnemy
Profile Joined November 2013
Canada373 Posts
May 11 2014 05:33 GMT
#46
The league system is bad. My roommate wrote a thread about a better way but it mysteriously got banhammered because people trolled it. Good thing this poster wasn't offering constructive solutions.
Can we help spread the word and create pressure to get Rob Pardo to replace Browder as head of Sc2? Pardo led the team for broodwar, frozen throne, and wow/BC. We need to make this a thing before LotV development starts. Think about it.
JacobShock
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Denmark2485 Posts
May 11 2014 06:21 GMT
#47
I know it's "hip" to say leagues don't mean anything and I don't care yada yada, while this is true, I wouldn't mind to be in master league just once.
"Right on" - Morrow
DroopyFR
Profile Joined August 2011
France138 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 06:39:53
May 11 2014 06:33 GMT
#48
On May 11 2014 15:21 JacobShock wrote:
I know it's "hip" to say leagues don't mean anything and I don't care yada yada, while this is true, I wouldn't mind to be in master league just once.

And then, when you'll be stuck in plat/dia the next seasons, you'll mind having been there just once, and complain about being in "lower leagues" while deserving to be in masters? :p

But still, for most people it's actually a good feeling to be placed in good leagues.
Hey, even top koreans streamers - yes, the guys who sometimes win premier events, or come very close to winning one - show pride and happiness when they get in top 16 gm.

Because except if you are indeed a top pro, where tournaments is what's important and not ladder rank, your league completely reflect your actual level. So ye, being placed in master means you're better than if you're in dia. And that feels good.
CycoDude
Profile Joined November 2010
United States326 Posts
May 11 2014 07:24 GMT
#49
they are naive if they think simply changing the league requirements will fix anything. the underlying problem still exists: mmr is no longer an accurate metric for the casual player's skill. it is not something they can fix instantly. it took all these months since the hots release for the leagues to become so screwed, and it will take just as long for them to self-adjust after the proper fixes are applied. they need to adjust the inactive mmr decay, and do away with the conservative league placements at the start of each season.

a revert to the wol system and a hard mmr wipe will fix everything in one season though, but it's a bit heavy-handed.
loginn
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
France815 Posts
May 11 2014 08:28 GMT
#50
Got from gold to diamond on US server in two games, which i found pretty weird.
Stephano, Taking skill to the bank since IPL3. Also Lucifron and FBH
tar
Profile Joined October 2010
Germany991 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 09:45:12
May 11 2014 08:42 GMT
#51
On May 11 2014 17:28 loginn wrote:
Got from gold to diamond on US server in two games, which i found pretty weird.



I started playing Terran-only on my NA account (and that is my worst race by far) after coming back from acouple of months of inactivity and I got from gold to platinum in about 10 games even so I lost most of the games...

There might be a good reason for this to happen but without Blizz explaining what they have changed and why they've done it, this just feels weird.

edit: I know Blizz did post about it on b.net forums (as the op links to that) but couldn't they announce something that affects everyone who plays ladder within the client? also, the amount of information on the matter is rather limited
whoever I pick for my anti team turns gosu
GumBa
Profile Blog Joined July 2012
United Kingdom31935 Posts
May 11 2014 09:10 GMT
#52
I actually enjoy seeing my rank. Me and my two best friends are all in Diamond and its sorta like a fun competitive thing seeing whos higher :D
To all the haters: you deserve to witness many, many more Serral victories, worthy of the godlike player he is.
insitelol
Profile Joined August 2012
845 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 10:20:31
May 11 2014 10:20 GMT
#53
Am i wrong, but both sites show masters are at ~1-2%? Where is the change?
Less is more.
sc2pal
Profile Joined February 2011
Poland624 Posts
May 11 2014 10:39 GMT
#54
On May 11 2014 19:20 insitelol wrote:
Am i wrong, but both sites show masters are at ~1-2%? Where is the change?


in leagues below masters
Incognoto
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
France10239 Posts
May 11 2014 11:12 GMT
#55
top 200
2%
5%
10%
23%
25%
35%

How does that sound? Lol I don't think it matters.
maru lover forever
frajen86
Profile Joined February 2014
168 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 12:20:45
May 11 2014 12:01 GMT
#56
On May 11 2014 09:26 RavingRaver wrote:
I don't assume that nios.kr and SC2 ranks league distributions are the same as Blizzard's target distributions. Statistics sites such as nios.kr and SC2 ranks should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure that the actual distributions are closer to the target distributions than the statistics sites would have you believe. I assume that Blizzard has looked solely at the active player base's league distribution upon making their decision to change the league percentages.

Right, so just to be clear, the target percentages for HotS are (2/18/20/32/20/8) and they have been that way for a while. Blizzard didn't changing those targets.

On May 11 2014 03:49 RavingRaver wrote:
Personally, I find that this is a good change as it's bringing leagues closer to how they were in WoL, which is superior to how it was in HotS for the most part. My question to you is do you feel that this change is warranted as leagues were straying too far from proposed percentages

So this is what I have an issue with. The leagues are not "closer" to WoL... where is the evidence for this.

The "league boundaries" that Psione is talking about in that bnet post relates to league threshold as MMR. Not the actual percentages that make things up.

Just as an example (I'm completely making these numbers up)...
Let's pretend these are the thresholds for leagues at the beginning of league creation.
League - MMR range - (Percentage of active players)
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 700-999 MMR (32%)
Silver - 400-699 MMR (20%)
Bronze - 1-399 MMR (8%)

Over time, there's MMR decay due to players being inactive. So maybe this happens:
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 700-999 MMR (26%) <- gold league inactivity means that their MMR has fallen
Silver - 400-699 MMR (14%) <- silver league inactivity means that their MMR has fallen
Bronze - 1-399 MMR (20%) <- so now the people who are in gold and silver league actually have an MMR that "belongs" in bronze league, due to inactivity.

So to fix this, Blizzard changes the MMR thresholds so that the percentages work again. It changes the thresholds based on the MMR values of the active players in each league.
(again, numbers made up)
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 400-999 MMR (32%) <- the threshold for gold is lower, so some players that used to be in silver end up in gold
Silver - 200-399 MMR (20%) <- the threshold for silver is lower, so some players that used to be in bronze end up in silver
Bronze - 1-199 MMR (8%) <- the active players that are truly at the bottom of MMR end up bronze, as expected

The league distributions percentages end up the same as before, but the MMR threshold is different.

Some percentages of those inactives will still be in Bronze, some in silver, and some in gold, and this is why relying on Nios and SC2ranks for league distribution numbers is really misleading.

Ultimately, the distribution of active players is still HotS and not WoL (where it would be 20/20/20 for gold to bronze).

When I read the original post, it came across as, "The league distributions are changed! This is for the better!"
But for me, this was more of like, the league distributions got adjusted to deal with inactive players. Seeing a promotion is still nice, but the truth is you could have been promoted just because there were more new active players that had a lower MMR than you.

Example:
In the beginning, you have an MMR of 250. Let's say Bronze league was 1-300.
Due to player inactivity, Blizzard changes the MMR range for Bronze league to 1-200. Silver is now 201-400 MMR.
You play 1 game and lose. MMR drops to 240.
But now you're in the silver league range, so you get promoted to silver.

It feels good, but the numbers are just adjusting to fit the active player base.

The real issue is that Blizzard doesn't post all the mechanics of this stuff anywhere AFAIK so we have to sit around semi-guessing about all this stuff lol
Taronar
Profile Joined December 2011
Netherlands177 Posts
May 11 2014 12:21 GMT
#57
Only played 30 games last season. Got Platinum somewhere in the middle. Now I play a placement vs Dia, lose and get rank 40 straight. Can't say I don't like the adjustments but I found it a lil weird :D
SKT1.Rain | SKT1.PartinG | Liquid TaeJa | Startale Life
Faust852
Profile Joined February 2012
Luxembourg4004 Posts
May 11 2014 12:29 GMT
#58
On May 11 2014 13:29 TRaFFiC wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 07:22 sAsImre wrote:
On May 11 2014 07:00 TRaFFiC wrote:
Because of smurfing, a lot of spots in plat, di, ML are held by people from other servers. Maybe this is their way to counteract this. I think they should just kill the smurfs.


i don't think smurfing is a pbm but the league with the higher percent of alt accounts is definitely gm :p

I wouldn't say that. A lot of the NA gms don't have the time or skill to get gm on EU, especially mid season where there are few spots available and you have to be in the top masters to qualify. The EU gms have no reason to get gm on NA since the skill level is lower. And on KR, there are only a handful of foreigner accounts (though recently maybe a dozen).

Master league on the other hand, relatively easy to achieve and it's a HUGE league in terms of difference in skill. So basically impossible to get to GM. Most people don't even try. They just go on another server and put another account into master.



I spotted at least 15 players that were PL into GM this season on EU server. +all the smurf, I guess it leaves less then 130 spots for real gm level players.
Xylocaine
Profile Joined November 2010
France56 Posts
May 11 2014 13:36 GMT
#59
Well leagues in SC2 are a typical example of what happens when you try to compromise and please both pros/serious players and casual crowds at the same time: neither end up liking it...
Salient
Profile Joined August 2011
United States876 Posts
May 11 2014 13:49 GMT
#60
Please just display MMR.

Leagues and seasons are silly. Just show the MMR like a chess Elo rating. There is no need for mysterious ladder rules. Just display MMR and show percentile ranking.
padfoota
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Taiwan1571 Posts
May 11 2014 14:02 GMT
#61
Regardless of league changes its still really the region skill level difference that matters.
Stop procrastinating
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 14:40:50
May 11 2014 14:30 GMT
#62
On May 11 2014 12:48 Blargh wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 09:25 [F_]aths wrote:
On May 11 2014 09:09 Blargh wrote:
On May 11 2014 04:14 Superouman wrote:
On May 11 2014 04:02 Blargh wrote:
What if I told you that leagues do not mean anything?

What if I told you should get some psychology courses?

I have actually taken two, both of which were pretty useless, in my opinion. Just like leagues!

Obviously, people want to have some sort of symbolic representation of their skill, like MASTER LEAGUE, but it really does not make any difference, as the ladder is terrible at appropriately ranking people, except for Grandmaster League in Korea.

Honestly, if people want leagues, instead of just having an accurate rating, then it should be divided evenly (20/20/20/20/20), and possibly further tiered (tier 1 Masters, tier 2 Masters, etc.) as that would make the clearest "milestones" for people.

Even GM in Korea only reflects ladder skills, not tournament skills – which is, what really counts.

20/20/20/20/20 has some downs. Have a look at the bell curve. The middle 20% would be extremely close in skill while the outer 20% would include extreme deviations.

Leages should give a very rough, but still useful classification. And they actually provide that.

While the bell-curve portion is a good point, I think people are more concerned with where they are relative to other people, not so much what "skill range" they are at.
Making league (very rough) skill classes imo makes more sense than comparing oneself to the population. Saying "I am a gold Zerg" carries more meaning this way. ("I am an average Zerg player.")

On May 11 2014 12:48 Blargh wrote:Again, I think it'd be better to have even more precise tiers than just the 5.5 leagues (bronze - grandmasters). Or just giving an exact (MEANINGFUL) rating and percentile.

Exact standing distracts from the actual game. (Are you playing the game or for a place in the ladder? Should players play for a high placement in the ladder, or rather enjoy the game?)
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 14:38:36
May 11 2014 14:33 GMT
#63
On May 11 2014 22:49 Salient wrote:
Please just display MMR.

Leagues and seasons are silly. Just show the MMR like a chess Elo rating. There is no need for mysterious ladder rules. Just display MMR and show percentile ranking.

Please don't show MMR.

Having a somewhat higher MMR than another player does not mean one can beat him consistently, so it is not useful for comparison.

MMR and confidence interval (the second parameter in this Glicko-liked system) are not always reflecting the actual current standing of a player anyway.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
SoniC_eu
Profile Joined April 2011
Denmark1008 Posts
May 11 2014 15:15 GMT
#64
The best would be:
1) Display MMR. And for some reason that isnt known, this is not possible.
2) For everyone stating "oh leagues dont matter, its how much skill you have". Are you skilled enough to know how much skill you have? If you win against what you think is a good player, are you skilled then? It is all relative, because everyone is in a dynamic position going up and down in skill.
So I think knowing which league you are in, gives you an indication of what your skill lvl is AROUND, and that if you get a promotion, you know that your skill is getting better. How the fuck else are we supposed to know if we are improving, in a FACTUAL and logical way.
3) I welcome the old way WoL was in leagues, because having a rdiculous amount of ppl in bronze-gold isnt indicative of how much time and effort is being put into the game. I say this as a diamond player in WoL who had to fight his way through a lotta gold and plats (who play REALLY well, 1000s of games under their belt) and is diamond again in Hots just last season...only to be demoted to plat in the new season. So hell ye I will be the first to admit, I feel nice that my hard work is being rewarded by a shiny diamond badge. Is that so bad, in this ladder ranked system?
In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. http://da.twitch.tv/sonic_eu
[UoN]Sentinel
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
United States11320 Posts
May 11 2014 15:26 GMT
#65
Well luckily this means even with my MMR decay I'm still in gold. Hopefully I can finally make it to plat by the end of the month!
Нас зовет дух отцов, память старых бойцов, дух Москвы и твердыня Полтавы
Fus
Profile Joined August 2010
Sweden1112 Posts
May 11 2014 15:28 GMT
#66
Make master league smaller or split up master into 2 different leagues and i'm happy. To big difference between high and low master.
NaNiwa | Innovation | Flash | DeMuslim ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12237 Posts
May 11 2014 16:38 GMT
#67
On May 11 2014 21:01 frajen86 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 09:26 RavingRaver wrote:
I don't assume that nios.kr and SC2 ranks league distributions are the same as Blizzard's target distributions. Statistics sites such as nios.kr and SC2 ranks should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure that the actual distributions are closer to the target distributions than the statistics sites would have you believe. I assume that Blizzard has looked solely at the active player base's league distribution upon making their decision to change the league percentages.

Right, so just to be clear, the target percentages for HotS are (2/18/20/32/20/8) and they have been that way for a while. Blizzard didn't changing those targets.

Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 03:49 RavingRaver wrote:
Personally, I find that this is a good change as it's bringing leagues closer to how they were in WoL, which is superior to how it was in HotS for the most part. My question to you is do you feel that this change is warranted as leagues were straying too far from proposed percentages

So this is what I have an issue with. The leagues are not "closer" to WoL... where is the evidence for this.

The "league boundaries" that Psione is talking about in that bnet post relates to league threshold as MMR. Not the actual percentages that make things up.

Just as an example (I'm completely making these numbers up)...
Let's pretend these are the thresholds for leagues at the beginning of league creation.
League - MMR range - (Percentage of active players)
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 700-999 MMR (32%)
Silver - 400-699 MMR (20%)
Bronze - 1-399 MMR (8%)

Over time, there's MMR decay due to players being inactive. So maybe this happens:
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 700-999 MMR (26%) <- gold league inactivity means that their MMR has fallen
Silver - 400-699 MMR (14%) <- silver league inactivity means that their MMR has fallen
Bronze - 1-399 MMR (20%) <- so now the people who are in gold and silver league actually have an MMR that "belongs" in bronze league, due to inactivity.

So to fix this, Blizzard changes the MMR thresholds so that the percentages work again. It changes the thresholds based on the MMR values of the active players in each league.
(again, numbers made up)
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 400-999 MMR (32%) <- the threshold for gold is lower, so some players that used to be in silver end up in gold
Silver - 200-399 MMR (20%) <- the threshold for silver is lower, so some players that used to be in bronze end up in silver
Bronze - 1-199 MMR (8%) <- the active players that are truly at the bottom of MMR end up bronze, as expected

The league distributions percentages end up the same as before, but the MMR threshold is different.

Some percentages of those inactives will still be in Bronze, some in silver, and some in gold, and this is why relying on Nios and SC2ranks for league distribution numbers is really misleading.

Ultimately, the distribution of active players is still HotS and not WoL (where it would be 20/20/20 for gold to bronze).

When I read the original post, it came across as, "The league distributions are changed! This is for the better!"
But for me, this was more of like, the league distributions got adjusted to deal with inactive players. Seeing a promotion is still nice, but the truth is you could have been promoted just because there were more new active players that had a lower MMR than you.

Example:
In the beginning, you have an MMR of 250. Let's say Bronze league was 1-300.
Due to player inactivity, Blizzard changes the MMR range for Bronze league to 1-200. Silver is now 201-400 MMR.
You play 1 game and lose. MMR drops to 240.
But now you're in the silver league range, so you get promoted to silver.

It feels good, but the numbers are just adjusting to fit the active player base.

The real issue is that Blizzard doesn't post all the mechanics of this stuff anywhere AFAIK so we have to sit around semi-guessing about all this stuff lol


Just to add to this a bit, when the adjustment happened a few months ago, Diamond ended up wider (up about 100 I believe, to 450). Now with this most recent adjustment, both Diamond and Platinum were probably widened (we'll have to see what the latest MMR-Stats parse says). Gold, Silver, and Bronze were almost certainly narrowed for a second time, and if these sort of adjustments become regular, those leagues may shrink even more. That could potentially create a new problem. Not to hyperbolize too much, but what constitutes a "Gold player" or "Silver player" could become even muddier over time.

Back in Wings of Liberty, leagues were subdivided into division tiers, which you could think of as mini-leagues. The idea behind these tiers was to group similarly-skilled players together. Diamond covered an MMR range of about 450 back then too, but it consisted of 7 tiers roughly 63 rating in size. The reason division tiers were removed is because their estimates about player skill were too conservative, meaning the buckets were too narrow (if you deviated +/- 100 from your initial-placement MMR you could find it too easy -- or worse, too difficult -- to get any points). It would be really bad if Bronze, Silver, and Gold were to shrink that far a year or two down the line, reintroducing a previously-solved problem because of the deflation caused by MMR decay. The issue on the other side was that Diamond became an ocean, with skill ranges so wide that players felt they needed to create arbitrary "high/mid/low" Diamond markers, and that's another pitfall Blizzard needs to sidestep. The elegant thing about the Heart of the Swarm ladder distribution is that while it looks more like a bell curve in terms of percentages, the rating ranges for each league were actually pretty uniform. Now it seems like we could be straying away from that uniformity, and not in a good way.
Moderator
RavingRaver
Profile Joined May 2014
Canada57 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-11 17:09:57
May 11 2014 17:08 GMT
#68
On May 11 2014 21:01 frajen86 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 09:26 RavingRaver wrote:
I don't assume that nios.kr and SC2 ranks league distributions are the same as Blizzard's target distributions. Statistics sites such as nios.kr and SC2 ranks should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure that the actual distributions are closer to the target distributions than the statistics sites would have you believe. I assume that Blizzard has looked solely at the active player base's league distribution upon making their decision to change the league percentages.

Right, so just to be clear, the target percentages for HotS are (2/18/20/32/20/8) and they have been that way for a while. Blizzard didn't changing those targets.

Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 03:49 RavingRaver wrote:
Personally, I find that this is a good change as it's bringing leagues closer to how they were in WoL, which is superior to how it was in HotS for the most part. My question to you is do you feel that this change is warranted as leagues were straying too far from proposed percentages

So this is what I have an issue with. The leagues are not "closer" to WoL... where is the evidence for this.

The "league boundaries" that Psione is talking about in that bnet post relates to league threshold as MMR. Not the actual percentages that make things up.

Just as an example (I'm completely making these numbers up)...
Let's pretend these are the thresholds for leagues at the beginning of league creation.
League - MMR range - (Percentage of active players)
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 700-999 MMR (32%)
Silver - 400-699 MMR (20%)
Bronze - 1-399 MMR (8%)

Over time, there's MMR decay due to players being inactive. So maybe this happens:
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 700-999 MMR (26%) <- gold league inactivity means that their MMR has fallen
Silver - 400-699 MMR (14%) <- silver league inactivity means that their MMR has fallen
Bronze - 1-399 MMR (20%) <- so now the people who are in gold and silver league actually have an MMR that "belongs" in bronze league, due to inactivity.

So to fix this, Blizzard changes the MMR thresholds so that the percentages work again. It changes the thresholds based on the MMR values of the active players in each league.
(again, numbers made up)
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 400-999 MMR (32%) <- the threshold for gold is lower, so some players that used to be in silver end up in gold
Silver - 200-399 MMR (20%) <- the threshold for silver is lower, so some players that used to be in bronze end up in silver
Bronze - 1-199 MMR (8%) <- the active players that are truly at the bottom of MMR end up bronze, as expected

The league distributions percentages end up the same as before, but the MMR threshold is different.

Some percentages of those inactives will still be in Bronze, some in silver, and some in gold, and this is why relying on Nios and SC2ranks for league distribution numbers is really misleading.

Ultimately, the distribution of active players is still HotS and not WoL (where it would be 20/20/20 for gold to bronze).

When I read the original post, it came across as, "The league distributions are changed! This is for the better!"
But for me, this was more of like, the league distributions got adjusted to deal with inactive players. Seeing a promotion is still nice, but the truth is you could have been promoted just because there were more new active players that had a lower MMR than you.

Example:
In the beginning, you have an MMR of 250. Let's say Bronze league was 1-300.
Due to player inactivity, Blizzard changes the MMR range for Bronze league to 1-200. Silver is now 201-400 MMR.
You play 1 game and lose. MMR drops to 240.
But now you're in the silver league range, so you get promoted to silver.

It feels good, but the numbers are just adjusting to fit the active player base.

The real issue is that Blizzard doesn't post all the mechanics of this stuff anywhere AFAIK so we have to sit around semi-guessing about all this stuff lol


If Blizzard made these changes to deal with inactive players then I am fine with that too. Whatever the reason, I'm sure Blizzard knows something we don't know to warrant these changes in the league distribution.

On May 12 2014 01:38 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 21:01 frajen86 wrote:
On May 11 2014 09:26 RavingRaver wrote:
I don't assume that nios.kr and SC2 ranks league distributions are the same as Blizzard's target distributions. Statistics sites such as nios.kr and SC2 ranks should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure that the actual distributions are closer to the target distributions than the statistics sites would have you believe. I assume that Blizzard has looked solely at the active player base's league distribution upon making their decision to change the league percentages.

Right, so just to be clear, the target percentages for HotS are (2/18/20/32/20/8) and they have been that way for a while. Blizzard didn't changing those targets.

On May 11 2014 03:49 RavingRaver wrote:
Personally, I find that this is a good change as it's bringing leagues closer to how they were in WoL, which is superior to how it was in HotS for the most part. My question to you is do you feel that this change is warranted as leagues were straying too far from proposed percentages

So this is what I have an issue with. The leagues are not "closer" to WoL... where is the evidence for this.

The "league boundaries" that Psione is talking about in that bnet post relates to league threshold as MMR. Not the actual percentages that make things up.

Just as an example (I'm completely making these numbers up)...
Let's pretend these are the thresholds for leagues at the beginning of league creation.
League - MMR range - (Percentage of active players)
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 700-999 MMR (32%)
Silver - 400-699 MMR (20%)
Bronze - 1-399 MMR (8%)

Over time, there's MMR decay due to players being inactive. So maybe this happens:
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 700-999 MMR (26%) <- gold league inactivity means that their MMR has fallen
Silver - 400-699 MMR (14%) <- silver league inactivity means that their MMR has fallen
Bronze - 1-399 MMR (20%) <- so now the people who are in gold and silver league actually have an MMR that "belongs" in bronze league, due to inactivity.

So to fix this, Blizzard changes the MMR thresholds so that the percentages work again. It changes the thresholds based on the MMR values of the active players in each league.
(again, numbers made up)
Masters - 1500-1800 MMR (2%)
Diamond - 1200-1499 MMR (18%)
Platinum - 1000-1199 MMR (20%)
Gold - 400-999 MMR (32%) <- the threshold for gold is lower, so some players that used to be in silver end up in gold
Silver - 200-399 MMR (20%) <- the threshold for silver is lower, so some players that used to be in bronze end up in silver
Bronze - 1-199 MMR (8%) <- the active players that are truly at the bottom of MMR end up bronze, as expected

The league distributions percentages end up the same as before, but the MMR threshold is different.

Some percentages of those inactives will still be in Bronze, some in silver, and some in gold, and this is why relying on Nios and SC2ranks for league distribution numbers is really misleading.

Ultimately, the distribution of active players is still HotS and not WoL (where it would be 20/20/20 for gold to bronze).

When I read the original post, it came across as, "The league distributions are changed! This is for the better!"
But for me, this was more of like, the league distributions got adjusted to deal with inactive players. Seeing a promotion is still nice, but the truth is you could have been promoted just because there were more new active players that had a lower MMR than you.

Example:
In the beginning, you have an MMR of 250. Let's say Bronze league was 1-300.
Due to player inactivity, Blizzard changes the MMR range for Bronze league to 1-200. Silver is now 201-400 MMR.
You play 1 game and lose. MMR drops to 240.
But now you're in the silver league range, so you get promoted to silver.

It feels good, but the numbers are just adjusting to fit the active player base.

The real issue is that Blizzard doesn't post all the mechanics of this stuff anywhere AFAIK so we have to sit around semi-guessing about all this stuff lol


Just to add to this a bit, when the adjustment happened a few months ago, Diamond ended up wider (up about 100 I believe, to 450). Now with this most recent adjustment, both Diamond and Platinum were probably widened (we'll have to see what the latest MMR-Stats parse says). Gold, Silver, and Bronze were almost certainly narrowed for a second time, and if these sort of adjustments become regular, those leagues may shrink even more. That could potentially create a new problem. Not to hyperbolize too much, but what constitutes a "Gold player" or "Silver player" could become even muddier over time.

Back in Wings of Liberty, leagues were subdivided into division tiers, which you could think of as mini-leagues. The idea behind these tiers was to group similarly-skilled players together. Diamond covered an MMR range of about 450 back then too, but it consisted of 7 tiers roughly 63 rating in size. The reason division tiers were removed is because their estimates about player skill were too conservative, meaning the buckets were too narrow (if you deviated +/- 100 from your initial-placement MMR you could find it too easy -- or worse, too difficult -- to get any points). It would be really bad if Bronze, Silver, and Gold were to shrink that far a year or two down the line, reintroducing a previously-solved problem because of the deflation caused by MMR decay. The issue on the other side was that Diamond became an ocean, with skill ranges so wide that players felt they needed to create arbitrary "high/mid/low" Diamond markers, and that's another pitfall Blizzard needs to sidestep. The elegant thing about the Heart of the Swarm ladder distribution is that while it looks more like a bell curve in terms of percentages, the rating ranges for each league were actually pretty uniform. Now it seems like we could be straying away from that uniformity, and not in a good way.


Thanks for this analysis. It explains a lot that is not well known about how league distribution has changed from WoL to HotS.
SAlechko
Profile Joined October 2012
Israel15 Posts
May 11 2014 18:10 GMT
#69
How significant is decay, anyway? I'm in gold, and played 10 games in total over the last three months. Won them all, no platinum in sight.
[F_]aths
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
Germany3947 Posts
May 11 2014 21:20 GMT
#70
On May 12 2014 03:10 SAlechko wrote:
How significant is decay, anyway? I'm in gold, and played 10 games in total over the last three months. Won them all, no platinum in sight.

Confidence interval. It widens when you don't play frequently. Before you get a promotion, you not only need the proper MMR, but also a small enough confidence interval.
You don't choose to play zerg. The zerg choose you.
RavingRaver
Profile Joined May 2014
Canada57 Posts
May 12 2014 03:41 GMT
#71
On May 12 2014 03:10 SAlechko wrote:
How significant is decay, anyway? I'm in gold, and played 10 games in total over the last three months. Won them all, no platinum in sight.


I've heard that MMR decay starts to kick in after playing less than 1 game every two weeks if I'm not mistaken.
Shellshock
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States97276 Posts
May 12 2014 04:00 GMT
#72
Did they adjust it for 1v1s only or team leagues as well?
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SAlechko
Profile Joined October 2012
Israel15 Posts
May 12 2014 04:20 GMT
#73
So it's decay and confidence interval?
RavingRaver
Profile Joined May 2014
Canada57 Posts
May 13 2014 03:55 GMT
#74
On May 12 2014 13:00 Shellshock wrote:
Did they adjust it for 1v1s only or team leagues as well?


I believe they adjusted it for 1v1s and team leagues from what I've been hearing through word of mouth, but I've heard no official statement on this.
Yorkie
Profile Blog Joined December 2012
United States12612 Posts
May 13 2014 05:08 GMT
#75
On May 12 2014 13:00 Shellshock wrote:
Did they adjust it for 1v1s only or team leagues as well?

Won't matter, you and Darkhorse will still be in Bronze
Hwang Kang Hooooooooooo. Follow mah boy Shellshock @Shellshock1122
RavingRaver
Profile Joined May 2014
Canada57 Posts
May 14 2014 00:32 GMT
#76
On May 12 2014 13:20 SAlechko wrote:
So it's decay and confidence interval?


Decay and confidence interval are often intertwined as confidence interval increases as decay increases. In other words, if you want a promotion it's best to not let MMR decay occur hence play at least one game every two weeks if I'm not mistaken.
FFW_Rude
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
France10201 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-05-14 10:42:48
May 14 2014 10:34 GMT
#77
On May 11 2014 04:27 aZealot wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 11 2014 04:08 banjoetheredskin wrote:
league doesn't matter, I'm shit either way


I tried to tell a friend this, that almost all of us are just bad at this game, and it annoyed him. He is a bronze player who sometimes gets matched with silvers and he felt like I was putting down his play. Different people see this in different ways.


Maybe because bronze players are ALWAYS reminded that they are indeed not worthy of playing the game. Just look around.
I didn't play much and when i hit bronze (thx decay), everytime i was having a discussion on the game i got the : "You don't know what you are talking about you're bronze). (Of course it's even worse when the bronze kill the diamond player because you got to be a lucky bronze)

All my bronze friends are really sensitive about their league because they don't want to be bullied everytime they play a game.

Didn't play a lot at the end of the other season. Was ranked Gold with 68% WR at the end (i think). Played my placement match last week-end. I'm still Gold

I don't care about leagues mostly (unless i'm 80%WR for 2week and don't get promoted) but i understand why it's important to people to get promoted. It's a sense of achievement. A player that is promoted is likely to play again/more than a player that can be promoted at all.

That's not true for every people. I see a lot of people saying they don't care about league and that it's meaningless but a lot of time, those people say there league proudly.

The only downside with the league adjustement is that you need to be more carefull while recruting players in teams (i mean amateur teams).

I wouldn't mind to have more things on leagues though. Like stats on how many bronze/silver/diamond/Master player you faced. How many did you beat. What league where you when it happened etc...

Showing MMR is a not great idea since it's pretty hard to understand how it works and that would just be random numbers on your profile.
#1 KT Rolster fanboy. KT BEST KT ! Hail to KT playoffs Zergs ! Unofficial french translator for SlayerS_`Boxer` biography "Crazy as me".
StatixEx
Profile Blog Joined August 2011
United Kingdom779 Posts
May 17 2014 08:36 GMT
#78
i understand the idea of wanting to see some improvement but you are what you are!

If you were GM ud barely lose untill u start seeing that GM colour next to your opponents, ir all intent and purpose . . ur gm. if im playing plat with the occasional dias . . .im plat! Its all about just playing the game against someone who is about as good as you and i think sc2 is possibly the best game ever to have this balance truly right. In my clan i dont beat the high dias, i dont ever beat the master players but im 50/50 against the plats . . so . . . yeah
THC Zerg
Profile Joined December 2012
United States1 Post
May 18 2014 18:28 GMT
#79
To be quiet honest. I think these adjustments were long over due. I mean I have been anywhere from gold-plat level ever since i have played and finally i feel like im almost diamond material.
Thy soul shall find itself alone 'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone
KOtical
Profile Joined January 2011
Germany451 Posts
May 19 2014 09:42 GMT
#80
i really dont care, coz i dont play anymore... im just looking some pro games but i dont feel any need for playin... as a terran player i cant find any motivation to play...i stopped playin around 3-4 months ago so i dont know if any of the balance state changed... last time i played it was kinda aweful...
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