• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 06:18
CET 12:18
KST 20:18
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
HomeStory Cup 28 - Info & Preview11Rongyi Cup S3 - Preview & Info3herO wins SC2 All-Star Invitational14SC2 All-Star Invitational: Tournament Preview5RSL Revival - 2025 Season Finals Preview8
Community News
Weekly Cups (Jan 19-25): Bunny, Trigger, MaxPax win3Weekly Cups (Jan 12-18): herO, MaxPax, Solar win0BSL Season 2025 - Full Overview and Conclusion8Weekly Cups (Jan 5-11): Clem wins big offline, Trigger upsets4$21,000 Rongyi Cup Season 3 announced (Jan 22-Feb 7)38
StarCraft 2
General
HomeStory Cup 28 - Info & Preview StarCraft 2 Not at the Esports World Cup 2026 Weekly Cups (Jan 19-25): Bunny, Trigger, MaxPax win Oliveira Would Have Returned If EWC Continued herO wins SC2 All-Star Invitational
Tourneys
HomeStory Cup 28 KSL Week 85 $21,000 Rongyi Cup Season 3 announced (Jan 22-Feb 7) OSC Season 13 World Championship $70 Prize Pool Ladder Legends Academy Weekly Open!
Strategy
Simple Questions Simple Answers
Custom Maps
[A] Starcraft Sound Mod
External Content
Mutation # 510 Safety Violation Mutation # 509 Doomsday Report Mutation # 508 Violent Night Mutation # 507 Well Trained
Brood War
General
BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Can someone share very abbreviated BW cliffnotes? BW General Discussion [ASL21] Potential Map Candidates Bleak Future After Failed ProGaming Career
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues Small VOD Thread 2.0 Azhi's Colosseum - Season 2 [BSL21] Non-Korean Championship - Starts Jan 10
Strategy
Zealot bombing is no longer popular? Simple Questions, Simple Answers Current Meta Soma's 9 hatch build from ASL Game 2
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Battle Aces/David Kim RTS Megathread Path of Exile Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Beyond All Reason
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine
Fan Clubs
The herO Fan Club! The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Let's Get Creative–Video Gam…
TrAiDoS
My 2025 Magic: The Gathering…
DARKING
Life Update and thoughts.
FuDDx
How do archons sleep?
8882
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1455 users

Ladder League Distribution Update - March 5 - Page 5

Forum Index > SC2 General
124 CommentsPost a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next All
Mintograde
Profile Joined August 2010
United States25 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-03-08 23:21:06
March 08 2015 23:19 GMT
#81
On March 09 2015 08:04 ZackAttack wrote:
Very interesting. It seems like either blizzard has really not done anything or this year is a very different problem from last year.

Like others have noted, it could be similar to the January update, where the actual ladder changes didn't happen until a couple days after the "we've changed things" announcement.
korona
Profile Joined October 2009
1098 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-03-08 23:33:48
March 08 2015 23:28 GMT
#82
On March 09 2015 07:45 Mintograde wrote:
I made another spreadsheet with graphs to keep track of nios.kr data during this distribution update.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D_CmpXo3EE-hlvt8rX-CrTY2VZlaOU0ppAPYlkbk8tY/edit#gid=353171556

In both the January and May 2014 updates, there was a sharp and sustained shift in the nios percents when Blizzard finally flipped the switch on the changes. That same shift doesn't seem to have happened yet with this update.

Indeed there has not been any trend changes since the supposed update in nios.kr data. If I have time in the coming week I can provide you nios.kr data since January 22nd for you to complete your graph (thought the logger has not been continuously on and there are some gaps here and there). Will be a busy week though so no promises. And if Blizzard does more noticeable changes before that, then there will not be need.

One interesting possibility regarding the offset/threshold changes is what if they actually increased the offset/threshold values for many leagues (not decreased like everyone expected). And as there are no mid-season demotions the changes are not visible in nios.kr data. This speculation is based on this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=23869343


Edit: I presume you would like them with EST time stamps (GMT -0500)?
King David
Profile Joined April 2014
South Africa28 Posts
March 09 2015 14:04 GMT
#83
This came too late for me, omfg. I played like a beast #1 Diamond with a good win/lose ratio but then I had to go back to studying. Thnx for another coincidence blizzard...
"Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.Give a man 5 beers an..."
DinoMight
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States3725 Posts
March 09 2015 14:25 GMT
#84
Been playing this game for 5 years and BW before it. Stopped playing for 3 months and went from playing Masters in Diamond to ~Gold.

#Blizzard logic.

The fun part is I get to grind MMR streaming Random race now

"Wtf I come back and find myself in camp DinoMight all of a sudden, feels weird man." -Wombat_NI
TheBloodyDwarf
Profile Blog Joined March 2012
Finland7524 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-03-09 19:42:26
March 09 2015 19:39 GMT
#85
HEY!?!?

I got promoted! ITS WORKING :O IM DIAMOND NOW

After 74 wins in row im finaly dia (38-0 this season)
Fusilero: "I still can't believe he did that, like dude what the fuck there's fandom and then there's what he did like holy shit. I still see it when I close my eyes." <- reaction to the original drunk santa post which later caught on
Elentos
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
55566 Posts
March 09 2015 19:46 GMT
#86
On March 10 2015 04:39 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:
HEY!?!?

I got promoted! ITS WORKING :O IM DIAMOND NOW

After 74 wins in row im finaly dia (38-0 this season)

That's just luck, you'll start next season in Gold League. That's where we all belong!
Every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes.
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12240 Posts
March 09 2015 23:58 GMT
#87
So apparently the early data shows that the players who are playing post-adjustment are showing up in their expected leagues. I think frajen's post on viewing the distribution through the activity filter is probably pretty close. What's I think most disheartening to all the Diamond hopefuls out there is that it's pretty late in the season. So, if you were to take a look at who the active post-adjustment players are right now, the distribution is probably pretty accurate. That's not going to be reflected on Nios until day 1 of next season. Prediction: all those same Diamond players are going to be pissed when they're still in Diamond next season.
Moderator
Fission
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada1184 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-03-10 00:06:32
March 10 2015 00:06 GMT
#88
On March 10 2015 08:58 Excalibur_Z wrote:
So apparently the early data shows that the players who are playing post-adjustment are showing up in their expected leagues. I think frajen's post on viewing the distribution through the activity filter is probably pretty close. What's I think most disheartening to all the Diamond hopefuls out there is that it's pretty late in the season. So, if you were to take a look at who the active post-adjustment players are right now, the distribution is probably pretty accurate. That's not going to be reflected on Nios until day 1 of next season. Prediction: all those same Diamond players are going to be pissed when they're still in Diamond next season.


I'm confused - so you're saying masters is supposed to be 0.86%? I am currently in masters so I really don't care (for myself), but my friends are working their asses off for the promo and are at the top of diamond league, without promos. What gives?
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12240 Posts
March 10 2015 01:21 GMT
#89
Short answer yes*, long answer read frajen's post: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/459913-ranked-ladder-activity-analysis?page=2#34

Obviously it's not supposed to be 0.86%, but that's because it's not 0.86%. What Nios sees and what Blizzard sees are completely different, and because Blizzard defines the boundaries that's what matters. Therefore, you need to have the capability to look at it through their lens, and that's what frajen's post aspires to do. Here's the difference:

Nios: "Here are all the accounts in each league."
Players: "But that's way off from what it's supposed to be, this isn't right at all!"
Blizzard: "Here are all the players in each league who are actively playing the game (have less than X bonus pool)."

If Blizzard sees Master at 2%, then that's what it is. We can say it's wrong all we want, but we're doing so with incomplete information and it's important to keep that in perspective.
Moderator
Fission
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Canada1184 Posts
March 10 2015 02:45 GMT
#90
On March 10 2015 10:21 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Short answer yes*, long answer read frajen's post: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/459913-ranked-ladder-activity-analysis?page=2#34

Obviously it's not supposed to be 0.86%, but that's because it's not 0.86%. What Nios sees and what Blizzard sees are completely different, and because Blizzard defines the boundaries that's what matters. Therefore, you need to have the capability to look at it through their lens, and that's what frajen's post aspires to do. Here's the difference:

Nios: "Here are all the accounts in each league."
Players: "But that's way off from what it's supposed to be, this isn't right at all!"
Blizzard: "Here are all the players in each league who are actively playing the game (have less than X bonus pool)."

If Blizzard sees Master at 2%, then that's what it is. We can say it's wrong all we want, but we're doing so with incomplete information and it's important to keep that in perspective.

Thank you for the explanation.
KeksX
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
Germany3634 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-03-10 07:12:45
March 10 2015 05:29 GMT
#91
That all makes a lot more sense now. I think Blizzard didn't do an optimal job of communicating it that way, though.

Otherwise, it also says a lot about the actual state of the ladder.
Defenestrator
Profile Joined October 2011
400 Posts
March 10 2015 07:23 GMT
#92
On March 10 2015 10:21 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Short answer yes*, long answer read frajen's post: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/459913-ranked-ladder-activity-analysis?page=2#34

Obviously it's not supposed to be 0.86%, but that's because it's not 0.86%. What Nios sees and what Blizzard sees are completely different, and because Blizzard defines the boundaries that's what matters. Therefore, you need to have the capability to look at it through their lens, and that's what frajen's post aspires to do. Here's the difference:

Nios: "Here are all the accounts in each league."
Players: "But that's way off from what it's supposed to be, this isn't right at all!"
Blizzard: "Here are all the players in each league who are actively playing the game (have less than X bonus pool)."

If Blizzard sees Master at 2%, then that's what it is. We can say it's wrong all we want, but we're doing so with incomplete information and it's important to keep that in perspective.


As others have said, they've just done a terrible, terrible job of explaining... anything.

If percentages ARE on target, then they should have simply said so, giving at least some indication as to why they think so. Still even in the data presented, this does not seem to be the case. Instead they have led us to believe in their posts that targets are indeed off and the ladder distribution itself is in need of adjustment.

In addition, initial matchmaking for new players looks to have not been fixed, which they also said would be fixed in this patch (and which is perhaps even a larger issue than the distributions).
Ultras and banelings go together like peas and carrots
[PkF] Wire
Profile Joined March 2013
France24238 Posts
March 10 2015 12:12 GMT
#93
That "active players" thing is bullshit, or they explained their modifications so bad it hurts my soul. "The modifications are live and everything is going as expected" ? Why did they acknowledge the need of some kind of change to the league boundaries if those changes do nothing ? It makes absolutely zero sense, a change that does nothing is not a needed change and they wouldn't have rushed to implement it in the current season. So it's just not working, and they're trying to buy time with answers devoid of meaning, which they always do.
DinoMight
Profile Blog Joined June 2012
United States3725 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-03-10 14:50:33
March 10 2015 14:49 GMT
#94
Well, the problem is that if your MMR dropped due to decay, they're not going to re-increase it for you.

So I'd been near top of Diamond for a while. Even made it to Masters once. Didn't play for 2 months and got put into Gold. Changing the range limits and whatever isn't going to get me back to Diamond. Because MMR DECAY has already taken place.

I think the system is now ready for you to get back into whatever league you belong in, but keep in mind there are still a lot of guys like me in Gold/Plat who've been playing for 5 years, took a couple of months off, and got demoted 1-2 ranks.

So our MMR is Gold and we're fighting each other in Gold. The system has no way of telling that we should both be Diamond.
"Wtf I come back and find myself in camp DinoMight all of a sudden, feels weird man." -Wombat_NI
korona
Profile Joined October 2009
1098 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-03-10 17:28:42
March 10 2015 17:19 GMT
#95
On March 09 2015 07:45 Mintograde wrote:
I made another spreadsheet with graphs to keep track of nios.kr data during this distribution update.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D_CmpXo3EE-hlvt8rX-CrTY2VZlaOU0ppAPYlkbk8tY/edit#gid=353171556

In both the January and May 2014 updates, there was a sharp and sustained shift in the nios percents when Blizzard finally flipped the switch on the changes. That same shift doesn't seem to have happened yet with this update.

On March 09 2015 08:28 korona wrote:
Indeed there has not been any trend changes since the supposed update in nios.kr data. If I have time in the coming week I can provide you nios.kr data since January 22nd for you to complete your graph (thought the logger has not been continuously on and there are some gaps here and there). Will be a busy week though so no promises. And if Blizzard does more noticeable changes before that, then there will not be need.

One interesting possibility regarding the offset/threshold changes is what if they actually increased the offset/threshold values for many leagues (not decreased like everyone expected). And as there are no mid-season demotions the changes are not visible in nios.kr data. This speculation is based on this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=23869343


Edit: I presume you would like them with EST time stamps (GMT -0500)?

Here are nios.kr stats for NA server since January 22nd: http://www.mediafire.com/download/e3vaic64a2w9awr/2015-03-10_nios_kr_data_americas.zip

I formatted them into same format as in Mintograde's sheet (tab separates each column). Some data is missing such as race percentages and people in other servers (have the numbers for other servers in separate files but did not bother to combine). This data also includes the raw numbers of players in each league that are missing from Mintograde's data. As there seems to have been daylight saving time change in Mintograde's sheet from EST to EDT I added that there as well.


Observations:
Now there are visible trend changes since Blizzard made the change. 1) Relative size of bronze has started increasing, 2) Relative size of gold has started to decrease very slowly.
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12240 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-03-10 17:36:44
March 10 2015 17:33 GMT
#96
On March 10 2015 21:12 [PkF] Wire wrote:
That "active players" thing is bullshit, or they explained their modifications so bad it hurts my soul. "The modifications are live and everything is going as expected" ? Why did they acknowledge the need of some kind of change to the league boundaries if those changes do nothing ? It makes absolutely zero sense, a change that does nothing is not a needed change and they wouldn't have rushed to implement it in the current season. So it's just not working, and they're trying to buy time with answers devoid of meaning, which they always do.


That's part of the risk with doing it so late in the season I think. I spoke to Psione yesterday trying to wrap my head around it. He said that it's very important that everyone plays normally so they get the most accurate data possible, and that it was a change that will only apply moving forward. He's not a dev so there's always the possibility of "dev translation" issues, but what this means to me is that they're probably looking at two separate population parses: pre- and post-update. If the pre-update league boundaries were messed up and needed to be fixed, and now the post-update boundaries are showing 2%/18%/20%/32%/20%/8% then they're not going to see any problems because hey, those numbers look correct now. The post-update population parses are also necessarily ongoing. However, that means that all the people looking at nios.kr for movement shifts may not even see anything.

In order to see what Blizzard is currently looking at, we would probably have to apply some filter where we only look at accounts that have played a game within the past 5 days, after the push happened. That would mean we would see relatively few data points (like, I dunno, 200 master players, 1800 diamond players, 2000 plat players, 3200 gold players, etc.) but that would be enough to draw a crude chart which would gradually get smoother as more players logged in to play games. I actually don't see an ability to do that on Nios' site (I know SC2Ranks used to have custom filtering but I think since he switched over to copying Nios' method he may have lost that).

And right as I say that, korona posts exactly that parse. Awesome. (E: Guess not, this looks like a total players parse again, but done from end of Jan+).
Moderator
korona
Profile Joined October 2009
1098 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-03-10 18:00:45
March 10 2015 17:55 GMT
#97
On March 11 2015 02:33 Excalibur_Z wrote:
And right as I say that, korona posts exactly that parse. Awesome. (E: Guess not, this looks like a total players parse again, but done from end of Jan+).

Indeed. I just added missing data for Mintograde. Have been logging the total numbers to recognize if there are potential unannounced offset threshold changes during the seasons (for larger changes the trend changes are quickly visible in nios data). I don't have such data as frajen86 to make activity filter analysis

But there are now those two trend changes (relative size of bronze has started to increase, relative size of gold has turned from increasing to slightly decreasing)
stevethemacguy
Profile Joined September 2008
United States137 Posts
March 10 2015 20:50 GMT
#98
I was recently promoted to Platinum, but I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the change. I was #1 gold most of the season and was expecting a promotion soon.
"What we do in life, echoes in eternity" -maximus decimus meridius
Mintograde
Profile Joined August 2010
United States25 Posts
March 11 2015 00:52 GMT
#99
Thanks korona, I added your data to the spreadsheet.
Excalibur_Z
Profile Joined October 2002
United States12240 Posts
March 13 2015 22:05 GMT
#100
Crossposted from Bnet forums: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/16646674622

I've been saying since the ladder adjustment that it is important to consider the update a "clean slate" in terms of forward development. That is, they made the adjustment to the league boundaries, and now they're looking at the data to see who is playing the game from which league. A major flaw with using the "all accounts" parse from Nios is that it included pre-update data which is no longer relevant. If some Master player last played a game 51 days ago then we don't need to track him.

I ran a parse today through all tracked Nios.kr accounts and broke out only the accounts which had games played from 9 days ago or less (March 5 being 8 days ago but in the event time zones or date rounding played a role I expanded the coverage to 9 days). This is what it looks like:

NA Server	All	All %	3/5/2015+	3/5/2015+%
GM 198 0.22% 198 0.51%
Master 796 0.86% 440 1.14%
Diamond 7601 8.26% 4414 11.39%
Plat 12165 13.22% 6252 16.13%
Gold 35642 38.72% 16133 41.63%
Silver 27588 29.97% 8478 21.88%
Bronze 8049 8.75% 2834 7.31%
Total 92039 38749


And here's the spreadsheet (man did it take a lot of work to whittle down the raw data to less than 2,000,000 cells, which is the limit for Google Sheets):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UzFJbOj5aE6ljRsWJ251t41tzaJrmM1q0kCR_FGCzaQ/edit?usp=sharing

Now, we already know that Nios doesn't track every account in existence, there are some holes here and there, but for the most part this is probably a decent parse. What we see here is that Master, Diamond, and Platinum are probably still a little underpopulated after the adjustment, some of the bloat from Silver transferred into Gold, and Bronze seems to have freed up a bit.

EDIT: Minor caveat, we don't know if the "x bonus weeks behind" activity filter also applies, which would change the distribution a little bit. I sent a PM to frajen86 asking for him to duplicate my parse with his own scraper (both to verify my findings and to apply that filter) since Nios doesn't include bonus pool information.
Moderator
Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 42m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
BRAT_OK 160
ProTech84
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 4499
Sea 4273
Rain 1994
Horang2 1207
Shuttle 1019
Hyuk 840
Bisu 713
Larva 639
BeSt 447
firebathero 386
[ Show more ]
actioN 259
EffOrt 252
Mini 244
Stork 242
Soma 231
Zeus 191
Last 190
ggaemo 140
yabsab 138
Dewaltoss 130
Sharp 107
Pusan 106
PianO 103
Hyun 95
hero 56
NaDa 52
ToSsGirL 44
Shinee 31
Killer 30
Hm[arnc] 27
910 26
Barracks 26
Backho 21
soO 17
Noble 17
Free 15
GoRush 12
SilentControl 12
sorry 11
zelot 8
Sacsri 8
Dota 2
XcaliburYe371
Fuzer 195
NeuroSwarm116
Counter-Strike
zeus1387
allub353
edward119
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King142
Westballz37
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor225
Other Games
B2W.Neo1024
singsing826
mouzStarbuck232
Organizations
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 17 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH236
• StrangeGG 65
• Adnapsc2 25
• Kozan
• Migwel
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• sooper7s
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
StarCraft: Brood War
• Michael_bg 2
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
Dota 2
• lizZardDota2112
League of Legends
• Jankos2095
• Stunt484
Upcoming Events
HomeStory Cup
42m
ShoWTimE vs sOs
Serral vs Reynor
Zoun vs HeRoMaRinE
Clem vs Lambo
OSC
1h 42m
Replay Cast
12h 42m
Replay Cast
1d 12h
Wardi Open
2 days
WardiTV Invitational
3 days
Replay Cast
3 days
The PondCast
3 days
WardiTV Invitational
4 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-01-31
OSC Championship Season 13
Underdog Cup #3

Ongoing

CSL 2025 WINTER (S19)
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 1
Acropolis #4 - TS4
Rongyi Cup S3
HSC XXVIII
Nations Cup 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual
eXTREMESLAND 2025
SL Budapest Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S1: W7
Escore Tournament S1: W8
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
Bellum Gens Elite Stara Zagora 2026
LiuLi Cup: 2025 Grand Finals
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League Season 23
ESL Pro League Season 23
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.