|
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/16542954341
We'll be applying some adjustments to the Heart of the Swarm ladder later today in all regions. We previously announced the changes that will be made during this maintenance earlier this week. We've copied the relevant details for today's update below.
Adjust league distribution
As mentioned, we’ve identified that the current league distribution percentages aren’t in line with our target percentages. The upcoming distribution changes should allow many more players to be in the correct league, and for each league to have the correct percentage of players based on the figures we announced for Heart of the Swarm. Once this adjustment is made, some players will see a change in their current league placement.
Adjust the starting point for new players
Due to the dynamic behavior of the StarCraft II ladder, we also saw that the new player starting point had drifted over time. This resulted in new players facing higher skilled opponents than in previous seasons. Adjusting the starting point for new players should improve the new player experience as they’ll be initially matched against lower league opponents once again.
Maintenance to apply this update will begin around 2:00 p.m PST in the SEA region and be deployed at a staggered rate to all other regions throughout the day. During this update, matchmaking functionality may become unavailable for a short period of time. We apologize for the inconvenience and will work to ensure this period of unavailability is as brief as possible. Players in-game during this time should be unaffected.
We'll look to provide further updates as maintenance is completed.
Region Status (in expected deploy order)
SEA: Complete
US: In Progress
KR: In Progress
CN: In Progress
EU: In Progress
|
I got promoted last night. I hope that wasn't the only promotion I get.
|
On March 06 2015 09:50 tok wrote:
I got promoted last night. I hope that wasn't the only promotion I get.
Don't get ahead of yourself.
|
Sooooo im diamond.... next time I log in i'm bronze? GM? Are people being shifted up, down, or is it more complicated than that?
|
United Kingdom20278 Posts
On March 06 2015 10:55 dswarm wrote:
Sooooo im diamond.... next time I log in i'm bronze? GM? Are people being shifted up, down, or is it more complicated than that?
The league thresholds will have changed and a bunch of people will quickly change leagues after playing a few games. Since the leagues are way too bottom heavy, the general trend would be a huge amount of promotions
|
On March 06 2015 10:55 dswarm wrote:
Sooooo im diamond.... next time I log in i'm bronze? GM? Are people being shifted up, down, or is it more complicated than that?
I'd imagine that you'll have to play a game for the promotion/demotion to happen, but if you're high diamond there's a chance you'll be promoted. I'm pretty sure they're making masters a little bigger.
|
On March 06 2015 10:55 dswarm wrote:
Sooooo im diamond.... next time I log in i'm bronze? GM? Are people being shifted up, down, or is it more complicated than that?
People that were on the edge of their league may move up without playing games. People who start moving up may get promoted sooner than before the update now that the distribution of each league has changed.
|
United Kingdom20278 Posts
On March 06 2015 11:00 robopork wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2015 10:55 dswarm wrote:
Sooooo im diamond.... next time I log in i'm bronze? GM? Are people being shifted up, down, or is it more complicated than that? I'd imagine that you'll have to play a game for the promotion/demotion to happen, but if you're high diamond there's a chance you'll be promoted. I'm pretty sure they're making masters a little bigger.
Way bigger, like 2-3x bigger lol :D
Since you can't be demoted, if it's 0.8% masters then only 0.6% for example might be over the masters MMR threshold. In that case, it'd go from 0.6% to 2% overnight, and 3.33x more players would be within masters MMR
|
finally got promoted to bronze
|
On March 06 2015 11:03 sc2chronic wrote:
finally got promoted to bronze
Grats~
|
|
|
United Kingdom20278 Posts
Have they cleared all of their pre-change data though? Some of the regions don't even have it live yet. Not only that, on all of the regions where it is live, EVERYONE would have to play games to be updated. I'd expect it to take a good week for results to be shown on sites like that, but you should be able to log in, play a couple games and see results immediately when it's live in your region
|
On March 06 2015 12:04 Cyro wrote:Have they cleared all of their pre-change data though? Some of the regions don't even have it live yet. Not only that, on all of the regions where it is live, EVERYONE would have to play games to be updated. I'd expect it to take a good week for results to be shown on sites like that, but you should be able to log in, play a couple games and see results immediately when it's live in your region
The initial update seems to have failed. Looks like they are trying again now.
|
United Kingdom20278 Posts
On March 06 2015 12:14 Za7oX wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2015 12:04 Cyro wrote:Have they cleared all of their pre-change data though? Some of the regions don't even have it live yet. Not only that, on all of the regions where it is live, EVERYONE would have to play games to be updated. I'd expect it to take a good week for results to be shown on sites like that, but you should be able to log in, play a couple games and see results immediately when it's live in your region The initial update seems to have failed. Looks like they are trying again now.
Source?
|
On March 06 2015 12:21 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2015 12:14 Za7oX wrote:On March 06 2015 12:04 Cyro wrote:Have they cleared all of their pre-change data though? Some of the regions don't even have it live yet. Not only that, on all of the regions where it is live, EVERYONE would have to play games to be updated. I'd expect it to take a good week for results to be shown on sites like that, but you should be able to log in, play a couple games and see results immediately when it's live in your region The initial update seems to have failed. Looks like they are trying again now. Source?
Ladder is down again.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/2y3hyo/na_ladder_locked_again/
|
Can't wait to get home :D
|
didnt seem to do anything at masters at least..
|
So is there anyone that noticed anything different? I only heard of a few gold players getting promoted to gold, but no changes in masters so far.
|
On March 06 2015 16:15 KeksX wrote:
So is there anyone that noticed anything different? I only heard of a few gold players getting promoted to gold, but no changes in masters so far.
I got back into Gold on NA after two games but I think that was more because me playing random tanked my MMR cause my Zerg is meh and my Terran is atrocious compared to my Protoss and I decided to switch back to P on NA.
Will have to see what happens on EU this evening I guess, that's my main server so I'm more likely to see a difference there.
|
I just realized it still says "In Progress" for EU and CN... So I think it's not working?
|
On March 06 2015 16:26 KeksX wrote:
I just realized it still says "In Progress" for EU and CN... So I think it's not working?
More likely they're still getting it ready on those two servers, they did say they were going to stagger the release on each server.
|
Doesn't look like it's having a great effect yet?
Masters still at 0.88%
|
On March 06 2015 16:29 KatatoniK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2015 16:26 KeksX wrote:
I just realized it still says "In Progress" for EU and CN... So I think it's not working? More likely they're still getting it ready on those two servers, they did say they were going to stagger the release on each server.
Yeah but that was over 4 hours ago! The other servers took 1~ hour
|
wait wait wait, so the reason i lost masters and struggled so hard to get it back this winter, is not because im shit at the game, but because its fucking 0.8% instead of 2%? thats kinda uplifting i guess
|
On March 06 2015 16:44 Aocowns wrote:
wait wait wait, so the reason i lost masters and struggled so hard to get it back this winter, is not because im shit at the game, but because its fucking 0.8% instead of 2%? thats kinda uplifting i guess
In EU it's 1.2% though!
|
wait wait wait, so the reason i lost masters and struggled so hard to get it back this winter, is not because im shit at the game, but because its fucking 0.8% instead of 2%? thats kinda uplifting i guess
All leagues have been objectively "harder" for quite some time now except for GM as it's not percentage based.
|
Winning against GM still doesn't make you into master (on NA). But I only played a couple games so maybe soon :p
|
No promotion.. T_T damn it Blizzard. Less than 10 person promoted from Diamond to Masters on NA lol. 0.87 to 0.88%
|
Obviously not working as intended so far.
|
On March 06 2015 19:14 Kyselin wrote:
Winning against GM still doesn't make you into master (on NA). But I only played a couple games so maybe soon :p
Same thing on EU. I had 75% vs GM's and I'm still diamond on smurf account 
|
Perfect timing (assuming this works)! I'm finally getting my PC set up and my wife is working the weekend
Moved last week and still haven't had time to set up my gaming rig (partially because I needed to figure out where it would go in the new place).
|
Just played 3 games, won all 3 of them, 2 against top 8 of same league as me, one against a guy of the next highest league. Wonder how many more till promotion.
|
On March 06 2015 22:59 Elentos wrote:
Just played 3 games, won all 3 of them, 2 against top 8 of same league as me, one against a guy of the next highest league. Wonder how many more till promotion.
apparently it's still not up on EU anyway
|
According to the bnet post by Psione they are done with this in all regions now.
|
Still see no effect after 5 wins at rank one of my division. 70% win rate. huh.
|
The upcoming distribution changes should allow many more players to be in the correct league, and for each league to have the correct percentage of players based on the figures we announced for Heart of the Swarm. Once this adjustment is made, some players will see a change in their current league placement.
great joke. Barely any player got promoted so far.
|
Nooooo, they will remove my excuse that I have gone down a league not because I play terribly but because the leagues are skewed. Don't do it!!
|
On March 07 2015 02:37 opisska wrote:
Nooooo, they will remove my excuse that I have gone down a league not because I play terribly but because the leagues are skewed. Don't do it!!
just shift blame to the lower 2nd player base leaving for easier games
|
I would not get discouraged after 2-5 games. It may take a bit for the system to start re-adjusting to its new settings. Only time will tell!
|
On March 06 2015 22:41 ZeRoX_TV wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2015 19:14 Kyselin wrote:
Winning against GM still doesn't make you into master (on NA). But I only played a couple games so maybe soon :p Same thing on EU. I had 75% vs GM's and I'm still diamond on smurf account
It doesn't matter if you beat unranked/boosted GMs when you can't even mantain a 50% winrate against masters. And that's the only reason why you are diamond (unless you don't play enough).
|
On March 07 2015 02:44 Tydrokos wrote:
I would not get discouraged after 2-5 games. It may take a bit for the system to start re-adjusting to its new settings. Only time will tell!
This, just calm all yo teets and play.
|
In EU, gold is now actually 40%. I don't think this is working.
On March 07 2015 02:53 Pensai wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2015 02:44 Tydrokos wrote:
I would not get discouraged after 2-5 games. It may take a bit for the system to start re-adjusting to its new settings. Only time will tell! This, just calm all yo teets and play.
If the MMR threshold changed for example, people should get promoted right away. We're not talking about subtle changes; master league was expected to see a 100% increase(0.89%~ to 2%)...
|
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/h3jRAB8.png)
38 masters in SEA. gotta fix that.
|
I've been #1 gold trying hard to get into platinum forever now, but I'd be a bit disappointed if I was suddenly bumped up without earning it. I have a 55% win rate, but am horrible vs Zerg, so I don't think I deserve it yet. I'd rather see the SH removed; that would move me up for sure ;D.
Actually, it'd be cool if you had independent rank vs each race. Considering I'm close to 80% win rate vs Terran, it'd be nice if I was Platinum vs T (and wood league vs Zerg).
|
|
|
Just found out about http://nios.kr. Turns out I'm #188 out of 33,766 in Gold (US), so I guess I AM pretty close  .
|
Posted by Psione
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to provide a quick update, since we're getting questions on this topic.
We've confirmed that the new league boundaries were successfully published yesterday in all regions. As this is a mid-season adjustment, we'll need to carefully monitor how existing player accounts are interacting with the new values and determine if additional adjustments are necessary. We'd encourage everyone to continue playing normally as it will allow for more accuracy as we continue to review our data.
Working as intended. I think something is a bit amiss here.
|
United States12235 Posts
On March 07 2015 08:48 fethers wrote:Show nested quote +
Posted by Psione
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to provide a quick update, since we're getting questions on this topic.
We've confirmed that the new league boundaries were successfully published yesterday in all regions. As this is a mid-season adjustment, we'll need to carefully monitor how existing player accounts are interacting with the new values and determine if additional adjustments are necessary. We'd encourage everyone to continue playing normally as it will allow for more accuracy as we continue to review our data.
Working as intended. I think something is a bit amiss here.
The answer to that is yes and no. The DB update/push that was intended to go out did go out, but it was apparently very minor. This happened last time too. What happened before was that they needed a bit of extra time to evaluate how the changes from Phase 1 impacted the ladder, then once they gathered enough data, they rolled out Phase 2 which is where the really big shifts in population happened. I don't know if this latest push is Phase 1 of 2, we'll find out based on whether or not there are future changes applied.
|
On March 07 2015 06:07 stevethemacguy wrote:
I've been #1 gold trying hard to get into platinum forever now, but I'd be a bit disappointed if I was suddenly bumped up without earning it. I have a 55% win rate, but am horrible vs Zerg, so I don't think I deserve it yet. I'd rather see the SH removed; that would move me up for sure ;D.
Actually, it'd be cool if you had independent rank vs each race. Considering I'm close to 80% win rate vs Terran, it'd be nice if I was Platinum vs T (and wood league vs Zerg).
the only thing that determines whether you've "earned it" is how blizzard draws the boundaries. it's not like the words "gold" and "platinum" actually have measurable values or you win prizes for ranking up. it's a matter of how large they want each league to be and what sections of players they think should be matched against each other based on skill distribution.
if they decide they want platinum to be bigger and you're moved into platinum you didn't actually "get" anything, platinum just became less impressive
|
On March 07 2015 11:01 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2015 08:48 fethers wrote:
Posted by Psione
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to provide a quick update, since we're getting questions on this topic.
We've confirmed that the new league boundaries were successfully published yesterday in all regions. As this is a mid-season adjustment, we'll need to carefully monitor how existing player accounts are interacting with the new values and determine if additional adjustments are necessary. We'd encourage everyone to continue playing normally as it will allow for more accuracy as we continue to review our data.
Working as intended. I think something is a bit amiss here. The answer to that is yes and no. The DB update/push that was intended to go out did go out, but it was apparently very minor. This happened last time too. What happened before was that they needed a bit of extra time to evaluate how the changes from Phase 1 impacted the ladder, then once they gathered enough data, they rolled out Phase 2 which is where the really big shifts in population happened. I don't know if this latest push is Phase 1 of 2, we'll find out based on whether or not there are future changes applied.
Since there was absolutely no mention of another update phase, I think this is it. Which is weird, since EU is still on 40% gold. Master went up a little bit now(1.18 instead of 1.12), but I think people have to get used to Gold players of all kinds of skill levels for a while.
|
On March 07 2015 06:07 stevethemacguy wrote:
I've been #1 gold trying hard to get into platinum forever now, but I'd be a bit disappointed if I was suddenly bumped up without earning it. I have a 55% win rate, but am horrible vs Zerg, so I don't think I deserve it yet. I'd rather see the SH removed; that would move me up for sure ;D.
Actually, it'd be cool if you had independent rank vs each race. Considering I'm close to 80% win rate vs Terran, it'd be nice if I was Platinum vs T (and wood league vs Zerg).
I guess that being #1 is not important as such, many people get promoted without being #1.
What matters is your win percentage (note that 55% is not particularly high) and the average opponents.
If you score 55% against gold players you'll probably not get promoted, you belong in "Top Gold".
|
On March 07 2015 23:31 RHoudini wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2015 06:07 stevethemacguy wrote:
I've been #1 gold trying hard to get into platinum forever now, but I'd be a bit disappointed if I was suddenly bumped up without earning it. I have a 55% win rate, but am horrible vs Zerg, so I don't think I deserve it yet. I'd rather see the SH removed; that would move me up for sure ;D.
Actually, it'd be cool if you had independent rank vs each race. Considering I'm close to 80% win rate vs Terran, it'd be nice if I was Platinum vs T (and wood league vs Zerg). I guess that being #1 is not important as such, many people get promoted without being #1. What matters is your win percentage (note that 55% is not particularly high) and the average opponents. If you score 55% against gold players you'll probably not get promoted, you belong in "Top Gold".
Not really. The most indicative thing about mmr is indeed your ladder position, but across the whole server, not in your division.
If you get promoted without being ~top 5 in the server, it's usually because you have some bonus pool left.
A positive winrate can only be related to an improvement, not necessarily to a high mmr.
|
United States12235 Posts
On March 07 2015 17:12 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2015 11:01 Excalibur_Z wrote:On March 07 2015 08:48 fethers wrote:
Posted by Psione
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to provide a quick update, since we're getting questions on this topic.
We've confirmed that the new league boundaries were successfully published yesterday in all regions. As this is a mid-season adjustment, we'll need to carefully monitor how existing player accounts are interacting with the new values and determine if additional adjustments are necessary. We'd encourage everyone to continue playing normally as it will allow for more accuracy as we continue to review our data.
Working as intended. I think something is a bit amiss here. The answer to that is yes and no. The DB update/push that was intended to go out did go out, but it was apparently very minor. This happened last time too. What happened before was that they needed a bit of extra time to evaluate how the changes from Phase 1 impacted the ladder, then once they gathered enough data, they rolled out Phase 2 which is where the really big shifts in population happened. I don't know if this latest push is Phase 1 of 2, we'll find out based on whether or not there are future changes applied. Since there was absolutely no mention of another update phase, I think this is it. Which is weird, since EU is still on 40% gold. Master went up a little bit now(1.18 instead of 1.12), but I think people have to get used to Gold players of all kinds of skill levels for a while.
Counterpoint: there was no mention of another update phase last time either.
|
Well its been a couple days and the nios league percentages havent really changed at all, so I'm guessing they didn't really do anything. Masters is still not even 1% of players, Gold is still almost 40%, silver almost 30%. Lol what can you really expect anymore?
|
On March 08 2015 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2015 17:12 KeksX wrote:On March 07 2015 11:01 Excalibur_Z wrote:On March 07 2015 08:48 fethers wrote:
Posted by Psione
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to provide a quick update, since we're getting questions on this topic.
We've confirmed that the new league boundaries were successfully published yesterday in all regions. As this is a mid-season adjustment, we'll need to carefully monitor how existing player accounts are interacting with the new values and determine if additional adjustments are necessary. We'd encourage everyone to continue playing normally as it will allow for more accuracy as we continue to review our data.
Working as intended. I think something is a bit amiss here. The answer to that is yes and no. The DB update/push that was intended to go out did go out, but it was apparently very minor. This happened last time too. What happened before was that they needed a bit of extra time to evaluate how the changes from Phase 1 impacted the ladder, then once they gathered enough data, they rolled out Phase 2 which is where the really big shifts in population happened. I don't know if this latest push is Phase 1 of 2, we'll find out based on whether or not there are future changes applied. Since there was absolutely no mention of another update phase, I think this is it. Which is weird, since EU is still on 40% gold. Master went up a little bit now(1.18 instead of 1.12), but I think people have to get used to Gold players of all kinds of skill levels for a while. Counterpoint: there was no mention of another update phase last time either.
Second last time. Updates in May 2014 happened pretty much immediately (unless there were some shadow changes some days earlier that Blizzard did not publish). But in January 2014 the actual / noticeable offset changes happened two days after patch 2.1. That time Blizzard claimed that they had made the changes already when patch 2.1 was launched. Back then I had full MMR tool data available (+ Blizzard's web profiles were not malfunctioning so most (pretty much all) the data was good). There was no indication that offsets had been changed. But two days later when the actual changes happened they were pretty much immediately noticeable both in MMR tool data and at nios.kr. This time I do not have the MMR tool data as its server is unavailable. But there has been no trend changes regarding nios.kr data in past few days.
But as Blizzard keeps in their story that the changes were made, then surely some changes have been made. But could the changes ('phase 1') be something else than offset / threshold changes (miscommunication from Blizzard / miscommunication between community managers and the developers)? Potentially something that has been done to fine-tune/confirm the planned offset/threshold values and the actual change ('phase 2') would happen in near future? One can only speculate as there has been no visible effects regarding the recent change and still Blizzard claims the changes were done.
|
|
|
On March 08 2015 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2015 17:12 KeksX wrote:On March 07 2015 11:01 Excalibur_Z wrote:On March 07 2015 08:48 fethers wrote:
Posted by Psione
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to provide a quick update, since we're getting questions on this topic.
We've confirmed that the new league boundaries were successfully published yesterday in all regions. As this is a mid-season adjustment, we'll need to carefully monitor how existing player accounts are interacting with the new values and determine if additional adjustments are necessary. We'd encourage everyone to continue playing normally as it will allow for more accuracy as we continue to review our data.
Working as intended. I think something is a bit amiss here. The answer to that is yes and no. The DB update/push that was intended to go out did go out, but it was apparently very minor. This happened last time too. What happened before was that they needed a bit of extra time to evaluate how the changes from Phase 1 impacted the ladder, then once they gathered enough data, they rolled out Phase 2 which is where the really big shifts in population happened. I don't know if this latest push is Phase 1 of 2, we'll find out based on whether or not there are future changes applied. Since there was absolutely no mention of another update phase, I think this is it. Which is weird, since EU is still on 40% gold. Master went up a little bit now(1.18 instead of 1.12), but I think people have to get used to Gold players of all kinds of skill levels for a while. Counterpoint: there was no mention of another update phase last time either.
Why would they announce the first update phase then? If this is just phase one of multiple updates, and it's supposed to not have a huge effect, then they'd be better off not announcing it the way they did. Because they made it seem like it was going to have a huge effect on the ladder.
My guess is that they just tested it the wrong way and it's not working as intended on the live servers.
I'm still hoping it's just more of a long-term change... Not sure how that would work though since updating the thresholds should result in immediate promotions(correct me if I'm wrong).
I mean, for me personally it doesn't really matter. Whether I play high diamonds or low/mid masters doesn't make a difference, but in the german community that got a huge influx due to RocketbeansTV, there are a lot of frustrating newbies in gold playing people that are easily platin and above. So it's kinda annoying having to explain this weird MMR/league scenario 
|
Did everybody seriously thought that all league numbers would change in 2 days?
|
On March 08 2015 05:31 Gwavajuice wrote:
Did everybody seriously thought that all league numbers would change in 2 days?
What else would happen? We all have an MMR and if the new league distributions put me in a different league with the same MMR, i get promoted the next game i play.
|
On March 08 2015 05:31 Gwavajuice wrote:
Did everybody seriously thought that all league numbers would change in 2 days?
The thing is that we're not talking about subtle changes here. Taking EU as an example: Of roughly 100k players, 40k players are in gold when it should really be 32k. So 8k players are in the wrong league. For silver, thats 6k and for Platin it's 7k. For Diamond it's 10k, for masters it's 1k.
So we have almost 35k players in the wrong leagues, yet we saw a change of a couple hundred at best.
Thats only for EU.
|
2 days? I was thinking more like 2 hours, blizzard's obviously is slipping. ^^
|
United States12235 Posts
On March 08 2015 03:19 korona wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2015 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:On March 07 2015 17:12 KeksX wrote:On March 07 2015 11:01 Excalibur_Z wrote:On March 07 2015 08:48 fethers wrote:
Posted by Psione
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to provide a quick update, since we're getting questions on this topic.
We've confirmed that the new league boundaries were successfully published yesterday in all regions. As this is a mid-season adjustment, we'll need to carefully monitor how existing player accounts are interacting with the new values and determine if additional adjustments are necessary. We'd encourage everyone to continue playing normally as it will allow for more accuracy as we continue to review our data.
Working as intended. I think something is a bit amiss here. The answer to that is yes and no. The DB update/push that was intended to go out did go out, but it was apparently very minor. This happened last time too. What happened before was that they needed a bit of extra time to evaluate how the changes from Phase 1 impacted the ladder, then once they gathered enough data, they rolled out Phase 2 which is where the really big shifts in population happened. I don't know if this latest push is Phase 1 of 2, we'll find out based on whether or not there are future changes applied. Since there was absolutely no mention of another update phase, I think this is it. Which is weird, since EU is still on 40% gold. Master went up a little bit now(1.18 instead of 1.12), but I think people have to get used to Gold players of all kinds of skill levels for a while. Counterpoint: there was no mention of another update phase last time either. Second last time. Updates in May 2014 happened pretty much immediately (unless there were some shadow changes some days earlier that Blizzard did not publish). But in January 2014 the actual / noticeable offset changes happened two days after patch 2.1. That time Blizzard claimed that they had made the changes already when patch 2.1 was launched. Back then I had full MMR tool data available (+ Blizzard's web profiles were not malfunctioning so most (pretty much all) the data was good). There was no indication that offsets had been changed. But two days later when the actual changes happened they were pretty much immediately noticeable both in MMR tool data and at nios.kr. This time I do not have the MMR tool data as its server is unavailable. But there has been no trend changes regarding nios.kr data in past few days. But as Blizzard keeps in their story that the changes were made, then surely some changes have been made. But could the changes ('phase 1') be something else than offset / threshold changes (miscommunication from Blizzard / miscommunication between community managers and the developers)? Potentially something that has been done to fine-tune/confirm the planned offset/threshold values and the actual change ('phase 2') would happen in near future? One can only speculate as there has been no visible effects regarding the recent change and still Blizzard claims the changes were done.
Yeah, that's right. I decided to go back and search around the Jan 24 2014 (thanks for mentioning the dates in the MMR tool thread by the way, that was quite helpful as I had forgotten the exact dates) update period and made a post about what I found on the Bnet forum. This was what I posted:
Take a look at how the Jan 2014 (Patch 2.1) league readjustment played out:
Patch 2.1 launches on 1/21/2014, league adjustments are included as part of the deployment package:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11364066315#1
We wait 4 months for a fix to ladder distribution, and it doesn't even work.
Kaivax says they're seeing a big uptick in promotions on their end on 1/21/2014:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11354455348?page=5#84
I just wanted to stop back in here and let you know that we’ve been watching the data roll in this afternoon, and so far, so good. We’ve seen a big uptick in promotions, and every player that we’ve spot-checked (including at least one who posted in this thread) has been statistically affected as expected.
Kaivax says they're still compiling data on 1/22/2014:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11354455348?page=16#303
Just wanted to check in here and confirm for you: we've been closely monitoring the ladders today, and will continue to tomorrow.
At this time, we haven't made any ladder adjustments post-patch in any region.
On 1/23/2014, Spyrian says the effects haven't been as dramatic as they anticipated so they're going to keep monitoring:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11423622282#1
I’m stopping in to let all of you know that we definitely hear your concerns about ladder league distribution following Patch 2.1. We’ve been monitoring league movement closely and while we’ve definitely seen some progress, the league boundary changes we made with the patch aren’t producing the results we’re after just yet.
On 1/24/2014 a second adjustment was made, resulting in celebratory threads like these:
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11422462246#1
Hundreds upon hundreds of people are being promoted as we speak. Everything seems to be moving along, cheers! Every minute a refresh to Nios shows Bronze and Silver dropping drastically and other leagues gaining numbers. Now would be a good time to ladder
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11424912514#1
So I wouldn't be so quick to jump to the conclusion that the sky is falling and the ladder is doomed.
|
On March 08 2015 06:47 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2015 03:19 korona wrote:On March 08 2015 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:On March 07 2015 17:12 KeksX wrote:On March 07 2015 11:01 Excalibur_Z wrote:On March 07 2015 08:48 fethers wrote:
Posted by Psione
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to provide a quick update, since we're getting questions on this topic.
We've confirmed that the new league boundaries were successfully published yesterday in all regions. As this is a mid-season adjustment, we'll need to carefully monitor how existing player accounts are interacting with the new values and determine if additional adjustments are necessary. We'd encourage everyone to continue playing normally as it will allow for more accuracy as we continue to review our data.
Working as intended. I think something is a bit amiss here. The answer to that is yes and no. The DB update/push that was intended to go out did go out, but it was apparently very minor. This happened last time too. What happened before was that they needed a bit of extra time to evaluate how the changes from Phase 1 impacted the ladder, then once they gathered enough data, they rolled out Phase 2 which is where the really big shifts in population happened. I don't know if this latest push is Phase 1 of 2, we'll find out based on whether or not there are future changes applied. Since there was absolutely no mention of another update phase, I think this is it. Which is weird, since EU is still on 40% gold. Master went up a little bit now(1.18 instead of 1.12), but I think people have to get used to Gold players of all kinds of skill levels for a while. Counterpoint: there was no mention of another update phase last time either. Second last time. Updates in May 2014 happened pretty much immediately (unless there were some shadow changes some days earlier that Blizzard did not publish). But in January 2014 the actual / noticeable offset changes happened two days after patch 2.1. That time Blizzard claimed that they had made the changes already when patch 2.1 was launched. Back then I had full MMR tool data available (+ Blizzard's web profiles were not malfunctioning so most (pretty much all) the data was good). There was no indication that offsets had been changed. But two days later when the actual changes happened they were pretty much immediately noticeable both in MMR tool data and at nios.kr. This time I do not have the MMR tool data as its server is unavailable. But there has been no trend changes regarding nios.kr data in past few days. But as Blizzard keeps in their story that the changes were made, then surely some changes have been made. But could the changes ('phase 1') be something else than offset / threshold changes (miscommunication from Blizzard / miscommunication between community managers and the developers)? Potentially something that has been done to fine-tune/confirm the planned offset/threshold values and the actual change ('phase 2') would happen in near future? One can only speculate as there has been no visible effects regarding the recent change and still Blizzard claims the changes were done. Yeah, that's right. I decided to go back and search around the Jan 24 2014 (thanks for mentioning the dates in the MMR tool thread by the way, that was quite helpful as I had forgotten the exact dates) update period and made a post about what I found on the Bnet forum. This was what I posted: Take a look at how the Jan 2014 (Patch 2.1) league readjustment played out: + Show Spoiler +Patch 2.1 launches on 1/21/2014, league adjustments are included as part of the deployment package: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11364066315#1We wait 4 months for a fix to ladder distribution, and it doesn't even work. Kaivax says they're seeing a big uptick in promotions on their end on 1/21/2014: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11354455348?page=5#84I just wanted to stop back in here and let you know that we’ve been watching the data roll in this afternoon, and so far, so good. We’ve seen a big uptick in promotions, and every player that we’ve spot-checked (including at least one who posted in this thread) has been statistically affected as expected. Kaivax says they're still compiling data on 1/22/2014: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11354455348?page=16#303Just wanted to check in here and confirm for you: we've been closely monitoring the ladders today, and will continue to tomorrow.
At this time, we haven't made any ladder adjustments post-patch in any region. On 1/23/2014, Spyrian says the effects haven't been as dramatic as they anticipated so they're going to keep monitoring: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11423622282#1I’m stopping in to let all of you know that we definitely hear your concerns about ladder league distribution following Patch 2.1. We’ve been monitoring league movement closely and while we’ve definitely seen some progress, the league boundary changes we made with the patch aren’t producing the results we’re after just yet. On 1/24/2014 a second adjustment was made, resulting in celebratory threads like these: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/11422462246#1Hundreds upon hundreds of people are being promoted as we speak. Everything seems to be moving along, cheers! Every minute a refresh to Nios shows Bronze and Silver dropping drastically and other leagues gaining numbers. Now would be a good time to ladder So I wouldn't be so quick to jump to the conclusion that the sky is falling and the ladder is doomed.
Indeed the sky is not falling. And even if they make more noticeable threshold changes in near future, it is worth for everyone to remember what you wrote on Bnet forums that this only changes the thresholds but does not fix the underlying issue (that is addressed next season e.g. with removal of MMR decay. But will it be enough in the long run): http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/16542954341?page=17#330
Thought I still remember when I checked several MMR tool users who were promoted between patch 2.1 and the noticeable changes that happened two days later (slight differences regarding the dates are due different timezones). In every case I came to conclusion that that player should have been promoted with the earlier offsets/thresholds around the same time too. Of course there was likely small inaccuracies in the results as the tool cannot calculate MMR from every game based on the available data (thus estimates based on typical average changes are sometimes used) . Of course it could also be that the initial changes back then were potentially very small and thus almost unnoticeable.
|
They should really remove the league points and show the real MMR. It makes no sense to take a look at ladder points which are not reflecting the actual skill level.
|
On March 08 2015 05:37 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2015 05:31 Gwavajuice wrote:
Did everybody seriously thought that all league numbers would change in 2 days? The thing is that we're not talking about subtle changes here. Taking EU as an example: Of roughly 100k players, 40k players are in gold when it should really be 32k. So 8k players are in the wrong league. For silver, thats 6k and for Platin it's 7k. For Diamond it's 10k, for masters it's 1k. So we have almost 35k players in the wrong leagues, yet we saw a change of a couple hundred at best. Thats only for EU.
In reallity, it doesn't matter. I'm high diamond, i play vs Dia/ML,sometime plat's that wait promotion. And what really matters, that i play vs players that i can win...Main word is "CAN", i don't win everytime, they can win too, and this is main thing...No matter how many players called "PLAT/ML" if you got correct enemy's that you can compete.
|
On March 08 2015 17:09 TedBurtle wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2015 05:37 KeksX wrote:On March 08 2015 05:31 Gwavajuice wrote:
Did everybody seriously thought that all league numbers would change in 2 days? The thing is that we're not talking about subtle changes here. Taking EU as an example: Of roughly 100k players, 40k players are in gold when it should really be 32k. So 8k players are in the wrong league. For silver, thats 6k and for Platin it's 7k. For Diamond it's 10k, for masters it's 1k. So we have almost 35k players in the wrong leagues, yet we saw a change of a couple hundred at best. Thats only for EU. In reallity, it doesn't matter. I'm high diamond, i play vs Dia/ML,sometime plat's that wait promotion. And what really matters, that i play vs players that i can win...Main word is "CAN", i don't win everytime, they can win too, and this is main thing...No matter how many players called "PLAT/ML" if you got correct enemy's that you can compete.
Most people play this game for a sense of improvement. If you're playing a game where all measure of progress is removed, you've lost the reason to play. Compound the fact that Starcraft II is obnoxiously frustrating to play, and you're potentially looking at a drop in the player base.
I know I don't feel like playing. I know logically I'm improving, but with no proof of that for the past 3-4 seasons, you don't feel like trying anymore.
|
On March 08 2015 17:09 TedBurtle wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2015 05:37 KeksX wrote:On March 08 2015 05:31 Gwavajuice wrote:
Did everybody seriously thought that all league numbers would change in 2 days? The thing is that we're not talking about subtle changes here. Taking EU as an example: Of roughly 100k players, 40k players are in gold when it should really be 32k. So 8k players are in the wrong league. For silver, thats 6k and for Platin it's 7k. For Diamond it's 10k, for masters it's 1k. So we have almost 35k players in the wrong leagues, yet we saw a change of a couple hundred at best. Thats only for EU. In reallity, it doesn't matter. I'm high diamond, i play vs Dia/ML,sometime plat's that wait promotion. And what really matters, that i play vs players that i can win...Main word is "CAN", i don't win everytime, they can win too, and this is main thing...No matter how many players called "PLAT/ML" if you got correct enemy's that you can compete.
I addressed this point earlier
On March 08 2015 05:29 KeksX wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2015 02:02 Excalibur_Z wrote:On March 07 2015 17:12 KeksX wrote:On March 07 2015 11:01 Excalibur_Z wrote:On March 07 2015 08:48 fethers wrote:
Posted by Psione
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to provide a quick update, since we're getting questions on this topic.
We've confirmed that the new league boundaries were successfully published yesterday in all regions. As this is a mid-season adjustment, we'll need to carefully monitor how existing player accounts are interacting with the new values and determine if additional adjustments are necessary. We'd encourage everyone to continue playing normally as it will allow for more accuracy as we continue to review our data.
Working as intended. I think something is a bit amiss here. The answer to that is yes and no. The DB update/push that was intended to go out did go out, but it was apparently very minor. This happened last time too. What happened before was that they needed a bit of extra time to evaluate how the changes from Phase 1 impacted the ladder, then once they gathered enough data, they rolled out Phase 2 which is where the really big shifts in population happened. I don't know if this latest push is Phase 1 of 2, we'll find out based on whether or not there are future changes applied. Since there was absolutely no mention of another update phase, I think this is it. Which is weird, since EU is still on 40% gold. Master went up a little bit now(1.18 instead of 1.12), but I think people have to get used to Gold players of all kinds of skill levels for a while. Counterpoint: there was no mention of another update phase last time either. I mean, for me personally it doesn't really matter. Whether I play high diamonds or low/mid masters doesn't make a difference, but in the german community that got a huge influx due to RocketbeansTV, there are a lot of frustrating newbies in gold playing people that are easily platin and above. So it's kinda annoying having to explain this weird MMR/league scenario
|
On March 08 2015 23:27 InfCereal wrote:
Most people play this game for a sense of improvement. If you're playing a game where all measure of progress is removed, you've lost the reason to play. Compound the fact that Starcraft II is obnoxiously frustrating to play, and you're potentially looking at a drop in the player base.
I know I don't feel like playing. I know logically I'm improving, but with no proof of that for the past 3-4 seasons, you don't feel like trying anymore.
I know this is somewhat off-topic, but how does one measure improvement? If proof is a league promotion, I have had no improvement with my past 3 years of Diamond league. When I started in Bronze, sure, climbing up to Diamond was "proof". Today, though, we need something else.
Perhaps if MMR was visible it might help. I used the MMR Tool for years and it only proved that MMR is heavily influenced by streaks and slumps. In fact, I'd argue that the leagues make the MMR volatility worse since a losing streak yields an uglier badge. As the game ages and people quit, the lower leagues will eventually fill with quality players that may once have been ranked in much higher leagues. In that case, knowing I was a 1200 MMR in Diamond then, and knowing I am a 1200 MMR Bronze now might smooth over the badge disparity.
In the meantime, I watch my w/l ratio and set personal accomplishments. My w/l ratio mostly shows if I'm on a slump and rarely and/or slowly if I'm actually improving. Personal accomplishments, such as how I deal with, or execute, certain strategies are nice but definitely not comparable across Startcraft. Sadly, how we play the game is really our only good sense of improvement.
|
On March 09 2015 02:35 justnny wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2015 23:27 InfCereal wrote:
Most people play this game for a sense of improvement. If you're playing a game where all measure of progress is removed, you've lost the reason to play. Compound the fact that Starcraft II is obnoxiously frustrating to play, and you're potentially looking at a drop in the player base.
I know I don't feel like playing. I know logically I'm improving, but with no proof of that for the past 3-4 seasons, you don't feel like trying anymore. I know this is somewhat off-topic, but how does one measure improvement? If proof is a league promotion, I have had no improvement with my past 3 years of Diamond league. When I started in Bronze, sure, climbing up to Diamond was "proof". Today, though, we need something else. Perhaps if MMR was visible it might help. I used the MMR Tool for years and it only proved that MMR is heavily influenced by streaks and slumps. In fact, I'd argue that the leagues make the MMR volatility worse since a losing streak yields an uglier badge. As the game ages and people quit, the lower leagues will eventually fill with quality players that may once have been ranked in much higher leagues. In that case, knowing I was a 1200 MMR in Diamond then, and knowing I am a 1200 MMR Bronze now might smooth over the badge disparity. In the meantime, I watch my w/l ratio and set personal accomplishments. My w/l ratio mostly shows if I'm on a slump and rarely and/or slowly if I'm actually improving. Personal accomplishments, such as how I deal with, or execute, certain strategies are nice but definitely not comparable across Startcraft. Sadly, how we play the game is really our only good sense of improvement.
Even with real MMR shown, you will probably plateau and not change much.
League placement. For ex: Top 5 plat vs Top 10 plat is a metric that can also help with measuring your progression.
Also to keep in mind that everyone else is also improving. Thus if you're not falling behind, that's also a sign that you're progressing along with the rest of the player base.
|
I dont think the change did anything at all. Like #1 in my division is still in diamond, and he has been there for a long time now .
|
Canada13386 Posts
On March 09 2015 03:03 MGcHarger wrote:
I dont think the change did anything at all. Like #1 in my division is still in diamond, and he has been there for a long time now .
You can be #1 in a division and still have an MMR that doesnt place you into masters. There could be a division where rank 40 is higher mmr than your rank 1 duder.
|
On March 09 2015 03:23 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2015 03:03 MGcHarger wrote:
I dont think the change did anything at all. Like #1 in my division is still in diamond, and he has been there for a long time now . You can be #1 in a division and still have an MMR that doesnt place you into masters. There could be a division where rank 40 is higher mmr than your rank 1 duder.
Of course, but with the numbers of people that should move up a division, most top diamond players should be in the promotion train to 2% patch masters. It's just not happening so far.
|
Canada13386 Posts
On March 09 2015 03:29 [PkF] Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2015 03:23 ZeromuS wrote:On March 09 2015 03:03 MGcHarger wrote:
I dont think the change did anything at all. Like #1 in my division is still in diamond, and he has been there for a long time now . You can be #1 in a division and still have an MMR that doesnt place you into masters. There could be a division where rank 40 is higher mmr than your rank 1 duder. Of course, but with the numbers of people that should move up a division, most top diamond players should be in the promotion train to 2% patch masters. It's just not happening so far.
I wouldn't call it patch masters. More like, held back masters the 2% is after all supposed to be 2%
|
On March 09 2015 03:35 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2015 03:29 [PkF] Wire wrote:On March 09 2015 03:23 ZeromuS wrote:On March 09 2015 03:03 MGcHarger wrote:
I dont think the change did anything at all. Like #1 in my division is still in diamond, and he has been there for a long time now . You can be #1 in a division and still have an MMR that doesnt place you into masters. There could be a division where rank 40 is higher mmr than your rank 1 duder. Of course, but with the numbers of people that should move up a division, most top diamond players should be in the promotion train to 2% patch masters. It's just not happening so far. I wouldn't call it patch masters. More like, held back masters the 2% is after all supposed to be 2%
Of course, I was just joking ^^. I'm one of the guys yearning for the patch to be truly working to get that shiny masters icon back (around top 100 EU diamond), so I would certainly not call people that are going to be promoted patch masters !
|
After this "fix" I have had a much more difficult time on ladder, I am not sure why.
|
Analysis of nios.kr shows that ladder has been completely unaffected by the changes. Interesting to see if blizzard will make a statement...
|
On March 09 2015 04:43 Fission wrote:
Analysis of nios.kr shows that ladder has been completely unaffected by the changes. Interesting to see if blizzard will make a statement...
Can you elaborate on that?
|
On March 09 2015 02:53 plogamer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2015 02:35 justnny wrote:On March 08 2015 23:27 InfCereal wrote:
Most people play this game for a sense of improvement. If you're playing a game where all measure of progress is removed, you've lost the reason to play. Compound the fact that Starcraft II is obnoxiously frustrating to play, and you're potentially looking at a drop in the player base.
I know I don't feel like playing. I know logically I'm improving, but with no proof of that for the past 3-4 seasons, you don't feel like trying anymore. I know this is somewhat off-topic, but how does one measure improvement? If proof is a league promotion, I have had no improvement with my past 3 years of Diamond league. When I started in Bronze, sure, climbing up to Diamond was "proof". Today, though, we need something else. Perhaps if MMR was visible it might help. I used the MMR Tool for years and it only proved that MMR is heavily influenced by streaks and slumps. In fact, I'd argue that the leagues make the MMR volatility worse since a losing streak yields an uglier badge. As the game ages and people quit, the lower leagues will eventually fill with quality players that may once have been ranked in much higher leagues. In that case, knowing I was a 1200 MMR in Diamond then, and knowing I am a 1200 MMR Bronze now might smooth over the badge disparity. In the meantime, I watch my w/l ratio and set personal accomplishments. My w/l ratio mostly shows if I'm on a slump and rarely and/or slowly if I'm actually improving. Personal accomplishments, such as how I deal with, or execute, certain strategies are nice but definitely not comparable across Startcraft. Sadly, how we play the game is really our only good sense of improvement. Even with real MMR shown, you will probably plateau and not change much. League placement. For ex: Top 5 plat vs Top 10 plat is a metric that can also help with measuring your progression. Also to keep in mind that everyone else is also improving. Thus if you're not falling behind, that's also a sign that you're progressing along with the rest of the player base.
Visible MMR provides progress information. Especially if you store that MMR data from longer period of time you get a nice graph out of it. You see how you fare against the player population. If the population is improving faster than you then your MMR likely decreases. If you improve faster your MMR increases. For many after hitting the 'plateau' the MMR fluctuates in quite large range. For some a league wide range, for some others a much smaller range. Of course now as the MMR decay lowers players' MMRs artificially both directly and indirectly the MMRs of many do not present their actual skill anymore. In the current situation MMRs of most players are dropping slowly but surely even if the players are potentially improving at the same time. Next season the MMR decay mechanism will be disabled, but it will take a long time before the ladder becomes healthier via natural way.
But with the current league system the league placement only tells where your MMR was after the placement match. Even if your MMR has since decreased for one or more league ranges e.g. via MMR decay, you will still likely reach that top-10 position in your original league only by spending your bonus pool. Often only handful of players in each ladder division (especially in lower leagues) spend their whole bonus pool during each season. Thus a high rank in your division often does not present progress nor skill, but have you grinded enough games to spend your bonus pool.
On March 09 2015 04:14 GGzerG wrote:
After this "fix" I have had a much more difficult time on ladder, I am not sure why.
One possible explanation could be that lots of inactive people have started playing again when they heard that Blizzard is 'fixing' the ladder. And when many of them came back they faced MMR decay. Thus their MMR is lower than it would be in their 'typical' level. Even if they are rusty their general level is likely better compared to average players currently at that MMR level. Of course this is just speculation without any hard numbers. One would think ladder change announcements activate people to play more.
|
|
|
Very interesting. It seems like either blizzard has really not done anything or this year is a very different problem from last year.
|
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.
|
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)?
|
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...
|
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
|
HEY!?!?
I got promoted! ITS WORKING :O IM DIAMOND NOW
After 74 wins in row im finaly dia (38-0 this season)
|
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!
|
United States12235 Posts
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.
|
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?
|
United States12235 Posts
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.
|
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#34Obviously 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.
|
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.
|
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#34Obviously 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).
|
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.
|
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.
|
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=23869343Edit: 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.
|
United States12235 Posts
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+).
|
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)
|
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.
|
Thanks korona, I added your data to the spreadsheet.
|
United States12235 Posts
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.
|
On March 14 2015 07:05 Excalibur_Z wrote:Crossposted from Bnet forums: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/16646674622I'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 + Show Spoiler +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=sharingNow, 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 .
Interesting data. But one problem with this data is that we don't know if the active people (people who have played after the changes) have won at least one match. Why? League promotions happen only after a win. For example I personally have played only one 1v1 match with each of my accounts after the changes to prevent MMR decay (1 match per two weeks is needed to prevent MMR decay). And all of those matches were losses. I would presume that there are lots of people who have played only few games after the changes out of curiosity but not achieved any wins. It is common in forum messages that people think that only one match is needed for a potential promotion to happen, but don't realize that actually one victory is needed. Placement matches are of course exceptions to this rule.
There are few possibilities how to recognize which accounts have won matches: 1) Have a snapshot of all players just before the changes and then compare the win-loss values to the post-change values, 2) crawl version histories for all active players and search for 1v1 victories with positive ladder point gains that happened after the changes. The problem is that web profile match histories only contain 25 entries.
|
So basically a little change was there but it is still nearly 50% off for Masters. I'm a bit worried there wasn't another official comment on this, most likely they will just wait for the next season.
|
On March 16 2015 19:39 flyleaf wrote:
So basically a little change was there but it is still nearly 50% off for Masters. I'm a bit worried there wasn't another official comment on this, most likely they will just wait for the next season.
I would argue that ML has seen the greatest positive change increasing by almost 50% :D
|
On March 16 2015 19:48 y0su wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2015 19:39 flyleaf wrote:
So basically a little change was there but it is still nearly 50% off for Masters. I'm a bit worried there wasn't another official comment on this, most likely they will just wait for the next season. I would argue that ML has seen the greatest positive change increasing by almost 50% :D
While true, Masters is now at like 1.1% when it should be 2%.
|
On March 16 2015 20:55 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2015 19:48 y0su wrote:On March 16 2015 19:39 flyleaf wrote:
So basically a little change was there but it is still nearly 50% off for Masters. I'm a bit worried there wasn't another official comment on this, most likely they will just wait for the next season. I would argue that ML has seen the greatest positive change increasing by almost 50% :D While true, Masters is now at like 1.1% when it should be 2%.
Which means a player with a (normally) ~mid masters mmr is now diamond and to actually get promoted you need basically high masters mmr. This will not help in anyway to motivate semi-serious players to play ladder. Let's hope they do something before the next season x).
|
what a nightmare blizzard has created
|
On March 16 2015 21:56 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
what a nightmare blizzard has created
could be easily avoided if they just gave everyone a number (read: visible mmr) and put them on a giant list from best to worst player
|
not really. im in favor of that trust me.. and bring back mid-season demotions
but the damage at this point is done. they would have to retro-actively remove the impact of mmr decay... but that's nearly impossible
i have a few friends who are the perfect example.. they are high diamond/low masters caliber players and are in gold... and the funny part is they're playing people just like themselves ..who also have gold mmr.. so getting out of gold is significantly harder than it should be...it's like running in place. its frustrating for true gold players and for the diamond players
you would have to wipe it clean and start fresh. but they try to hit these 'ideal' percentages of distribution so they muck with the process and try to manipulate the ladder... but they should just let the numbers speak for themselves..
|
Yesterday I've got 20 Points for beating someone in the Top10 EU Diamond (he was favored), right before I've got 16 Points (he was slightly favored) for beating a Masters Player with 1000 Points and 600 Bonus Pool which would most likely put him in the top 100 Masters EU. So I would assume there are some more issues then just the league breakpoints..
|
On March 16 2015 22:34 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
but the damage at this point is done. they would have to retro-actively remove the impact of mmr decay... but that's nearly impossible
Actually the solution is simple. Just reset MMRs for all. Yes it would be little chaotic at first, but then again MMRs change rapidly after a fresh start. In a month or two the ladder would likely be healthier than it is now. Also they could bring back the old MMR thresholds from summer 2013, where MMR ranges for all leagues were reasonable wide (no huge diamond league MMR range compared to others like at the moment). It would potentially need a offset / threshold check after some months/seasons as the player population is different than it was back then.
Also MMRs would become a skill rating once again (At the moment people with considerable skill differences are sharing similar MMRs --> MMR is not a skill rating for many anymore). And as a result the matchmaking would become better than it is in its current state (Matchmaking system is technically fine, but it does not see difference e.g. with a master skilled player and a gold skilled player who both have similar MMRs, which leads to lackluster matchmaking results).
Edit: I seem not to have read 'ignorant prodigy's message entirely as he suggested the same thing at the end of his message.
|
I still feel like the ladder is a bit weird. I havent gotten promoted but that isnt even the issue anymore. I m platinium, about 1170pts, 56% win rate. (which, I assume, isnt so great as to warrant a promotion).
The problem is: out of the almost 90games I ve played, about a third were fair, in the sense that it felt balanced. The rest were either I got totally owned by people way out of my league or I did the same to other players. Even yesterday I got placed against a guy with 19APM and no rank icon. I assume he was quite new to the game. This is ridiculous, and not fun for either him or me.
I dont care whether I am in masters or bronze as long as the games are relatively even, most of the time.
|
I drew 2 bronze leaguers yesterday. Granted I'm only mid gold, but it wasn't even close to competitive. I felt like I was beating up a 1st grader.
|
On March 17 2015 03:39 WGT-Baal wrote:
I still feel like the ladder is a bit weird. I havent gotten promoted but that isnt even the issue anymore. I m platinium, about 1170pts, 56% win rate. (which, I assume, isnt so great as to warrant a promotion).
The problem is: out of the almost 90games I ve played, about a third were fair, in the sense that it felt balanced. The rest were either I got totally owned by people way out of my league or I did the same to other players. Even yesterday I got placed against a guy with 19APM and no rank icon. I assume he was quite new to the game. This is ridiculous, and not fun for either him or me.
I dont care whether I am in masters or bronze as long as the games are relatively even, most of the time.
I think the problem is more so there isn't enough players on ladder?
|
On March 17 2015 07:15 fethers wrote:
I drew 2 bronze leaguers yesterday. Granted I'm only mid gold, but it wasn't even close to competitive. I felt like I was beating up a 1st grader.
Played recently a guy with no rank. I beat him easily. Checked after game: 11 times bronze.
I'm high diamond.
|
It's not working as intended at all and still no serious update except "everything is going alright on our side, we'll keep monitoring the changes". I wonder who is in charge of monitoring the changes, because that guy has a job as entertaining as watching a leaky faucet.
|
On March 17 2015 03:39 WGT-Baal wrote:
I still feel like the ladder is a bit weird. I havent gotten promoted but that isnt even the issue anymore. I m platinium, about 1170pts, 56% win rate. (which, I assume, isnt so great as to warrant a promotion).
The problem is: out of the almost 90games I ve played, about a third were fair, in the sense that it felt balanced. The rest were either I got totally owned by people way out of my league or I did the same to other players. Even yesterday I got placed against a guy with 19APM and no rank icon. I assume he was quite new to the game. This is ridiculous, and not fun for either him or me.
I dont care whether I am in masters or bronze as long as the games are relatively even, most of the time.
I keep having things like these happen to me aswell. A week or so ago I played against a platinum league guy with 20 APM who didn't research warpgate and didn't expand by the 11 minute mark, the game ended seconds after. While a guy like that somehow made plat, I haven't gotten back into plat for 3 seasons in a row, despite beating high gold players and some mid platinum players. And then occasionally I get someone in silver or unranked, or someone relatively new in gold, and it's a stomp that's no fun whatsoever. It's no wonder that about 80% of my opponents don't GG even though I don't cheese <.<.
Also, I wish I got promoted so that I can finally do something else than holding a baneling bust on Overgrowth against Zerg because that's all you do on that map in gold league, apparently. T_T
|
I hope Blizzard responds to all these problems. It seems that their patch didn't really do much apart from changing a couple of ranks.
|
The big steps will happen when the next season starts.
|
On March 17 2015 09:01 Yrr wrote:
The big steps will happen when the next season starts.
I hope so, but if I get a beta key (that s a big IF though), I dont think I ll even play a single game next season.
The 2v2 system is also a big mess. I played with a friend who s master, I m high plat. We were 14 times masters together. We oculdnt play this season so we had to play our 1 placement games. We ended up bronze, facing a team of 2 silver players. We were plat last season (which was already not very funny).
But I can understand that there are few players in 2v2.
edit: ok, im out of 1v1. Just got matched against and pwned by FXOElbegast, (who s also in plat ...)
|
So any hope it will be back to normal with the new season tomorrow(?)? :>
|
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On March 16 2015 22:21 graNite wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2015 21:56 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
what a nightmare blizzard has created could be easily avoided if they just gave everyone a number (read: visible mmr) and put them on a giant list from best to worst player
This would help actually a lot even if they let the old system there. because then you can send them real bugs in their match making system! Imagine you have MMR 1 200 and I have 900. Match making is supposed to match people with ranks +- 100(e.g.!!!!!!). So we being matched together is a bug, but because right now we don't know our current MMR we cannot report it as a bug, because, well, sometimes you meet people who play exactly the style that beats you as a "1st grader"  (you don't know how to defend it).
On March 17 2015 07:52 OsaX Nymloth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2015 07:15 fethers wrote:
I drew 2 bronze leaguers yesterday. Granted I'm only mid gold, but it wasn't even close to competitive. I felt like I was beating up a 1st grader. Played recently a guy with no rank. I beat him easily. Checked after game: 11 times bronze. I'm high diamond.
That's the problem of unranked playing You have much higher range of players you play with. I, as a diamond, played against gold - grand masters range(few golds/GMs, but good amount of games against masters/platinum players). Yay!
|
United States12235 Posts
On April 13 2015 18:11 flyleaf wrote:
So any hope it will be back to normal with the new season tomorrow(?)? :>
It's not going to be a miracle fix, but it does provide the groundwork for things to organically return to normal over time.
|
I'm really sad, seems like they just postponed again (3rd / 4th time?) while in Korea the new season is live. Maybe they found some issues in the korean ladder. Dark SC2 times, no beta, no working ladder and still i'm here :s.
|
So I started playing again about 2 weeks ago after being in master's league throughout WoL and not really playing in HotS. I ended up in gold league which I expected because of MMR decay, but here I am 2 weeks later still in gold league. This is the first time I've seen this thread so it made me feel a little better knowing the ladder is at least partially to blame.
I still get some good games though because it seems like many people are in the same situation, but about 40% of my games I feel like I'm playing someone who I should not be matched up with. The weird thing is I've been consistently winning 60%-70% of my games and haven't even been promoted to plat, although I do play against plat/diamond players occasionally.
What would be so terrible about a complete reset with the new season? We can all do our 5 placement matches again and things will sort themselves out in a few weeks I imagine.
|
United States12235 Posts
On April 15 2015 12:26 ApBuLLet wrote:
So I started playing again about 2 weeks ago after being in master's league throughout WoL and not really playing in HotS. I ended up in gold league which I expected because of MMR decay, but here I am 2 weeks later still in gold league. This is the first time I've seen this thread so it made me feel a little better knowing the ladder is at least partially to blame.
I still get some good games though because it seems like many people are in the same situation, but about 40% of my games I feel like I'm playing someone who I should not be matched up with. The weird thing is I've been consistently winning 60%-70% of my games and haven't even been promoted to plat, although I do play against plat/diamond players occasionally.
What would be so terrible about a complete reset with the new season? We can all do our 5 placement matches again and things will sort themselves out in a few weeks I imagine.
That's already happening. Literally that exact thing. Play tomorrow when the season roll happens for NA (or today on EU, where the season roll is already live).
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
