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United States12235 Posts
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/18792768/starcraft-ii-ladder-update-april-27-2015-4-27-2015
Should provide some new information to players who haven't been closely following the ladder changes. As korona and I mentioned previously, there was no MMR reset. Instead, players were thrust into "rating calibration" which is intended for new players to quickly ascertain their proper ratings. This period lasts about 25 games.
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With the new ladder season upon us, many players have already noticed the effects of some new changes that we’ve implemented. With some adjustments previously made in Season 1, the new season provided an opportunity to implement a larger set of changes that would be risky or impossible to implement mid-season. We’d like to review the changes and how they will affect the matchmaking and ranking system.
Issues in the New Season
Before we go over the changes, a few issues have popped up in the new season and caused some confusion. We’d like to address those issues to help provide some clarity.
MMR Adjustments
Contrary to claims from some in the community, player ratings in Season 2 haven’t been reset. Instead, player ratings have been adjusted proportionally and ladder placement matches have been reset to help give players a placement that more closely reflects their actual overall rating.
However, a reason that many players believed player ratings were reset was due to an unintended side effect. The clearing of placement games unintentionally triggered an additional piece of ladder promotion logic normally intended for new players.
The “New Player” Logic
When a new player plays their first matches, the system assesses their performance in order to determine their MMR rating. The system also pairs this rating with another piece of logic called “uncertainty”. Uncertainty represents how confident the system is in your current rating. MMR and uncertainty are updated after every match and the system progressively attempts to predict your skill in relation to other players.
Early in development, some players were having too much trouble progressing through leagues. With a high level of uncertainty in their MMR, there was the potential for them to be placed in a league that exceeded their actual skill level. Due to this, the “new player” logic was built into the system to help ensure that newer players were more conservatively placed. This offers a better sense of progression as new players are given an opportunity to be promoted into new leagues once the system is more confident in their actual skill level.
In the current system, it takes around 25 games to pass the “new player” game boundary. This is the point in which the player’s uncertainty level has decreased to a point that the system is confident it has an accurate assessment of the player’s skill level.
While this logic has affected players’ initial league placement in the new season, we believe that all our active players will quickly get into the league they deserve. We apologize to any players who worked hard to achieve their rank and felt that we stripped it from them.
Problems During the Season Roll
The season roll timing has also led to some confusion. Things didn't quite go as planned, and while we have a high level of confidence in the math we applied to adjust ratings, we ran into a few implementation issues very close to the season boundary. We extended the season roll to provide more time to sort out these issues, but it wasn’t correctly scheduled in all regions. CN, KR/TW, and SEA rolled into Season 2 before we could deploy our MMR adjustments. While it wasn’t our intention to have different MMR adjustments in different regions, it does give us a chance to measure how the changes perform against a baseline and then respond to concerns from players in the next season.
Changes for This Season
Now we’d like to outline some of the changes we made for Season 2. While we touched upon some of these in our previous ladder update, we have a few additional changes to review.
Removed “MMR Decay”
“MMR decay” attempted to simulate the skill loss that would occur for an inactive player by lowering their MMR after a certain period of inactivity. While this functioned as expected for a period of time, eventually activity patterns from some players caused this functionality to have undesired effects. Now that it has been removed, inactive players will no longer see their MMR rating affected.
Proportionally Adjusted Player Ratings
Since we were unable to trace the effects of “MMR decay” on all player accounts, we have applied a proportional adjustment to accounts that we could positively identify as being decayed. Players in Diamond and above should retain their overall position and should be promoted into their proper league soon. For everyone who has been adjusted, the system has been tuned to more quickly adjust to changes in player skill. If you feel your rank is too low, please give the system 10-30 games to catch up to your current skill level. Unfortunately, the effects of “MMR Decay” for players who were only partially active in previous seasons have also caused a shift in higher players ratings that is only now being felt. Players in the Gold to Diamond league range should find their rating adjusted quicker to start the season. Players in Masters and above should still retain their overall rating but may need to break through the “low ball” barrier.
Removed League Threshold Checks
Previously, checks were in place requiring players to progress past the league threshold by a certain win percentage before a promotion. This was so players near this threshold would not ”rubber-band” back and forth between higher and lower leagues as they won and lost matches. This logic is no longer necessary given that mid-season demotions were removed some time ago. Players will now be promoted the moment their MMR meets the requirement of the new league.
Players on Win Streaks Can Now be Promoted
Previously, when a player went on a winning streak the system became less certain it was accurately assessing the skill level of the player. Thus, a league promotion would not occur until the player lost and the system was more certain of where the player should be placed. This behavior has been changed so that players on win streaks will be promoted as soon as they’re eligible.
Tightened the Rating Range When Finding a Match
When looking to find a match for a player in matchmaking, the system would previously look for opponents within a certain rating range. We’ve adjusted this behavior in the new season and tightened the rating range. This should allow for more consistent matching between players of similar skill level.
Re-adjusted League Distribution Percentages and Starting MMR for New Players
We’ve also re-adjusted the league distribution percentages and the starting MMR for new players to compensate for all the changes above.
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Sounds good overall. But I really hope that they'll do a major redesign of the whole ladder in LotV. The current system feels stale and not very motivating.
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On April 28 2015 05:57 virpi wrote:
Sounds good overall. But I really hope that they'll do a major redesign of the whole ladder in LotV. The current system feels stale and not very motivating.
The numbers of the system are very good, as long as you play enough games you'll play against people who you should be playing. The issue is the way superficial stuff like leagues, divisions, etc work.
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On April 28 2015 06:03 ZAiNs wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 05:57 virpi wrote:
Sounds good overall. But I really hope that they'll do a major redesign of the whole ladder in LotV. The current system feels stale and not very motivating. The numbers of the system are very good, as long as you play enough games you'll play against people who you should be playing. The issue is the way superficial stuff like leagues, divisions, etc work.
I don't think that's the issue. The longtime complaint is just how depersonalized the SCII ladder feels. This blog from GamaSutra is being included in a post that I'm working on on how to improve the ladder and b.net experience. It's called Creating a Better Context for Competitive Play & Mastery: Critiquing Starcraft & League. There are a lot of great ideas in here for integrating the ladder and players in a way that makes it feel more like a community. I'm sure a lot of this is being addressed in the design of automated tournaments, but there's a lot to chew on in there.
I'll be posting my write-up soon hopefully.
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It was better when 1% masters only, that made an elite league just before GM. But now everyone can be master it's pretty bad
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Except everyone isn't in master. I think the 200 cap on GM is pretty weird and pointless. Why not make it unlimited and let anyone who reaches an ELO threshold or ELO percentage threshold to rank up from masters to GM?
Then in GM, it's the fight for #1 or top 10 or w/e.
I've been looking at CSGO ladder and HS ladder and I feel that sc2's ladder can definitely use some changes, including getting rid of the pointless divisions.
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We’ve also re-adjusted the league distribution percentages and the starting MMR for new players to compensate for all the changes above.
So if there is no mid season demotion, won't that eventually make the upper leagues have more players towards the end of the season than they are supposed to have? Master league is already almost double than it was supposed to have before (2%) or what are the new percentages supposed to be like?
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United Kingdom20282 Posts
So if there is no mid season demotion, won't that eventually make the upper leagues have more players towards the end of the season than they are supposed to have?
Especially since they made promotions INTO the leagues much easier than they were before (you can be promoted with a high uncertainty and you can also be promoted immediately instead of having to average higher than the needed MMR) then i can't imagine anything other than league bloating over time.
Such is life when you can't be demoted. Every change like this makes me wonder what blizzard actually wants for leagues, why they're using them instead of an MMR display and who the target audience is - because it's not me or anybody i know that plays the game 5 years after launch
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Still can't understand why former GMs are stuck in diamond and former mid masters are in GM now
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Top GM eu is stucked in diamond but everything is working, good to now.
On April 28 2015 07:05 SuperHofmann wrote:
Still can't understand why former GMs are stuck in diamond and former mid masters are in GM now
the latter is easy, there are at least 100 available spots since most top and mid gms are stucked in diamond.
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Canada8157 Posts
Previously, when a player went on a winning streak the system became less certain it was accurately assessing the skill level of the player. Thus, a league promotion would not occur until the player lost
I don't even know what to say to this
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United States12235 Posts
On April 28 2015 06:18 Deathstar wrote:
Except everyone isn't in master. I think the 200 cap on GM is pretty weird and pointless. Why not make it unlimited and let anyone who reaches an ELO threshold or ELO percentage threshold to rank up from masters to GM?
Then in GM, it's the fight for #1 or top 10 or w/e.
I've been looking at CSGO ladder and HS ladder and I feel that sc2's ladder can definitely use some changes, including getting rid of the pointless divisions.
That's sort of how it works already. Kinda. It picks the top 200 MMR people and puts a marker at the #200 guy's rating at the time of league creation. For the rest of the season, you have to climb above that marker to get promoted into GM. If the #200 guy's rating was very high, that could mean slots that opened up due to inactivity wouldn't be filled very quickly. If it wasn't that high, it would be a mad dash, first-come first-served for players above that rating to play a game and fill that slot. It has its pros and cons certainly.
On April 28 2015 07:07 Jer99 wrote:Show nested quote +Previously, when a player went on a winning streak the system became less certain it was accurately assessing the skill level of the player. Thus, a league promotion would not occur until the player lost I don't even know what to say to this
I actually thought this was taken out a long time ago, but apparently it was still in. What I know was taken out was removing the win streak bias for players crossing the top edge of the next league. For example, if you were in Gold, you would get promoted either until you stabilized somewhere within Platinum or you would get an automatic promotion into Platinum once your MMR reached the Diamond zone. But yeah, the stabilization requirement definitely isn't necessary now that there are no midseason demotions.
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On April 28 2015 05:53 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Removed League Threshold Checks
Previously, checks were in place requiring players to progress past the league threshold by a certain win percentage before a promotion. This was so players near this threshold would not ”rubber-band” back and forth between higher and lower leagues as they won and lost matches. This logic is no longer necessary given that mid-season demotions were removed some time ago. Players will now be promoted the moment their MMR meets the requirement of the new league.
This is the problem .Currently to get promoted from Dia to Master you need at least 25 games and have an mmr that is classified as "master" league to get promoted. HOWEVER, if your mmr has exceeded this "threshold" before 25 games then you will NEVER get promoted out of diamond. This is the reason why progamers are all stuck in diamond. They win the majority of their first 25 games, since you know they are progamers... some even going 25-0 hence why diamond is the "new GM".
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On April 28 2015 07:20 Xinzoe wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 05:53 Excalibur_Z wrote:
Removed League Threshold Checks
Previously, checks were in place requiring players to progress past the league threshold by a certain win percentage before a promotion. This was so players near this threshold would not ”rubber-band” back and forth between higher and lower leagues as they won and lost matches. This logic is no longer necessary given that mid-season demotions were removed some time ago. Players will now be promoted the moment their MMR meets the requirement of the new league.
This is the problem .Currently to get promoted from Dia to Master you need at least 25 games and have an mmr that is classified as "master" league to get promoted. HOWEVER, if your mmr has exceeded this "threshold" before 25 games then you will NEVER get promoted out of diamond. This is the reason why progamers are all stuck in diamond. They win the majority of their first 25 games, since you know they are progamers... some even going 25-0 hence why diamond is the "new GM".
Well their MMR was too high from the beginning, even if they do not win all the 25 games (which they do not since they play other pros with high MMRs). As mentioned MMR's weren't actually reset, but they were placed in a lower league (diamond instead of masters) because of the new player rule. So regardless of the 25 games, they are stuck in diamond with high GM MMR. Maybe losing all 25 games would've tanked their MMR enough to get into Masters? Not sure.
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On April 28 2015 07:07 Jer99 wrote:Show nested quote +Previously, when a player went on a winning streak the system became less certain it was accurately assessing the skill level of the player. Thus, a league promotion would not occur until the player lost I don't even know what to say to this
This has been known since a long time ago right? It really obviously felt like that's what was happening :D
And I mean, why not, you don't have an idea of how strong you are until you lose to someone stronger.
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sometimes i really think blizzard need to post
Fuck you all. Play the game, you will be sorted out eventually as it is a computer algorithm thats being applied here. It isnt going to be perfect all of the time but generally speaking and through testing it mostly is. So fuck off with ur whining, stop being a bronze player thinking ur low masters
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Thanks blizzard
Now i can spend a couple of days to set my acc back to masters
From bronze ....
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Good MMR decay must be removed nice that they finaly did
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ok, small reboot, 50 games to catch up, good to know^^
I am glad blizzard is trying to improve the ladder even if it's a small step in the right way.
Removed "mmr decay" is a good think as inactity and skills are not really linked at low leagues. However i think a decay for inactivity should still be in effect at high leagues.
With no more League Threshold Checks and with a fix on the Win Streaks, i hope the boost period to master will be decreased. Easier promotions can help improve ladder experience for new players.
"Tightened the Rating Range" i a bit concerned about this one. +30secondes to search and will it really help to find similar skill level player ?
League Distribution,..., better to show mmr or to add more leagues, it's still missing something.
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On April 28 2015 06:03 ZAiNs wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 05:57 virpi wrote:
Sounds good overall. But I really hope that they'll do a major redesign of the whole ladder in LotV. The current system feels stale and not very motivating. The numbers of the system are very good, as long as you play enough games you'll play against people who you should be playing. The issue is the way superficial stuff like leagues, divisions, etc work.
I'm really into statistics and tables. And I'm a competitive person.
I don't want to be number 59 in diamond league division "zergling chobo". I want to know my exact rank, I want to know how many wins I'm away from being eligible for a promotion, and I don't want an obfuscated ladder system in which basically every number you see on screen is absolutely meaningless, because the only thing that matters is your mmr.
Screw bonus pool, screw decay (yay, they got rid of that!), screw the "favored"-system. Just give me opponents around my mmr rating and show the f...ing ladder as it is.
Yes, I know that there are sites like nios.kr, I'm already using them. But what's the problem in having all that jazz in-game?
I never understood that dumb 6-league-random-subdivision-top-something-bullshit. Having relative league distributions is only fine if the people know why they are where they are.
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Masters league is shit now. I got it, but I don't feel accomplished because even your grandmother is masters now. Make it 2%, Blizzard. I was feeling more accomplished with high diamond last season unlike the mass masters now.
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I miss the good old WGTour ladder ranks from broodwar
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Canada11355 Posts
On April 28 2015 06:13 BadBorz wrote:
It was better when 1% masters only, that made an elite league just before GM. But now everyone can be master it's pretty bad
On April 22 2015 09:30 Fecalfeast wrote:
I don't know about you guys but I'm honestly just excited to read "I got into masters back when it was actually hard" once everything settles down
Hahahahahaha
edit:
On April 28 2015 08:59 darkness wrote:
Masters league is shit now. I got it, but I don't feel accomplished because even your grandmother is masters now. Make it 2%, Blizzard. I was feeling more accomplished with high diamond last season unlike the mass masters now.
HOHOHOHOHO
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I got into Masters by 1 basing 90% of my games.
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FINALLY. Good bye MMR decay I will NOT miss you. Made team games unplayable for me, i know that doesn't matter to a lot of people but it sure as hell does for me.
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On April 28 2015 09:48 covetousrat wrote:
I got into Masters by 1 basing 90% of my games.
#justNAladderthings
Also, I was very glad to read their statement on how exactly they inputted this change, because I am among the many people that has put a lot of work in to get where I am and then to get placed in a league I haven't placed in since HotS dropped is REALLY demoralizing after brushing the edge of Masters several times.
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Excalibur_Z, do you know which rating system are they actually using? It sounds like modified Glicko2. Except then you shouldn't have needed additional MMR decay in the system. So then the question is, with explicit decay removed, does your "uncertainty" increase over time from inactivity?
I always thought they didn't keep track of variance ("uncertainly") that explicitly which was why promotions were based on moving average of MMR. Now that the buffer zone is removed, are you promoted strictly based on stored MMR or is a smoothing function still being applied?
It really sounds like they were doing too many little tweaks to a proven rating system and all these customizations were biting them in the ass.
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What I don't get is why are there so many pros stuck in diamond league? People like Jaedong, Stardust, Kane etc are stuck in diamond with 1k + points and 80+% winrates. It doesn't make sense.
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Kind of wish they would just remove leagues and just use mmr like dota 2 does
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On April 28 2015 12:09 knOxStarcraft wrote:
Kind of wish they would just remove leagues and just use mmr like dota 2 does
this would make everything so much easier and more transparent.
most importantly: new players would understand it immediatly. how is it right now? do you really expect a new player to read all forums? and why do they inform us a week after they changed the whole ladder?
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With no ladder demotions, it's not going to work well in the long run.
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United Kingdom20282 Posts
On April 28 2015 12:28 geokilla wrote:
With no ladder demotions, it's not going to work well in the long run.
There's no way to balance the league system without demotions. The best case scenario is that it starts off with the target % (say, 20%) and then inflates in a very top-heavy way before being reset in 8 weeks
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United States12235 Posts
On April 28 2015 10:36 c0ldfusion wrote:
Excalibur_Z, do you know which rating system are they actually using? It sounds like modified Glicko2. Except then you shouldn't have needed additional MMR decay in the system. So then the question is, with explicit decay removed, does your "uncertainty" increase over time from inactivity?
I always thought they didn't keep track of variance ("uncertainly") that explicitly which was why promotions were based on moving average of MMR. Now that the buffer zone is removed, are you promoted strictly based on stored MMR or is a smoothing function still being applied?
It really sounds like they were doing too many little tweaks to a proven rating system and all these customizations were biting them in the ass.
The system is proprietary but it's basically a modified Elo. The win probability as defined by the gap between two players functions exactly the same way in Elo as it does in SC2's system. The only difference is SC2 takes the variance into account, so if we're both new players and you're 100 rating higher than me, it might scale the win probability back a little bit (to say, 50) since the confidence that you're actually 100 better than me is pretty low. I actually don't know if uncertainty increases with inactivity, that's something I never got a clear answer on, but it would be interesting to know.
I also am not sure whether streakiness inhibited promotions the way they said, because like you, I thought that's what the moving average component was for. I don't think we actually had enough empirical evidence to claim one way or the other. MMR-Stats data tried to estimate boundaries based upon collected user information, and those were generally pretty accurate, leading me to believe that functionality was removed a long time ago. They could just be simplifying the language in the blog post, or they could have actually made other changes like this when HotS launched. In any case, yes, you are now promoted immediately upon crossing the boundary into the new league. The way I understand it, formerly you had to get a certain percentage of the way past the boundary (you could think of it like breaking away from the stickiness of your old league) but that's now gone. As far as MMR-Stats goes, this should change the projected boundaries but only a minor amount.
You're right that a bunch of tweaks and changes compounded into what eventually became a huge mess. On Reddit I called it a "mess of compromises" as they tried to balance out the player demand for accurate ranking with the developer demand for activity and retention. I'm glad they decided to streamline a lot of the more convoluted elements of the ladder. It will make things less confusing overall, and in this ladder, that's sorely needed.
On April 28 2015 11:56 Adastrom wrote:
What I don't get is why are there so many pros stuck in diamond league? People like Jaedong, Stardust, Kane etc are stuck in diamond with 1k + points and 80+% winrates. It doesn't make sense.
It makes perfect sense (in that it's explainable). Let's say these top pros have MMRs of 2500. Master league covers 2000-2400. The "lowball" effect of initial conservative placement for players in rating calibration puts them a league lower than they're supposed to be, i.e., Diamond. They're already above the top end of Master and staying there because obviously they're amazing. Without going back down into the designated Master range, they won't get promoted into Master league. So that's one bug.
The other bug is that they weren't invited to GM league when it opened up. That's the part that really doesn't make sense, and is a much more serious bug.
On April 28 2015 12:33 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 12:28 geokilla wrote:
With no ladder demotions, it's not going to work well in the long run. There's no way to balance the league system without demotions. The best case scenario is that it starts off with the target % (say, 20%) and then inflates in a very top-heavy way before being reset in 8 weeks
Demotions... demotions aren't as necessary as people think they are, I believe. Let's say the MMR boundary for Master league is 2000. What this will mean is anytime anyone crosses above 2000 MMR, they will earn the Master badge, even if it's just one game on a lucky streak. That will inflate Master league a little bit. But the number of players actually above 2000 MMR -- actually in the Master rating range -- will still be around 2% no matter how many Master badges adorn people's profiles. That's because as many people who go from 1950 to 2050 will drop from 2050 to 1950, and that's just the natural flow of ladder. Players who aren't above 2000 by the season roll won't get back into Master the following season (assuming the boundaries don't shift). It works itself out. This is just another reason why Nios.kr provides information that can be easily misinterpreted =)
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United Kingdom20282 Posts
Demotions... demotions aren't as necessary as people think they are, I believe. Let's say the MMR boundary for Master league is 2000. What this will mean is anytime anyone crosses above 2000 MMR, they will earn the Master badge, even if it's just one game on a lucky streak. That will inflate Master league a little bit. But the number of players actually above 2000 MMR -- actually in the Master rating range -- will still be around 2% no matter how many Master badges adorn people's profiles.
They've made it so that you can be promoted with ANY uncertainty and you also don't need to be a comfortable amount past the MMR boundry, if you ever hit it once then you'll be promoted til the end of the season. That will make it inflate FAR faster than it has in the past
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yeah, id like gm to be the two guys with the highest mmr every night not in gm until its full rather than filling all at once.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 28 2015 12:57 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +
Demotions... demotions aren't as necessary as people think they are, I believe. Let's say the MMR boundary for Master league is 2000. What this will mean is anytime anyone crosses above 2000 MMR, they will earn the Master badge, even if it's just one game on a lucky streak. That will inflate Master league a little bit. But the number of players actually above 2000 MMR -- actually in the Master rating range -- will still be around 2% no matter how many Master badges adorn people's profiles.
They've made it so that you can be promoted with ANY uncertainty and you also don't need to be a comfortable amount past the MMR boundry, if you ever hit it once then you'll be promoted til the end of the season. That will make it inflate FAR faster than it has in the past
I mean, you're absolutely right, but I don't know if that's a real problem per se. Unless you're approaching badges from the perspective of rarity and prestige, then yes there is an argument to be made. Statistically speaking it is a benign issue.
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United Kingdom20282 Posts
On April 28 2015 13:26 Excalibur_Z wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 12:57 Cyro wrote:
Demotions... demotions aren't as necessary as people think they are, I believe. Let's say the MMR boundary for Master league is 2000. What this will mean is anytime anyone crosses above 2000 MMR, they will earn the Master badge, even if it's just one game on a lucky streak. That will inflate Master league a little bit. But the number of players actually above 2000 MMR -- actually in the Master rating range -- will still be around 2% no matter how many Master badges adorn people's profiles.
They've made it so that you can be promoted with ANY uncertainty and you also don't need to be a comfortable amount past the MMR boundry, if you ever hit it once then you'll be promoted til the end of the season. That will make it inflate FAR faster than it has in the past I mean, you're absolutely right, but I don't know if that's a real problem per se. Unless you're approaching badges from the perspective of rarity and prestige, then yes there is an argument to be made. Statistically speaking it is a benign issue.
Previously we could say "I'm in diamond league, so i'm approximately in the top 20%"
now, 6 weeks into the season, 30% of the ladder might have diamond and it's really not clear at all where you stand. For example, blizzard have said they will give LOTV beta to top 20% of the ladder - you have no way of knowing if you're included or not.
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On April 28 2015 13:35 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 13:26 Excalibur_Z wrote:On April 28 2015 12:57 Cyro wrote:
Demotions... demotions aren't as necessary as people think they are, I believe. Let's say the MMR boundary for Master league is 2000. What this will mean is anytime anyone crosses above 2000 MMR, they will earn the Master badge, even if it's just one game on a lucky streak. That will inflate Master league a little bit. But the number of players actually above 2000 MMR -- actually in the Master rating range -- will still be around 2% no matter how many Master badges adorn people's profiles.
They've made it so that you can be promoted with ANY uncertainty and you also don't need to be a comfortable amount past the MMR boundry, if you ever hit it once then you'll be promoted til the end of the season. That will make it inflate FAR faster than it has in the past I mean, you're absolutely right, but I don't know if that's a real problem per se. Unless you're approaching badges from the perspective of rarity and prestige, then yes there is an argument to be made. Statistically speaking it is a benign issue. Previously we could say "I'm in diamond league, so i'm approximately in the top 20%" now, 6 weeks into the season, 30% of the ladder might have diamond and it's really not clear at all where you stand. For example, blizzard have said they will give LOTV beta to top 20% of the ladder - you have no way of knowing if you're included or not.
Edit;
Sorry I realize now that you meant it as a hypothetical example. That said; it's still hard with the division system to know. I mean; whats top 20% translate to? GM through top gold? GM through top plat? No one can tell for sure where the line is right now. Only Blizzard can.
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Hmm had a 70- 80% Winrate in my league (plat, beside Opponent was lategame toss^^) before I had 5 placement matches. Now I am in Silver and have 100% winrate (10 games so far). Will report what happens after the 25 games period. Or maybe I finally get one of the awards for finishing high in a ladder/league at the end of the month
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Remove leagues (except maybe GM), give visible MMR. Spend the resources spent on league adjustments and all that shit on more useful things. Problems resolved.
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Always cool to hear that things the community figured out were true. Very glad to have the MMR decay removed (at least the way it was functioning wasn't beneficial).
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On April 28 2015 15:47 MaestroMaus wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 13:35 Cyro wrote:On April 28 2015 13:26 Excalibur_Z wrote:On April 28 2015 12:57 Cyro wrote:
Demotions... demotions aren't as necessary as people think they are, I believe. Let's say the MMR boundary for Master league is 2000. What this will mean is anytime anyone crosses above 2000 MMR, they will earn the Master badge, even if it's just one game on a lucky streak. That will inflate Master league a little bit. But the number of players actually above 2000 MMR -- actually in the Master rating range -- will still be around 2% no matter how many Master badges adorn people's profiles.
They've made it so that you can be promoted with ANY uncertainty and you also don't need to be a comfortable amount past the MMR boundry, if you ever hit it once then you'll be promoted til the end of the season. That will make it inflate FAR faster than it has in the past I mean, you're absolutely right, but I don't know if that's a real problem per se. Unless you're approaching badges from the perspective of rarity and prestige, then yes there is an argument to be made. Statistically speaking it is a benign issue. Previously we could say "I'm in diamond league, so i'm approximately in the top 20%" now, 6 weeks into the season, 30% of the ladder might have diamond and it's really not clear at all where you stand. For example, blizzard have said they will give LOTV beta to top 20% of the ladder - you have no way of knowing if you're included or not. Edit; Sorry I realize now that you meant it as a hypothetical example. That said; it's still hard with the division system to know. I mean; whats top 20% translate to? GM through top gold? GM through top plat? No one can tell for sure where the line is right now. Only Blizzard can.
This happens almost every time they change something drastic like this. The leagues will flex a bit and they'll adjust the boundries. Say ML used to be 2000mmr to get in. With people being promoted instantly at 2k it'll expand to 5%. Blizzard will adjust the boundry to 2200 the following season and we'll only see 2% again...
EDIT:
I also agree on the "removing leagues" and just displaying MMR like DotA. The other option would be to take the CSGO route and increase the number of leagues.
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I always wanted a harsher system.
With more promotions / demotions and and MMR that swings more wildly. I don't care much for the rating within the league as you can't really compare it to other players rating.
The most frustrating point for me is when I feel like I'm stuck. I much rather see how far off I am from the league above and league below.
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Got back into masters finally after being stuck forever last season. So no complain. Great work Blizzard.
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On April 28 2015 16:50 JulDraGoN wrote:
I always wanted a harsher system.
With more promotions / demotions and and MMR that swings more wildly. I don't care much for the rating within the league as you can't really compare it to other players rating.
The most frustrating point for me is when I feel like I'm stuck. I much rather see how far off I am from the league above and league below.
But when the dust settles after a bit chaotic start, the MMRs should reflect the skill levels better. And this leads to better matchmaking.
The leagues are just badges, the boundaries can be adjusted if the initial offsets / thresholds turn out to be too low. Also worth to remember that after the MMR change rate of the accounts stabilizes the MMR changes will be slow just like before. Thus the leagues cannot be too wide either (e.g. diamond league was too wide for a long time as it in practice usually took 40+ win more than loses just to get from the bottom of diamond to the bottom of master)..
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On April 28 2015 13:35 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 13:26 Excalibur_Z wrote:On April 28 2015 12:57 Cyro wrote:
Demotions... demotions aren't as necessary as people think they are, I believe. Let's say the MMR boundary for Master league is 2000. What this will mean is anytime anyone crosses above 2000 MMR, they will earn the Master badge, even if it's just one game on a lucky streak. That will inflate Master league a little bit. But the number of players actually above 2000 MMR -- actually in the Master rating range -- will still be around 2% no matter how many Master badges adorn people's profiles.
They've made it so that you can be promoted with ANY uncertainty and you also don't need to be a comfortable amount past the MMR boundry, if you ever hit it once then you'll be promoted til the end of the season. That will make it inflate FAR faster than it has in the past I mean, you're absolutely right, but I don't know if that's a real problem per se. Unless you're approaching badges from the perspective of rarity and prestige, then yes there is an argument to be made. Statistically speaking it is a benign issue. Previously we could say "I'm in diamond league, so i'm approximately in the top 20%" now, 6 weeks into the season, 30% of the ladder might have diamond and it's really not clear at all where you stand. For example, blizzard have said they will give LOTV beta to top 20% of the ladder - you have no way of knowing if you're included or not.
The top 20% invites are based on your Season 1 performance click me 
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On April 28 2015 16:10 OtherWorld wrote:
Remove leagues (except maybe GM), give visible MMR. Spend the resources spent on league adjustments and all that shit on more useful things. Problems resolved.
well i doubt they'll ever do that after 5 years of league bullshit. Even lol switched from a rating to a division based system...
and get rid of bonus pool too.
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On April 28 2015 17:50 sAsImre wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 16:10 OtherWorld wrote:
Remove leagues (except maybe GM), give visible MMR. Spend the resources spent on league adjustments and all that shit on more useful things. Problems resolved. well i doubt they'll ever do that after 5 years of league bullshit. Even lol switched from a rating to a division based system... and get rid of bonus pool too.
It wouldn't be so bad if they had some more divisions. Having just 5 (excluding GM) means that being at the top of your division or bottom is a big difference.
Further, removing in-season demotions means you never know if the displayed league is even accurate. (Especially with the change to promotions) It's quite possible to play someone in a league above without your MMR being close to promotion - if their MMR has dropped significantly since their promotion.
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I don't understand why there would be an upper bound on MMR for master's league. It seems the problem is present in team games also.
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I really like the idea of having more leagues. Would be cool if "wood league" actually came into being, instead of being just an insult.
Even though the badge doesn't "really" mean anything, there is a joy in suddenly getting promoted, even if it's a childish joy. I for one also find it encouraging to get closer to the top of my division, even if it doesn't indicate actual mmr. For people in higher leagues I can understand that they would prefer to see their actual mmr ranking. What I don't find encouraging is being stuck in gold since the beginning of hots after being plat for several seasons before that, so I look forward to see how these changes will affect my progress (haven't had time to play much since the season started).
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Ladder feels once again much more balanced as during other periods!
As you mentioned mmr requirment, i`ve a bit of a awkward question.
How much has the mmr requirement (e.g for gold league) changed during WoL 2010 till today? Or any other given points in time to get a rough estimation. If it has changed at all.
Thanks for working on and caring about the ladder
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On April 28 2015 19:13 Paukum wrote:
I really like the idea of having more leagues. Would be cool if "wood league" actually came into being, instead of being just an insult.
Even though the badge doesn't "really" mean anything, there is a joy in suddenly getting promoted, even if it's a childish joy. I for one also find it encouraging to get closer to the top of my division, even if it doesn't indicate actual mmr. For people in higher leagues I can understand that they would prefer to see their actual mmr ranking. What I don't find encouraging is being stuck in gold since the beginning of hots after being plat for several seasons before that, so I look forward to see how these changes will affect my progress (haven't had time to play much since the season started).
But wood league was actually between diamond and master :D You'd actually be good, but not that good.
Copper would be below bronze and maybe iron below it....
I've also always felt it was dumb how many 1 game accounts you'd see in any given division. Maybe think that they should reconsider the placement match amount. Something like 5 for returning players and 10 for new/mmr reset players.
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On April 28 2015 17:35 tar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2015 13:35 Cyro wrote:On April 28 2015 13:26 Excalibur_Z wrote:On April 28 2015 12:57 Cyro wrote:
Demotions... demotions aren't as necessary as people think they are, I believe. Let's say the MMR boundary for Master league is 2000. What this will mean is anytime anyone crosses above 2000 MMR, they will earn the Master badge, even if it's just one game on a lucky streak. That will inflate Master league a little bit. But the number of players actually above 2000 MMR -- actually in the Master rating range -- will still be around 2% no matter how many Master badges adorn people's profiles.
They've made it so that you can be promoted with ANY uncertainty and you also don't need to be a comfortable amount past the MMR boundry, if you ever hit it once then you'll be promoted til the end of the season. That will make it inflate FAR faster than it has in the past I mean, you're absolutely right, but I don't know if that's a real problem per se. Unless you're approaching badges from the perspective of rarity and prestige, then yes there is an argument to be made. Statistically speaking it is a benign issue. Previously we could say "I'm in diamond league, so i'm approximately in the top 20%" now, 6 weeks into the season, 30% of the ladder might have diamond and it's really not clear at all where you stand. For example, blizzard have said they will give LOTV beta to top 20% of the ladder - you have no way of knowing if you're included or not. The top 20% invites are based on your Season 1 performance click me
But what does the top 20% mean? Interesting dilemma:
a) diamond, master, gm - These leagues are the top 20% based on Blizzards official communication. In this option MMR would not affect eligibility (e.g. if you were in master and tanked your MMR to silver level you would still get access)
b) based only on MMR - Top 20% for many servers would likely include most platinum range and all higher leagues. In this model the league badge would mean nothing. If you were in master league and you tanked your MMR e.g. to silver range you would not get access
c) based on MMR but some activity filtering - For example some requirement regarding maximum unused bonus pool
d) top 20 of each ladder division on every league. The MMR itself would not be a factor - just that you have been active enough to reach top 20 of your division (usually you get to top 20 just by spending your bonus pool). Blizzard's German customer support speculated on Twitter that this would be their approach.
e) some other way to define 'top 20%'
But in some days we likely know more as Blizzard was aiming to start giving beta accesses later this week. More discussion regarding this dilemma can be found from http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/483822-top-20-invites
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The funny thing is, if they had just stuck to a basic Elo or Glicko rating system we wouldn't have had all these problems.
The language they used is still too vague. You can tell it's basically the stat guy explaining to the community manager what the changes were and they had to awkwardly translate it for the general population. It's not like the community folks are going to answer any technical questions about the ladder anyway. That and 99%+ of ladder doesn't actually care about the details. They just want to know if the ladder "works".
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United Kingdom20282 Posts
This happens almost every time they change something drastic like this. The leagues will flex a bit and they'll adjust the boundries. Say ML used to be 2000mmr to get in. With people being promoted instantly at 2k it'll expand to 5%. Blizzard will adjust the boundry to 2200 the following season and we'll only see 2% again...
There's no boundary that they can adjust. They're letting people IN but not OUT - there are only two possible outcomes
1; promotions into the league are too hard or even impossible
2; big inflation of league population % on the higher leagues as we get weeks deeper into the season
Sorry I realize now that you meant it as a hypothetical example. That said; it's still hard with the division system to know. I mean; whats top 20% translate to? GM through top gold? GM through top plat? No one can tell for sure where the line is right now. Only Blizzard can.
Previously (and i'm talking like WOL here, maybe early HOTS) the leagues were rooted to %'s much more solidly. The MMR numbers were about right, you were not promoted until you were solidly in the next league (or demoted unless you were solidly in the one below) and the league percentages stayed quite steady throughout the season.
With these changes they're guaranteeing drastic inflation in masters and diamond.
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On April 28 2015 22:33 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +This happens almost every time they change something drastic like this. The leagues will flex a bit and they'll adjust the boundries. Say ML used to be 2000mmr to get in. With people being promoted instantly at 2k it'll expand to 5%. Blizzard will adjust the boundry to 2200 the following season and we'll only see 2% again... There's no boundary that they can adjust. They're letting people IN but not OUT - there are only two possible outcomes 1; promotions into the league are too hard or even impossible 2; big inflation of league population % on the higher leagues as we get weeks deeper into the season
That has been the case since they removed demotion (?june 2013?). Statistically, the % of players in masters would get to 100% if everyone played an infinite amount of games.
I don't think the threshold removal will have such an impact. To my understanding, they only promoted when MMR got to ("lower_bound" + "threshold"), where "threshold" is the estimated standard variability of a player's MMR for a fixed skill.
Removing the threshold only means that players at ("lower_bound" - "threshold") will get promoted at the highest of their standard variability. This is something that can easily enough be managed by redefining the bounds themselves.
The overlap between leagues remains approximately the same, but it is between ("lower_bound" - 2*"threshold") and "lower_bound" instead of ("lower_bound" - "threshold") and ("lower_bound" + "threshold")
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Just a quick report: I'm back in mid-dish Diamond, which is where I was before I stopped playing months ago. I'm at 40 games with a 50% winrate. The strange thing is I got promoted after 4 losses in a row to plats, but one win against a diamond. It's super wonky.
I really hope they find a way to make the ladder more meaningful and integral to the community experience with LOTV.
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On April 29 2015 02:03 wUndertUnge wrote:
Just a quick report: I'm back in mid-dish Diamond, which is where I was before I stopped playing months ago. I'm at 40 games with a 50% winrate. The strange thing is I got promoted after 4 losses in a row to plats, but one win against a diamond. It's super wonky.
I really hope they find a way to make the ladder more meaningful and integral to the community experience with LOTV.
That promotion likely happened around 25th to 30th match? The system promotes after 25th match to your actual league if you already have not been promoted (if player was in calibration phase == 5 placements). It does not promote after lost games - only after wins.
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Are unranked matches included to those 25 matches? Let`s say i`ll play 15 unranked matches and then 10 ranked. Does the calibration grabs then too? Afaik unranked works with the same mmr as ranked does!?
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I've uninstalled StarCraft today. Due to TL's rules I can't be specific, but I wish you good luck in this game where Blizzard doesn't give a shit. It's really a childish fix from Blizzard to inflate masters league to keep people 'happy'. It didn't work for me despite promotion. There are much bigger problems than easier promotions could solve.
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I don nou what happening with the system that assign leagues, the other day i saw a terran diamond player with 50 apm, i could understand a protoss player with 50 apm that got diamond with cheeses and allins, that situation existed and will exist, but when i saw a terran diamond with 50 apm, i realized that is something wrong with the new system, and the massive promotion to master, basically now leagues doesnt mean anything.
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On April 29 2015 03:57 Striker.superfreunde wrote:
Are unranked matches included to those 25 matches? Let`s say i`ll play 15 unranked matches and then 10 ranked. Does the calibration grabs then too? Afaik unranked works with the same mmr as ranked does!?
No. Ranked and unranked MMRs are separated. But it is likely that similar calibration period happens for unranked too (hidden placement matches and possible calibration period after that).
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United Kingdom20282 Posts
That has been the case since they removed demotion (?june 2013?). Statistically, the % of players in masters would get to 100% if everyone played an infinite amount of games.
I don't think the threshold removal will have such an impact. To my understanding, they only promoted when MMR got to ("lower_bound" + "threshold"), where "threshold" is the estimated standard variability of a player's MMR for a fixed skill.
Removing the threshold only means that players at ("lower_bound" - "threshold") will get promoted at the highest of their standard variability. This is something that can easily enough be managed by redefining the bounds themselves.
They're promoting people when their peak MMR hits X for one game, instead of the previous system where they promoted them after their peak MMR hit X+Y+Z (no more variability taken into account and no safety margin). I think it'll have a pretty big impact - with no demotions anyway, it's only a question of how fast masters+diamond inflates
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On April 29 2015 08:24 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +That has been the case since they removed demotion (?june 2013?). Statistically, the % of players in masters would get to 100% if everyone played an infinite amount of games.
I don't think the threshold removal will have such an impact. To my understanding, they only promoted when MMR got to ("lower_bound" + "threshold"), where "threshold" is the estimated standard variability of a player's MMR for a fixed skill.
Removing the threshold only means that players at ("lower_bound" - "threshold") will get promoted at the highest of their standard variability. This is something that can easily enough be managed by redefining the bounds themselves. They're promoting people when their peak MMR hits X for one game, instead of the previous system where they promoted them after their peak MMR hit X+Y+Z (no more variability taken into account and no safety margin). I think it'll have a pretty big impact - with no demotions anyway, it's only a question of how fast masters+diamond inflates
Even before the changes the uncertainty did not affect the accounts noticeably after calibration period was over based on MMR tool data. The MMR changes were quite predictable after the stabilization had happened
And the safety margin that was there was likely quite small as there usually was no zigzagging near the threshold and most accounts were promoted with about the same MMR levels. Do remember that you can get pretty much similar effect that you got from a small safety margin just by adjusting the league offsets / thresholds. If the initial offsets / thresholds are not optimal, Blizzard can adjust them after the dust has settled (when majority of the accounts have stabilized and reached their 'typical levels').
It is shame that too many are now only looking at the league percentages on nios. The percentages are not that relevant at this point. The thresholds can be adjusted if the initial guesses (estimates what static offsets / thresholds would be ok) were not on spot and the league distribution ends up being off. The more important effect is that the MMRs should become skill ratings once again when enough accounts have went through calibration. And if the MMRs end up corresponding the skill levels better, the matchmaking improves.
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On April 28 2015 09:06 ROOTFayth wrote:
I miss the good old WGTour ladder ranks from broodwar
Me too. But even back then people complained a lot about the ladder. But at least the ranking system was clear. Yet there was no auto matchmaking. It was basically managed directly by the players in the way games were created
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Finally I'm master again... And finally they made it possible to advance the league without playing 100 games. I once played 60 games and had 60 wins in a row with my brothers acc.
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On April 30 2015 23:27 NaboliC wrote:
Finally I'm master again... And finally they made it possible to advance the league without playing 100 games. I once played 60 games and had 60 wins in a row with my brothers acc.
Same here. After being re-ranked (5 games placement, got cheesed by 3 different 50 APM tosses. God how I hate this game sometimes. Inferior players shouldn't win because of single units abilities) to silver I had 100% winrate and after 15-20 games went to gold, 1 game later plat, 1 game later to dia. Where I still win, even offrace
Looking forward to the LotV invite
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I'm loving the changes, quite a few of which seem to be a return to game-launch league outcomes and common-sense adjustments since players cannot be demoted in a season. Good riddance MMR decay.
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EPT
