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Season 7 Matchmaking Debunk

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EnderSword
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada669 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-11 01:32:06
April 11 2012 00:25 GMT
#1
I know the season just started, and there's always a flood of 'This sucks' stuff coming in, just figured I'd point out the 3 main things you are going to see, and how they are or are not affected by the Match-Maker changes.

1) "I got Demoted!" This is not affected the the new match making, Your MMR just put you in that league...remember you must actually be actively improving just to stay in the league you were in before. New match making did not affect this, but the natural shrinking of active players does make it harder to stay high league since more casual Bronzes quit than Masters.

2) "Everyone is 'Favored'! Match maker Brokeneded!"

The start of all your seasons, most people have appeared as 'favored' and guess what, on their end, YOU were 'favored' Favored is not an objective system....BOTH players can see each other as favored. There's two reasons: First, because placement players tend to show as favored to give you the benefit of the doubt, and many people you play today will be doing their placement, secondly. It does not compare your rank vs rank or MMR vs MMR, it apparently compares Rank vs MMR. So it possible, especially early on, both players show as favoured.

3) "It's matching me only against better people!!" This might actually be true, but again isn't actually the new match maker, it's also always been true...depending where you rank. Unless you were close to promotion last season, you'll likely face tough opponents at the beginning of this season. There's a lot of stats reasons for this, but to put it simply, the Ladder just reset everyone to even (EDIT: I do not mean MMR was set to even, I mean everyone's points are now Zero)...now it's allowing the good people to go ahead again. So it's now letting you play against the #1 guy in your diviion who never quite got promoted, and that guy who just barely fell out of Masters. If it didn't do this, then the guy who was #1 would probably end up ranked 40th or 50th this season because he came in at 0 points and was already playing evenly matched much harder players....so it lets him play you for a bit. Just grin and take it for a few days.

So, New Match-making MAY be good or bad, but you're not going to be able to disntinguish that until about 2 weeks from today because today you don't really know how good anyone is.




Bronze/Silver/Gold level Guides - www.youtube.com/user/EnderSword
ElusoryX
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Singapore2047 Posts
April 11 2012 00:29 GMT
#2
Just remember that if you think you are always being matched against better people, your opponent is being matched with someone lousier. So your turn will come to fight lousier opponents.
xd
awu25
Profile Joined April 2010
United States2003 Posts
April 11 2012 00:32 GMT
#3
Did they change how placements work? I thought if you skip a season, you have to do 5 again?
EnderSword
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada669 Posts
April 11 2012 00:37 GMT
#4
I dont think any changes were made to anything like that
Bronze/Silver/Gold level Guides - www.youtube.com/user/EnderSword
Czech M8
Profile Joined April 2012
United States16 Posts
April 11 2012 00:39 GMT
#5
This is going to ruin ladder games. I have been on a loosing streak because I'm playing people who are way out of my league. This is stupid how they thought this will "fix" rank problems.
awu25
Profile Joined April 2010
United States2003 Posts
April 11 2012 00:42 GMT
#6
On April 11 2012 09:37 EnderSword wrote:
I dont think any changes were made to anything like that

I didn't place in 1v1 last season and now I'm staring at my main screen and it's telling me to play one match to placed into a division
vaderseven
Profile Joined September 2008
United States2556 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-04-11 00:44:34
April 11 2012 00:43 GMT
#7
On April 11 2012 09:25 EnderSword wrote:
3) "It's matching me only against better people!!" This might actually be true, but again isn't actually the new match maker, it's also always been true...depending where you rank. Unless you were close to promotion last season, you'll likely face tough opponents at the beginning of this season. There's a lot of stats reasons for this, but to put it simply, the Ladder just reset everyone to even...now it's allowing the good people to go ahead again. So it's now letting you play against the #1 guy in your diviion who never quite got promoted, and that guy who just barely fell out of Masters. If it didn't do this, then the guy who was #1 would probably end up ranked 40th or 50th this season because he came in at 0 points and was already playing evenly matched much harder players....so it lets him play you for a bit. Just grin and take it for a few days.

So, New Match-making MAY be good or bad, but you're not going to be able to disntinguish that until about 2 weeks from today because today you don't really know how good anyone is.


This is incorrect. You are still be paired vs people with the intention to get a 50% win rate. The reason why some people will still be able to climb the ladder faster is covered in your 2nd point.

Example: A former #1 GM player in a new season will see that his opponents are favored vs him for a very long time. This allows him to gain a very large amount of points for a win and lose very little for a lose. As his points approach where his MMR predicts/indicates he should be this effect will go away.

Here is a well written quote from ExcaliburZ's thread that explains this:

The important thing to remember is that "favored" does not always mean "better" unless both players' points have approximately reached their MMRs. Until that time, the "favored" indicator only serves to determine how many points a match is worth, and is not an indicator of skill.


I appreciate the effort in making this thread ender but I just had to correct that because its actually 100% false to say that the ladder resets anything that would result in you playing better (or worse) players than you were playing right before the reset. Its just factually wrong.

You are describing some kind of reset of MMR to a baseline per league and that is just not the case. MMR is not reset at all and MMR is what determines who you will face, end of story!
AGIANTSMURF
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States1232 Posts
April 11 2012 00:45 GMT
#8
On April 11 2012 09:32 awu25 wrote:
Did they change how placements work? I thought if you skip a season, you have to do 5 again?



This is true ONLY IF you also do not play solo-team games (random partner-2v2's 3v3's 4v4's) because your 1v1 MMR is somehow linked to your Team-game MMR

So if you didnt play 1v1 for a whole season and also did not play solo-team games, then yes, you would have to redo your 5 placement matches at the start of the new season
Thats "Grand-Master" SMURF to you.....
EnderSword
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada669 Posts
April 11 2012 00:45 GMT
#9
On April 11 2012 09:39 Czech M8 wrote:
This is going to ruin ladder games. I have been on a loosing streak because I'm playing people who are way out of my league. This is stupid how they thought this will "fix" rank problems.


I'm guessing you like read the title and just jumped down to add a post?
There is like zero chance you are feeling any impact of the new match making today unless you are a top 50 GM
Bronze/Silver/Gold level Guides - www.youtube.com/user/EnderSword
JAFF3R
Profile Joined March 2012
Australia7 Posts
April 11 2012 00:45 GMT
#10
I must say though, the placement system hasn't worked for me at all.
Playing on NA in S6 I was high silver, and in my placement for S7 I played against a platinum and won, yet still got placed into Silver.
Then on SEA I was in bronze in S6 (didn't play too much so just average rank, but almost all wins) and played against a Gold in S7 ranking, placed into bronze.

Seems as though you play someone two leagues above what you are before.
RCMDVA
Profile Joined July 2011
United States708 Posts
April 11 2012 00:45 GMT
#11

I think they needed to get this in this season... and test things out.

1st - due to the overall ladder participation decrease from season to season

2nd - in 5 weeks Diablo 3 comes out. And that will draw away alot more people.

So its better to get it in now, see how it works out... in advance of Season 8 when Diablo 3 will be live.

cozzE
Profile Joined September 2010
Australia357 Posts
April 11 2012 00:51 GMT
#12
I'm always for greater risk/reward. Even if you lose a few more games, you will always learn more playing against superior players (and when you play even more average players, it makes you realize how bad you used to be ).
EnderSword
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada669 Posts
April 11 2012 00:52 GMT
#13
On April 11 2012 09:45 JAFF3R wrote:
I must say though, the placement system hasn't worked for me at all.
Playing on NA in S6 I was high silver, and in my placement for S7 I played against a platinum and won, yet still got placed into Silver.
Then on SEA I was in bronze in S6 (didn't play too much so just average rank, but almost all wins) and played against a Gold in S7 ranking, placed into bronze.

Seems as though you play someone two leagues above what you are before.


You literally play a random person in the exact same way as literally every single ladder match. There is no difference whatsoever between any ladder match and your placement game.

The placement could not be less meaningful
Bronze/Silver/Gold level Guides - www.youtube.com/user/EnderSword
yomi
Profile Blog Joined June 2004
United States773 Posts
April 11 2012 00:58 GMT
#14
good post I don't think #3 is true though. match making is based on MMR which is not reset if you played at all last season. it does wipe MMR if you skip an entire season like I did two seasons ago.

So potentially there is an effect of high ranked players getting their MMR reset if they quit and are just coming back but I don't think what you think is happening is happening.
windsupernova
Profile Joined October 2010
Mexico5280 Posts
April 11 2012 01:10 GMT
#15
I thought the change was to give you more variety on ladder, which IMO is a welcome change. Most people reach their plateau and they all end up playing same skill ish opponents which gets kinda boring. With this you at least get more variety.

"Its easy, just trust your CPU".-Boxer on being good at games
ktimekiller
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States690 Posts
April 11 2012 01:15 GMT
#16
It is certainly annoying how I am matched against players low enough that I win roughly 20-30 points per win at the start of the season where I would normally get 40~ per win against equal opponents in a new season.
iamcaustic
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
Canada1509 Posts
April 11 2012 01:19 GMT
#17
On April 11 2012 09:25 EnderSword wrote:
3) "It's matching me only against better people!!" This might actually be true, but again isn't actually the new match maker, it's also always been true...depending where you rank. Unless you were close to promotion last season, you'll likely face tough opponents at the beginning of this season. There's a lot of stats reasons for this, but to put it simply, the Ladder just reset everyone to even...now it's allowing the good people to go ahead again. So it's now letting you play against the #1 guy in your diviion who never quite got promoted, and that guy who just barely fell out of Masters. If it didn't do this, then the guy who was #1 would probably end up ranked 40th or 50th this season because he came in at 0 points and was already playing evenly matched much harder players....so it lets him play you for a bit. Just grin and take it for a few days.

So, New Match-making MAY be good or bad, but you're not going to be able to disntinguish that until about 2 weeks from today because today you don't really know how good anyone is.

... Why would you write something that's completely wrong, without any sort of evidence to verify (which, had you tried to do so, would have let you know you were wrong)? o_O
Twitter: @iamcaustic
ChuCky.Ca
Profile Joined July 2011
Canada2497 Posts
April 11 2012 01:20 GMT
#18
when u start a new season its the same for everyone, everyone has the other player favoured for the first few days
Most Skilled Current esport Games Scbw>Sc2>Cs1.6>Dota2>Hon>Loopin Louie The Drinking Game>LoL
EnderSword
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada669 Posts
April 11 2012 01:23 GMT
#19
On April 11 2012 09:58 yomi wrote:
good post I don't think #3 is true though. match making is based on MMR which is not reset if you played at all last season. it does wipe MMR if you skip an entire season like I did two seasons ago.

So potentially there is an effect of high ranked players getting their MMR reset if they quit and are just coming back but I don't think what you think is happening is happening.


I don't mean the MMR is set to even, I meant everyone's points were set to 0.
It doesn't reset your MMR, but it essentially seems to facilitate the high folks ending up higher in points again. It's hard to explain exactly what it's mathematically doing without actually seeing the mechanism they use, but if all things were equal...a person ranked #1 last season, and person ranked #30 were to both just play a whole season with no improvement, instead of finishing 1 and 30, they'd both finish with basically the Bonus pool in points.
But that is not functionally what happens, the system allows the same gap in points to occur again even when it should theoretically be getting you both to 50/50.
It's as if the system tries to re-set you to 50/50 with an offset, like 50/50 +16 wins if that makes sence, mixing the percentage going forward while allowing a +/- offset in a raw number.

Bronze/Silver/Gold level Guides - www.youtube.com/user/EnderSword
EnderSword
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada669 Posts
April 11 2012 01:28 GMT
#20
On April 11 2012 10:19 stormfoxSC wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 11 2012 09:25 EnderSword wrote:
3) "It's matching me only against better people!!" This might actually be true, but again isn't actually the new match maker, it's also always been true...depending where you rank. Unless you were close to promotion last season, you'll likely face tough opponents at the beginning of this season. There's a lot of stats reasons for this, but to put it simply, the Ladder just reset everyone to even...now it's allowing the good people to go ahead again. So it's now letting you play against the #1 guy in your diviion who never quite got promoted, and that guy who just barely fell out of Masters. If it didn't do this, then the guy who was #1 would probably end up ranked 40th or 50th this season because he came in at 0 points and was already playing evenly matched much harder players....so it lets him play you for a bit. Just grin and take it for a few days.

So, New Match-making MAY be good or bad, but you're not going to be able to disntinguish that until about 2 weeks from today because today you don't really know how good anyone is.

... Why would you write something that's completely wrong, without any sort of evidence to verify (which, had you tried to do so, would have let you know you were wrong)? o_O


I didn't really set out to explain the system itself in entirety, people have done that in much longer posts with graphs and tons of math better than needs to be done here for the tweak to the matchmaker.

But just think about it from the reason of why it must work that way. If it didn't do something within leagues to allow higher MMR to get more points, then starting in Season 2, points wouldn't have had literally any relation to the person's rank.

It's a fairly rough relation now, but there would be quite literally no correlation if this function wasn't in it.

Again, it did not set eeryone to even MMR...it set everyone even points and ranks. Your MMR is completely unaffected by seasons changing.
Bronze/Silver/Gold level Guides - www.youtube.com/user/EnderSword
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