I decided to drop a league at the start of this season. Was gonna play random and practice new builds, etc. So I dropped several games. Then several more. Then dozens... I never got demoted, but my MMR kept dropping. I'm currently ~~2-88~~, in masters league playing bronze players. At first I thought I could exploit this "bug," get master league points for beating noobs and shoot to rank 1 master. But apparently points won or lost are no longer based on MMR, they are based on RANK! I only get 1 points for winning games.

So is this end to league changes intended, or some kind of bug? Has anyone managed to get demoted/promoted since the new season began, not counting placement matches? Thought I would hear what TL thinks about this, seems really weird to me.

Update: I'm now 20-103. Still no demotion.
Another player confirmed in masters division with a record of 36-212.

johnnywup

United States3858 Posts

September 14 2012 04:29 GMT

your mmr has to stabilize at a certain level for you to be demoted... ie if you stabilize your mmr at silver mmr youll be demoted to silver... if you keep losing against bronzes you wont be demoted for a long time since youre not stabilizing

FCLogan

49 Posts

September 14 2012 04:29 GMT

Promotions and demotions occur only when the system is confident enough in the change in your rating. It takes many games for that to happen. A steep drop in MMR makes the system very uncertain of your MMR. It will take a lot more games for the system to be confident enough to demote you.

People have been getting promoted and demoted this season. You will eventually get demoted.

jdseemoreglass

United States3773 Posts

September 14 2012 04:30 GMT

On September 14 2012 13:29 johnnywup wrote:
your mmr has to stabilize at a certain level for you to be demoted... ie if you stabilize your mmr at silver mmr youll be demoted to silver... if you keep losing against bronzes you wont be demoted for a long time since youre not stabilizing

This wasn't true in the past, except to a certain degree. If you went two league above or below your current league, it would automatically promote or demote you whether you were winning or losing 100% of games.

ThirdDegree

United States329 Posts

September 14 2012 04:32 GMT

From what I understand, it doesn't change your league until your mmr stabilizes. So instead of dropping from masters>diamond>plat>gold, you would just drop from masters>gold. Only speculative, but since you are losing so much, your mmr is very volatile

jdseemoreglass

United States3773 Posts

September 14 2012 04:38 GMT

On September 14 2012 13:32 ThirdDegree wrote:
From what I understand, it doesn't change your league until your mmr stabilizes. So instead of dropping from masters>diamond>plat>gold, you would just drop from masters>gold. Only speculative, but since you are losing so much, your mmr is very volatile

I've dropped league before and it has NEVER let me go straight to bronze while still in master league.

SupLilSon

Malaysia4123 Posts

September 14 2012 04:45 GMT

Sounds wierd. OP seems to know about MMR stabilizing but this seems wrong. If you lost 30+ games in a row the system would demote you in the past, regardless of stabilizing. This guy has lost almost 3x that many games.

Lysenko

Iceland2128 Posts

September 14 2012 04:47 GMT

On September 14 2012 13:27 jdseemoreglass wrote:
At first I thought I could exploit this "bug," get master league points for beating noobs and shoot to rank 1 master. But apparently points won or lost are no longer based on MMR, they are based on RANK! I only get 1 points for winning games.

Nothing has changed in regard to that. Points earned have always been a result of comparing your point score in your current league against your opponent's MMR. A score of zero in Master league corresponds to an MMR that's so high compared to your opponents' MMRs that you earn the minimum one point for each win.

In response to someone else's post in the league and ladder sticky I pointed out why throwing games to manipulate your rating is a bad idea (adds noise to other player's ratings thus tending to screw up the system for everyone, unfair to your opponents, and against Blizzard's rules) -- sounds like I left out that if you do not happen to get demoted, you might have thousands of games to play to get your point score somewhere reasonable.

It's possible this is a deliberate change, so your opponents can see they're playing a master league player.

Or, possibly it's a deliberate change made on the presumption that people are dropping leagues to get a better division rank. Not that I can imagine anyone thinking that way.

Edit: I thought I'd responded to you in the other thread but turns out it was someone having the same experience.

TerranosaurusWrecks

Canada187 Posts

September 14 2012 04:55 GMT

I think you need to win a couple game in order to get demoted. I always thought (and this is just a theory) that the system sees your loses and recognizes you as getting worse and worse and doesnt know where to put you. So if you let's say start winning 50% of your games againts bronze it will recognize that is the place you are supposed to be as you are winning and losing an equal amount. I doubt you will go straight from master -> bronze but it's at least worth a try.

Lysenko

Iceland2128 Posts

September 14 2012 04:58 GMT

#10

On September 14 2012 13:55 TerranosauresWrecks wrote:
I think you need to win a couple game in order to get demoted.

This was true early on but Excalibur_Z has confirmed that the system no longer works that way. Anyway, it sounds like the OP is winning games now and not getting demoted.

CamoPillbox

Czech Republic229 Posts

September 14 2012 05:04 GMT

#11

can you post your sc2ranks page ???? that will tell more . Btw my friend got promoted yesterday to masters so u can get promote

demote i dont know about .

EnE

417 Posts

September 14 2012 05:08 GMT

#12

That's what you get..... sorry, but your idea was really dumb. Here's what you do if you want to switch to random and practice builds on ladder: Switch to random and practice builds on ladder. The system will quickly place you at a new 50% win rate mmr and you wouldn't have had this problem.

Dropping games is against the rules, why would you even do it that way it sounds really dumb to me.

When I switched to terran, I lost mmr by switching to terran, not by leaving games until I was playing bronze players.

This happened because you were too lazy to play it like loss loss win loss loss win, until you got reclassified, so if you don't want to do that, then JUST PLAY YOUR NEW RACE/STYLE ON THE LADDER.

Gamegene

United States8308 Posts

September 14 2012 05:21 GMT

#13

i have no idea how a master league player can go to bronze league even with random.

jdseemoreglass

United States3773 Posts

September 14 2012 18:20 GMT

#14

So to test this MMR stabilization theory I decided to win some games. First I won about 10 games in a row, no demotion. I figured people would tell me I need to come close to 50/50 for MMR to stabilize. So I started winning half my games and losing half my games. My current record now stands at 20-103. Seems like that would be enough but maybe some will disagree.

I think someone confirmed that promotions are still occurring. Can no one confirm any demotions yet, not including placement matches? I'm honestly just curious now to see if I can actually get my account demoted or not, and whether this is the new system or my account is just bugged somehow.

Plutonik

Canada329 Posts

September 14 2012 18:28 GMT

#15

one guy in my league is 36-212 and is still in masters

IRL_Sinister

Ireland621 Posts

September 14 2012 18:33 GMT

#16

Start of next season, lose your placement and you'll be demoted.

Corrosive

Canada3741 Posts

September 14 2012 18:42 GMT

#17

One of my friends sc2 accounts got banned for doing this. It's against the TOS.

jdseemoreglass

United States3773 Posts

September 14 2012 18:54 GMT

#18

If I cared about getting banned I wouldn't have posted this on TL obviously. I get that people hate smurfs because they don't like losing or something, but it's really not a big deal.

So thanks to plutonik, he confirmed to me that another player has a 36-212 record and is still in masters division, now we know it's not isolated. Clearly there is a new and rather strange system in place for demotions now that's different from every other season. Still need to confirm if anyone has yet been demoted during the season.

dsousa

United States1363 Posts

September 14 2012 19:07 GMT

#19

Two data points for whats its worth.

My wife wanted to get promoted to diamond, so she worked hard to get over 800 points last season because that's the threshold blizzard said you needed for promotion. (I know its not 100%). Anyways, she did her placement match and was still put in platinum.

I'm in platinum as well, and I switched to Protoss, so I could cannon rush every game for fun, and I lost most of my games for several days. Now playing only golds/silvers, but still remain in platinum division.

The irony is that now I've gone on a 6 game win streak and am top 8 platinum while playing only golds and silvers. While my wife is mid-plat playing diamonds/platinum.

She mad.

BrokenTV

Canada119 Posts

September 14 2012 19:12 GMT

#20

I did the same today on smurf what was gold, I am still gold, but I am practicing Terran in bronze, It must make them happy knowing they are winning/losing agasint a gold when in reality they arent lol.