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The league system is intended to confuse players and avoid directly reflecting the reality of how their ranking is created, so as to give them less useless information to think/stress about and boil it all down to a badge.
As a result, despite the many many times this has been explained in GD, nobody gets how the system works and they buy into what the client is telling them is happening. The client is lying to you. Please do not listen to the client. Please do not complain about what the client is telling you. It is lying. It is like a magician tricking you into looking at his shirt cuff.
The first thing to realize is that elo is still around. Not only is it still around, it's controlling your games in exactly the same way it did before. We have no reason to believe matchmaking changed in any way with the advent of leagues.
If you're not familiar with elo, check this out. Elo is also called mmr or "matchmaking rating", because this is what riot refers to it as in order to avoid admitting the system is actually exactly the same as the old one.
Now here's how the league system ostensibly works. Read this if you are new to the game and have no idea wtf a league is. It includes all the misleading information you are intended to believe.
+ Show Spoiler +After your first ten matches (informally described as your placement matches), you are placed in one of five tiers according to how good the game estimates you to be. These tiers are named bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and diamond, in decreasing order of humiliation. Then the tiers are further subdivided into five "divisions", with division V being the worst and Division I being nearly as good as the next tier. The divisions are then further subdivided into mostly random groups of people for you to compare yourself against, called leagues - this part isn't based on any further estimation of skill.
As you win games, you gain or lose 'league points', to a degree determined by the rotation of wizards in the orion nebula. When you have 100 LP, you have to win a best of 3 or 5 series of games (your "promotional series") to move up into the next division or tier, respectively. If you are having a really rough time and sitting at zero league points losing constantly, you can get demoted a division - however, you can't be demoted a tier.
If you are really unbelievably good, like some TL players (not me), you have a shot at getting from Diamond I into challenger tier, which only holds a small number of people. The rules for who gets in are even more wizardly than the regular league rules, but one thing is sure: unlike the other tiers, you can lose your spot and end up back in inglorious diamond.
That's weird, you might say. Here I am, gaining and losing league points, but the matchmaking is independent of them? Wouldn't things get kind of messed up if my status in the leagues didn't reflect my elo? If the two drifted far enough apart, I might be bronze and getting paired with gold level players, or vice versa.
Well, here's how they balance off league points with elo: league points are elo's bitch. If your elo indicates you are worse than your current league, your ability to gain points will basically disappear. Alternatively, if you are displayed as low league but your elo is high, you gain heaps of league points with every win and skip divisions after promotion series. With smaller differences, league points are just adjusted up and down minutely to attach to your elo as closely as possible.
The upshot of this is that nothing that changes your visible rating matters. Only things that change your elo matter, and nothing changes your elo except winning and losing.
This is because (key concept) YOUR LEAGUE RATING IS ATTRACTED TO YOUR ELO LIKE A MAGNET. Almost no matter what, the former will stick to the latter. Imagine a fat girl unknowingly sucking up an insect stuck in her milkshake. Like the insect, you will slowly but irresistibly be drawn to your destination.
Examples of things that don't matter:
- You dodge a regular game. You lose some LP, but who gives a fuck, it didn't affect your elo and you will just gain more LP when you win to make up for the imbalance.
- You dodge a promotional series. Doesn't matter. The system will just kick you back into the promotional series faster to make up for the imbalance. If you keep doing this, eventually you'll only need to win one game to get pushed into a promotional series. If you keep doing it after that, winning after you finally win a promotion series will net you a mountain of LP. If you keep keep keep doing it, you will outright skip a division when you finally stop dodging and get promoted.
- You lose a promotional series but win all your other games. This is pretty much the same as dodging although it takes longer for the system to start outright shoving you into the next division, since you are, after all, losing with some regularity. The lesson here is that promotional games are basically the same as regular games in terms of consequences. Don't stress about them.
- You gain less league points as you approach 100. You aren't paying attention! Remember that the league points are a misdirection, deliberately intended to deceive you, and that it will all balance out. If you're gaining elo, this will be reflected down the road.
- Rating decay. I'm not sure if you can decay visible rating, but we know for sure elo decay has been removed.
- You are at the top of Diamond and get zero league points for winning a game. Let's just clarify what challenger tier is: nobody knows exactly how it operates, but the intention is that it's an approximation of the top ranked players for a server, in an ordered list. It's not like a regular league. If you're not one of the highest elo players, you're not on the list, so you're not in the league - you don't have to lose to get demoted, you just have to be not climbing as fast as everyone else is.
For some reason I don't understand, after you get into challenger tier, you can't get kicked back out of it for at least a week (some grace period makes sense, but a week is kind of ridiculous). Since literally everybody in challenger is new as I write this, there's no possibility of anyone getting promoted so the top diamond players are getting zero points for winning. When the grace period is over, the entire bottom half of challenger is going to get ripped apart as all the people who were denied promotion enter by the end of the day. They will have huge stacks of bonus LP saved up from winning without moving up. Then it's going to be hard for people to get promoted again for a while, then things will be shaken up again, then hard again, but presumably a lot less so, etc, and eventually it will (hopefully) function sorta normally.
You may argue this is stupid. Hey man, I'm not trying to justify it. I'm just explaining how it works, as best we know.
Upshot: You're still getting points for winning at the top of Diamond I, they're just hidden. They'll become visible eventually.
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I think that covers everything. I hope this isn't confusingly disorganized. If this post proves useful I could make it a little more structured, but if you intend to maximize your visible rating for whatever reason nothing should be missing, even if it's not presented that well.
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Thanks for doing this snip, sure it will clear up alot of questions people have! Helped me clear it in my head at least 
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I think the 1 week grace period is somewhat fine, but they also need to add a games played mechanic to drop immunity. Something like 5 games, and then your immunity is gone. Unless you do something like lose all 5 you're not that likely to drop straight back out of challenger.
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i dont play much ranked but this post makes a lot of sense so thanks =]
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Thanks for the info. Haven't been paying too much attention to the leagues, so this serves as a very good summary for me.
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There is one thing that remains a mystery to me though. How does the system take elo inflation into account. Over time the highest elo will increase, which would mean that eventually more and more people end up in diamond, if the tiers are actually tied to fixed elo scores.
Or this is somewhat dynamic in a sense that the elo required for a certain tier changes over time? This would be bad for players that can't keep up with the curve. They would become stuck in the V divisions. Unable to get demoted and unable to advance because elo wise they belong to a lower tier.
I also made the assumption that there is actually an inflation which is not necessarily true. I would really love if the person responsible for the mmr/elo/tiers at Riot could give some information on how the system actually works.
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Elo inflation happens when you add more players into the system because the only fixed point is the elo you start a player at. This new player will lose to some people and beat others, forcing those with lower skills down and higher skills up. This is why 2 years ago, 1800 was "very high" elo and it became 2000, then 2200, and so on, over time - because MORE PEOPLE were in the system. You can't 'not keep up' with this kind of inflation unless you're actively getting worse - if you're better than 75% of people now, you'll probably remain there if you don't get worse (unless literally everyone else gets better) and your MMR will be mostly static. There will be new players who pass you up, and new players who stay below you.
You're right about the V divisions being in an awkward spot though. If they get a lucky win streak (get carried enough games in a row or something) and then they start losing after making it there, they drop in elo and need to win a lot just to be at a point where they gain/lose the same number of points per game.
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Thanks for this writeup, really clarifying.
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On February 11 2013 22:18 sylverfyre wrote:
Elo inflation happens when you add more players into the system because the only fixed point is the elo you start a player at. This new player will lose to some people and beat others, forcing those with lower skills down and higher skills up. This is why 2 years ago, 1800 was "very high" elo and it became 2000, then 2200, and so on, over time - because MORE PEOPLE were in the system. You can't 'not keep up' with this kind of inflation unless you're actively getting worse - if you're better than 75% of people now, you'll probably remain there if you don't get worse (unless literally everyone else gets better) and your MMR will be mostly static. There will be new players who pass you up, and new players who stay below you.
You're right about the V divisions being in an awkward spot though. If they get a lucky win streak (get carried enough games in a row or something) and then they start losing after making it there, they drop in elo and need to win a lot just to be at a point where they gain/lose the same number of points per game.
No, you will get surpassed if you improve less fast than the "average" player. This is also the reason why people complain about elo hell. They are improving but not at a rate fast enough to keep up with the general player pool, so they never actually improved their elo although they improved their play. You only gain elo if you are improving faster than the average, otherwise you will keep your elo or even fall in elo.
In theory if the average level of play drops, you might increase your elo while playing at the same skill, but the average player skill dropping is an unlikely scenario.
The important point I'm trying to make is that elo is not an absolute scale. So new people don't have a fixed elo that they move to eventually. Your elo is a score in relation to the entire player pool, which is constantly changing depending on how you improve compared to the rest of the player pool. So mapping this onto a semi-fixed tier system is non-trivial. That never bothered me in SC2 because you can be demoted, so the tiers actually reflect somewhat your current skill.
One solution would be to reset the ladder every season which will probably happen. This way people will get "demoted" between seasons. But towards the end of every season there will be a large distortion between elo and tier.
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On February 11 2013 23:32 BlueSpace wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 22:18 sylverfyre wrote:
Elo inflation happens when you add more players into the system because the only fixed point is the elo you start a player at. This new player will lose to some people and beat others, forcing those with lower skills down and higher skills up. This is why 2 years ago, 1800 was "very high" elo and it became 2000, then 2200, and so on, over time - because MORE PEOPLE were in the system. You can't 'not keep up' with this kind of inflation unless you're actively getting worse - if you're better than 75% of people now, you'll probably remain there if you don't get worse (unless literally everyone else gets better) and your MMR will be mostly static. There will be new players who pass you up, and new players who stay below you.
You're right about the V divisions being in an awkward spot though. If they get a lucky win streak (get carried enough games in a row or something) and then they start losing after making it there, they drop in elo and need to win a lot just to be at a point where they gain/lose the same number of points per game. No, you will get surpassed if you improve less fast than the "average" player. This is also the reason why people complain about elo hell. They are improving but not at a rate fast enough to keep up with the general player pool, so they never actually improved their elo although they improved their play. You only gain elo if you are improving faster than the average, otherwise you will keep your elo or even fall in elo. In theory if the average level of play drops, you might increase your elo while playing at the same skill, but the average player skill dropping is an unlikely scenario. The important point I'm trying to make is that elo is not an absolute scale. So new people don't have a fixed elo that they move to eventually. Your elo is a score in relation to the entire player pool, which is constantly changing depending on how you improve compared to the rest of the player pool. So mapping this onto a semi-fixed tier system is non-trivial. That never bothered me in SC2 because you can be demoted, so the tiers actually reflect somewhat your current skill. One solution would be to reset the ladder every season which will probably happen. This way people will get "demoted" between seasons. But towards the end of every season there will be a large distortion between elo and tier. Err, no. You don't see the top end playsers' elo rise from 2000 to 2400 because of the top players improving at a steady pace. They're just the best out of a larger and larger pool of players.
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It's actually rather easy for the average skill level to go down -- if the new league system encourages a lot more casual players to start playing ranked, then all the new players who aren't that good entering ranked will bring down average skill level.
Think about it this way: If the ranked population consisted of just the top 10 pro players, they would probably all hover around 1200 elo. But then add 10 casual players to it, and the pros will probably shoot up quite a lot.
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On February 11 2013 23:43 sylverfyre wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 23:32 BlueSpace wrote:On February 11 2013 22:18 sylverfyre wrote:
Elo inflation happens when you add more players into the system because the only fixed point is the elo you start a player at. This new player will lose to some people and beat others, forcing those with lower skills down and higher skills up. This is why 2 years ago, 1800 was "very high" elo and it became 2000, then 2200, and so on, over time - because MORE PEOPLE were in the system. You can't 'not keep up' with this kind of inflation unless you're actively getting worse - if you're better than 75% of people now, you'll probably remain there if you don't get worse (unless literally everyone else gets better) and your MMR will be mostly static. There will be new players who pass you up, and new players who stay below you.
You're right about the V divisions being in an awkward spot though. If they get a lucky win streak (get carried enough games in a row or something) and then they start losing after making it there, they drop in elo and need to win a lot just to be at a point where they gain/lose the same number of points per game. No, you will get surpassed if you improve less fast than the "average" player. This is also the reason why people complain about elo hell. They are improving but not at a rate fast enough to keep up with the general player pool, so they never actually improved their elo although they improved their play. You only gain elo if you are improving faster than the average, otherwise you will keep your elo or even fall in elo. In theory if the average level of play drops, you might increase your elo while playing at the same skill, but the average player skill dropping is an unlikely scenario. The important point I'm trying to make is that elo is not an absolute scale. So new people don't have a fixed elo that they move to eventually. Your elo is a score in relation to the entire player pool, which is constantly changing depending on how you improve compared to the rest of the player pool. So mapping this onto a semi-fixed tier system is non-trivial. That never bothered me in SC2 because you can be demoted, so the tiers actually reflect somewhat your current skill. One solution would be to reset the ladder every season which will probably happen. This way people will get "demoted" between seasons. But towards the end of every season there will be a large distortion between elo and tier. Err, no. You don't see the top end playsers' elo rise from 2000 to 2400 because of the top players improving at a steady pace. They're just the best out of a larger and larger pool of players.
Yes and they have to stay the best otherwise they will drop in elo because they will become worse in relation to the other players, that are improving.
Elo is increasing in general when the player pool is increasing and these are two separate effects that we are talking about. Maybe I should have been clearer about that. But the problem remains that it is unknown how riot is mapping players into the tiers according to their elo. The explanation must lie inside the algorithm on how players gain lp, so it will probably stay a mystery.
On February 11 2013 23:51 thenexusp wrote:
It's actually rather easy for the average skill level to go down -- if the new league system encourages a lot more casual players to start playing ranked, then all the new players who aren't that good entering ranked will bring down average skill level.
Think about it this way: If the ranked population consisted of just the top 10 pro players, they would probably all hover around 1200 elo. But then add 10 casual players to it, and the pros will probably shoot up quite a lot.
Yes this is true, but these are rather special circumstances and this will be a one time effect due to a large sudden influx of "bad" players. Assuming former non-ranked players are really in average worse than the starting elo. So I wouldn't say "easy".
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Hmm well now I know why I'm gaining 30 Lp and losing like 13. It really wants me higher.
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On February 12 2013 00:04 BlueSpace wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 23:43 sylverfyre wrote:On February 11 2013 23:32 BlueSpace wrote:On February 11 2013 22:18 sylverfyre wrote:
Elo inflation happens when you add more players into the system because the only fixed point is the elo you start a player at. This new player will lose to some people and beat others, forcing those with lower skills down and higher skills up. This is why 2 years ago, 1800 was "very high" elo and it became 2000, then 2200, and so on, over time - because MORE PEOPLE were in the system. You can't 'not keep up' with this kind of inflation unless you're actively getting worse - if you're better than 75% of people now, you'll probably remain there if you don't get worse (unless literally everyone else gets better) and your MMR will be mostly static. There will be new players who pass you up, and new players who stay below you.
You're right about the V divisions being in an awkward spot though. If they get a lucky win streak (get carried enough games in a row or something) and then they start losing after making it there, they drop in elo and need to win a lot just to be at a point where they gain/lose the same number of points per game. No, you will get surpassed if you improve less fast than the "average" player. This is also the reason why people complain about elo hell. They are improving but not at a rate fast enough to keep up with the general player pool, so they never actually improved their elo although they improved their play. You only gain elo if you are improving faster than the average, otherwise you will keep your elo or even fall in elo. In theory if the average level of play drops, you might increase your elo while playing at the same skill, but the average player skill dropping is an unlikely scenario. The important point I'm trying to make is that elo is not an absolute scale. So new people don't have a fixed elo that they move to eventually. Your elo is a score in relation to the entire player pool, which is constantly changing depending on how you improve compared to the rest of the player pool. So mapping this onto a semi-fixed tier system is non-trivial. That never bothered me in SC2 because you can be demoted, so the tiers actually reflect somewhat your current skill. One solution would be to reset the ladder every season which will probably happen. This way people will get "demoted" between seasons. But towards the end of every season there will be a large distortion between elo and tier. Err, no. You don't see the top end playsers' elo rise from 2000 to 2400 because of the top players improving at a steady pace. They're just the best out of a larger and larger pool of players. Yes and they have to stay the best otherwise they will drop in elo because they will become worse in relation to the other players, that are improving. Elo is increasing in general when the player pool is increasing and these are two separate effects that we are talking about. Maybe I should have been clearer about that. But the problem remains that it is unknown how riot is mapping players into the tiers according to their elo. The explanation must lie inside the algorithm on how players gain lp, so it will probably stay a mystery. Show nested quote +On February 11 2013 23:51 thenexusp wrote:
It's actually rather easy for the average skill level to go down -- if the new league system encourages a lot more casual players to start playing ranked, then all the new players who aren't that good entering ranked will bring down average skill level.
Think about it this way: If the ranked population consisted of just the top 10 pro players, they would probably all hover around 1200 elo. But then add 10 casual players to it, and the pros will probably shoot up quite a lot. Yes this is true, but these are rather special circumstances and this will be a one time effect due to a large sudden influx of "bad" players. Assuming former non-ranked players are really in average worse than the starting elo. So I wouldn't say "easy". What? There's pretty much a constant trickle of new players into the ranked system, because there's still consistent growth in the number of people that play lol. Why would it be a one-time surge of players.
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On February 12 2013 01:21 sylverfyre wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2013 00:04 BlueSpace wrote:On February 11 2013 23:43 sylverfyre wrote:On February 11 2013 23:32 BlueSpace wrote:On February 11 2013 22:18 sylverfyre wrote:
Elo inflation happens when you add more players into the system because the only fixed point is the elo you start a player at. This new player will lose to some people and beat others, forcing those with lower skills down and higher skills up. This is why 2 years ago, 1800 was "very high" elo and it became 2000, then 2200, and so on, over time - because MORE PEOPLE were in the system. You can't 'not keep up' with this kind of inflation unless you're actively getting worse - if you're better than 75% of people now, you'll probably remain there if you don't get worse (unless literally everyone else gets better) and your MMR will be mostly static. There will be new players who pass you up, and new players who stay below you.
You're right about the V divisions being in an awkward spot though. If they get a lucky win streak (get carried enough games in a row or something) and then they start losing after making it there, they drop in elo and need to win a lot just to be at a point where they gain/lose the same number of points per game. No, you will get surpassed if you improve less fast than the "average" player. This is also the reason why people complain about elo hell. They are improving but not at a rate fast enough to keep up with the general player pool, so they never actually improved their elo although they improved their play. You only gain elo if you are improving faster than the average, otherwise you will keep your elo or even fall in elo. In theory if the average level of play drops, you might increase your elo while playing at the same skill, but the average player skill dropping is an unlikely scenario. The important point I'm trying to make is that elo is not an absolute scale. So new people don't have a fixed elo that they move to eventually. Your elo is a score in relation to the entire player pool, which is constantly changing depending on how you improve compared to the rest of the player pool. So mapping this onto a semi-fixed tier system is non-trivial. That never bothered me in SC2 because you can be demoted, so the tiers actually reflect somewhat your current skill. One solution would be to reset the ladder every season which will probably happen. This way people will get "demoted" between seasons. But towards the end of every season there will be a large distortion between elo and tier. Err, no. You don't see the top end playsers' elo rise from 2000 to 2400 because of the top players improving at a steady pace. They're just the best out of a larger and larger pool of players. Yes and they have to stay the best otherwise they will drop in elo because they will become worse in relation to the other players, that are improving. Elo is increasing in general when the player pool is increasing and these are two separate effects that we are talking about. Maybe I should have been clearer about that. But the problem remains that it is unknown how riot is mapping players into the tiers according to their elo. The explanation must lie inside the algorithm on how players gain lp, so it will probably stay a mystery. On February 11 2013 23:51 thenexusp wrote:
It's actually rather easy for the average skill level to go down -- if the new league system encourages a lot more casual players to start playing ranked, then all the new players who aren't that good entering ranked will bring down average skill level.
Think about it this way: If the ranked population consisted of just the top 10 pro players, they would probably all hover around 1200 elo. But then add 10 casual players to it, and the pros will probably shoot up quite a lot. Yes this is true, but these are rather special circumstances and this will be a one time effect due to a large sudden influx of "bad" players. Assuming former non-ranked players are really in average worse than the starting elo. So I wouldn't say "easy". What? There's pretty much a constant trickle of new players into the ranked system, because there's still consistent growth in the number of people that play lol. Why would it be a one-time surge of players.
He was referring to an increase in casual players due to the introduction of the tier system. That is the one-time event I'm referring to.
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I suspect the league system is built without countermeasures to inflation and they're just going to reset relatively frequently from now on. Even if everyone played without improving or more players entering people lucking into the next tier would "inflate" visible rating over time, so it doesn't really look like it was a priority for them.
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So essentially, The whole system is designed just to counter ladder anxiety. Trying to think about any other reason to obfuscate the Elo gain/decay you get will just make your head hurt.
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Czech Republic11293 Posts
I'd say ladder anxiety is 366% higher now than it was before IF you are in promotion series. Having certain games affect your points/league more short-term than any other individual games does that. :/
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I personally find the promotion series as a bonus. If I lose it wont take that much time for me to get back there (theoretically, also assuming that im getting good LP from wins).
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EPT
