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On November 20 2013 20:36 graNite wrote:
They also made the master league so much smaller, from 20% when it was introduced to 2,5% now...
It was always 2.5% +- a few points. Definitely I've found ladder getting harder. Since the new season rolled around, I'm now mid diamond from being rank 1 last season. Some higher guys I know are also dropping in rank so I think it's a combination of lower players quitting and masters being inactive.
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Yup insanely harder, i hover between bronze \ gold and it isnt easy. There is hell of a a lot of ex masters\ plats in the lower divisions now
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I am pretty sure a lot of it is related to mmr decay, I used to be around top 8 diamond, but took about a month off and now I run into a ton of former masters in platinum. But then again, the lower level players are getting more skilled as well, plus the player base is not as big as it used to be.
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If ladder is getting harder that is a good thing because people are getting better.....it's the natural evolution of RTS games.
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One thing ive noticed that is quite annoying is that I have no idea what to expect anymore. Sometimes I run in to masters players who arent very good at all and sometimes I get diamond/plat players who play way better than expected. Overall I feel that the skill of players I face is very mixed and its hard to play because every game is so different. On the other hand I guess its good to play against different people and different styles but can get frustrating when you try to read and adapt builds. Dont know if im 100% right about this but I feel that protoss players are the ones I find being the hardest to read because of so very mixed levels of play. Some sit at 160 apm and have very clean builds and mechanics while others are at 60 apm and dont seem to have a clue what their doing.
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Czech Republic12125 Posts
On November 20 2013 21:06 Tchado wrote:
If ladder is getting harder that is a good thing because people are getting better.....it's the natural evolution of RTS games.
I disagree. In fact it's a bad thing because the starting point for a newbie is getting harder and harder. So more people will eventually go away than come aboard(? don't know whether I can use this, not a native English speaker] so the population will get smaller and with smaller population the matchmaking will get worse and worse. Right from the start of this season I played aprox. 30 games and won 3(three) games resulting in score 3:26 or something like this. Maybe the system was trying to recognize if I deserve a promotion to master or what, but it was pretty frustrating to lose again and again and again when standing against opponents I shouldn't get(way above my skill). And this is not how matchmaking should work. All of those players I stand against were above my level(since I ended with 66 points in division after this awesome streak I§m guessing all of them were "favored" speaking in "old" terms :-)) and I was thinking about stop playing, because the only thing I liked is totally broken now(long even games).
I'm not an expert on Blizzard matchmaking but I can tell(and a lot of friends of mine as well) that the ladder isn't getting harder, the matchmaking is getting more insane. I'm getting opponents who roflstomp me or I stomp them. Where are the even games I remember?  The last season was bad but the start of thsi season is the worst state of SC2 I remember. And again - I do not mind to lose a game when enemy is better. But I like an even game, not a game where my opponent is just trolling me because she/he knows how better (s)he is :-(
hmmm... at least I'm feeling better now ^_^
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Now people aren't "low master/high diamond", "or low plat/high gold" anymore. They are "plat that faces ex-masters" or "gold that faces ex-diamonds".
Pretty funny, if you ask me.
But yeah, ladder is a bit messed up lately.
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The problem I noticed is that I get roflstomped in a lot of games and I roflstomp my opponent in a lot of games (meaning I play players which I am not supposed to play on ladder). That definitely wasn't the case a year ago.
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It gets harder because there are two forces pushing the overall skill level up.
1. After the initial rush of new players with the release of HotS people stop playing over time. Leading to a decline in numbers, typically at the lower end of the ladder. To compensate for the population change people get shifted down due to the way leagues are applied (percentage of the population).
2. The people who stay and play will get better over time. Leading to an overall increase in game ability over time at every level.
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I just finished a PvP against a guy who seemed way better than Platinum. Indeed after I talked to him, I found out he used to be in Masters. Finished 5 Seasons in Masters too. Now he's Plat.
Have a few other friends who were Masters now Diamond, some Diamond now Plat, and some Plats who are now Gold.
I agree that the ladder may be getting harder- especially for those who haven't been keeping up with the current metagame- but also it's because Blizzard's MMR Decay has actual master and diamond league players arbitrarily lowered to platinum and gold ranks just because they haven't been grinding out enough games every season (even if they have a high winning percentage and are essentially playing at the same level).
So when you see yourself playing against a gold player who was master league two seasons ago, it may very well be that he's still at the same level (i.e. harder than your average gold) but was demoted due to inactivity.
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Agreed with this, seeming a lot harder to hit my usual NA rank. Shrinking casual pop + EU/KR higher level smurfs have made masters really tough. Went 37-0 to start off this season after being inactive and that barely got me into diamond. Seems like mmr goes up slower than before.
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Is it just me or is MMR also rising slower? Is the match making system less progressive? Year ago, after 10 straight wins you would be placed against one or two leagues higher and now it seems when you get placed to lower leagues it takes forever to rise no matter what win%.
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yeah Blizz seem to be making the leagues much smaller and seemingly destroying your MMR if you dare to have a life. I've been 4 times diamond, two times of which I had to fight my way out of platinum, but also have a life and so can't play games everyday and even some weeks... this has meant that now I'm in gold league and like you struggling to get 50% w/l ratio when last season when I was stuck in plat I had a near 80% w/l ratio and playing mostly dias/masters...
I'm not sure what the reason behind it is, but gold league is a total mess... the guy who's rank 1 in my division has over 40wins and only a few losses and was masters last season, then the person behind him was dia last season and then at the bottom there are people who were gold or plat last season struggling (like me).
It's a bit of a mess really and it makes playing ladder super demoralizing as you never feel like your improving, even if you are...
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Definitely noticing this on the Chinese server as well. I was Top 25 Masters 2 seasons ago, and this season... I lost my placement match, lost 2 more, and finally won 1 placing me at Rank 96 X_X
Dat ladder fear kicking in again.
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Laddering is pretty ugly these days. I myself can't complain as i am in my glourious gold league since forver. It`s hard to imagine the decay alone is the root of the ladder mess. I`m pretty sure that a shrinking player base needs to be considered, too.
Guys, i played games where i faced early pressure (zealot, stalker, msc) to deny my bunker/natural!!!
I was like "woooow, i know that from watching pro streams D: "
Usually if you face some kind of micro intensive pressure, you can be sure your opponent lacks on some thinks on his side too... but nope.
Those wizzards pull off some pro stuff, and more important, as fast as them.
Next game i face scrubs with zero to nothing online experience... and i am the magician.
/exaggerated
Blizzard; justify yourself! It's about time!
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is the sun getting warmer?
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I regret I didnt try harder to get my promotion when it was actually doable... but at least I havent gotten demoted yet!
My clanmates grind 100 games each season start to get back up. Maybe its time to just assume all my opponents are good, and play for funzies. At least you dont get desillutioned that your game is solid if its not!
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Imho Everything started when they denied the possibilty of demotion, and if i recall correctly it was more or less when hots was released, so when we had a lot of new players,
now a lot of them don't play anymore and mmr decay is messing up Everything.
Moreover i dont get how this can work in a percentage system, since there is no demotion, higher leagues should be unacessible through promotion without a large flux of new players that keep the percentages eventually balanced.
For example a friend of mine ranked for the first time now, placed in silver, he keeps playing vs plat and high gold, read mostly former diamond... Result is no fun for him
I think we have to forget the pre hots ranking system, now its totally different
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And yes specially gold league is a mess
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it took me from going Plat to Masters 80-12 Winning most of my games consecutively LOL I was in Diamond for about like 30-40 of those games
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EPT
