The ladder is going to be a very different place for Season 2

So, obviously, to you, popularity = success and success = popularity. Like I said, you haven't thought your statements through.

You ignored the fact that the other video quite possibly helped 30,000 people (first attempt was a typo) understand a crucial theory in modern physics/science and possibly helped them to pass a difficult class thus being one step closer to a better life which could allow the benefit of a future family and, to a lesser extent, mankind as a whole. While the other one did nothing but allow a few minutes of brain-dead boob gazing which had no benefit other benefit. I used this example because I was one of the 30,000 people who used this video to understand a theory for school. It helped me to understand the theory which, therefore, helped me to do better on the test and to connect to additional information. It had a direct benefit on my future lifestyle, family, and mankind as a whole (yes, to a small extent). That doesn't matter though, does it?

When attempting to understand the importance of an abstract concept, you get stuck at numbers because they are easy to understand without considering the overall scheme and thus requires no right brain involvement. The rest of us do not. Therefore, the core of the issue is with you.

Let's use another example. Pop music and 'real' music. Pop music shallowly effects pretty much the entire world in one way or another. But, for the purposes of this, let's say one billion people. So, the question is, is a song/album/artist more successful if they become deeply meaningful for millions and become a symbol for a generation or idea ... or ... is it more successful if one billion people hear it on their way to work but give no thought to it or even really acknowledge it was there. It has no major effect on them and has not in any way caused a major influence other than simply being there.

I undoubtedly expect you to chose the latter, sadly.

I understand that this is all semantics and depends on the goal of the song/album/artist or video and what is meant by 'success' but, in your case, clearly, success is ONLY how many people acknowledge its existence. That is shallow beyond belief.




Now, wasn't that simple? We now understand your opinion and why there's no ground being gained here. Case closed.

PS: I never said you ignored my posts, only other's who take the time to destroy your argument. I, however, usually just have fun with it.

Well Rebecca Black's song Friday has over 61 million views since it came out 1 month ago. That's pretty damn successful. Next she'll probably get a record deal and follow up with another single "Saturday" in her album "Days of the Week".:D

But in all seriousness Rebecca Black right now is bigger than the SC2 e-sports scene. It's just the way the world works. So.......can this thread get back on topic to ladder for next season.....

About the seasons. It's making skill harder to gauge. Like early in the season 2000 masters is seen as some kind of acceptable level of being really good. But as the season goes on the skill cap rises with bonus points etc. Where people start to ask for advice of "3000+ Masters only".

I guess if the seasons are made to last the same length and ratings info etc is saved i guess it'll be ok in the long run. Like "I've been around 2000-3000 Diamond over a few seasons". But overall MMR being hidden and now losses being hidden for leagues below Masters makes it hard to tell how good you are in comparison to everyone else. Like me being 2000 Diamond...is that accurate?? If i knew my division modifier I might only be 1000 Diamond after adjustment. It'd be nice if Blizzard had clear Division names based on skill. Like Alpha means top, Beta middle and Gamma low or something like that.

Quote:

---

That's pretty damn successful.

---

But . . .

What is success?

Was her intent to become a popular meme through creating 'the worst song in the world' as the Today Show would put it, or, was her intent to create a song that many people could enjoy for ''meaningful reasons'? Both rely on popularity but one either classifies her as a success or an utter complete failure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

[...]it'd be nice if Blizzard had clear Division names based on skill. Like Alpha means top, Beta middle and Gamma low or something like that.

---

like i said in a post further back, we dont know where blizzard is going with divisions;they could do as you suggest, OR they could make each division scale from the lowest MMR in the league to the highest, as to make RANK within each division provide a more accurate gauge.

as they havnt said anyhting about it afaik, i fear it'll be just as random as before meaning it'll be neigh-impossible to get a skill gauge within sub-masters; a higher rating with concerns to bonus pool in such a system does not actually give a skill gauge, but a gauge of progress; rate of improvement, or worse, mainly a measure of the players "ability" to mass games (because of the alleged inflation of the system; even given all evenly matched games and 50% win, players gain 1 or 2 pts average per win more than they get taken awry by a loss)

This means, come season 2, Brian, the "top" diamond player that is sometimes matched vs master players but win 50% (with concerns to who is favoured), will be earning less points per game on average, than Bob, the "medium" diamond level player who never get matched against master or platinum players, if Bob keeps a higher win ratio than Brian, witch is reasonable since he could well improve at a higher rate, as he has more left to learn.

Meanwhile, Steve the "bottom" level diamond player that gets matched vs platinum players sometimes, accumulate more points than Brian and Bob because Steve masses games enough (mb through cheesing alot); even though he doesnt improve fast enough to keep a winrate over 50%, given enoguh games played, the 1-2 inflation points per win add up to surpass the extra points Bob earns from that higher winrate (from rate of improvement) ... In such a system, rating within leagues and ranking within divisions means absolutely nothing; i wouldnt be surpirsed to see players that place low-mid diamond get promoted to masters while having significantly less rating than those that get to the top of diamond during season 2.

.... its saddens me to see the BNet infrastructure for progress-measurement devolve into such a WOW-inspired cesspool of meaninglessness.

I think this topic needs some high-quality threads on BNet forums, are there any good attempts yet? where is Archer when we need him....?

I don't think Archer goes in for much criticism these days. Since he's an MVP I have a feeling that he won't rock the boat too much.

Blizzard is basically saying that everyone should just learn how to play. If you improve you'll rank up, if you don't you won't, and they're leaving it at that. People incorrectly tied w/l ratio to improvement and advancement when it's not even close to the entire picture.

I'm NOT defending their choices I just understand they're probably sick to death of threads and emails that say "My w/l ratio is 60/40 and I'm on a 20 game winning streak! Where's my promotion?" when these people are in silver and have been playing noobs at lunch with much lower MMR than they have.

Also I don't really see the problem with the ranking system as it exists. Sure things aren't crystal clear. How much better is #64 gold than #3 silver? We'll never know unless those two players have a match and you see who is favoured. I for one don't really care. I think telling people who's favoured on the ladder is one of the stupidest things they do. Why tell the participants? If blizzards goal is to make us all finger paint and have nap time so much so that we can't see how many losses we have than why are they telling me I'm more or less likely to win a game at the beginning? Give me back my loss count and stop telling me whose supposed to win the game.

Well this post has degenerated into inane babbling so I'll just stop here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dustinbrowder

Yes. When 1 million people watch SC2 I'd call that a success.

Heck me running naked on the street is going to gather more than 50.00 viewers, in fact when TV news stations get a hold of a video I'd probably will have 50 million viewers.

I mean come on, looking at it from every angle, 70.000 is not very successful.

---

It's obvious at this point that Dustin is talking for the sake of talking. I'd take the example of the past few posts and get back on topic as I firmly hold the belief that while Dustin may have a semblance of opinion he's trying to get across, he lacks the ability to communicate well enough to move this conversation forward in a constructive manner.

For that reason, I encourage everyone to take a step back and refrain from posting further about the subject of Dustin's fictional, unprovable theory that it requires exactly one more person than 999,999. If you're willing to agree to this idea, please feel free to quote and +1 on this. It'll save a lot of us a lot more time and headaches.

+1 rep

(DAMNIT! AGAIN! I've already rep'd you so I can't give you more. Good posts are so rare that they end up coming the same person so I can't rep them.)

+1 (imaginary) rep instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SinsWage

[...]
Also I don't really see the problem with the ranking system as it exists. Sure things aren't crystal clear. How much better is #64 gold than #3 silver? We'll never know unless those two players have a match and you see who is favoured. I for one don't really care.

---

important distinction: a gold league palyer will genrally be better than a silver league palyer, regardless, with the system we have, and the MMR's having balnced out, and the ladder reseting, the just of my previous posted pointed out that we may not see ANY clearity WHATSOEVER within leagues and divisions.

.. if my piecing together of this situation is anywhere near correct, i utterly despise what this has come to.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Todie

like i said in a post further back, we dont know where blizzard is going with divisions;they could do as you suggest, OR they could make each division scale from the lowest MMR in the league to the highest, as to make RANK within each division provide a more accurate gauge.

as they havnt said anyhting about it afaik, i fear it'll be just as random as before meaning it'll be neigh-impossible to get a skill gauge within sub-masters; a higher rating with concerns to bonus pool in such a system does not actually give a skill gauge, but a gauge of progress; rate of improvement, or worse, mainly a measure of the players "ability" to mass games (because of the alleged inflation of the system; even given all evenly matched games and 50% win, players gain 1 or 2 pts average per win more than they get taken awry by a loss)

This means, come season 2, Brian, the "top" diamond player that is sometimes matched vs master players but win 50% (with concerns to who is favoured), will be earning less points per game on average, than Bob, the "medium" diamond level player who never get matched against master or platinum players, if Bob keeps a higher win ratio than Brian, witch is reasonable since he could well improve at a higher rate, as he has more left to learn.

Meanwhile, Steve the "bottom" level diamond player that gets matched vs platinum players sometimes, accumulate more points than Brian and Bob because Steve masses games enough (mb through cheesing alot); even though he doesnt improve fast enough to keep a winrate over 50%, given enoguh games played, the 1-2 inflation points per win add up to surpass the extra points Bob earns from that higher winrate (from rate of improvement) ... In such a system, rating within leagues and ranking within divisions means absolutely nothing; i wouldnt be surpirsed to see players that place low-mid diamond get promoted to masters while having significantly less rating than those that get to the top of diamond during season 2.

.... its saddens me to see the BNet infrastructure for progress-measurement devolve into such a WOW-inspired cesspool of meaninglessness.

I think this topic needs some high-quality threads on BNet forums, are there any good attempts yet? where is Archer when we need him....?

---

This seems like old news though. I'm not sure what's really changed, other than the removal of the WLR, which was meaningless anyway. You told me before that score + bonus pool provided a decent hint.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gradius

This seems like old news though. I'm not sure what's really changed, other than the removal of the WLR, which was meaningless anyway. You told me before that score + bonus pool provided a decent hint.

---

Well Todie was talking about the division modifier which i was talking about as well. This is just rehashing old news but here goes....

Each league has many divisions. But the divisions are not equal. Each division contains equal skilled players. So technically some divisions are better than others. Meaning for example, that according to Blizzard's data the 100th person in the best division of the league is much better than the number 1 person for the lowest ranked division in the league. Blizzard currently randomises the name and sets a division modifier for each division in a league.

Another example it might be you have 3 divisions with division modifiers of +1000, 0 and -1000. The +1000 is given to the division with the most skill. The -1000 modifier is given to the lowest skilled division. The 0 division modifier is given to the average skilled division. Basically 2000 point Masters. (Now taking points to roughly equate to skill and assuming bonus points all used up) In the high skill division this is a great accomplishment so their true rating would be 3000 Masters after adjusting the division modifier. In the average division their true rank is 2000 Masters. In the low skill division their true ranking would be 1000 Masters.

Basically even if you have the same points+bonus pool as someone you're not necessarily at the same skill level. If they come from a division with a higher modifier then in Blizzard's eyes they are better than you. And also just having more points doesn't mean you're better.

EDIT: So the problem myself and todie mention is basically there's still no clear way to account for skill within leagues. Meaning among Masters players or among Diamond players.

So in short the idea of leagues is fine it's the divisions that are screwing up the clarity?

I havnt ever seen any blizz rep say anything about how BNet actually decides who goes in what league, n'or have i become convinced that the division are very homogenized with concerns to MRR as is.... even if they are, that was all from initial placment, meaning its not very acurate for S1, compared to what it could be in s2.


Gradius:

The difference is, the ratings as they are in S1 accumulated during everyone's development; i think everyone whose played a decent amount since day 1 has improved a lot more than what we might improve during season2. some players are surely quite stagnated by now. Rating + bonus gave a decent gauge on skill within each league, but now, it resets.

MMR does not reset... players with 3500 rating+bonus will still get matched against each other alot, only they'll have 0 rating (+reaped bonus and inflation). same as those same-league players who had 2500... if these players improved during s1, they might climb to 2600 faster than the 3500 players climbed to 3600; thats fine, that still gives an OK gauge.

... but in S2, nothing is actually stooping whomever in whatever league to get more points faster than clearly better players; higher MMR illustrated by higher rating(+bonus) during S1.


... i dont think people at large will understand thism, the whole system will be misunderstood and thousands of noobs will get cokcky over high ratings and rankings; improve fast enough or mass games enough to get enoguh points to top their division and again get confused about why they arnt getting promoted (while players rated lower may get promoted....)

... its just... now that i think about it, the system looks like it correlaes very badly with this reset concept.

bottom line is, reset ratings but stabilized and vastly differntiated MMR's make for an artificially level playing-field. random division placement would be horrible.


... the more i think about this, the more i get the feeling they've got this all figured out; what'd make sense is to homogenize each division with as similar MMR's within it as possible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SinsWage

So in short the idea of leagues is fine it's the divisions that are screwing up the clarity?

---

Exactly sinswage. That's the problem of the skill comparison. Master > Diamond > Platinum > Gold > Silver > Bronze. But you don't know if Diamond Player A>Diamond Player B without watching them play each other and find out.

That's the point of the suggestion I had. Basically since a division has two names like Alpha Kerrigan or some such. At the moment that name is randomised. I suggest that basically for example in order of highest to lowest skill:
Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
etc
Following greek alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet)

So if i'm in Delta Raynor and you're in Alpha Kerrigan then i just check the greek alphabet list and i know you're better than me. It gives a way to measure skill within a league. But currently Blizzard doesn't do that. That was confirmed back when people figured out the division modifiers. I put up a link to that article which is buried somewhere in a thread. I hope they implement that. The normal "casual" players won't even know about it but it gives the more hardcore players an easier way to rank themselves.

EDIT: Good point todie. Another reason why division name correlating with skill would be a good measure. Like you see a 2000 Master player but he's in an Omega (last letter of greek alphabet) name division so you can say "Oh so he's not the tip top of Master league". One problem of my suggestion is that there is no movement between divisions during a season. But if they regularly have new seasons that problem would be fixed. Like 3 month seasons would be ideal but 6 month seasons would be ok. The fixing of more precise division placement would only really matter to those whose skill have stagnated so that they can't get promoted up a league. Or if Blizzard allows for movement between divisions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

Exactly sinswage. That's the problem of the skill comparison. Master > Diamond > Platinum > Gold > Silver > Bronze. But you don't know if Diamond Player A>Diamond Player B without watching them play each other and find out.

That's the point of the suggestion I had. Basically since a division has two names like Alpha Kerrigan or some such. At the moment that name is randomised. I suggest that basically for example in order of highest to lowest skill:
Alpha
Beta
Gamma
Delta
Epsilon
etc
Following greek alphabet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet)

So if i'm in Delta Raynor and you're in Alpha Kerrigan then i just check the greek alphabet list and i know you're better than me. It gives a way to measure skill within a league. But currently Blizzard doesn't do that. That was confirmed back when people figured out the division modifiers. I put up a link to that article which is buried somewhere in a thread. I hope they implement that. The normal "casual" players won't even know about it but it gives the more hardcore players an easier way to rank themselves.

EDIT: Good point todie. Another reason why division name correlating with skill would be a good measure. Like you see a 2000 Master player but he's in an Omega (last letter of greek alphabet) name division so you can say "Oh so he's not the tip top of Master league". One problem of my suggestion is that there is no movement between divisions during a season. But if they regularly have new seasons that problem would be fixed. Like 3 month seasons would be ideal but 6 month seasons would be ok. The fixing of more precise division placement would only really matter to those whose skill have stagnated so that they can't get promoted up a league. Or if Blizzard allows for movement between divisions.

---

Like you said, all they have to do is to have a League recycle/refresh once or twice a month. Where it will reshuffle everyone WITHIN the Divisions (master/diamond/plat/etc) into corresponding Alpha, Betta, etc divisions.

If they don't do that, it's pointless having ranked divisions because of the movement problem.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hyde

Like you said, all they have to do is to have a League recycle/refresh once or twice a month. Where it will reshuffle everyone WITHIN the Divisions (master/diamond/plat/etc) into corresponding Alpha, Betta, etc divisions.

If they don't do that, it's pointless having ranked divisions because of the movement problem.

---

Moving it every 1-2 months is too fast though. People might just be on a heavy winning streak and not actually deserving of going to a higher ranked division. Leaving more time for it to adjust and more matches to be played can result in a more accurate division placement within a league. And it discourages casual gamers since they might only have like 5 games played a week.

Perhaps that's Blizzard's view and they're taking the really long term goal of letting everyone keep playing for 1-2 years then only sort them into the skill level they actually are at then make this public. Doubt it though.

It would make sense to approach it in a "long term" mentality based on what they've stated as the long term goals not realized. They are approaching this as a game that will last for 5-10 years at least.

It's also important to note that the entire reason for divisions has not been realized yet. The "tournament patch" is still a ways off, and will provide a reason for division rankings to exist. At the end of a season the division top 8 will have a personal tournament, to determine the division champion. That's how it's been told in the past when the tournament patch was mentioned.

That's part of the reason why divisions seem pointless right now, is because the entire reason for their "build up" doesn't exist yet.

HOWEVER, in light of how they are approaching season 1 and 2, I feel that they may have to reimagine divisions in the future. Because part of the fun of having a division is being able to build up rivalries over time. There is no familiarity so far in what exists now if they reset divisions every season.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gifted

[...]in light of how they are approaching season 1 and 2, I feel that they may have to reimagine divisions in the future. Because part of the fun of having a division is being able to build up rivalries over time. There is no familiarity so far in what exists now if they reset divisions every season.

---

Yes, though, this is assuming divisions will not be homogenized with conerns to MMR; if they are, the more stabilized MMR season 2 and later should provide much higher chances of players of similar skill=similar MMR to end up both playing against eachother, and being rated within the same division, as long as their skill has stagnated at a similar level and/or they keep improving at a similar rate.

... even so, its quite far fetched to have this happen below masters; even if MMR's within a division are tight as hell, how likely is it to be searching for a game at the same time as one of those hundred at any given time? - when there are surely many players NOT in your division, curently searching, that is close enough in MMR to warant a match- how likely is it that you recognize their name from the ladder or previous games? ... if this is what they hope to have happen, there should probably be a graphical representation to remind the players whenever there is an in-division derby..

Valid point Todie.. but my thought is regarding the ending of a season. Think over the course of 3-4 seasons if you had the same core 8 people vying for top 8. It could be a chance that you'd actually care about them then. I still feel this approach is inefficient and part of why I think a reimagining should happen.

Let's face it, something as subtle as "custom divisions" in some form allowing all of us on this forum to sign up for a private/approval or public division may have more semblance as long as a basic rule such as "have an account at SC:L" or "join chatroom legacy fight club" could be a tool to encourage more community competition.

This could be beside the core divisions which could stand some innnovation. For example.. a flag that a player could say saying "I'd like to stay in this division" could work well if the divisions would put preference in placing you in a division with your friends. That way if a friend is in a division, and someone would like to be in it, they can be placed in it, replacing/shifting someone who doesn't care to stay in that division. It'd be logistically hell, but the idea of being placed in a division with people whom you care about is something that I think would be great.

I played 3 games this morning before school and got into Diamond 2v2.
I checked everyone's profile that we played ( so a sample size of 12 people ). The majority of them were gold/plat 2v2 last season but now they're all diamond.

I'll see what happens tonight if I get the time to play 1's. I think there was a lot of "dead wood" in the diamond divisions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hyde

I played 3 games this morning before school and got into Diamond 2v2.
I checked everyone's profile that we played ( so a sample size of 12 people ). The majority of them were gold/plat 2v2 last season but now they're all diamond.

I'll see what happens tonight if I get the time to play 1's. I think there was a lot of "dead wood" in the diamond divisions.

---

Interesting results, keep us posted. Anyone else with other likewise interesting results as well?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gifted

Interesting results, keep us posted. Anyone else with other likewise interesting results as well?

---

Talked to a guy who was diamond league before reset but got into masters.

Somehow, there must be less masters level players who have been ranked at this point, in proportion to the number of lower league players.

That's the only explanation I can think for why people seem to be having an easier time getting into Diamond/masters.

Dang, I gotta get ranked before this ends. Mayhaps I can get up in platinum? :DDDDD

Well turns out my assumption about the inactive players was wrong. Here's how inactivity works. Sorry for the lite wall, I couldn't figure out how to hide content.

From Teamliquid.net

"The system dynamically distributes the population of active players across a constant range of MMR values, and league boundaries are fixed in relation to MMR. As players drop out and the remaining population redistributes themselves across the MMR range by playing games, the leagues of existing players may change as their MMRs change. The boundaries are based on MMR values selected by a prior distribution that will capture these certain percentiles.

For example, if every player below Gold league were to go inactive, the populations of Silver and Bronze league would be 0% active players, which would also mean that there would be no active players beneath a certain MMR threshold. However, that also means that the active population becomes more difficult on average, which inevitably influences the MMRs of the weaker remaining players back below those thresholds as they play more games, thereby repopulating Silver and Bronze. This is why parses of all accounts, active and inactive, such as the ones on SC2Ranks, are not consistent with these percentages."

From Teamliquid.net

TL;DR version

The system considers you inactive after you accumulate 90 bonus pool and will not factor your MMR into the ranking system until you are spending 90 of said bonus pool a week.


Sorry for the vague and incorrect source in the original post. I will dig up the link shortly.

Uhhhhh.....that's pretty extreme. Considering they want to attract casual players. So does this mean the more casual players and active players get demoted down since the MMR threshold has been increased?? Like casual players don't get included in the population since their bonus pool goes over 90.....Hence the changing MMR threshold. Damn....i have 600 bonus points.:P Perhaps i will get demoted to bronze or something. I can imagine a few pros as well with alternative accounts that would have bonus pool over this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SinsWage

From TL.com

---

do you mean Teamliquid.net ? .. i dont mean to nitpick, but i think you should be a little more accurate than that on quoting sources. preferably a link.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

Uhhhhh.....that's pretty extreme. Considering they want to attract casual players. So does this mean the more casual players and active players get demoted down since the MMR threshold has been increased?? Like casual players don't get included in the population since their bonus pool goes over 90.....Hence the changing MMR threshold. Damn....i have 600 bonus points.:P Perhaps i will get demoted to bronze or something. I can imagine a few pros as well with alternative accounts that would have bonus pool over this.

---

You seem more confused by this than i am, let me attempt to rephrase my understanding:

Quote:

---

TL;DR version

The system considers you inactive after you accumulate 90 bonus pool and will not factor your MMR into the ranking system until you are spending 90 of said bonus pool a week.

---

... this is certainly an optimistic measurement of activity, im glad they've at least reduced the rate of bonuspoint accumulation for team games.

to clarify, what the quoted statment implies is that, regardless of current bonus pool, spending more than 90 of them per weak constitutes activity, (until you are lower than 600 at witch point you get a pass 'till youre above 600 AND spending less than 90 a week)

.. with the average win spending 12 bonus points, a 90 pt per week means activity would require winning 7-8 games per week; a winrate of 50% would require roughly 15 games per week.


.. as for the actual consequences within the system for who is considered active and not, i am confused. and i still question where these statements Sinswage is posting are comming from; is someone leaking? datamining? speculating?

... im probably gonna play some this evening. will post back my results.

I found the link to it...:P
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=195273

Well i'm not sure if that 90 points a week is the latest activity or an average over the whole season. If it's over the whole season i'm not sure what mine would be. I did lower my bonus pool by 200 points over the past 4 days. Not sure if that counts. Really confusing the way they put it.

Just went through placement and played 2 matches afterwards. Lost the placement and first match but won the second match. Still in diamond. So phew no demotion. I really suck at aggressive 4 gate.:P Everytime i try to do it i end up losing.

Thanks for the link Jackhammer, also very sorry for the confusing nature of the post. I had just gotten home from working 17 hours and driving 2. I was excited by the info but deliriously tired. I hope it's cleared up now.

thx for the link JH.

important part that it seems we missed:

Quote:

---

Active Status
Your active/inactive status is not considered when evaluating you for a promotion, only your position relative to active players. The one additional requirement to getting promoted is that you must play a game, because league changes only occur after a game.

There are really no negative effects associated with going inactive. You don't get demoted from leagues due to inactivity. Your MMR does not decrease. Your points do not decrease.

---

it kind of makes sense; if i udnerstand corectly, they use the active/inactive label in order to determine where the MMR-tresholds between leagues will be.

@Todie
I still wonder about the use 90 points a week. The lack of clear understanding comes from the "a week" part. Like which week do they consider...average week over a season or the last week before season ends.

Also, starting over at 0 bonus points i think i'll spend some time trying to refine builds i guess.:P Perhaps put in the time and effort to improve my aggressive 4 gate. LOL.

If this is all accurate I think the system is fairly good. This way there isn't a huge shift down in ranks to fill the void left by previously ranked but inactive players when a new season begins. There will be some movement, especially since your MMR continues to change when the season locks, but it won't be nearly as drastic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

@Todie
I still wonder about the use 90 points a week. The lack of clear understanding comes from the "a week" part. Like which week do they consider...average week over a season or the last week before season ends.

Also, starting over at 0 bonus points i think i'll spend some time trying to refine builds i guess.:P Perhaps put in the time and effort to improve my aggressive 4 gate. LOL.

---

well, WHEN are the thresholds between leagues redrawn? only at season change? then, its probably the players with less than 600 bonus and the players with more than 600 bonus that spend more than 90, on the last week pre-reset. Not that it actually matters to you if you are considered active or not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SinsWage

If this is all accurate I think the system is fairly good. This way there isn't a huge shift down in ranks to fill the void left by previously ranked but inactive players when a new season begins. There will be some movement, especially since your MMR continues to change when the season locks, but it won't be nearly as drastic.

---

What system? The matchmaking and league placement makes sense, yes, but this is what we've said all along.

.. the actual meaning of the visible rating and rankings and division-placement however, does not, and in season2 there is no reason to believe it'll be in any way better, but probably worse.

The bottom line problem is, people expect the rating and ranking to mean something else than ability to mass games or rate of improvement., it doesnt, and there has never been a clear voice telling them it doesnt, yet if the pieces of the puzzle fit together as we think they do; season2 will make ever-more apparent that there is no correlation between skill and rating within a league.

I'm just pleased to see this clarified for me personally. I'm not saying it's perfect all around but I always thought people who placed but stopped playing were factored in. I'm relieved to see that's not the case.

I would love to see more clarity in what we do see. The fact is I doubt it's going to happen now that we aren't even allowed to know how many games we've played.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Todie

The bottom line problem is, people expect the rating and ranking to mean something else than ability to mass games or rate of improvement., it doesnt, and there has never been a clear voice telling them it doesnt, yet if the pieces of the puzzle fit together as we think they do; season2 will make ever-more apparent that there is no correlation between skill and rating within a league.

---

Well, yes and no. Let's take it to the original example of bowling leagues provided by Blizzard. In a bowling league, people are matched together based on skill. For example, pro bowlers will not be in amateur leagues and vice versa. So the threshold for skill is ultimately the "league". There will be "good amateurs" and there will be "poor amateurs". Some people may be in a "Amateur league" of bowling but play at the skill of some of the lower tier of "Minor league" players.

Within this set of leagues, in the divisions each group may have a tournament seasons, which involve a person or team rising to the top. Does this mean that those specific people happen to be more skilled than their opponents? It doesn't. Division rankings is for recognition while leagues are for quantifying skill. Let's face it, a rank 1 team in a division may have been the luckiest team in the world and just HAPPENED to pull off the wins. But odds are that skill played a factor to allow them to do the win.

So in other words, a higher ranked individual in a division could or could not be a method of identifying skill. But it's purpose is about recognition of a rank, not about recognition of a skill. Sad but true. It's the reason people enjoy achievements in games. Let's face it... do you think a wow player appreciates that someone else killed 10 boars? Nope... anyone can do it... but they got the achievement!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SinsWage

I would love to see more clarity in what we do see. The fact is I doubt it's going to happen now that we aren't even allowed to know how many games we've played.

---

Yeah. No losses shown really sucks. Like i play a bunch of games then i manually check my match history and start counting. Maybe i'll record my own loss numbers. Easier now that it's a new season.

But it's like i look at my profile and it's like 1 win...*trollface initiated*YAY!!! Losses?? What losses?? Isn't it clearly obvious I only have wins.*trollface completed* But i guess with the way matchmaking works you can just mentally say well he should have the same number of losses. But blizzard is basically saying win/loss ratios only matter in masters.

I completely understand what they're attempting with it. People who play a fair amount but are in bronze, silver and gold are probably not in any way concerned with where they stand on the ladder as a whole. That kind of information would be more likely to stop them from playing rather than encourage them. The fact that people don't generally understand that a positive win/loss ratio is not an automatic ticket to promotion leads to a lot of complaining and idiotic posts.

That being said please don't patronize the players who want to improve and really be competitive. Just take bronze through gold/platinum and make it this safe haven fluffy bunny place where we don't see W/L ratios or know ladder standings. You want that information? Prove it my honing your game and win your way to diamond. At that point I want to see DETAILED information. W/L ratio, a full ladder breakdown of everyone. I want crystal clarity to know where I am. Who's up and coming? Who's slipping and what are people doing? What's the average game length, spending curve, APM, all of it. I want each diamond (at the VERY LEAST masters) and up players page to read like a pro sports record page.

Let's face it, in a competitive environment stats are how you measure things. Weather they're relevant has NEVER mattered. When you watch real non e-sports you'll hear things like "A team that didn't shave for the month before the big game has won 53% of the past 22 final super world stanley dishes!". Does this have a huge bearing on the game? No, but you want all that minutiae because it's interesting to see all the stats.

I agree Sins but with a bit of an exception. I think every single league should have the information on this. Even Bronze. Some bronze players want to improve and better themselves until they reach higher leagues and stats would be helpful to them as well.

I'd prefer a system where the default is "cute bunny no losses here". BUT there is like some section specifically for stats which lists all the detailed stats people want. Wins, losses, matchup win/loss ratio, map win/loss ratio, game length, APM, etc. Make it buried in league and ladders or under achievements or something. Put where it is in the patch notes. Most casual players won't even know about it but the people who care and visit the community sites will learn about it and know where to find the stats they want.

Like right now...i don't know what my win/loss is for every matchup. I have completely no idea. I didn't save all my replays so can't use sc2gears. But that's just weird that if i want to know how i do in a matchup i have to rely on using a third party program or a rough guess. I even had to use sc2 ranks to see the graph showing my progression through leagues, etc.

You know what they could do is make it where you have to log onto for the website to get the info in the lower leagues. If you're in diamond or better it will display in the game client. That's just out of the way enough that the more casual player who doesn't care wouldn't stumble onto the fact that they're 1'477'567 out of 1'543'456 and just quit due to depression.

That would be a good idea too sins. It's like they keep saying they gather tons of data off player's games and use it for balance. And we as players only get access to a bare minimum of the data. And if we want more we need to use a third party program or site instead of going through Blizzard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gifted

Well, yes and no. Let's take it to the original example of bowling leagues provided by Blizzard. In a bowling league, people are matched together based on skill. For example, pro bowlers will not be in amateur leagues and vice versa. So the threshold for skill is ultimately the "league".[...]

---

we might all agree that the league is a tool too blunt to measure, considering the other tools that are actually available
... but lets see where this goes:

Quote:

---

Within this set of leagues, in the divisions each group may have a tournament seasons, which involve a person or team rising to the top. Does this mean that those specific people happen to be more skilled than their opponents? It doesn't. Division rankings is for recognition while leagues are for quantifying skill. Let's face it, a rank 1 team in a division may have been the luckiest team in the world and just HAPPENED to pull off the wins. But odds are that skill played a factor to allow them to do the win.

So in other words, a higher ranked individual in a division could or could not be a method of identifying skill.

---

If this is to be an analogy for how sc2 would work after a tournament patch, i must say i dont think its apt, and i think its needlessly contaminating the coherent point i've been trying to make ;)

implying that luck is what can stand in the way of rating accumulation being an even half-decent skill measurement ignores what rating actually is: its improvement, meaning a player who was Champion in the division previous season will have a HARDER time accumulating rating than many players that have a longer easier road of improvement to walk - players that the champ by the end of next season would still beat four times out of five.. come tournament season, the mentioned past champ would be hard pressed to even make it to top8 This is not an anomaly, its a clear consequence of system design!

Quote:

---

So in other words, a higher ranked individual in a division could or could not be a method of identifying skill. But it's purpose is about recognition of a rank, not about recognition of a skill.

---

ask anyone what they think rank is (what the word actually implies), im willing to bet they associate it with skill in some way. this is deception, a mass psychology of passification, and if im 100% right, a real obstacle for al but the most professional tournament organizers.

Quote:

---

Sad but true. It's the reason people enjoy achievements in games. Let's face it... do you think a wow player appreciates that someone else killed 10 boars? Nope... anyone can do it... but they got the achievement!!!

---

Yeah. what i cant stand is the feeling that blizzard are being so two-faced about it.

Note that the above ranting is assuming the distribution of players into divisions is random.
... If divisions become homogenized by MMR each season, then the ratings within will be an OK gauge for skill, as they'll all start from very similar skill. but again: why care how you rank among these 100 players? the rest of the league - including friends - will still be impossible to compare to numerically.. i might be able to get used to this, especially if division hierarchies was made coherent as suggested above; numbered or whatnot... but thats really nowhere in sight, is it?