SCLegacy SC2Ranks Division Discussion

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

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The downside of any system without any kind of extra incentive to keep playing at at least a certain rate, is that some players would actually stagnate their ladder play from sheer fear of losing; if you do good for a bit and achieve a really good rating, and take pride in that, maybe you are really afraid of ruining that? then you will start playing much less ladder..

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That shouldn't happend unless you get worse, or you keep the same skill and a lot of players go up.
With the current system, you're discouraged to play if the players on top of your league played a lot of games, so that it requires a stupid amount of games to get the points.

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... that shouldnt happen unless you stop improving as fast as the players you get matched against.. witch is saying alot, especially if you cant keep playing at the same rate.

this creates this kind of situation; " three months ago i played alot and was improving at a fair pace, beating better and better opponents, improving my rating and ranking, then stuff happened and i couldnt play for three months. Now, im pretty sure if i started playing again, i would lose more than i won for some time witch would reduce my actual rating and ranking, so im hesitant to play more ladder!"

... now, i guess we can agree that this isnt a good way of thinking for the player, but its still quite real; to some degree this way of thinking exists even in the current system, but im pretty sure there would be more of it without any kind of extra incentive to keep playing within the system (e.i without the current bonus system) ... a side effect of this kind of behaviour can actually undermine the ranking: if a player goes inactive, he/she may well decline in skill to some extent: a few months later, those with similar rating/ranking that are active, may be significantly better than this player...

.... im just saying, im starting to understand the reasoning behind the bonus point system. for real...

As mentioned though, im all for more transparency and making it easier to compare players that have been a bit inactive with those that havnt; having to click around through 5-6 different screens that each take half a minute to load, and do calculations, for every player you want to compare with... its quite ridiculous.

The division system is another question entirely IMO; i never approved of the arbitrary nature of divisions and ranks within them (one divisions ranking requiring a drastically different point-rating than than another).

in terms of leagues however, it makes some sort of sense to divide people into different leagues; we just have to accept that rating points are in no way comparable between leagues (with exception of some players "getting stuck" but this problem should deminish in magnitude in later seasons) ... the alternative would be to let lost / won points per game scale with leagues as to give more points t players in higher leagues, but i think that would mostly just be confusing.

That would be all fine and well Todie, but you have to take into account the MMR system. If you are in the top 1% of diamond, then you dont play for 3 months.. You obviously will get passed on points, thats a no brainer. And thats where Bonus points makes sense; you can climb back up fast assuming you use them all effectively.

BUT.. heres the catch. Your MMR rating still thinks you are a top 1% player, and therefor you will be favored in every single match still like you were when you were at the top. And I dont know how many games you play when you are favored, but if you have, you can see how insanely hard it is to gain any type of substancial point increase while being favored, even if you do have tons of bonus points left.

I've been making posts about how stupid the MMR system is even when I was just starting out in Platinum, then when I was in the top 200.. and now Im still feeling the same. Can go read all my previous posts on it, point is im not just whining because ive fallen back a lot since my "break", its a consistent flaw in the system IMO which makes laddering not as fun to me. Thats why ive been massing team games lately, 4v4s and such.

For me, Im what, 1500? and still being favored everygame, even vs 2500 people. So, If I win, I'll get like 16 points (8 + 8bonus) but if I lose, its down 30+ points.

Personally though, ive been playing random again in ladder so that accumulated afew unnessisary losses, which hopefully is bringing my MMR down to a reasonable level again. Least Im not favored EVERY single game anymore vs 2500s... So once I go back to my main race I hopefully will be able to climb at a reasonable rate where if I go did do a bad session of like 5-5, I will be at least in the plus, rather than negative ~40 pts.

it seems reasonable to extend the MRR system to include some form of decay, but it'd be easy to take that sort of thing too far. its surely a hard thing to calibrate, but its the sort of change that probably makes more sense to make at a reset than mid
-season.

something that might also play a role here is the wild swings in the metagame early retail; some builds were seriously strong for a while, and its possible that good players could use this to beat even better players (in some non-defined "objective" meaning of what makes for a good player..) somewhat consistently, leaving these specialists with very high MRR's (as you call it, i forget what these letters stand for, but basically, hidden rating that determines who you face and how much pts you gain/lose) ... when players eventually got better at facing these builds - or when these builds got nerfed, these former specialists will ofcourse be having a hard time..

... I think a high priority for the system has been to prevent high level players from abusing lower level players, one way or another. this probably makes it hard on players like you Skyze, that for one reason or another ended up with a higher MRR than they were comfortable with.

... tehre aught to be some direct correlation between actual rating and MRR, so taht the MRR cant become high super-fast, compared to the rating, but from what you've been saying Skyze, it doesnt sound like there is such a correlation currently, at least not very a strong one.


.. to comment your case directly: if you taking place among the top200 wasnt some kind of wierd mistake of the system (wtf?), you aught to be fit for the masters league come reset.. unless the MRR gets revamped it'll probably still be hard to gain rating but at least then youll be rated among those that have it equally hard!

... really, i think the implementations of the new upper leagues can address your concerns nicely; to judge by what youve said now and in the past, the points earned by somone of your MRR seem about as unfair to compare to mine, as mine does to someone in gold-platinum league.

Peace.

Anybody know when we can expect the ladder resets? Will it be before the end of the year?

3rd http://blizzforums.com/images/smilies/new/awesome.gif



not much left to be the first

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__...13/Awesome.png

Yea Todie, im definitely waiting for that above-diamond league.. That will be the time I will start playing 1v1 hard, right now Im just playing random in 1v1 to get icons/achievement points, so thats why im dropping abit.

I have like one of the top 20 on all of the US server in terms of achievement points, according to SC2ranks anyways. So gonna just keep feeding that for abit, since im working a fulltime job now that gives me much less time to maintain a top-200 1v1 play =[

no Todie at least 3rd place is mine, you won't get it
i need to beat you in a pvz battle!

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no Todie at least 3rd place is mine, you won't get it
i need to beat you in a pvz battle!

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Dear 3rd place,

I'm at the bottom. And I beat you every time. Every man has his weakness.

Love, the Cold Girl. ^_^
x

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Originally Posted by Zabimaru

Dear 3rd place,

I'm at the bottom. And I beat you every time. Every man has his weakness.

Love, the Cold Girl. ^_^
x

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not anymore girl, I found a way to beat ya all no skilled Terrans
from THE COLD SPYCHI


btw 6 games won in a row, hell yes

Damn it Sahara is always a step ahead

How can thumber have 70% wins and only 1500 points?

Yes! finally I beat Sahara by points!

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Originally Posted by spychi

Yes! finally I beat Sahara by points!

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Mine needs to update! =p

hmm.. So ive been playing random lately, and quitting any game I get protoss just to lower my MMR abit so im not favored every game.. Still "even" vs most 2500 I play, but its getting lower and managable to actually gain points now.. im sure if I go back to protoss now, I can get to 2000 within 10-15 wins. Its nice getting more than 8 pts a win.

Although if its true the ladder is gonna reset soon and start a new season for the "grand master" league.. Im tempted to do what other people are doing and losing to bronze in order to get lots of wins faster and get achievement points/icons faster.. Its just insanely lame =[ hmmm.. wonder if I should do it..

wish blizzard would speak up on it abit more, if the grandmaster league is gonna be continued from this ladder season, or if they are starting a whole new season where everyone starts at 0-0 and grandmaster will start then..

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Originally Posted by Skyze

Im tempted to do what other people are doing and losing to bronze in order to get lots of wins faster and get achievement points/icons faster.. Its just insanely lame =[ hmmm.. wonder if I should do it..

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It's what I'm doing :p.

The SC2 team should really have talked to the D3 guys before implementing this particular portrait reward system :p. The whole reason why the D3 guys are trying to make D3's endgame more diverse than endless boss runs is because they know that players will almost always take the shortest route to get rewards, even if it's not necessarily the most fun :p.

It's kinda funny down here in Bronze because you actually bump into quite a few people who are also just cheesing for portraits ^^.

I feel pretty bad/lame sometimes, but I try to be apologetic about it if they seem like nice guys :p.

yea, im not sure im gonna be that lame and go straight to bronze yet.. What im doing right now is pretty fair I guess, I random and quit every protoss game and then just play Z/T vs 2000+ diamond players, so its still somewhat fair. Actually lose a lot with zerg, but I win more than i lose with terran, so it balances out.

... guuyyyss.. you are better than his... its only noobstamps afterall..??

it will be cool to get some new devals in a few years, and it kind of sucks that i have to wait that long. but abisng lower leagued palyers to get it? hell no.

whenever i see someone with a big icon or decal i will wonder how they got it, and if im curious enough ill check tehir previous season stats to find out if they are lowly abusers like Grunt.. if it turns out they are thats one big reason to be unfriendly (if tis someone i met on ladder, espeically if i lost and im pissed about that..)

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Originally Posted by Skyze

Im tempted to do what other people are doing and losing to bronze in order to get lots of wins faster and get achievement points/icons faster.. Its just insanely lame =[ hmmm.. wonder if I should do it..

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i must quote Thyrael on this one.

Hidden Content:

NO! DONT DO IT!


... In all seriousness, Blizzard has stated within long blizzcon interviews, that MRR will carry over to new seasons.. so you might already be banished from any chance at master league for playing a weak race and losing games on purpose. if you do lose to bronze, its even less likely that you get in.

.. actually, if this kind of abuse is that widespread, i wouldn't be surprised if blizzard took action come reset. they wouldn't ban anyone over it, but maybe strip all the achievements and portraits etc, for those that obviously lost from diamond to bronze.

this is like wc3 smurfing all over again, only, its wese, becasue you all know the system was buil specifically to prevent it.

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Originally Posted by Todie

whenever i see someone with a big icon or decal i will wonder how they got it, and if im curious enough ill check tehir previous season stats to find out if they are lowly abusers like Grunt.. if it turns out they are thats one big reason to be unfriendly (if tis someone i met on ladder, espeically if i lost and im pissed about that..)

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Wise words, Todie! I know I'm being kind of a jerk...THIS I FREELY ADMIT! I'm not doing this for the sake of showing off, though :p. If I was, there'd be no point in cheesing Bronze, because like you, the first thing everyone does is check that person's stats to see how it is they got such fancy rewards. I'm doing it for the same reason some people grind games vs the computer - just for the sake of achievements.

I don't know if I'm going to grind co-op vs the ai games, but portraits are a more 'useful' reward to get than the increase to your achievement score and icon that you get for the co-op vs the ai stuff.

Perhaps you should listen to Todie, Skyze - once you get started, you may be tempted to keep at it for a while :p. I'm not super-competitive, so I don't care much about getting into a league above Diamond, but you seem like quite a competitive fellow, so you may want to keep your MMR going into the next season.

yea ill probably just continue what im doing now; randoming and leaving every protoss game, so I can lower my MMR while still playing Z/T in the +2000 diamond level.. I just suck too much with zerg to win consistently here lol probably like 10-20 with zerg since

my goal is to get 50 wins in random/terran/zerg then probably go back to protoss and try to climb again.. of course by that time im sure the ladder will be reset (I work fulltime now, dont get much chances to play)

yeah I´m starting to hate TvZ now it's so much harder as zerg but my PvZ is getting to be 100 % :)

And I agree with Todie

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Originally Posted by Skyze

Although if its true the ladder is gonna reset soon and start a new season for the "grand master" league.. Im tempted to do what other people are doing and losing to bronze in order to get lots of wins faster and get achievement points/icons faster.. Its just insanely lame =[ hmmm.. wonder if I should do it..

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Don't do that :D,(not saying you will :P) the point of the game is not to be higly ranked, rather just enjoy the game and play well. IMO the ladder should be a reward for playing well not just something you can show to other people and brag about (though I agree that's fun sometimes :rolleyes:)

Skyze, with concerns to entering master league, the entrance criteria will most certainly be based on MRR, not on rating points. just to be clear.

yes, but my MMR is already very high up, almost top 200 level, even with losing ~30 of my last 45 games.

Im 1600 on ladder, yet I am always even or slightly favored vs people who are 2500.. so thats clearly MMR

I actually rather have lower MMR up until the grandmaster league comes into effect. I dont get any points for winning games right now, but lose massive points if I lose

Still, losing games on purpose is useless in regards to joining the Masterleague later.
If anything, you're just hurting yourself by starting with a lower score in the Masterleague (and wasting bonus points, which is something you complained a lot about when the game hit retail).

If you lower your MMR rating which is what decides if you move up to Masters or Grandmasters league.....then when it comes out doesn't that mean you need to play more and win more to enter. For example like you had an MMR of 1000 and you need 1100 to be in masters league. But since you've been losing a lot then your MMR drops to like 800. Then it'll put you up against other 800 MMR people and slowly increase it until you get up to 1000 again and then you have to get up to 1100 to get into masters. Doesn't that just make it longer to reach Masters??

Plus in terms of bonus points i thought blizzard was going to reset the ladder and all points for a new 'season' when masters and grandmasters league comes out.

Wait, why are you guys talking about Master and GrandMaster? Are they adding two more leagues in one patch?
It's probably a good thing, but pretty extreme!

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Originally Posted by Hammy

Wait, why are you guys talking about Master and GrandMaster? Are they adding two more leagues in one patch?
It's probably a good thing, but pretty extreme!

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yes, afaik, it was said in the interview from Blizzcon. To my mind it was in 3-4th part.

iirc, not in one patch. the grandmasters league is to come later.

Basically they are adding only one league in essence. Master League. Then they are renaming the Top 200 they keep doing every week the Grand Master League. So anyone in the top 200 that week gets to be in the Grand Master league for the week. So more like an exclusive special league filled with mass gamers, pro players and great ladder players only. No exact confirmation if Grand Master is with the next patch but they did say that both those leagues would be out by the end of the year (hopefully).

now that i think about it i have a vague recollection that the infrastructure for GM league would be in for 1.2 but that it wouldnt actually be used until after the first reset.

Someone on TL posted a photo from Blizzcon with the icons :].

http://i.imgur.com/zSA3B.jpg


You were in the top 200 before, Skyze, to think that you could be classified as a 'grand master' of StarCraft 2 :p.

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Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

Then they are renaming the Top 200 they keep doing every week the Grand Master League. So anyone in the top 200 that week gets to be in the Grand Master league for the week.

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I hope that's not how it works. League placement should use the hidden ranking which reflects actual skill instead of points & how many games you spammed.

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Originally Posted by Gradius

I hope that's not how it works. League placement should use the hidden ranking which reflects actual skill instead of points & how many games you spammed.

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I think that the final solution will have to be a mix of both - otherwise, someone who is just really good, but (hypothetically) stopped playing, would just be sitting on that top 200 for ages :p.

It will work that way Gradius. Completely based off MMR. You will get a lot of great players but people who spam games like 1000-2000 wins have ammassed enough MMR by then to get in.

And GRUNT if they stop playing their MMR doesn't change. Then as the Grand Masters play more and win more than 50% of the time their MMR will slowly rise and that player who doesn't play on ladder much anymore slowly drops down until he leaves the Grand Master league. Plus an example of this kind of person would be Idra. Just beast his way beating so many people and reaching like top 20-30 then stops laddering for a month or two. Then he'll be like top 100. He's still good enough to be in the grand masters. Just no longer considered one of the best in there.

i think youre missunderstanding the concept of MMR jack; thats the hidden rating, that supposedly only changes when the actual skill level of the players change.

ofcoruse, we dont know if there is any inflation on MMR as there is on league rating, if so you would be right.

edit: when youve acutalyl made it into master or GM league, youll surely be ranked on rating points as in any league.

I think everyone is misunderstanding me. I was saying they use the MMR (hidden rating) to determine if you enter Masters or Grandmasters league. Like you can be 3000 point diamond but because your MMR is too low you might not be able to enter Masters or Grandmasters.

And if you notice the top 200 now is ranked by MMR. Just look at each player's points. Lower ranked players have more points that higher ranked players (in some cases). So the top 200 is ranked based on MMR. So i was saying ranking in Grandmasters would be the same with it being by MMR. For Masters it would be ranked like in diamond now being by ladder points in each division.

Then on the comment of someone being able to stay in GM league even though they don't play much you can see this now even in top 200. Some people with only 100 or so wins. Because they increased their MMR a lot by beating players with higher MMR then they get into the top 200. It doesn't perfectly show real skill. Like idra might play on ladder in US for fun and get top 50 with like 100 wins and then leave it alone for months since he's in korea. The ranking in GM would be based on idra's MMR rating. But as people play more their MMR rises or falls. The more you win the more your MMR rises. The amount it rises is lower if you're favoured and higher if you're not favoured. Same like ladder points though no one knows the exact algorithm.

Then about people who spam mass games. If they can get 1000 wins then they've basically worked their way into Masters or Grandmasters. They might not be the same skill level as the pro players like idra, select, inControl, etc but they put in the time to win a lot. And winning slowly increases their MMR until they qualify to be in masters or grandmasters. State of the game podcast was talking about this recently where you see the top 200 and in like the top 10 it's only around 3 pro players and the rest are mass gamers who have so many wins that their MMR is as high as a pro even though their skill isn't.

EDIT: Todie just to be clear on the MMR skill thing. It rises and falls just like ladder points. If you win it goes up. If you lose your MMR goes down. The exact amounts depends a lot on the favoured situation and the opponent's MMR. It's some weird algorithm thing. It's all in theory though since Blizzard keeps it hidden. This is all based on someone who did some research and proposed MMR was based on something called ELO algorithm or something like that. I'll try find the post now again.

Here's the extract of relevance. They talk a bit more about ladder rankings and ladder points as well:

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MMR itself is never displayed and as such the details of its calculation are very hard to gleam. Assuming its similar to Elo, the system will increase a player’s MMR by more if they defeat a relatively more skilled opponent and decrease it by less if they lose to a more skilled opponent. The Elo-style math is a bit messy, but essentially the algorithm calculates a percentage chance that each player will win based on the players’ MMRs. The chance scales logarithmically with their differences; a 400 point rating difference might means A has a ten times greater chance of winning than B, eg, about a 90% chance to win. If a player wins, the system increases their MMR by the chance that they would lose times some system-wide constant, K, and does the opposite for their opponent. For example, if K is set to 12 and player A has a 90% chance of winning against B, and A does indeed win, his rating would increase by only .1*12=1.2, while B’s rating would decrease by the same. If B won, his rating would increase by .9*12=10.8 and A’s would decrease by the same amount. The system does not punish B very much for having to play A, but rewards him significantly if he does well.

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http://lorehound.com/starcraft/starc...lained-part-2/

This makes sense to explain how mass gamers can get into the top 200 even though their skill level is not that high. They mass up MMR increases of like 1-2 points every time. Whereas pro players mass like MMR points of 10+ very quickly until they reach the MMR rating where other players of similar skill are at.

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Originally Posted by JackhammerIV

EDIT: Todie just to be clear on the MMR skill thing. It rises and falls just like ladder points. If you win it goes up. If you lose your MMR goes down. The exact amounts depends a lot on the favoured situation and the opponent's MMR. It's some weird algorithm thing. It's all in theory though since Blizzard keeps it hidden. This is all based on someone who did some research and proposed MMR was based on something called ELO algorithm or something like that. I'll try find the post now again.

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im fully aware of this, im just saying its important to distinguish between the inflaton that occurs with ladder-rating points (due to bonus and arguably more points gained than lost at a win or loss respectively, to the same player) ... for your rating to improve you just have to keep playing and spend your bonus pool. but your MMR to improve its not enough to just mass games. i guess noone was saying that, but it deserves underlining; you need t consistently win more than you lose to players that currently have an equal or higher MMR in order to improve your own.

we dont know how the MMRs adjust but i wouldnt expect the MMR of those who are already "up there" to be increasing at any significant rate; winning enough to maintain it is hard enough.

... i think rating (with bonus) will be a better measurement of who's on-top and active.. once we have the new leagues for the higher MMR players (as currently, it seems bad to compare ratings of high MMR diamonds to those with a bit lower MRR, as the differences in points lost & gained from playing similar opnents can be huge)

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This makes sense to explain how mass gamers can get into the top 200 even though their skill level is not that high. They mass up MMR increases of like 1-2 points every time. Whereas pro players mass like MMR points of 10+ very quickly until they reach the MMR rating where other players of similar skill are at.

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i dont understand your reasoning here. i think you are not taking into account that regardless of whos playing, each consecutive win against a similar opponent will yield lower rewards. it seems youre seeing a hole in the system that i am not; i dont think there are any "game massers with a skill level hats not that high" with top MRR's ; the only way to get a high MRR is to beat good players. period. (if they can only get there by abusing certain risky hard to stop all-in strategies or whatever, thats a different matter; a gameplay atter not related to the AMM)

The hole i see is having a win ratio over 50% against opponents rated as "Teams even" by blizzard. Not so difficult as it may seem. Like if each win was worth 2 MMR points and each loss deducted 2 MMR points. Then even having a win:loss of 1.1:1 means they gain 0.2 MMR points every 2-3 games they play. Then imagine they play 2000-3000 games. The MMR rises.

That's the hole i am seeing. e.g. in the matchmaker now B+ player plays A and A+ players 5 games in a row. Loses all 5 games. Matchmaker panics and gives the B+ player tons of C level opponents to boost their win rate back up to 50%. Then it says ok i think i know his skill level. Let's try 2 A players now. Loses both times again. Then it panics and gives him tons of C level opponents again. Each loss to A level players is say -2. And each win vs a C level player is +2. Against B players say it is +3.

Since blizzard's matchmaker tries to give people a 50% win rate it ends up letting mass gamers sort of farm MMR points. I'm sure you've noticed how if you lose to a favoured opponent on SC2 then matchmaker gives you like a bunch of random easy opponents after that. I've had the same where i maintained a win rate over 50%. Everytime i had a tough opponent that i lost to it gives me like 4 gold league players in a row that i can beat 60-70% of the time.

This introduces the "hole" I said where you gain like a small amount of MMR points every 10 games you play. For a casual player that isn't much so the MMR better reflects skill. But for a mass gamer with thousands of games the constraint of matchmaker to give you a 50% win ratio allows them to farm MMR points and have the MMR points of an A player but only the skill level of a B+ player.

The thing is Todie that you're thinking you can't get much MMR points from beating easier opponents and to rise up in MMR you need to beat players as good as or better than you. That is true except in large numbers. They can turn a net gain of say 0.1 MMR points per win they get vs easier opponents into a large enough number cos of the design of matchmaker and cos they play so so many games. It's similar to how on ladder you just keep gaining points even if you feel you're not improving as fast as your points are going up. For MMR it happens much slower. But it still increases.

This of course is temporary. As people ladder more and more the Blizzard matchmaker eventually puts you where you belong in terms of skill. But to me i think it will take a year or two for it to have a good idea where you actually rank in terms of skill. Blizzard did say just keep playing more and the matchmaker can figure out better where exactly you belong. But those mass gamers had a headstart.

Basically the time it takes B.net 2 to figure out todie that you deserve an MMR of 1200 say would be like 1 year since you don't play so much. For those mass gamers since they gave B.net thousands of games of data they get up to 1200 in like a few months. And since they don't have much competition within those few months except pros (who generally don't ladder much) and other mass gamers they can maintain an MMR of 1200. Then in like a year of playing when casual players with an actual MMR of 1200 gets placed there by the matchmaker then those mass gamers will have competition and we'll see if they really deserve the 1200MMR rating. Does that make sense?

EDIT: You are right todie that those up there in top 200 the MMR doesn't increase significantly. It's like if you see the front page of SC:L now liquidret is like in the top 10 with 3 wins for every loss. His MMR jumped up like a raging beast and he has like around 200ish games played. Imagine a mass gamer with 3000 games played. Even if their MMR increase is insignificant like for every 2 games he gains 0.1 MMR. Liquidret beasts his way to the top getting like 10-20MMR with each win until matchmaker settles on where to put him then it slows down. Those mass gamers just keep getting that 0.1 and it just builds up bigger and bigger since they play so much. That's the point i am making. The "hole".

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The hole i see is having a win ratio over 50% against opponents rated as "Teams even" by blizzard. Not so difficult as it may seem. Like if each win was worth 2 MMR points and each loss deducted 2 MMR points. Then even having a win:loss of 1.1:1 means they gain 0.2 MMR points every 2-3 games they play. Then imagine they play 2000-3000 games. The MMR rises.

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how is this a hole? if you win, you are better and increase your MRR.
if you get higher MMR you need to beat even better people to rank up more MMR.

its in now way easy to play alot of games and win 55%+ its even harder if you take skill into account.

just look at our internal raking here; a few months aback many more of us had winrates of 55-60% but as we play more, the system pins us down and we start facing more challenging opponents more frequently.

im not picking your entire post apart but:

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I'm sure you've noticed how if you lose to a favoured opponent on SC2 then matchmaker gives you like a bunch of random easy opponents after that. I've had the same where i maintained a win rate over 50%. Everytime i had a tough opponent that i lost to it gives me like 4 gold league players in a row that i can beat 60-70% of the time.

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.. no this is just your experience and it has little if anyhting to do with how things really work.

... in my experience theres nothing magical about massing games, otehr than that it spends your bonuspoints consistently and gives a fairly high rating that way.


the very definition of a player with high MMR is that i gets matched against others with high MMR ... you cant just stereotype tehse players as "game massers" and try to imply taht tehy arnt actually that good; they wouldnt be tehre if they didnt win against good players and they have gotten to where tehy are beating palyers like you and me fairly conistently.


... this discussion is getting super silly. lets try using less words.

Ya this is getting really long. Ok simply put. Considering mass gamer is good like A- or A. Those mass gamers have an actual MMR. There are x number of players with a higher MMR. There are y players with a lower MMR. Right now for mass gamers, y>x and x+y represents the total pool blizzard matchmaker takes your opponent from.

Since the game is new and people haven't had time to play enough to raise their MMR to their skill ceiling this gives the mass gamer the situation of y>x. This means mass gamer played so much since release of SC2 he's hit his skill ceiling like months ahead of everyone else. So most times mass gamer faces someone with lower MMR and can beat them easily. Sometimes he faces people with higher MMR and loses to them a lot.

Now both x and y are growing slowly over time as people get better and learn the game and hit their skill ceiling. But the mass gamer is still playing tons of games so that he sort of "exploits" the fact that y>x. Since y>x he can slowly increase his MMR with every win he gets if he maintains win rate of over 50%. So he gains more MMR points and suddenly he gets ranked A+. There aren't enough A+ actual skill level players to push him down to his actual skill level of A or A- so he stays there.

Basically it is a temporary "hole" that gets fixed as people ladder a lot more. If this argument didn't convince you Todie then I guess let's just abandon this topic. We'll agree to disagree.:D

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Originally Posted by Gradius

I hope that's not how it works. League placement should use the hidden ranking which reflects actual skill instead of points & how many games you spammed.

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All leagues should be based on that, anyways.