Yes.

IMO, you're too much of an optimist for hoping the ladder system will be completely revamped at any point in the future ever.

minigun just beat machine. he lost the first two games in standard games then won w/ 2 blink rushes and a 4gate. protoss OP.

obv

I think it waits for a long time to put you in a division after you're clearly diamond because it wants to put you in a league with players with a similar skill level to you. Some guys on teamliquid found out the top 200 diamond divisions based upon the top 200 players. The longer you're waiting and winning games to get placed then the higher the division you're placed in.

The top 200 players are clustered in diamond divisions not because the system tried to place them in the same division, but because they got there faster than most people.

The top 200 does account for not all divisions being equal though.

I don't think so. I've be in my own league and when I go and check the other player's league after the match, I see they are in placement, sometimes. It doesn't happen often. They can't just always put you against people in placement because they need a bigger pool of players to choose from, guessing.

I think they just match you up against a substandard level, if you win, they keep testing you.

I think on my live account I went 3-2 in placement (I can't remember) and I got put into Gold, whereas I think I went 3-2 on the PTR and got put into Bronze. I could be off, but it was something like that.

Speaking to AK: I wouldn't worry too much about the level of players during the PTR. Now that you're out you'll start playing against people at your level. You'll constantly get matched up against people better than you, but you just have to keep playing. If you get your mind set on the fact that your win rate will move towards 50%, the game will be much more enjoyable. Just because you might get placed in Silver, doesn't mean you'll always play Silver. Sometimes you'll play low level Golds, high level Bronzes.

And like someone said, if you want to check the level of someone you just played, when it goes to the Economy screen, click the dropdown arrow and check their profile. You'll learn a lot more about this game by playing against real people. I've played a lot of games against the AI just for fun, but it doesn't fully prepare you for live and unpredictable competition.

The top 200 list takes the highest rated players regardless of division.

Divisions are pretty much meaningless. They're just a collection of players that got promoted at about the same time you did.

Was it for that SCReddit Invitational or just a ladder game? On a related note, Kiwikaki vs Machine (seek to ~38mins in): http://www.justin.tv/screddit/b/277180241.

yea it was the reddit thing. mini took 3rd.

The finals are on right now, WhiteRa vs Morrow. 14k+ viewers on JTV are causing the stream to keep freezing. Also, Morrow keeps freezing too so it's not a good start.

I wanted to watch, but impossible.

I really don't think this is true. Divisions are absolutely not meaningless.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=169830

And I don't think the first thing you said is entirely true either. Yes, they rank by unmodified point totals. But I think eligibility is determined by division modified point totals.

It's super annoying that they won't allow restreams when it's literally unwatchable.

Someone needs to give me a stupid person's, dumbed down version of how this guy knows which rankings these new divisions are and how he is finding them? And what do the modifiers mean?

I don't even have to look at that thread, because I know from beta and early retail exactly how divisions get created.

The get created one at a time, and filled with people who get moved to that league.

What do you know from beta exactly? Cause I'd like to hear this.

You might be in a group of players that were promoted when you were, but that doesn't mean it's random and meaningless.

My bad though, I forgot you're impervious to logic.

TNixon, I think you are mistakenly assuming that Blizzard used some semblance of logic in designing their ladder system. Read the thread Gospy posted and this will completely remove that mistaken notion.

There is absolutely logic involved in how they made it though...
From that thread. It makes perfect sense.

Yeah I read that and I don't agree with his analysis. First off, just looking at my own division and those of my friends, I see plenty of people with less games played than me who are higher ranked, and vice versa. Of course there is some correlation between games played and ranking within the division, but this is mostly because of the bonus pool.

How can the system possibly group 100 people on the basis of skill within ~30 games? That is roughly how long it took me to get into the diamond division I am in now. What if I suddenly get a lot better and should be placed in a different division tier? Or am unable to keep up with the competition and should be dropped? How does it make sense to be locked into the same division forever because of my performance in a week's worth of games 6 months ago? It makes no sense, and it isn't how any logical ranking system should be run.

Obviously it's not perfect and it will be harder at the top and the bottom. The point is there is that correlation. You can see it. Perhaps it's more pronounced in a gold league?

Not only that but there's a reason I'm in a division where the #1 player is like 2.6 or 2.7k points and not 3k+ points even though there are newer divisions with such ranked players.

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Actually now that I think about it, it could just be because someone grinded a whole bunch and then quit. Like there's a guy in my division who's like 1.3k with 700 games played. That's gonna skew things.

I would guess that once you remove the bonus pool there is almost no correlation at all, besides the correlation we would expect from the fact that players that play more games are going to be better than players that don't play a lot of games.

I mean, just as an example, the guy ranked 11 in my division has over 1600 games played. The guy in 3rd has just over 400.

I took a look at the rankings of my division when bonus pool is factored out, and here is the list of games played starting with #1 in my division going to #25:

574
959
427
367
539
409
706
620
699
489
409
522
297
737
556
486
489
378
343
354
354
326
1647
756
440

So obviously there is some correlation (as we would expect; really good players play a lot and they are really good because they play alot) but it isn't really that strong. And his contention that "anyone" can be in the top of their division just by playing a lot of games is clearly wrong, at least in this example. Just based on the pure mechanics of how the ladder/point system works I don't really see why it would be the case, other than the bonus pool.

Oh I definitely agree that not anyone could be #1. Top 10 or top 20? Probably.

I can't tell you how many times in random team games I get the: "You suck, I'm 6 diamond" response. lol

I think his point is just that the true skill level is similar enough to where volume can make it look like you are ranked high compared to some actually high ranked players(achieved through the exhaustion of the bonus pool).

yea i mean i'm ranked first in my diamond division but i feel like i'm terrible. if you got to diamond kinda late like me, none of the good players will be in your division because they were all diamond players from release.

Yeah if what the guy in the TL thread is saying is correct, than a pro player who wants to be highly ranked next ladder season should strategically lose games and not advance to diamond immediately, so as to get placed into a "lower ranked" diamond division early on.

Except your mmr is preserved across seasons I thought?

Also that's oversimplifying things. Look at minigun's new account's diamond division. The top 10 range from 2750 - 3447. He's still in a competitive division even though that account was made not too long ago. (I'm not sure how long ago but he just joined ROOT fairly recently). My division's number one player would barely be top 10 in that division, but here's the kicker. He would never have the chance to get placed in that division if what is in that thread is true.

Yeah you are probably right about MMR for next season, not sure though.

But if we are assuming that the TL thread is right, then of course mini would get placed in a really good division, assuming he was trying to win every game he played. What if, instead, he was throwing some games, but still winning enough to get promoted to diamond? This means he would eventually get placed in a "low tier" diamond division right? Then, he stops throwing games and he starts crushing people as expected, and now he gets a nice ladder bonus for the rest of the season.