Starcraft II

[Chew Terr]

If I never get out of bronze, so be it.

Hey, at least until you do, I'll have company. =D

[Tofu]

I am of the opinion that Blizard's ranking system is broken, and is broken not because it hasn't promoted me, but because I cannot possibly see or examine the actual rating.

I agree. Take for example my 3v3 experience. I've played over 500 3v3 games and for the longest time was #1 in my silver league and over 300 points ahead of the number 2 player. Recently I was promoted to gold in 3v3 and immediately was #1 in gold and over 200 points ahead of the number 2 player. I don't think a fully functional ranking system should work in this way.

[MountainGo]

Wow, CSamurai, you weren't kidding about being stuck in Bronze. I just checked you out on sc2ranks, and you've been ranked in the top couple tenths of a percent of Bronze for a couple weeks now. I suspect the system has trouble when you belong more than one league away from your current position. (You probably belong in Gold.) It really is too bad they hide your rating info from you. They infuriated me at Blizzcon when they said that they're not going to reveal that because it's "actually not very interesting."

[MountainGo]

For anyone interested, Time just played some nice games in a "clan war" series between vVv and EG. I thought he showed solid fundamentals, representing well the go community. I won't spoil the results of the series. I'd recommend watching it all; they were all interesting games, I thought. No all-in obsession like at the GSL.

[Chew Terr]

I really like the format of this series. "Eliminate the other team, one member at a time." Pretty cool.

Edit: I'm told that it's a common format for street fighter team tournaments, referred to as 'Pokemon Style'.

[CSamurai]

Wow, CSamurai, you weren't kidding about being stuck in Bronze. I just checked you out on sc2ranks, and you've been ranked in the top couple tenths of a percent of Bronze for a couple weeks now. I suspect the system has trouble when you belong more than one league away from your current position. (You probably belong in Gold.) It really is too bad they hide your rating info from you. They infuriated me at Blizzcon when they said that they're not going to reveal that because it's "actually not very interesting."

Not to brag, but I've been in the top 4000 bronze since october, save for a brief fall in December when I went on a losing streak. I'm currently nearing top 1000 bronze in the world rank on sc2ranks.
Which means I'm a great bronze. Which is like saying I am a great one legged sprinter. How fast can the competition really be?

I try not to think about where I belong. I wouldn't mind if they hid rating if the system were more transparent in other ways. If there were better granularity of displayed ranks (Like the kyu system), or a more transparent matchmaking system (how do they decide who to match you with? How much do losses hurt your promotion chance?) I'd have a better confidence in the system.

I know that almost everyone thinks they play better than they do. I often feel that I'm winning a lot, but to look at my win percentage, I'm only winning 51%. This is explained to some extent by some amazing losing streaks that I go on when they start pushing me up to golds and silvers, and I get flustered.

I really need to play with more golds, since, frankly, silvers shock the hell out of me about 60% of the time. I really wish I could stop playing around in bronze, since the games I play against silver are hard. They use better strategies, particularly the silver terrans. Playing against the bronze league is starting to dull me into a false sense of security, I think.

[MountainGo]

CSamurai, I took a look at your game vs Abydos from the tournament. If you want I can give you some notes on things to improve, either here or in a PM. If not, that's okay too.

[Numsgil]

I know that almost everyone thinks they play better than they do. I often feel that I'm winning a lot, but to look at my win percentage, I'm only winning 51%.

I think when you get paired, it's based on the hidden skill rating, not on the current league you're in. I say this because it claims that "teams are even" even when the opponent was in the silver or bronze league. And when I win or lose, the points gained or lossed always seem to be about 10, which I think is the system's starting point for even games. I'd be interested in stronger players' points gain or lossed usually. I strongly suspect that the mean for points on the line is always 10, no matter the strength.

Plus, the bonus pool means constant point inflation. People with lots of points are more active than strong.

Which combines together and tells us that:

1. The league you're in is actually pretty meaningless, beyond being roughly correlated with skill. And even then it does a horrible job. The hidden skill rating is actually far more responsive and accurate and WILL match you up to people of similar hidden skill rating, regardless of league.

2. The amount of points you have is also meaningless, because I don't think they scale when you rise in rank. A 2100 bronze and a 2100 platinum have won similar numbers of games relative to losses relative to opponent's under-the-hood strength.

Plus, when you get promoted to a higher league, you keep your old points. When I was promoted from silver to gold, I was like #1 silver in my division and became #10 gold in my new division. Likewise with gold to platinum.

3. The amount of points is also meaningless because it's not a zero sum game. Everyone is constantly getting bonus pool, so even when you lose 2/3rds of your game you can keep even in points. A 2100 diamond from September is a stronger achievement than a 2100 diamond from right now.

...

So the whole starcraft ranking system is gimicky and meaningless. I don't mean this in a "rank is meaningless" way; I mean that compared to ranks in go or Elo ratings, the leagues and points are just silly affectations. But they're the only public information a player has to judge rank.

[MountainGo]

I think when you get paired, it's based on the hidden skill rating, not on the current league you're in.

Yeah, leagues and divisions have zero effect on anything (except perhaps for the ideas in this TL post). Pairings and score adjustments are determined by your hidden MMR.

I'd be interested in stronger players' points gain or lossed usually.

My experience is that 12 is the default.

Plus, the bonus pool means constant point inflation. People with lots of points are more active than strong.

Well, you only have to play a couple games a day to keep your pool at 0. But I have noticed that the points gained (even with 0 bonus) by the winner of a game tends to be more than the points lost by the loser. Go figure that one out.

Plus, when you get promoted to a higher league, you keep your old points.

That's not true, actually. You lose points when you get promoted. No one knows for sure what determines how many you lose, but presumably they try to set you at an appropriate number of points according to your MMR.

So the whole starcraft ranking system is gimicky and meaningless.

Pretty much! But I will say that the matchmaking seems to work great for most people, since everyone tends to have a close to 50% win rate.

[CSamurai]

A note about bonus points: It's certainly possible to play without ever earning a single bonus point:
you earn bonus points at a rate of 1 for every 2 hours that you don't win a game.
So the longer you play and win, the more bonus points you're tossing away, since the counter resets every time you win a game.

So, if you're going to play for hours, play custom games, or lose a lot, so that you're not wasting points. Or, just don't worry about it, since you'll earn more by winning than you will with bonus points anyway.

[noodley]

Is anyone else going to watch the GSL finals tonight?

[Solomon]

Is anyone else going to watch the GSL finals tonight?

Definitely; predicting MC 4:0 Rain.

[yoyoma]

Is anyone else going to watch the GSL finals tonight?

Yep. Was going to suggest we gather on KGS, but looks like it's down right now.

How about gather on the SC2 PTR server? (Oh excludes non-NA players.... ugh)

ETA: Or TL TeamSpeak server? I'm idling there now.

[ketchup]

Rooting for oGsMC. Protoss in finals! Needs to pull a FruitDealer.

[CSamurai]

I'm on the TL Team SPeak. Is anyone else there?