Climbing the ladder
Leagues and ladders play an important part in competitive play on Battle.net: all players who compete in quick matches will eventually be placed in a league where their wins and losses affect their ranking. But how does the system work?
The basics are simple: there are six leagues (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond and Master League) and all players of a region are split into the first five by roughly 20% increments. In addition, the top 2% of each region in the 1v1 ladders are placed in the recently introduced Master League. Check out the links at the bottom to learn more about ranked multiplayer matches and the new Master League.
Now, how does Battle.net decide which league you should be in? If you recall what we've previously said on the subject, difficulty of your matches matters. When you compete in your initial placement matches when first starting StarCraft II, Battle.net pits you against opponents of different skill levels and tracks your wins and losses. As you win or lose it begins to refine where it believes you should be, skill-wise. After you play enough, and enough data is collected, the system believes it can make a smart choice in placing you in a specific league. When you are finally placed in one of the four leagues (Battle.net will not initially place you in a league above Platinum) your placement should mirror your skill level relative to all other players in your region. Keep in mind though that as the leagues are each roughly 20% of the player total, the skill difference within a league can be very large, especially at the top in Diamond and bottom in Bronze. After being placed you can gain rating points and advance through the ranks by winning matches against opponents.
It's important to keep in mind that the placement system is a bit conservative with your initial placement, and won’t promote you before being certain that you’re ready. That may mean you'll have to play quite a few games before having a chance at being promoted. The key is to keep playing, if you're meant to climb to a new league, you'll get there. Also, the leagues are not strictly separated from each other and a promotion does not mean that your next matches will suddenly be much more of a challenge than your previous ones. Skill levels at the top of silver and bottom of gold are not that different. If you're promoted from silver to gold you won't suddenly find a vastly more difficult game experience. And on top of that, no matter what league you're in, you may very well find yourself playing against opponents from other leagues than your own. In short: what league you’re in does not affect matchmaking.
Of course with such a complex system at the center of the Battle.net matchmaker, we’re constantly monitoring how the Battle.net leagues and ladders work and continue to tweak and optimize the system in order to provide the best gaming experience possible.
- Learn more matchmaking.
- Learn more about ranked multiplayer matches.
- Learn more about the Master League.
Comments (83)
whats the point of it? ghehe
cba...
I think you should be in the league, when you get enough points (like leveling in RPG). You should get points for winning the game, but not get any negative points for losing the game. On contrary, even if you lose, you learn something new. So you should get a few positive points for losing the game. To lose ten times can teach you more than play one game and win.
Once a month, everyone would lose a portion of its points. And so if you stop playing, you would be slowly demoted. It is consistent with if you do not play, your skills deteriorate. And people, that play ofthen will be in good leagues, because they fill back the points they lose.
The officials only made ONE comment on this. There we could start an other problem. They are throwing discussion after discussion at us, but we players have the feeling nobody is rly listening and we are turning in circles.
I think less new discussion/topics, but more INTERACTION from Blizz would be appreciated. People are getting frustrated.
And this issue, the laddering issue is one of the most important tasks blizz should take care of. I don't play a lot, but I can imagine how people who are more devoted to laddering get upset because of to long promoting times, or unfair adversaries. And I know, cause I often have the feeling to get promoted soon, when suddenly I lost one of the decisive games against a Gold player, and I'm bronze. So I actually won against some Silver players, then lose against gold... shouldn't one be promoted then to at least a lower rank in silver? Sound logical to me.
If even I, a player who doesn't play that much noticed such things, I mostly understand gamers who play more than me and how frustrated they get.
The point is i was a new player that got almost to the top of gold league with little or no effort or skill. It should be harder to do so and once you get there it should be harder to be knocked back down.
I had a series of around 6-7 games in witch i got allies CHECK THIS OUT: UNDER 10 GAMES. I must not insist on the fact that they were nOOb's not necessary in the peiorative sense. Disaster. In around 7 games i got demoted from platinum DIRECTLY to gold 1. Ok... i took it like a man.. bad luck... weak allies... i cannot hold 3 players at the same time...
So... i continued playing for around 2 months... hoping that i will regain my platinum status. Pointless... By the time i got 2000+ games, my allies were weaker and weaker... I know... it sounds cocky but the truth is for a guy who played more than 1500 games having a teammate with gold/silver status who has around 200 games becomes quite frustrating. I don;t want to remember all the "shut up you noob" i received and gave during this time... The point is... i never did raised again from gold 1. I just sat there for over 2 months.. and then.. again... a series on "unfortunate events" with 5 games in a row lost cause my allies were under 10 games and disaster struck. All of the sudden, the ladder system just demoted me to silver. The funny thing is, it happened during the countdown to entering a game.. NOT when i viewed the score screen of a wonderfull game in wich i'm the only one knowing how to build for a 6 pool rush...
Now... I love this game and i've been playing since 1996 when blizzard made the 1st starcraft. However, i feel EXTREMLY worn out and dispointed that i am being punished for the mistakes of my allies. I feel unconfortable that after 2000 games i need to play in the same team with a debutant and it;s my ladder rating that takes a hit. Sure. You will argue that i should stick to 1v1 if i am so good, or try not to play in random leagues. Well... 1v1 is not as much fun as i would like it to be, and i'm not so fortunate to have a friend of my age to play in team's ladder.
ok... just some angry guy steaming off... but i felt the need to point out that the ladder system is prone to error, and even if you are a master league player you will get demoted in under 10 loses 'cause your allies might be at their 1st game...
In placement we beat two silver and a gold and lost to two plats and got place in BRONZE!?!?!?!
Sort it out :/
Thats how it is.
I played 5, won them all and got placed in plat. Im a bronze player.
It means you beat a platinum player in your placement games.
Masters 0.8% (4,285)
Diamond 6.5% (36,404)
Platinum 11.2% (63,221)
Gold 15.5% (87,274)
Silver 18.2% (102,449)
Bronze 47.8% (269,018)
How is that roughly a increment of 20 % per league when 50% of the people are bronze. So if your silver, don´t be ashamed your at least better than half of bnet! The top 20% are in platinum or higher and the rest (80%) are gold or lower. So see it more as a pyramid with a big base with "newbs", becoming narrower upwards and ending in a tiny apex which consists of the top 0,8% percent i.e the "pros". The leagues get smaller and smaller with less and less players the higher up you come. This does not only concearn the master league but all leagues.
If I´m totally wrong blizzard please tell me so I can be ashamed but from what I understand this is how it is divided and you just posted inaccurate information about your own game.
Yeah, I´ve also had really odd expieriences with the promoting but it probably is a very complex algorithm and players should be patient for adjustments and updates of it.. The game is fairly new, give the blizzard guys time to perfect it.
However I must express my dislike of the bonus system, just causes inflation (which as in irl is bad, you are not forced to cause this inflation, in national economics it is at least inevitable) plus the fact that people playing alot have an advantage in the rankings. (optimal is to use up all bonus pool but never play games when you are at 0 and wait for new bonus points) I´ve read a bunch of posts about it "motivating players" etc. etc. but it´s just a psychological trick. People that don´t have time to play alot just get more and more points added to their bonus pool that never have a chance of ending up in the ranking pool.
And another thought I had is that some of the people with the most points (4000) are in bronze, what would happen if that person suddenly became good and after some matches eventually got into Masters. In masters the points actually matter and I don´t think anyone has more than 4000 in masters. So this new guy is suddenly the baller of the masters league because of points he earned from previous leagues. The same is for example for someone who just gets placed in platinum vs someone who has worked his way up from bronze. One has 0 points the other has 1-2k. If you jump up a league with a lot of points you automatically take a high ranking in that new division.
This should be obvious to anyone, and the bonus system just increases the discrepancies in ranking. Ranking and points do not say anything, the only thing that says anything is the hidden rank which we can not see.
My suggestions are first of all scrap the bonus system but the most optimal would be to remove the points system totally and show us the hidden rank.
//FK
"...all players of a region are split into the first five by roughly 20% increments..." assuming this refers to a geographic region (US, EU, Asia, Korea or whatever), it is wrong to split players in rough increments by quantity and not by quality (skill). The right thing to do would be to split them skill-wise even if that means that diamond and master leagues would not be much populated and bronze would be over-populated.
Any initial placement consisting of only 5 matches in which "Battle.net pits you against opponents of different skill levels and tracks your wins and losses" is a joke, and should be increased to at least 10 placement matches (like it was in early beta), as well as get some kind of limit on the selected opponents, so you never get to play 5 matches versus bronze ppl, or 5 matches vs diamond ppl (in either way the resulting placement would be unfair).
"...what league you’re in does not affect matchmaking." This is very wrong in my opinion, since it allows diamond players to play versus bronze (not sure about master league) and vice versa. There should be some kind of barrier, eg diamond to be able to play down to gold or platinum, and bronze to be able to play up to silver or gold.
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A few facts:
At the moment the biggest problem in the ladder is located at the team ladders (2v2, 3v3, 4v4), where pre-made (party) teams are allowed to play versus random teams (for example, 4 friends together in party with voice com, competing against 4 complete random strangers with no voice com). This is completely on the wrong side and ridiculous...it's like having a WoW Arena Team compete in PvP with random Battlegrounds contestants (not pre-made)...if you haven't played WoW excuse my example. Premade teams should only be allowed to play versus other premade teams, and random ppl in team ladders to play only versus other random ppl. I am also aware of the 'semi-premades' (like forming a party of 3 friends to compete in 4v4 ladder with 1 more random from the matchmaking system) and I do these myself when I can, as it's the only chance to win a lot, get ranks and be promoted, after the top ranks in the platinum league.
I have been demoted after a win, while being at the top 20 platinum (2v2), to top 20 gold. Demotion from inactivity or upon a loss is understandable, but this...
I am in the top 20 platinum 4v4 random league, and got to play versus a 'favored' team, while all my allies where full bronze (2 of them full bronze in all 4 leagues, the other was silver/gold).
I am rank 1 platinum in 3v3 random ladder for some time now, but don't see any promotion to diamond. Any additional match with randoms is obviously a big risk and there is no indication how many more wins are needed for promotion.
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Obviously something is not working as intended here...or in the worst case scenario it is, which means something is wrong in their heads...hopefully not.
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I do apologise for the big post, I just had to get all this out of my system.
You can learn here http://www.howtoprotoss.blogspot.com
I've been in the top 0,8-1,1% region rank these past weeks according to sc2ranks.com. I'm still diamond
I feel like I'm being lied to, like the 'visible' system is telling me I'm doing a great job, while the internal rating (mmr?) is secretly laughing behind my back.