[mGGNemesis]

Lately we have been having difficulties with dealing with the new ways bliz has reshuffled the leagues. BSGs PDs aren't what they use to be. Spartaz and myself had this discussion just last evening and it wasn't even the first nor the last about how this reshuffling is throwing a wide range of players under what were considered lower/mid leagues before.

South found this

and had a thought :

Why not reorganize clanwars (or at least some of them) and possibly even our BSG and GPD weekly tournaments as :

Bronze/Silver (/)
Gold/Platinum (/)
Diamond/Masters/GMs (//)

If u look at the graphs and have a think about it (including all the problems we have been facing lately, it does make some sense.

Thoughts?

[ToRsupapower]

I think I speak for a lot of others as I say this, even though I've been masters twice I'm definitely not that skill level anymore.

3 seasons of mostly active play and not being masters either seasons should stop any speculation on if I'm able to enter tournaments/clan wars....

[syfRize]

Originally Posted by mGGNemesis

Bronze/Silver (/)
Gold/Platinum (/)
Diamond/Masters/GMs (//)

I would just like to say +1 to this.

[mGGNemesis]

I think the situation is hitting the BSG levels more severely than say the PD levels.

So it could even be
Bronze/Silver
Gold/Platinum
Platnium/Diamond or even just Diamond (including ex masters)

[Philosopher]

I really like this idea. But that is because I'm tired of being crushed

[VB_Inter]

I like the idea.

[ToRSpookToR]

When ever I hit a masters player on ladder I usually get crushed, I don't really think diamonds are in the same skill range as masters still. So D/M/GM clan wars/tournaments wont really work unless you do diamond must play first or something otherwise people will just play master and gm players and diamonds wont touch them. However plats don't really touch diamonds either so diamond is pretty isolated. The BS and GP looks good though.

[Seffy]

What Spook said.

BS is around similar, so is GP (but, GP is literally the "hell" region atm in terms of laddering anyway, fun times).

Masters is way too high up compared to Diamond as of late, so there's that, but the gap between Plat and Diamond is pretty wide now as well. It's ok to do a Diamond one by itself though, but letting ex-masters play on it at the same time. Just my two cents.

But man.. looking at that current distribution. It's ridiculous how most players got shoved so far down. :/

I AM THE 7.28% lel.

[syfNaMeK]

I think changes are needed to the structure for the tournaments and Clan Wars. I think i agree with what Nem said:

Bronze/Silver
Gold/Platinum
Platnium/Diamond or even just Diamond (including ex masters)

Platinum is such an odd place right now, for example with me, I have an easier time when I play diamond players rather than plat players oddly enough, and every single player I play is a multiple time master player during WOL and HOTS.

[ToRSpartaz]

I wholeheartedly agree with this proposed change.

Honestly, I had a rough idea of the statistics and it still managed to surprise me how it plays out in real events and games. Although the change surprised me, I think it is a positive change. It has definitely made the likes of BSG and GPD more competitive I feel. There is a more dynamic distribution of skill in each tournament now.

Also +1 to Spook's idea.

[sR.Kumo]

Bronze / Silver would be great

[SLCN.NXZ]

This league redistribution is only because of mmr decay. Instead of the size of the lower league slowly getting smaller and the higher leagues getting bigger as more people get promoted and sit there, the players lose mmr and get demoted. Basically all the "active" gold, platinum and diamond players are all still in their respective league. However the people who merely coasted in their league and didn't play now get demoted and this therefore artificially inflates bronze and silver with inactive "better" players. This doesn't mean that wow gold is so much better than silver now, it means that the active gold players are the only gold players, which means the average skill level of a gold player is no longer inactive players whose maximum skill up to this point was gold but rather active gold players who are currently gold level.

BSG is the same, its just now the G is only the active golds and inactive plat/diamonds. As far as I'm concerned, no change is warranted. If the same basic entry requirements are monitored, in that if they were plat last season they can't play BSG, then there should be no issue.

[mGGNemesis]

Originally Posted by x5_NXZ

BSG is the same, its just now the G is only the active golds and inactive plat/diamonds. As far as I'm concerned, no change is warranted. If the same basic entry requirements are monitored, in that if they were plat last season they can't play BSG, then there should be no issue.

The problem is the definition of inactive. A former PD who is now gold who ladders maybe just 2-5 games a day (if he even plays daily) is still considered "inactive" because mmr decay works against the player. For most casual players, they probably will not be doing 20-30 games a day at the lower leagues?

Since the change, we have seen the skill gap widen and mounting frustration from players who are gold and never gotten PD or players who were PD now gold and cant get out of it. Same with Diamond players who cant hit masters (who never been masters) or masters or even GMs even if it was only SEA, who are in Diamond, laddering and cant get to masters again for at least 2 seasons now. Not saying that no one is getting promoted at all and such.

Initiatives such as Elusory's ex masters and below tournies were created to address that these ex masters and diamonds are stuck with no tourney to call their own. For a while, they (ex masters now PD) couldn't even take part in clanwars. So we relaxed after 1 season to join the PD in the clanwars and the skill gap during the clanwars becomes very obvious.

The same for BSG weekly which resulted in Panda continuing to try to address the issue and making the rules now so strict that we have to rethink again. Or in BSG clanwars, when we allow these ex PDs to be gold players taking part in the action.

Each Clanwar or tourney I hear from those who were BSG since the start, " this player is not clearly not playing at BSG level" cos while an ex PD may be gold now, some of the mechanics that led the player to be PD before (especially if he/she is a long time PD player) is still there compared to most BSGs if u get what I mean.

We dun want to leave them out but we dun want to be unfair as well. Players who have been BSG all this while, is feeling the hurt. While they are trying their best to get out of it and kudos to the many who are not giving up, this suggestion is to encourage discussions how to better address this issue to reduce frustration and make the games more 'fair' and hopefully more enjoyable.

So keep the suggestions/inputs coming and hopefully organisers of clanwars and tournies (weekly or one off) will consider these points as they plan/organize their clanwars/tournies.

[SLCN.NXZ]

Originally Posted by mGGNemesis

The problem is the definition of inactive. A former PD who is now gold who ladders maybe just 2-5 games a day (if he even plays daily) is still considered "inactive" because mmr decay works against the player. For most casual players, they probably will not be doing 20-30 games a day at the lower leagues?

Since the change, we have seen the skill gap widen and mounting frustration from players who are gold and never gotten PD or players who were PD now gold and cant get out of it. Same with Diamond players who cant hit masters (who never been masters) or masters or even GMs even if it was only SEA, who are in Diamond, laddering and cant get to masters again for at least 2 seasons now. Not saying that no one is getting promoted at all and such.

Initiatives such as Elusory's ex masters and below tournies were created to address that these ex masters and diamonds are stuck with no tourney to call their own. For a while, they (ex masters now PD) couldn't even take part in clanwars. So we relaxed after 1 season to join the PD in the clanwars and the skill gap during the clanwars becomes very obvious.

The same for BSG weekly which resulted in Panda continuing to try to address the issue and making the rules now so strict that we have to rethink again. Or in BSG clanwars, when we allow these ex PDs to be gold players taking part in the action.

Each Clanwar or tourney I hear from those who were BSG since the start, " this player is not clearly not playing at BSG level" cos while an ex PD may be gold now, some of the mechanics that led the player to be PD before (especially if he/she is a long time PD player) is still there compared to most BSGs if u get what I mean.

We dun want to leave them out but we dun want to be unfair as well. Players who have been BSG all this while, is feeling the hurt. While they are trying their best to get out of it and kudos to the many who are not giving up, this suggestion is to encourage discussions how to better address this issue to reduce frustration and make the games more 'fair' and hopefully more enjoyable.

So keep the suggestions/inputs coming and hopefully organisers of clanwars and tournies (weekly or one off) will consider these points as they plan/organize their clanwars/tournies.

Those ex masters and ex diamond players should be able to play in the higher league imo, right now we can't fix the imbalance of skill that Blizzard created with such an aggressive mmr decay. However, if we say that if last season you were masters then you can't play gpd then I don't see why we can't say, you were masters last season, you can play in M/GM.

I personally started this season in diamond. I lost to diamond players (granted I quickly improved and didn't anymore) but not once did I think, ah I should play GPD.

Essentially what I'm saying is, is that the proposed solution doesn't inherently address the problem. The current distribution includes all players, those actively playing the game (5 games a day is more than active in my definition of the word) and those who are now demoted because they aren't playing. If we looked at the active distribution I think it would be much closer to the 20/20/20/20/18/2 split that was intended. So if the only issue becomes where do we sort players that are inactive, I think that maybe we have a 1-2 season period where we say you can still compete at your old league's skill, play there. And then once it reaches a immensely significant portion of inactivity then maybe an exception can be made for that player.

[|Erasmus|]

The whole "once <insert league> always <insert league>" has always seemed stupid to me. I guess if people are truly inactive they might end up being in a league they are better then, but it's not like in every clan war when someone gets more than a few kills people are talking about them being a smurf anyway.

But it's simply too easy to play and lose half your games while being far better than your ladder league suggests, so they've always been a terrible idea as a way to discriminate on who can play in what tourney.

[VicES.HaZaRd]

I like the idea BUT in saying that I LOVE vsing higher level players so if it was brought to BRONZE/SILVER I would be annoyed since I would only vs my level and bronze players.

[TCPKerO]

While I like the idea of splitting the leagues up for a more level playing field, I never found the bsg and pd tourneys to be overly level even back in WOL. I remember being silver and getting smashed by golds and I remember being Plat and being smashed by Dia, these are tournaments after all, there is statistically always going to be someone better than you on the day.

With regards to the drop of "higher" league players due to MMR decay due to inactivity/changing the league system, I think it is just something that players will need to get used to. It sucks that players who have higher level mechanics are now in your ladder/tourney but you need to strive to improve to beat them. As I mentioned above that is how it always was for me, if you are bronze versing a gold it sucks, if you are a new gold versing a soon to be plat gold leaguer it was tough/impossible to win.

I think trialling the b/s and g/p is a good idea, however I think that the spilt of skill across gold and plat is still going to be quite large as well, hell even within gold itself you are going to find a diverse skill range, plus with the variance of player performance its going to be very difficult to judge if a player is "plat level and shouldn't play" or if they are just having a really great day and performing above average.

I think NXZ is on a better track overall with letting players play up because really you should be wanting to play up rather than play down otherwise how will you ever improve.

I also agree with Erasmus, using the league to try and skill split player has always been a bit IFFY due to many different reasons.

But I believe in trying small changes to see if it is positive or not, better to try and fail than to never try at all.

[FSBenAD]

Sorry to post a late reply to this, but I think at a lower level this might be vital to keep the clan war scene interesting. The gap between gold and bronze has never been so high, I see people who are actively in gold who would of been high plat atleast 6 months ago.

In saying that, players should always be able to play up a level. Atleast in clan wars. Tournament wise I can understand why the rule is there, so the higher level people are able to play due to player limits... But I am sure there is a way we can sort that out too.

[|Erasmus|]

Originally Posted by FSBenAD

In saying that, players should always be able to play up a level. Atleast in clan wars. Tournament wise I can understand why the rule is there, so the higher level people are able to play due to player limits... But I am sure there is a way we can sort that out too.

That's easy to solve; just put any lower league players who want to get crushed on a waiting list. When they go to make the bracket, just put them in instead of walkovers in the first round where it's not full.

[FSBenAD]

Good plan Erasmus