[nirvAnA]

The list is out and can be viewed under Leagues & Ladders > Grandmaster.

Apparently you have to play 1 match more and if you're grandmaster they will put you into this new league.
Your points will be reset to about 200+ but your stats will remain.

MASS gaming to victory!

+ Show +

The first Grandmasters of SEA.

+ Show +

My first thought - The Grandmaster icon looks way better then the masters icon.

My second thought - Wow even more hurdles for players if they want to get to the top of GM. For e.g if they ever fall out of GM and decide to start playing again, they have to wait a week to get promoted to GM(not sure about this). Then they lose all their points and have to start again climbing again from 200+. Not cool at all the "XP Decay" feels like too big of a obligation/commitment if you wanna maintain GM status.

Along with the GM list comes a new patch which is more of a bug fix than anything.

+ [Patch Notes] +

General
Fixed an issue where maps would not appear in the Single Player vs. AI screen (China only).
Fixed an issue where the Leagues & Ladders Friends page would stop displaying information if a player had more than 100 ranked friends.
Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur when players received an alert in-game while 3D portraits were turned on.

StarCraft II Editor
Fixed a crash that could occur on Editor startup if players had improperly configured variables.
Fixed an issue where the Editor would display incorrect cliff height on ramps facing directly N, S, E or W; this issue prevented proper unit vision in game.
Fixed an issue where the pathing visualizer in the Terrain Editor would sometimes display incorrect pathing.

[Xeen]

Blizzard doing its best to make laddering a full-time job.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by Xeen

Blizzard doing its best to make laddering a full-time job.

100% agree. GM league will probably be accurately reflect skill for the first few weeks while everyone is laddering, but as nirvana says (or perhaps asks?), if you go inactive for two weeks and hit 180 bonus, you lose all your points and have to start from scratch. Personally, whenever I get busy at work for a few weeks, my bonus pool shoots over 180 in no time.

So as Xeen said (and nirvana alludes to) the guys up the top of GM league will be those who can afford the time to consistently ladder every week, week in and week out, non-stop, the entire season.

What is the alternative? There is a superficial attraction to displaying actual MMR rather than points (eg a proper ELO rating), but the obvious problem is that someone could have a very high rating early on in the season, then stop playing, and by the end of the season their high rating may not be justified in light of the increase in average player skill over the season. This is the problem the bonus point system (which is in reality a decay system) intends to address ("unjustified rating problem").

I actually think a decay system (read bonus point accumulation) is necessary to avoid the unjustified rating problem, but at the moment it seems to me the rate of ladder decay is too high (ie bonus pool accumulates too rapidly). Blizzard could halve the rate of decay (even if for GM league only) and still adequately address the unjustified rating problem. They already recognised this problem in arranged team games, where the bonus pool accumulating has now been considerably reduced as it was simply not possible for higher rated teams to play enough games to use up their bonus pool.

One reason why the bonus pool currently accumulates so quickly is because in a normal distribution, many people would be sitting at 0 (or theoretically negative) points. But by the time we're dealing with GMs league, I think its time for people to suck it up for the sake of accuracy.

[Roz]

Originally Posted by Tom

100% agree. GM league will probably be accurately reflect skill for the first few weeks while everyone is laddering, but as nirvana says (or perhaps asks?), if you go inactive for two weeks and hit 180 bonus, you lose all your points and have to start from scratch. Personally, whenever I get busy at work for a few weeks, my bonus pool shoots over 180 in no time.

So as Xeen said (and nirvana alludes to) the guys up the top of GM league will be those who can afford the time to consistently ladder every week, week in and week out, non-stop, the entire season.

What is the alternative? There is a superficial attraction to displaying actual MMR rather than points (eg a proper ELO rating), but the obvious problem is that someone could have a very high rating early on in the season, then stop playing, and by the end of the season their high rating may not be justified in light of the increase in average player skill over the season. This is the problem the bonus point system (which is in reality a decay system) intends to address ("unjustified rating problem").

I actually think a decay system (read bonus point accumulation) is necessary to avoid the unjustified rating problem, but at the moment it seems to me the rate of ladder decay is too high (ie bonus pool accumulates too rapidly). Blizzard could halve the rate of decay (even if for GM league only) and still adequately address the unjustified rating problem. They already recognised this problem in arranged team games, where the bonus pool accumulating has now been considerably reduced as it was simply not possible for higher rated teams to play enough games to use up their bonus pool.

One reason why the bonus pool currently accumulates so quickly is because in a normal distribution, many people would be sitting at 0 (or theoretically negative) points. But by the time we're dealing with GMs league, I think its time for people to suck it up for the sake of accuracy.

Believe it or not, most of us at the top of the ladder the past season only played around 5-10 games a week. Just spend your bonus and that's pretty much all you had to do to maintain ur rank....and when the points get higher and the distribution is closer to people's mmr, it would only require 5-10 games a week to maintain ur rank in the top 10.

The reason for this is because the SEA ladder at the top isn't very active. What you get is usually +1 to +4 points when no one else at the top is playing, that means you will lose -20 to -23 points a game if u lose. Without bonus, it's not a very effective way to gain points and hence most people just dont play lol.

[TAEdgE]

Originally Posted by Roz

Believe it or not, most of us at the top of the ladder the past season only played around 5-10 games a week. Just spend your bonus and that's pretty much all you had to do to maintain ur rank....and when the points get higher and the distribution is closer to people's mmr, it would only require 5-10 games a week to maintain ur rank in the top 10.

The reason for this is because the SEA ladder at the top isn't very active. What you get is usually +1 to +4 points when no one else at the top is playing, that means you will lose -20 to -23 points a game if u lose. Without bonus, it's not a very effective way to gain points and hence most people just dont play lol.

*cough* emphasize 5+ minute waits *cough*
80% of the people i vs on ladder are on my real ID friend list .

[Tom]

Originally Posted by Roz

Believe it or not, most of us at the top of the ladder the past season only played around 5-10 games a week. Just spend your bonus and that's pretty much all you had to do to maintain ur rank....and when the points get higher and the distribution is closer to people's mmr, it would only require 5-10 games a week to maintain ur rank in the top 10.

I'm not sure if you mean this literally, but it doesn't seem to add up. Assuming 1 to 4 points per win, that equates to 1 to 4 bonus points per win. 90 bonus points accumulate per week, which means you need to win 23 to 90 games per week to keep up with the rate of bonus pool accumulation, with a mid point of 45 wins.

Assuming you win 60% of the time, you would need to actually play just over 80 1v1s per week to keep up with your bonus pool if you are in the top 10 (using Roz's assumed average points per win).

That seems to me to be a lot of games, but I suspect the assumption of 1 to 4 points per win is a little low.

[deL]

Originally Posted by Tom

I'm not sure if you mean this literally, but it doesn't seem to add up. Assuming 1 to 4 points per win, that equates to 1 to 4 bonus points per win. 90 bonus points accumulate per week, which means you need to win 23 to 90 games per week to keep up with the rate of bonus pool accumulation, with a mid point of 45 wins.

Assuming you win 60% of the time, you would need to actually play just over 80 1v1s per week to keep up with your bonus pool if you are in the top 10 (using Roz's assumed average points per win).

That seems to me to be a lot of games, but I suspect the assumption of 1 to 4 points per win is a little low.

Maybe Roz is just referring to games in which he doesn't 4gate.

[Roz]

Originally Posted by Tom

I'm not sure if you mean this literally, but it doesn't seem to add up. Assuming 1 to 4 points per win, that equates to 1 to 4 bonus points per win. 90 bonus points accumulate per week, which means you need to win 23 to 90 games per week to keep up with the rate of bonus pool accumulation, with a mid point of 45 wins.

Assuming you win 60% of the time, you would need to actually play just over 80 1v1s per week to keep up with your bonus pool if you are in the top 10 (using Roz's assumed average points per win).

That seems to me to be a lot of games, but I suspect the assumption of 1 to 4 points per win is a little low.

What i mean is the reason we don't mass games is because of the low point gains if we do. However, like Edge said, a lotta times we just play when we see someone on our friend list search and we know they will give us decent points if we win.

[Dox]

Originally Posted by Xeen

Blizzard doing its best to make laddering a full-time job.

I don't see it that way at all. I see it as Blizzard doing it's best to give recognition to those who already treat ladder as a full-time job.

[toasti0]

that no.1 guy has 36 wins 46 loses and has a 288 points? wtf how did that happen

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by toasti0

that no.1 guy has 36 wins 46 loses and has a 288 points? wtf how did that happen

GM League resets your points, so all that matters is that he won a few upon being promoted (which is MMR based, not point based).

[Crankenstein]

Perhaps he lost/threw a whole heap of games after his placement match. You can't loose points if you are already on 0.

[SiZeMaTTeRs]

Ash is on top .. sweet

[Benji]

Hang on a second, can ash (who laughably has a <50% win rate) go 33% for the rest of the season (1 win to every 2 losses) and maintain Grand Master?

[Cosmos]

Originally Posted by Benji

Hang on a second, can ash (who laughably has a <50% win rate) go 33% for the rest of the season (1 win to every 2 losses) and maintain Grand Master?

Yeah why not? One will only drop out if he has excess unspent bonus pool.

I heard there's this saying that GM players will only gain points from fellow GM players.
e.i. Winning matches from master players won't gain points.

Significance: Only the true deserving players will remain in top 200, a GM player who has his MMR dropped to the level of masters will stop gaining points and thereby accumulating unspent bonus pool. And if that continues, he will soon be removed from the GM league.

Effective way to differentiate the players but won't this be too pressurizing on the GM players? =\

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Cosmos

Yeah why not? One will only drop out if he has excess unspent bonus pool.

I heard there's this saying that GM players will only gain points from fellow GM players.
e.i. Winning matches from master players won't gain points.

Significance: Only the true deserving players will remain in top 200, a GM player who has his MMR dropped to the level of masters will stop gaining points and thereby accumulating unspent bonus pool. And if that continues, he will soon be removed from the GM league.

Effective way to differentiate the players but won't this be too pressurizing on the GM players? =\

I don't believe the GM's only getting points from GM's for a second.

[Cosmos]

Originally Posted by Benji

I don't believe the GM's only getting points from GM's for a second.

Unlikely, I agree.

Probably like what Excalibur suggested in TL forums, it's extremely hard to gain points from non-GM players so in order to prevent bonus pool accumulation a GM player has to keep his MMR high and match against other GMs.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by Cosmos

Probably like what Excalibur suggested in TL forums, it's extremely hard to gain points from non-GM players so in order to prevent bonus pool accumulation a GM player has to keep his MMR high and match against other GMs.

Or mass game. If a player can't be demoted for any reason other than bonus pool accumulation, they just need to play enough to use up their bonus pool against weaker players. This is possible even if a win vs a weaker player only gives a handful of points - the GM just needs a lot of games vs such players. Their MMR would of course fall well below the top 200, but this is not a criteria for demotion.

This is my issue with the league - highly skilled players who don't have the time to constantly mass game (2 weeks of inactivity will see you demoted) will fall out of GM league, whereas people who play lots of games, but generally win only against relatively lower skill players, will remain.

[deL]

Originally Posted by Benji

Hang on a second, can ash (who laughably has a <50% win rate) go 33% for the rest of the season (1 win to every 2 losses) and maintain Grand Master?

Change avatar you homo.

[mGMUSE]

I'm pretty sure Blizzard knows what they are doing when it comes to ladder. As usual you have to give it a week or two for the system to stabalize like how it did with the new season.

And from what I know Benji if he began with a high MMR it's theorectically possible if he doesn't play too much. Also you can't tell that much from W/L ratio, he might have high MMR and play people like ice/glade/rev all the time so 33% against those guys will still allow him a GM spot for quite some time.