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**nirvAnA** · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 8:27 AM

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] +

Xeen · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 8:38 AM

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

toasti0 · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 8:42 AM

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

Crankenstein · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 10:00 AM

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

Tom · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 10:22 AM

Quote:

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.

Xeen · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 10:26 AM

Quote:

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).

SiZeMaTTeRs · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 10:28 AM

Ash is on top .. sweet

Benji · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 10:37 AM

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?

mGMUSE · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 10:55 AM

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.

Cosmos · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 10:56 AM

Quote:

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 · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 11:00 AM

Quote:

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 · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 11:29 AM

Quote:

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 · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 11:39 AM

Quote:

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.

Benji · Tue, 12th-Apr-2011, 11:47 AM

It should refresh every week, take the top 200 MMR's with the active requirement. That way if you go inactive (like Tom said), you'll get demoted but once you're active again (MMR permitting) you'll get promoted at the start of the next week.