[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 deL

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

Do you really think you're funny? time to grow up buddy

[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.