[Daboo]

Community manager Nethaera posted this on the u.s blizz sc2 forums:

Since introducing the ladder season lock and roll process we’ve continued to monitor the length of the seasons and our previous desire to see seasons last around 3-4 months. After gathering data for several seasons now we’ve come to the conclusion that shortening the seasons will better match how most people are playing the game, and support a more dynamic, rewarding, and vibrant ladder experience.

Beginning with season 4, we’re looking for each ladder season to last around 2 months.

We’ll be providing further updates regarding the roll to season 4 in the coming weeks.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/3229387002#1

Looks like it might be an issue with a lot of people just not laddering,inflated bonus pools. Wouldn't mind it, frequent rotation of maps would be okay and fun (as long as they get the crap ones out). This might also solve the problem of people getting stuck in a league mid season.Sounds pretty good to me.

But I wonder how the grand master league will function , seeing how the league is closed for two weeks, thats now a significant portion of the season.

[Maynarde]

This came from a blue post in the Bnet forums. Well spotted Daboo.

I like the idea of this if it involves a good healthy rotation of maps. Unfortunately, this will annoy current Grand Master players as not only do they need to go back to zero and compete with all the Masters players grinding to make it to the big league all over again (like Daboo says) the first two weeks of a new season GM's don't exist. That's a quarter of a season now o_o;

[Bendy]

Sounds interesting. I have noticed some people that grind on ladder hoping for a promotion but their MMR cements itself and they get frustrated. This could lead to more promotions/demotions which most people will be happy with.

I agree with Maynard though... I think GM positions will become even more volatile.

TBH I like the 3-4 month seasons, but it could be nice to experiment with shorter ones. New map pools will be refreshing (if not grossly controversial) and bonus pool will have less effect, which I suppose is a good thing.

[FaDeEvetS]

rofl...they'd HAVE to change the way season locks and unlocking of GM works if they change seasons to 2 months. First you lock GM for 2 weeks, then the season starts, and the start of a season has a 2 week period before GM is unlocked.. (meaning a month of a locked GM)
.....idk. Maybe if they decrease the map pool size fairly significantly, but swap it around more per season. The smaller pool would allow for GOOD maps...

[Dox]

This sounds really great, very exciting!

[Aean(:]

2 Months is so short! wdf blizzard.

[SuperHero]

I really like the idea of a set amount of time for each season however i think that 2 months is too short especially with 2 weeks of ladder lock and then 2 weeks of no GM ranking.

I think 4 months would be much better, maybe with a map rotation every 2 months? This would allow lots of map variation and let players play on lots of maps instead of the same for 4 months.

However you can see that the ladder is full of people that just play their placement match, get in a league and then never play again. It kinda irritates me that the bottom 50 people of each league have only played 1 or 2 games whereas people in a league below who are playing regularly could have that spot.

[nirvAnA]

This is gonna be interesting! Would be nice if they brought AMM tournaments back which they had in Warcraft as well as clan support and profiles. Dunno why "bnet 2.0" got rid of all those great features.

I think there are lots of better ways then solving the bonus pool inflation problem maybe entering an ELO style ladder when players hit GM.

Quick Comments

PiG:

Greedy marketing: They know everything they need to do, but want to release it all slowly over time :(.

[MazEi]

2 months is way too short. 3 months I feel is a good amount while 4 is a wee bit too long.

[sRFullstop]

I think it's a bit too short, not much time to establish a place in the league and practice before a new one starts...

[StitcH]

Blizzard reminds me of Apple Inc. They have a billion ideas, but they only implement it only if it's money-making. Not flaming them but it's a food for thought...

Quick Comments

	MooZfY:	argree
	Zanderax:	Clan tags and Flash player. Both are easy to implement but they make less money off them

[biogenie]

hmm... 2months.... To be honest, I reckon its fair that they wanna refresh the ladder now and then to maintain a more current "outlook" of the game to the scene. To be honest, I don really mind... cos I am in the trenches ^^ so it doesn really affect the MMRatings be it 2 mths or 4mths

[Azure]

interesting idea

[emart]

This would be good I think. Concistancy will be nice to look forward to new Maps or just a new placement.

[johnnyli]

There isn't really any rewards that you receive in each season like in WoW so really this really isn't going to change much. I do hope they dont change too much map wise.

[Welshy]

I like the idea of short ladder seasons, creates a larger amount of maps being used as said before, hopefully good ones lol. dont think it will really change much for anyone other than the GM league dudes, just makes them want to be more active and gives others in masters a chance to get GM i suppose. Suppose its blizzards way of mixing things up or making things more interesting