Not a complaint, actually it’s really great. I’m not a great player, I get it. I do ok…but I belong in Bronze…somewhere. But I have always felt there should be something lower than Bronze 5. Because we all know about the smurfs. Also a huge collection of players end up there I guess. It’s super random…and games are complete blow outs usually. Almost like QM.
Anyway. I think they have silently implemented a ‘wood’ league lol…or something lower than Bronze. Tin? Copper? Smelt those two together you get Bronze I think. Anyway…I’m currently 1/4 circle full in Bronze 5, so like 25% full. But I only get 5 points win or loss. It will take me 10 years of winning to get out. But I looked it up online and saw a blizzard post. this is new to this season. If you are very very low Bronze 5…you kind of stay there forever i suppose… But it’s the equivalent of being ‘wood’.
Anyway…majority of you are not in bRonze…much less Bronze 5. much less…low Bronze 5 lol…but I find it interesting.
I am interested to know how many loses you need to get that far below Bronze 5, I have trouble to imagine it as someone, who played himself out of B5 two times and currently sits in silver league.
The problem with leagues lower than bronze is that it really won’t fix anything. After falling through the floor into the basement some people will try to shovel themselves even deeper. And given enough time and population some will eventually reach the Earth’s molten core.
So how about if at the start of a new season the lowest you could place was bronze 4 or 3? It’s not like you can place GM either and what is bronze 5 except the reverse GM?
The point scale is around 1-5 for the very lowest rung of B5, 5-15 points for the next one, 15-30, then 30-50, then 50-150. So you can imagine how difficult it is to climb out when you are at the very lowest part and just gained 10 points for winning five matches in a row.
So in a way, there is already an invisible league under Bronze 5 (those who just recently demoted from B4, will still gain 200 per win/loss as usual for quite a long while)
Though they have spoken of “exploring some ways to improve it” for a year now, nothing has come of it.
With the new design, players in Bronze 5 will gain/lose far fewer points per game than players in all of the other leagues and divisions.
As you can see from the graph, there are more people in Bronze 5 than Bronze 4-1 combined. So they can’t all be awarded the same amount of points.
That will only push the mass of players in Bronze 5 to the next lowest league which would be Tin 5, Copper 5 or whatever the league is called.
Since there is no limit to how low a players rank can go if they lose enough games with a low enough win ratio. And there is a huge mass of players with 20-30% win ratio.
That’s fine. Give the players a clear picture where they stand. They may complain being so low, but they’d finally gain 200 points or so per win, while also being in the same place as now. The problem is more of a “feels bad I gain little points for a win”
I don’t think that graph is supposed to be 100% accurate but merely illustrative. Otherwise master/GM was about as large as diamond 3, 2 and 1 combined, which given that diamond is around 10% and master/GM 1% just doesn’t add up.
What I believe you should be looking at is the width of bronze 5. That the skill variance within a single rank is almost two leagues wide. Which is kinda problematic for the matchmaker, to compress people who should be 10k in the negative to a positive value.
It only illustrates the size of the Bronze 5 population in comparison to Bronze 4-1. Master is less than 1% of the player base. But most masters are low masters, with a very small minority of GM’s.
Bronze 5 is like the polar opposite of Grand Master; most Bronzes are Bronze 5. A small minority are Bronze 4 to 1.
So, the developers did explain this at some point but I can’t find it. Basically there is some system for the very top of GM and because hots is a bell curve it basically meant the people at the bottom of bronze get the same treatment. It means you are in the very bottom of the bottom.
The only source we have for Bronze population is the chart they posted in August 2019.
Before that, the last chart was from much longer ago (2018 or 2017). Back then, before they redesigned point gain in Bronze 5, very few people were in Bronze 5 and most were in upper bronze.
Sorry, I would post more recent charts but the company wont release them.
Edit - also found an interesting bit of old unrelated stats - apparently most people never really cared much for Ranked.
I can’t say how many losses. Not alot as I just play a bit each day. but I do know my win rate was around 33%, at Bronze 5 for a at least a week until I saw the very low points won/lost “wood” league. They should just create another league below bronze. Effectiively that is what this is. I am not complaining, but it seems kind of silly for them to have a “deep bronze” lol. The games I play in are competitive, the matchmaking system is working…im having fun. The point of the post is that there is a hidden lower bracket below bronze. Most of you aren’t aware about lol. I went 7 and 3 today for a bit, and started to get paired with Bronze 3 players on my team! Their attitude was much better during draft and game…even if we lost. And I was getting 5 or 6 points per game win.
It’s still obvious they are probably having 200 point swings. So I’m the low guy dragging them down, but I contributed pretty solid I felt. yet only 5 or 6 point swing in either direction. Just call it Copper league
Let me be clear…in case Activision is reading. Do not change a thing! matchmaking is working well. games are 50/50…other than the jerks that play. Which we report But it does seem a little silly, so if you do change something, go ahead and add another league below bronze. Because it seems you already have! So just call it something different.
I’m with you. I’m on the bashing devs for not easily coding more ranks. I’ll even use a diagram showing mmr ranges and % of player population for each rank in a new ranked ladder idea
If there is one thing a new league would accomplish, it would at least give those players a real sense of progress once they gain normal points (-+200) per win and loss.
Though one more problem still remains, how to stop the same from happening to the new Copper 5 0 point players who keep losing and going further & further into negative MMR range. How long until they demand a new league too.
No. The size of the player base is not the same as it was when this league system was created. Queue times are way up. Some regions can’t find games in their skill cap. (ie. Chu8 waited 2 hours in a SL queue to be matched with 2 bronze 5 teammates, He was master and his friend was diamond 1 at the time). Some regions do not even have enough players for a grand master division. Adding another division would just compound problems within the system.
A revamp of the system to coincide with the lower player base is necessary. That or increase the amount of players playing HOTS.
