How many wins to get promoted?

[bmike]

I don't think the system as a simple one where you just have to accumulate X wins.

The matching system makes a guess and will give you opponents it thinks are less good, more good and as good as you.

When you win against a less good (or lose to a more good) you only gain or lose a few points. When the opposite happens - you get a big point swing. Streaks or patterns of these unusual events are what level you up or down. All the other wins and losses just are points exercises to give you a public rank within your division.

The nature of this means that after 200 games - you might find it very, very hard to change leagues since there will always be some number of players with a totally wrong rating. Say a new player that is destined to be a high level master or super titan is working their way up - losing to them could break your "streak" against the people you should be beating.

So - pay attention to times when you lose and lose a lot of points - minimize those games and you should find you get matched to progressively harder opponents and when you keep winning whilst the matching is sending you "harder opponents" you are close to getting the level up promotion.

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(12-05-2012 08:23 PM)2dhh Wrote:  I have 142 league wins (30% 1v1, 70% 2v2) but I've never gotten a promotion. I see some ppl get promoted within 30 matches.

Yes - I have a friend who was stuck in the brown league (a.k.a clever) and had maybe 160 games with 120 wins. I felt they were strong gifted / low master and suggested they make a new game center and qualify again. After two days - 30 games - they are #7 in their division of the master league.

The hard thing about the ranking system is you need to win the subset of the games where the matching algorithm puts you against opponents it feels are "stronger". I agree that the system works well to let a strong player (like this) move up rapidly, but I think there is improvement to be seen for players with longer histories.

I believe the developers are considering "seasons" or perhaps only looking at your last 50 to 100 games for matching and leveling. This would make it easier for people to move up and down if they find their league has gotten harder now than it was when they qualified or they figure our some strategy and now are playing much better than they were 250 games ago.