OSN Data Sharing Initiative

[amoffett11]

(03-12-2014 07:25 AM)SuperDonkey Wrote:  The Friendly game has been a very convenient way to prepare for important games like placement games (you lose one of those, kiss any promotion dreams you had goodbye).

I don't think you understand how the "placement games" work.

Once the season finishes, the very first game you finish is your "placement game". Not the first game you start after the season finishes, but just the first game that finishes. For example, if I had started a game in Season One that turned into a 4000 turn marathon and then happened to finish last Thursday or whenever Season Five started, that game would've been my "placement" game. So basically, you have no idea which game your placement game will be (unless you're only playing one game at a time). When the seasons switched from 3 to 4, I ended up 'finishing' a game about 3 days before the season switch-over, I only had to attack the base once to finish my opponent off. I decided to just wait the 3 days until the season's switched, then finish the game, and was immediately placed again. I didn't do this from Season 4 to 5, because it seemed a little mean in retrospect.


When you win or lose your placement game, your Hidden Rating is evaluated as usual based on the win/loss and on the Hidden Rating of your opponent. At this point your Hidden Rating is used to determine what league you're in. It is possible (but not very common) that you will end up in a different league than you were in before. This is because there is a "buffer" between the leagues.

Let's say hypothetically that in order to be promoted to ST, you have to get a Hidden Rating of 1500. Once you get to 1500, you get promoted. Then you lose your next game, and fall to 1495. Rather than immediately demote you, there's a buffer, so that you actually have to fall down to 1400 to get demoted. If this did not exist, it's possible that if you were win/lose/win/lose back and forth (and the way the matchmaking is set up, you are likely to be going back and forth like this a lot), you would be getting promoted or demoted after every match.

What the placement game does is this: Let's say you got to 1500 on a hot streak, got promoted to ST, but then lost a bit and settled back around 1420 for the rest of the season. When this season's placement game was finished, you would be placed back into Master. This is what the placement games are for, for putting people who've fallen back into that buffer zone into the league that their Hidden Rating represents. Whatever game your placement game ends up being, it has the same effect on your hidden rating as any other, and you will be placed into the correct league accordingly.


I'm pretty sure that's how the system works, but someone can correct me if I'm wrong.