Changes Are A-Coming For StarCraft 2 Ladders
It's the climb
Blizzard has laid out plans to fiddle with the StarCraft 2 ladders, including changing the new player start point to make the experience less punishing.
The alterations come in three flavours - "mild", "MORE DRASTIC PERHAPS" and "Legacy of the Void".
Mild adjustments will be incorporated into the current season as they're seen as low-risk and are expected to have smaller, but positive, impacts on the competitive scene.
That covers adjusting the leagues so each contains the percentage of players set out in Blizzard's own blog. The distribution has drifted a bit over the course of Heart of The Swarm - according to one global rank site Silver League is supposed to represent 20% of players but currently contains 31.94%. There are also inconsistencies from region to region.
The other mild adjustment will be the new player start points. They're drifted a bit too so Blizzard is altering them so newcomers will initially be matched against lower league opponents, making for a more pleasant introduction. There's no exact date for implementation given for these.
The MORE DRASTIC PERHAPS umbrella hovers over MMR decay, misc other matchmaking factors and any necessary tweaks to the mild adjustments. When I say MMR decay I mean the adjustment you get to your invisible matchmaking rating (MMR) which happens when your account is inactive for a while. The idea was that it would mean you'd get matched fairly when you returned to the game after a period of not playing but next season Blizzard will be experimenting with turning that off. They'll also be looking at the aforementioned misc other factors involved behind-the-scenes when it comes to MMR in the interests of accuracy and consistency.
Everything else seems to be being filed under "Legacy of the Void" for now with Blizzard stating: "Our goal here is to ensure that the new system is more accurate and offers more transparency into player progress. We’ve seen feedback on desired changes for the ladder recently, and we’d encourage everyone to keep sharing their thoughts."
Here's Miley Cyrus's The Climb because ladders.
