Squish, yet again

Why? You need to whale/spend harder so that you can maintain your level. You will get benefits (Aurodium food) only at the top of k1.

I can't help but feel it's not intentional, like last time.  If it is intentional, could we know why?

The squish occurs because rank ranges are static instead of percentage based. So it’s just one of a few ways of normalizing competitive mode ratings. Other two most common ways-

Percentage/population based: Top 1% of ratings are K1 or top 2500 of players. Unlikely to be used because of their weird ultra inflation of returning or placement players getting put at like 4500 and fed to Tass and BYoda etc. 

Without a squish/normalization they would have an even worse spread across the various brackets, which already favors the bottom and the top.

ihatethisgame82 wrote:

The squish occurs because rank ranges are static instead of percentage based.

ihatethisgame82 wrote:

Without a squish/normalization they would have an even worse spread across the various brackets, which already favors the bottom and the top.

We're not talking about 'being squished'.  We're talking about 'how much' we've been squished at the end of the last 2 seasons.  K1 & K2 are being squished somewhere between 200%  & 500% more on what has been the norm for the last couple of years.

This did happen before, and it was put down to a mistake with the squish formula.  So, why are we being squished so much now?  Is it a formula issue?  Or is it being done on purpose?  If so, I think we deserve to be told that.  Rather than going on not knowing whether there's an issue or not.

 would not mind the squish if they would fix some of the top of K1 being super low accounts that have 0 chance of being up there without exploiting something in there crappy pvp code. 

I lost 49 in K2 which is fairly average for me. It does usually squish more at higher and lower divisions towards division 3 as it pulls you towards the middle, so top end of K2 and K1 are squished harsher. I don’t pay attention really as our similarly ranked opponents are similarly squished so it does not impact matchmaking, it does not affect leagues and rarely moves me to a lower division. When it does I would normally be within a single loss of the lower division initially anyway so not a significant move. It’s just how they keep the rankings close to give us the ability to climb and prevent the higher ranks moving away from the middle too. The big changes in the past have been when they tweaked to redistribute players as they have an ideal % for each division. 

We don't really *know* why the squish is needed - CG never told us why is it for nor did they tell us how is it work. We can only speculate.

The most important thing needed from CG is transparency, and perhaps (most likely, actually) we can come with better solutions that the one being implemented right now - but we need to know the goal. 

CG need to define explicitly what it takes to be in each division, because if we're told that a certain amount of points is needed to get somewhere, and people have get these points, they belong that place. Squishing them back is cheating and not fair

AtuinTheGreat wrote:

We don't really *know* why the squish is needed

I think we do.  We have the squish for 2 reasons.  

Reason 1 (the easy one):  It's to prevent players from getting too far from the group.  If we look at the best player in the game, they rarely lose.  Without squish, this guy would be off into the sunset, never to be caught again.  The same at the other end.  Squish keeps players in touch.

Reason 2 (the more wordy one):  We play with hard walls between leagues.  This means once you hit that wall, you cannot go any further that season.   What this means is that the leagues become (or would become) somewhat egg-cup  shaped; everybody congregated in the higher or lower divisions.  So, between seasons we are all squished.  We're all pushed towards division 3, making leagues slightly more diamond shape (more players towards the middle).  What this means, is that the division sizes can be maintained.  Over the season, the divisions are well distributed (more towards the middle at the start, more towards the top/bot at the end.

These are the reasons why we have squish. 

Personally, I'd prefer a straight ladder without divs/leagues, then there's little need for squish and no big changes in divisions which affects the balance. 

Rius_975518199 wrote:

I lost 49 in K2 which is fairly average for me.

Really?  That would have certainly been average before the squish was fixed.  I'm not sure you were being squished that much 3 or 4 seasons ago.  Less than 20 has been my average (in K2) since they realised K1 was depleting.

I don't think K2 can sustain itself with 49 points of squish, per season.

If they have to squish to make match up they need toa dress the top of K1. you cannot tell me a lot of those are the best of the best and climbed it without some weird point spike... Fix the match making if i end short of K1and get squished and cannot get back to K1 since the squish makes it very hard and complete rng on who i face could be the biggest gp by a mil or the smallest by 1-2 mil. 

Sweetllew3939 wrote:

you cannot tell me a lot of those are the best of the best and climbed it without some weird point spike

They started to appear when they fixed K1/K2 squish.  From what I understand, they don't know why nor know a quick fix.

Sweetllew3939 wrote:

it very hard and complete rng on who i face could be the biggest gp by a mil or the smallest by 1-2 mil. 

GP absolutely needs to be left out of GAC.  It's an ineffective way of match making and affects everything else we do in the game.

An activity score is fine and eradicates a lot of the problems with inactive large accounts.