Blizzard Releases StarCraft II Ladder System Hotfixes

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Blizzard released some pretty cool hotfixes for the StarCraft 2 ladder system. Considering some of the fixes actually effect the outcome and balance of a competitive multi-player system I think they are pretty significant. They made some changes to the matching system that makes play more fair and balanced in some arranged team scenarios, they improved the team arrangement process, and sped up some other matching stuff. All-in-all looks good, here’s an excerpt that talks about the changes:

Improved Matchmaking for Teams

While the matchmaking system as a whole is looking very strong, one area we identified for improvement was matchmaking for arranged teams that were still in placement matches. We found these first few matches for arranged teams were giving them an unfair advantage against their opponents. Since so many new arranged teams were being created every day, this was resulting in a noticeable amount of imbalanced matches for team games. The corrections we’ve made should show an improvement for many team players, especially in the sub-Gold leagues.

Improved Placement for Teams

Another related issue we’ve received feedback on and experienced firsthand is the difficulty of placing in a high league while in an arranged team. We made two changes that should improve the experience. 1) The improved matchmaking mentioned above will help teams find opponents of similar skill sooner and, as a result, help to more quickly place teams in the league in which they belong. 2) We also found we were being too conservative in how teams were being placed in leagues and have made some adjustments to allow teams to be more easily placed in higher leagues. 3v3 random and arranged teams will likely notice this change the most.

Team Matchmaking Improvements

We found conditions where the matchmaking system was forcing certain teams and players to wait longer than needed for team matches. Those conditions have been addressed and the wait times should be reduced without affecting the quality of the matchmaking.

Here’s the full post: http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/785422

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