Website Changes
There is now a bar near the top of the leaderboard called "Seasons". This will be used to allow navigation between different seasons' leaderboards. By default, this will be set on the current season, but you can also view Season 4's leaderboard by clicking its button.
MMR Reset
As usual with season changes, all players have been moved closer to the median. This time, however, the changes will not be nearly as harsh as they were in previous seasons. This is because we are generally satisfied with the way MMR is distributed across the player base at the moment. Moreover, players who would normally start with less than 1000 MMR will be placed at 1000 MMR, and players who would start with more than 12000 MMR will be placed at 12000 MMR.
Rank Changes
Last season, we split Iron into two divisions, spanning 0-2000 and 2000-4000 MMR to prevent Bronze players from taking advantage of Iron players for effortless MMR gains. The expectation was that Iron 1 would consist of a very small number of players, so we decided on splitting Iron into Iron 1 and 2 instead of choosing a different name. What actually happened is that Iron 1 ended up growing to nearly the same size as Bronze, having over 1100 players who had played at least five matches. When combining the two Iron ranks, they consist of over 3000 players; all of these players have played at least five matches, meaning that almost half of the active player base was ranked Iron. Additionally, in the latter half of the season, Iron 1 and Iron 2 were split into Tier E and F, so they couldn't play matches with each other, further calling into question why both ranks are called Iron.
To fix this, we are going to rebalance the ranks so that Iron's MMR range is the same size as almost every other rank this season. Additionally, we are going to split most ranks into two divisions with a range of 1000 MMR each. The only exceptions to this rule are Sapphire, Master, and Grandmaster.
The Season 5 ranks are as follows:
Iron 1: 0-999 MMR
Iron 2: 1000-1999 MMR (Placement: 1500)
Bronze 1: 2000-2999 MMR
Bronze 2: 3000-3999 MMR (Placement: 3500)
Silver 1: 4000-4999 MMR
Silver 2: 5000-5999 MMR (Placement: 5500)
Gold 1: 6000-6999 MMR
Gold 2: 7000-7999 MMR (Placement: 7500)
Platinum 1: 8000-8999 MMR
Platinum 2: 9000-9999 MMR
Sapphire: 10000-10999 MMR
Diamond 1: 11000-11999 MMR
Diamond 2: 12000-12999 MMR
Master: 13000-13999 MMR
Grandmaster: 14000+ MMR
Tier Changes
Something else that we experimented with this past season was having all tiers be exclusive to one rank. For the lower tiers, this worked pretty well, but in the mid-high tiers, there were some activity concerns during the usual American/European hours. This ultimately led to the formation of Tier AB. One issue with this system was that players who were near the higher end of their rank were essentially unable to challenge themselves against players of the next highest rank. This in turn causes some players to immediately rank back down after ranking up, or at the very least, makes it insanely difficult for some to remain in the next rank.
The new ranks allow us to comfortably modify tiers based on activity, leaving no concern about significantly affecting a large portion of the player base. We can also add several new tiers without having to worry about players farming to get to the next rank. Furthermore, with the transition to this season, most players will now be able to see two tiers: One containing players in their rank, and one containing either the highest division of the rank below yours or the lowest division of the rank above yours, depending on if you're in the first or second division of your rank, respectively.
These will be the starting tiers for Season 5:
Tier F: Iron 1 + Iron 2 + Placement
Tier EF: Iron 2 + Bronze 1
Tier E: Bronze 1 + Bronze 2
Tier DE: Bronze 2 + Silver 1
Tier D: Silver 1 + Silver 2
Tier CD: Silver 2 + Gold 1
Tier C: Gold 1 + Gold 2
Tier BC: Gold 2 + Platinum 1
Tier B: Platinum 1 + Platinum 2
Tier A: Platinum 2+
Tier S: Sapphire+
Tier X: Diamond 1+
Rule Changes
Since most players can now see two tiers, we are going to change rule III. d. to the following:
d. Players are not allowed to type "!c" while already participating in a mogi in the same tier. Players who violate this rule will receive -50 MMR and a strike.
i. Players are allowed to type "!c" in a different tier than the one they are currently playing in; however, they are still subject to penalties if they fail to join in time (rule IV. b., IV. c.).
This allows you to join a mogi of a different tier if it's gathering while you're in the middle of another event (for example, if you are playing Tier A, you can type !c in Tier S near the end of your event; however, typing !c in Tier A2 would result in a penalty). Keep in mind that the players in the next event are not obligated to wait for you if you're late, so you should only take advantage of this rule if there are a few races left.
Squad Queue Changes
Squad Queue events will no longer have a 0.75x multiplier and will result in the same gains/losses as a normal event.
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