Demoted after winning?
How was I demoted after winning? I won my last 6 matches in a row in the previous season of GAC which allowed me to move from Kyber 2 to Kyber 1 at the end of the season. Then I started this season in Kyber 1, just won my first match, and got demoted after winning. That just seems messed up
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I assume this is you? The GAC skill rating history certainly matches up with what you describe.
On Monday 10 October you had a skill rating of 3617 (+7 above Kyber 1 threshold) and then on Tuesday 11 October you had been “squished” down to 3561. At that point, you needed to earn 49 in your first round to get back above the Kyber 1 threshold, which was impossible as round 1 awards or removes 42/43 points.
It’s not a brilliant system, but on one hand at least they left you in Kyber 1 for a few days for increased daily rewards even when your skill rating was below the threshold.
I was facing a similar prospect to you following a diabolical showing in the last 3v3 championship. I’d dropped to 3661 before the squish, then 3599 post squish. I won my match (again, 42 points) to get back above the Kyber 1 threshold, so I never really got demoted.
So as I understand it.
Divisions and leagues are run to stay at certain set percentages. However, during the season players go up and down depending on how many points they have. This messes with the divisional player percentages.
So at the end of the season 'squish' is used to re-set the 'set' percentages back to how CG wish to maintain them.
If this is the case, why are they squishing at the start of a new season, rather than the end of the last season? Or does K1 work differently as it's so far away from a '3' division squish magnet?
I don’t understand how the number of players in Kyber 1 (and presumably Kyber 2) increases through a GAC season to necessitate the squish. Every GAC match has a winner and a loser (or 2 losers if nobody attacks), so it stands to reason that the number of people gaining and losing skill rating will be more or less the same across the season.
Do we get more and more players above the K1 threshold as a season progresses? If so, why is that happening?
I can only assume the devs didn’t do their sums correctly when setting up the thresholds and the points differential for winning / losing.
It is because the middle divisions are bigger. More players in div3 gain points than players in div 2 lose points, because the populations are different. The same goes for div2 over div1, and back in the other direction below div3 too. The total population migrates outwards from the larger central divisions over time. If they just set the divisions at 20% each this would not happen and the squish wouldn't be needed. Except maybe one player at the top of k1 might be able to give themselves a massive lead to never be caught again, I guess.
Why wasn't handled at the end of the season though? This is pretty irregular.
There seems little point squishing during the season as the number in Aurodium 1 at the end of the season determines what squish is needed.
So squishing K1 after 1 game of a new season seems pretty pointless unless something irregular is going on. E.g. something went wrong with the formula (as Darjelo stated) or they're playing around with the percentages again.
Also as you can't go up from K1 there should be very little need for squish, surely.
Where as, usually a small percentage of K4 are squished into A1. As perennial low Kyber high Aurodium surfer. I've found it pretty hard to 'land' in A1. It never seems to happen. I'm always squished to A2. So I feel in the past they've tried cull A1 heavily (I'm guessing so limit the amount in the division at the end of the season).
You can't get squished between leagues. Promotion/demotion between leagues happens right at the end of the season. D1 goes up, d5 goes down.
The squish happens before the start of a season of GAC, but players division is left untouched until after their first match. When they only did moves between divisions at the end of a week, it was less noticeable than it is now, as you had 3 matches to make up for the squish. Leaving it until after a match is nice, as you keep your daily income for a few days.
Players also can't get squished from Kyber to Aurodium, because the squish moves all players towards the middle of their league. Players above the median (or mode?) score get squished down, players below get squished up. This sets the populations of the divisions to the spread they want. I can't recall for sure, but something like 10/20/40/20/10%.
Some seasons they have also shifted the boundaries of the divisions/leagues, which messes further with things. I haven't been watching to see if they've changed them again.
An important thing to note is that the squish happens across the whole league, moving everyone according to the same formula, so the players around you in the leaderboard will stay the same. No one gets squished up above anyone and it doesn't change who you will match with.
So my experience with Squish is different to the OPs experience.
At the end of the last 5v5 season I was demoted from Kyber. However, as I was demoted from K5 I was squished another 15 points so that I didn't start the next season in A1, but A2.
The OP though started this season in K1, was squished points at the start of the season and then after their first match was demoted to K2.
Is this a precedent? I've never heard of that happening before.
It would also happen to a bunch of players in d4 squishing to d3, but it is much less likely to be noticed, as they would just think they earned it with a win. There would be some that even lost match 1 and still got squished d4 to d3. They are just not going to come here to question it.
All of my experience with squish is that it's happened right after league promotions/demotions. So this before the season starts, and right after the last match has taken place and you get your end of season rewards.
Having it happen after the new season starts is totally new to me, and definitely not what I have seen with squish. Is it a high-mid only Kyber thing? As 100% I was squished out of A1 before the last 3v3 season started.
So most of my guild is caught in this K4 - A3 whirlpool. We seem to continually climbing to K4 and then a pretty heavy magnet pulls us back towards A3, rather than being pushed to K3, which you'd think (as the leagues are 'diamond' shape). So this must be because of the number of players ending up in A1 and being promoted to Kyber. So my thought is that the end of last season, this wasn't the case.
I dunno, I think we're both going in circles here and one of use isn't quite understand the other (probably me).
The last skill squish happened on 11 October. My main account in k2 got squished -40 points, my alt account in k3 got squished -4 points. That was about signup day for this new season. You can see this in your swgoh.gg profile page.
People would have been promoted/demoted leagues on the day that the end of last season rewards were handed out.
Any divisional movement due to skill squish happens after match 1 of the new season. It can sometimes be canceled out by a win on that first match, so people often don't notice they were squished at all. But a d1 person is moved the most by the formula, so it can be a higher squish than the win is worth.
The other thing that can affect the league promotion maelstrom, is that a k5 player may have a skill rating that actually fits anywhere at all in the aurodium league. You don't get moved to a1, you get moved to aurodium league, then wherever your actual skill rating sits you in it. Then at the start of the new season there will be some squish applied as well, possibly bumping divisions as well, but only actually moving after the first match.
However, 2 seasons ago I'm very certain to what happened to me, as I checked my points at the time. So I was demoted from Kyber at the end of the season. My points though were enough to just keep me in A1. However, before the season started I was squished 15 points, which then put me in the A2 bracket. Sadly this is no longer visible.
I feel this is deliberate as:
1. The amount going up from A1 to K5 needs to be the same as those going down.
2. Those that go down are likely more than the start of the season accepted percentage.
3. The extra are then squished to a lower division.
Saying that though, most of K5 going down, probably have lower points than what is needed to stay in A1 anyway.
I don't think squish works the same in each league. Leagues aren't the same size and although we're generally squished toward D3, we're also squished towards L3 (Chromium). Also as Kyber doesn't have a league above and Carbonite doesn't have a league below. So there's 1 big squish magnet and 4 smaller squish magnets........right?
I guess new players entering at Carbonite and other players retiring from anywhere at all would require some adjustment at times to keep it split up. So maybe there is some kind of thing done?
Saying that made me think about retiring players and how they affect things. So I'm really just writing the following to get it straight in my mind.
Retired players don't sign up, which I now suspect is when the squish formula is applied to an account. But a non-signed up person has their skill rating decreased by the points of 2 losses for the week they didn't join, so they will sink over time, but never join, so no one will see them, unless they come out of retirement. At that point they will join at a new lower skill rating, get squished, and carry on from there. Then their opponent makes a post on the forums about matchmaking.