Match Making Rating Tool

Answer:
1) Make sure you have updated Sc2gears to latest version
2) Download the update package (MMRPlugin.zip).
3) Close Sc2gears if open
4) Open folder: [PATH_TO]\Sc2gears\Plugins\
5) Remove folder named MMRPlugin under Plugins folder
6) Unzip the contents of the MMRPlugin.zip to the Plugins folder
7) Run Sc2gears

If you did not have the plugin installed previously also remember to enable it from Sc2gears (Tools > Plugin Manager > Choose plugin > Enable)

Answer: Data from the old seasons was archived as league offsets were changed for this season. Thus old S11 data cannot be used for the current season. When you get one 'good game' for Season 12 the graph will appear.

Answer: All data for old seasons was moved to archive and marked as WoL games. First select correct WoL profile from the dropdown list & click 'Archive' button

Answer: Old version of MMR tool had no product detection --> All HotS & WoL matches were treated as same. Thus product for all season 12 matches was set 'unknown'. Data for matches played with 'unknown' product are not shown in MMR graphs. It is possible to recover this data by manually editing the datafile & setting correct product for each match. Instructions how to do this can be found later in Q&A.

Answer: Blizzard changed league offsets. Thus only games played against people from the same league can give correct relational MMRs. But MMRs calculated based on opponents from other leagues can be wildly inaccurate. In these cases do not trust the MMR graphs, but continue to play with MMR tool on. With each match played we get more and more information to be able to calculate new offsets. And when the new offsets have been accurately enough calculated we release a DB file that fixes also the old MMR calculations. Also worth remembering is that everybody started HotS with blank MMR. At first MMR changes much much more rapidly than normally.

Answer: Player's MMR is calculated from opponent's data. If the web profiles are accessible *) then pre-requisite conditions are following:

                                                Memscanner
Condition:                                      On:      Off:
Opponent loses and has 0 bonus pool left        Yes      No
Opponent loses and has > 0 bonus pool left      Yes      No
Opponent wins and has 0 bonus pool left         Yes      No
Opponent wins and has > 0 bonus pool left       Yes      Yes

The pre-requisite condition is always met for counting the opponent MMR as player's pre-game data is always fetched based on the profile URL.

Please note that even if the pre-requisites are met there are lots of other requirements that have to be met to be able to calculate the MMR. For example if your league is lower than master league & your MMR is in low end of that league then you are likely in so called 'capping zone' where your MMR usually cannot be calculated from your typical opponent's data (exception opponent's from other leagues).

For those who have used the tool before WoL patch 2.0.4 the old pre-requisites were (after that Blizzard hid the true change points when a player loses and thus in those cases the change points can only be calculated if pre-game data is available):

+ Show Spoiler +
*) Also worth noting is that web profiles are not always updated promptly or there are other problems regarding the profiles. Thus if the tool detects there is something wrong in the fetched profile data it marks those games bad.

Answer: Click 'Config' from the upper toolbar. In the bottom of 'Settings' tab there is 'Memory reader (more data)' setting.

Answer:
Here is how 'good games' affect the graph: 'X', 'Y' and 'Z' are 'good games' and '-' estimate games. x, y, z are parts of the graph affected by the good games.

------X---------------Y---------Z------

xxxxxxXyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyYzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzz

Answer: Unranked detection is still not 100% as it requires that we have both pre-game & post-game data for the player himself. If the web profiles malfunction the game is set to ranked. Also matches shorter than 30 seconds (41.4 Blizzard seconds) are set to ranked by default due to false positive risk regarding web profile updates

If an unranked game is recorded it can be manually deleted: 'Config' > 'Data' > 'Refresh' > Select individual games from dropdown list > 'Delete Game'

Answer: You can find them easily from 'Config' > 'Data' > 'Refresh' and then going through the games dropdown list. If the opponent name is missing it is likely either 'vs AI' or 'practise' game. Also games where map is 'swarm training stage x' is likely a practise game. The new version of the tool should not record 'vs AI' or 'practice' games at all.

Answer: If you manually fix the 'unknown' products, the matches can be used as estimate matches & will reappear in the MMR graphs (do not change product if it has not been set to unknown).

First you need install a text editor that supports UTF-8 without BOM. Regular Microsoft Notepad cannot be used as it messes up the line ending characters. One recommended editor is Notepad++ available from http://notepad-plus-plus.org/.

After a suitable text editor has been installed go to following folder: [PATH_TO]\Sc2gears\User content\Plugin file cache\mmr.plugin.MMRPlugin . If sc2gears is open, then close it. Take a back-up copy of file 'games_i.data'. Then open 'games_i.data' in the text editor.

In the file each line represents one match. There should be no empty lines between matches and no spaces before or after commas (','). Commas (',') separate the data colums. Also each line must end with comma (',') ('/r/n' is used as newline).

Here is a start of an example line (First 'U' in this line means undefined product. You want to change it either H or W):
+ Show Spoiler +

When looking at each line you can find 2 URL:s. First URL is your own and the second is your opponents (if there is no second URL, then that match was likely 'vs AI' or 'practice' match and that line should be preferably removed (or left undefined)). Based on the opponents URL (+ map + etc) you can recognize which match the line represents.

Fifth data column is for the product. It is 'U' for undefined, 'W' for WoL, 'H' for HotS (and 'L' for future LotV). For example if the actual product in the example line is HotS, you would change it to:
+ Show Spoiler +

When you are done then save the file. Restart sc2gears. The matches should now have correct product and appear under appropriate profile (number next to the profile selection dropdown list increases). But as all matches played with the old version were marked as 'bad' you likely need to play more to get one good game before the graph appears for that profile.

Answer: If you had sc2gears open while editing the data file, then close and restart it. But you still need 1 'good game' before the graph appears & all games played with the old version were set 'bad'. When you get a new 'good game' the graph will appear and the games you fixed will be used as 'estimate games' (their MMR is estimated based on the good game - each win/loss are considered like they were played against similar MMR level opponent)

Answer: If a player had no 'good games' during archive season (-S8, S9-S10 or S11), all MMRs for that period were set to 0. A 'good game' means a match from which the players MMR can be calculated.

Answer: As opponents tend to be different players and their MMRs cannot be estimated from 'bad games' (filler values are used in these cases in the graph) the moving average calculations were disabled for the opponents.

Answer: If memory reader is enabled the MMR tool calls for the it when a new match starts. The memory reader then reads character name and long character ID for both players from static memory addresses and writes them to a file (out.txt) in 40 bytes segments. MMR tool then reads the file & based on the results fetches the pre-game data from Blizzard's web profiles.

The memory reader is simple and only reads data from the memory. It does not alter any data in memory or alter any files belonging to the SC2 client.

Answer: Memory reader needs enough rights to be able to read memory. Tight windows UAC settings may cause problems. You can also try to run Sc2gears as admin

2013-03-12: Tool does not support HotS yet: There is no eta for new version yet - may take from couple of days to couple of weeks. Info regarding the progress: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=334561&currentpage=130#2599

---

2013-02-28: Database is locked & games are marked as 'bad' from this point forward + SC2gears now requires Java 7 - Today Blizzard has tried to fix the bonuspoint display bug on EU & NA profiles, but managed to move the bonuspoint accumulation starting time even further into the past. And still the values are not in sync with in-game ones. Thus all calculation based on these new values is invalid. It is unknown at which point of 2013-02-28 (CET timezone) these changes were made. But if you have played games during 2013-02-28 you might want to set them all bad. New games are automatically set bad. There might be no fix regarding MMR-tool for this, unless Blizzard manages to fix the web profiles correctly when ladder lock begins next week.

New version 13 of SC2gears now requires Java 7. MMR-tool will also switch to Java 7 in its next release. You can install Java 7 from http://java.com/

- korona

---

2013-02-25: Version 8.2 released

Support for SC2 WoL v. 2.0.4

* Unranked / ranked detection
- Unranked & ranked modes have separate MMR even if they use the same match making pool
- Blizzard does not separate unranked, ranked and (Versus AI?) games in match history
- After this fix data for unranked games (+ versus ai games) is not stored
- If there is a chance that opponent was playing unranked mode his data is set invalid
- If you played unranked or versus AI games with the older version of the MMR-tool on, you can manually delete them: 'Config' > 'Data' > 'Refresh' > Select individual games from dropdown list > 'Delete Game'

* Support for new bonus pool mechanic
- When player loses points are primarily deducted from bonus pool and secondarily from ladder points

* Memory reader support for 2.0.4 is not yet ready
- Memory reader has been disabled. Note that the user's original setting is not altered. When a new version of memory reader is published, it will be switched automatically on, if user has enabled it from the settings
- We have already a functional memory reader, but it needs more testing. It will likely be published in few days if everything works fine

* There is a bonus pool display bug on NA & EU servers (likely also on other servers).
- Blizzard moved bonus pool accumulation starting point ~24 hours into the past. The in-game client reflects this change. Web profiles have not been updated regarding this change and use old starting point.
- Dirty fix on MMR -tool has been implemented. If player has 0 bonus pool according to the web profile his data is set to invalid
- Warning: If Blizzard fixes the display bug on web profiles, new recorded data from that point forward will be invalid until a new version of MMR tool is published

* Offset changes
- master - grandmaster offset has been increased for EU, NA, KR and CH servers

Korona & InfCereal

After over a year of calculating MMR, back-engineering the ladder system and updateing the program,
i will stop working on this project.

However, i found people who will keep working on it.
That means the project will life on without me.

I want to take this chance to talk about the problems and the help i had on this long way.

------------The bad sides: Blizzard-------------------

Its sad that i had to write this program.
Blizzard entertainment decided to hide the real skill because they think that their users cant handle the truth.
Since release of sc2 they published lies about the ladder system and did what they can, to hide your skill-rating.

Also Blizzard Entertainment have a long history of anti-modding-politics.
I know most of the sc2 modders and the majority decided to give up.
Im one of the few left. However not any more.
They ignored or direct fighted most project out there.
Whenever they tryed to implement a good idea themself, they failed.
Sadly they put their wish to have total control, over the chance to improving their products for free.

When i started this, i had a lot of respect for this company and their work.
Nothing of it is left.
I dont know one modder who thinks, that blizzard creates good systems.
When you back-engineer their system you think in the beginning, that they do something awesome that you dont understand.
Than you think, its just random stuff and they dont care at all.
But one day you realise: This mess is the best they are able to do!

If i write programs for games in future again, you can be sure, it will not be from Blizzard.

------------The bad sides: E-Sport-------------------

Call me old-school but i dont like e-sport.
I did this tool for gamers!
So you can see your real skill-rating and can use it to get better in the game and have fun by doing so.
I did not do it to for sc2 or for e-sport.
I dont care for the size of the community, the amount of drama, the pros, the caster and the events.
For me its about the game.
Most underground community fight to dont buy out and become mainstream.
Sometimes i have the feeling, this one tryes his best to loose his identity as fast as possible.


------------The GOOD sides: The community-------------------

There are still several thousands guys left who do care for the game.
In all the time i had a ton of support: From people who worked with me on the program and algorithem,
people who suggested ideas, found bugs and tested for me.
My inbox is full with hundreds of messages of people who offered their help in all kind of ways.
With your help we were able to collected over one Million games.
This made it possible to discover the secrets behind the sc2-Matchmaking.

So i take the chance to say THANK YOU to all the people i meet on the way:

NotThat for all his work on the data and the help with the program.
Jimmeh for his webserver and testing.
Excalibur and SDream for their mmr research.
Scevermore for the background pictures.
Dakota_Fanning: for creating sc2gears
InfCereal and Korona: for taking over.

And SPECIAL THANKS FOR ALL YOU GUYS:
For reporting bugs, make suggestions and help me testing.
I will not start listing everyone who helped me, because i will forgot some and feel bad about it.
And even if you never posted on TL or messaged me, just by uploading your gamedata you helped a lot.

So THANK YOU ALL!
Without your help, i could not make this program and it was fun doing so!

----------------------FUTURE----------------------
InfCereal and Korona will keep this project running.
I Hope you all help them as much as you helped me!

TL Account:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/profile.php?user=InfCereal
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/profile.php?user=korona


----------------------Last words----------------------

Do not forget: Its a GAME.
Its not about being part of something big, its not about making money,
its not about stars or events.
Knowing your real-skill can be helpful but its not the goal to become the best either.

The Goal is to have fun playing the Game!

GL & HF & GG
Skeletor

InfCereal and Korona will keep this project running.

INSTALLATION

- Unpack.
- Copy everything into SC2Gears\Plugins folder.
----Structure should look like this : Sc2gears\Plugins\MMRPlugin\*
----Make sure you did not create double MMRPlungin folder with your extractor.
- Start SC2Gears.
- Goto Tools menu - Plugin manager - Activate the plugin.
- Open gui over - Plugins - MMRstats
- On first start the Config should open automatic. Enter your BNet profile page url.
To find your profile page log onto Battle.Net webpage, go to Starcraft II, Click on your nickname in the upper right and click on profile.
- Make sure SC2Gears saves new replays! (Settings - Auto save replayes )
- Make sure you entered the correct replay folder in sc2gears
----On MAC: /users/[username]/Library/Application Support/Blizzard/StarCraft II/Accounts/[accountnr]/[accountnr2]/Replays/
- Check that the application is not blocked by your firewall
- Check the Log file if there are any errors
- Save the ID in your settings separate and keep it private.
- Have fun.

HOWTO

-This program only works with 1v1 Ladder games.
-----No Team games now and in future sorry

-The calculated MMR is the MMR BEFORE the last match.

-The Gamecounter in top left should increase with every 1v1 Ladder game
-----If the counter on the right site 0/0 dont increase something is wrong!
-----In this case post your log file here (in spoilers pls)

-This tool collects data of PRESENT games.
----This means you have to let it run while playing. It does not work with replays!

-The analyser need some data before he is able to calculate the graph.
----Just keep playing until you get a 100% quality game.

-The analyser assume that all games played in a row, so you have to ladder from now on with sc2gear open!
-----If you miss one game this is not a problem
-----If you miss many games the graph could be inaccurate for the next few games but he will stable himself again

-Make sure you have the active account that you ladder on selected BEFORE starting the game.
-----If you enable Memory-Scanner, it will try to detect the correct account.

-Make sure your system clock is correct.
-----Time is corrected with NTP but this can fail.

-The ramscanner and the Registry reader only works on windows!
-The ramscanner need the system right to read the ram!
-The Registry reader need the system right to read the registry.
-Without the Ramscanner you will get way less data

I installed the tool but dont see a graph! What to do?
The tool dont work with replays. It must be active while you playing a ladder game to track the gamedata!

When it does not work with replays than i dont need saved replays right?
It need the replay life! means it must be enabled before in and after the game and sc2gears must store the replay.

I have tracked games now but still dont see a graph! What to do?
The analyser need one 100% game to judge your data. Quality under 50% means something went wrong.
You can lower the chance this happens by activate the memory-scanner. Between 50%-100% depends on the game and is not in your hand. Just play more games. When you have one 100% game the analyser will analyse all games even the ones before and show the graph.

How many games do i need before i get a 100% game?
1 - infinity. Its not in your hand. Depends on the difference between you and your opponent in skill, league and tier.
Normal you get a good game in the first 20. Activating the Memory-reader speeds it up.

How accurate is this tool?
A easy question and a very complicated answer. Without going into math, i just put out numbers:
+-24 points in average

When do i get promoted/demoted?
Who cares? its just random icons at random mmr points. But i think this is not the awnser you are looking for so:
If you are stable above or under a promotion line for several games. Even if you raise or drop a league you have to be stable first before the system promote/demote you. How many games stable is is unknown at the moment.

My graph is wrong! i won a game and lost points or lost a game and got points!
Its not wrong. Every point have a deviation. So you dont see your exact mmr., in most case this deviation is +-24.
This explains the local mistakes. This kind of mistakes dont affect the graph. It stay local.

You graph is wrong it just jumped after only one game total
As more data as more accurate the analyser is. If you have less 100% games the graph is unstable because the analyser is not sure yet. If you get a game that show a mistake he will auto correct the hole graph.

You graph is wrong, it say im low, middle x but im clearly high x
you are not. Bnet system lie to you. Your top 8 spot in your division say nothing... Sorry.

I lost my data can you bring it back?
PM me your bnet accounts and the ID in your settings.
I will send you a file with your gamedata.
If i dont know you the ID is important to validate that you are the owner of this accounts.

Can i get banned for using the Memory-Scanner
Blizzards Terms-of-Use are written in a way that they can ban for everything. Really everything.
This tools read the nicknname of the opponent out of the ram like many streamtools do. It dont change the memory or change any sc2-files. So its very unlike blizzard will ban for this. Most likely they cant even detect it. They could run crazy and ban for all kind of applications they dont like but i dont think so.
In the end its your account and your risk. Thats the reason i put the warning in, so you dont give me the fault if blizzard goes crazy.

NotThat for all his work on the data and the help with the program.
Jimmeh for his webserver and testing.
Excalibur and SDream for their mmr research.
Scevermore for the background picture.
Dakota_Fanning: for creating sc2gears
Insane and astraflame: for crushing newbs to help us getting good data
[Erotomania, Mendelfist, FnaticMatt, Peleus, Malhavoc, InfCereal: for testing
Blizzard: for hiding your skill and giving us this task (not really)

And you for using this tool!

First check the basics about ladder in Excaliburs guide:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=195273

Also check this Thread for some of the maths and theories behind this tool:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=332391

Here is a post about my Analyser (not complete up to date)
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=334561&currentpage=30#595

If you want to discuss the maths behind it, you can find us at Teamliquid Teamspeak often.

If you like the program and want to donate money,
take this money and give it to to the next person you see, who really needs it.
Dont forget it

Today i reached 100.000 games submitted by 3718 Users.

I think this is the biggest sc2 game-data-base outside of blizzard. The quality test show that if you play all games with sc2gears open and collect more than 5 "good games" the accuracy of the MMR (f-function - offsets - analyser) is close to best value possible.
(to throw a random number out i would say +-50). We found out so much but there are still some small problems left.

A good time to thank you all for uploading games and in special:

NotThat for all his work on the data and the help with the program.
Jimmeh for his webserver and testing.
Excalibur and SDream for their mmr research.
Scevermore for the background picture.
Dakota_Fanning: for creating sc2gears
Insane and astraflame: for crushing newbs to help us getting good data
Erotomania, Mendelfist, FnaticMatt, Peleus, Malhavoc, InfCereal: for testing

"Not That" and me will write a summary status report about what we found out so far in near future!


As a site project i was able to calculate Ladder balance results out of the data:

Blizzard tries to hide game information such as the skill of a player from us.
They think that we are not able to handle such a critical world changing information.
So they decided to invent: divisions, division-tiers, bonus pool, hidden win/lose and ingame only profile data.
However we like having the information available to us ...


At beginning we had no clue how MMR really works.
Everyone knows Excalibur's post about the leagues and machtmaking.
Some of you might know about division tiers. With a reference mark (the top 200 list) we were able to calculate the offset.
With the introduction of Grandmaster league this is no longer possible.
A lot of people still look into the data and try to find the algorithm behind the division tier and the MMR.
Recently NotThat found a way to calculate a more accurate MMR.
The problem is that you have to calculate this yourself directly after a ladder game and because we don't know the division tiers, it only works if u play master opponents.


So we face two problems: lack of data to find the last secrets of MMR, and an easy way for everyone to calculate it and use it.
To solve these problems I wrote a tool that calculates your MMR with NotThat's algorithm, collect statistical data of your games and show you your MMR automatically.
This tool calculates what we think is near to your MMR and shows it on a graph.


There are still many problems to solve.
To do so, we need Data. This tool is only the first step.
We will publish all the data, so everyone can help analyse it.
With a lot of data we will be able to solve the last mystery of mankind: MMR.