Update: Those changes were reverted for now!
If you were playing Battlegrounds and noticed something weird happening with rating gains/loses, here’s an explanation. Some extra MMR changes have slipped through in this patch. Or, to be more precise, they were supposed to happen, but only after Blizzard would communicate them.
The main issue was that players with very high rating, despite being matched against lower rated players, were still constantly climbing. Why is that a problem? Because if they could climb indefinitely, then rating would not only represent player’s skill, but also how much time they have to play the game. The goal here is that they should not be able to “run away” with their rating so much that it’s nearly impossible for other players to catch up if they don’t play a lot. If the rating is supposed to showcase the skill, a player with 70% win rate shouldn’t have a higher rating than a player with 75% win rate just because he plays e.g. twice as much.
In order to do that, the advantage/disadvantage multiplier has been adjusted. Before, facing players who had significantly lower or higher rating didn’t have that much of an impact. After the changes, it will be significantly more impactful. If you play against players who are higher than you – you will see much better gains, and vice versa. With this change, bell curve of rating should get a little bit tighter over time.
However, majority of players who are around 3k – 5k should get matched against people with very similar rating anyway, so they shouldn’t see almost any difference.
Another thing is that there are plans to “reset” MMR of high rated players – the current plan is for the top 1% (which is over 5.5k rating right now). It wouldn’t be a full reset, just pushing those players back in order to accomplish the same goal as above. No date for the reset was given.
Greetings Friends!
With the launch of today’s patch, a Battlegrounds MMR change accidentally found it’s way in as well. While this change was still going to happen, it was meant to go live after we messaged out what the change was… apologies on that!
Now, let’s dive into what actually was changed.
The Problem: Players at very high MMR were continuing to climb by playing lots of games. Despite playing against players with a lower MMR, the MMR awarded at the end of the match was still very high.
We got feedback from several of our top players asking us to adjust this downward, even though it will lower their rating and climbing speed after the change.
The Solution: At very high MMR, you’re more likely to matchmake with other players that have an average rating above or below you. In these cases, the multiplier has been greatly increased.
In the old system, if you played against 7 opponents with an average of 1,000 rating below you, you would still get ~90% of your points for first place. In the new system, you will get about ~50% of your points for first place in that same situation (please note that these numbers are not exact). So, if you land 8th place when playing against 7 opponents with an average of 1,000 MMR below you, you will now lose a lot more points than before.
If you’re paired against opponents with an average rating equal to your rating then nothing changes. This means that players around 3,000 – 5,000 MMR will not see any difference.
TL;DR: Players with very high MMR will see a change in how many points they are awarded at the end of their matches. The majority of players will not see a change.
In the future, we are considering an MMR normalization pass. What this means is that we would bring in everyone’s MMR closer to the 4,000 range.
We are continuing to keep an eye on MMR and how it affects your play experience. We hope you enjoy the balance changes and we’ll see you on the Battlegrounds <3
Cheers,
The Hearthstone TeamTo add on to this, we have a plan to “reset” high MMR values and will be deployed in the near future. The change will likely hit top 1% of the player base (that is, rating > 5500) . We are not doing a full reset (to 4000) because that would be bad for matchmaking. Thank you all for the feedbacks for Battlegrounds Beta!
[…] the yesterday’s Battlegrounds MMR changes that were undocumented in the patch notes? Well, even if you don’t, you definitely […]
I don’t understand the rating system at all.
Played 5th place – lost 53 points
Played 3rd next game – gained 23?
Another more extreme example:
Played 6th, lost 67
Played 4th, gained 1.
Not playing very often nor very good, scratching at 4.900.
It depends on who you’ve been matched with and how you perform in comparison to how the game *expects* you to perform. So in one game, if you’re matched with people who have a lower MMR than you, the game would expect you to finish higher so your gains for finishing in the top 4 would be less than the penalties for finishing in the bottom 4.
So, losing 67 “points” when finishing 6th and gaining 1 when finishing 4th – *sounds* like you were matched with people who have a lower MMR than you. At 4900 you’re actually at the upper end of the average distribution so *most* people have a lower MMR than you. So it sounds like it’s working as intended.
At least, that’s how I understand it.
Ah okay, thanks for a possible clarification.
I thought that all paired players are more or less equal in MMR *shrug*
Nonetheless, not very motivating when this happens regularly. 😉
> I thought that all paired players are more or less equal in MMR *shrug*
That’s the ideal yeah, but it takes your “variance” into account … and I’d guess queue times as well. There’s more info in the Developer Insight that Blizzard released a little while ago: https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/blog/23239989/