World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Arena Matchmaking System FAQ

Belleflop

< Undone >

Malfurion

360. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 01:59:34 PM PST

When is blizzard going to start working on bringing back pvp, with all this wasted time restructuring a failing system (arenas) it seems they don't intent to. Wintergrasp was a step in the right direction, but failed at immersing players (forced timers on when you can pvp is very stupid), I see more farmers in Wintergrasp than pvp while the 2 hour games are on cooldown. Plus wintergrasp is in the worse possible spot in the world, forcing people to fly around it to get to anywhere, making it an annoyance rather than a stop in to have fun. SotA is nice, but once again is very spread out and relies more on how you can avoid your opponent rather than clash with them. We asked for world pvp, and got forced timed pvp that awards the side who shows up with fewer players. ETAC on real world pvp?

What's fun is pretty subjective, no? When it comes to gaming, I truly hope you find that to which you've made a commitment and investment to be fun. Otherwise make some different considerations. -Zarh

Austille

< Dark Ronin >

Wildhammer

361. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 02:01:05 PM PST

To me it seems like this system is incredibly favored to team combinations that are considered OP. Where as they will be the teams to win the majority of their matches, thus gaining rating a lot faster. When teams that aren't ret/dk etc lose matches they go down much faster since they are losing all the time against the OP team combos and taking a rating crash, yet when they win a match they are only going up a couple points. All the non conventional team combos will always be stuck at the bottom of the pile.

Drama

< Molotov >

Caelestrasz

362. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 02:01:10 PM PST

I think the designers of this game are ignorant of some very basic facts.

1. People will not do arena if there is no reward for them. Drop rating requirement or arena will continue to stagnate.

2. You can have a perfectly balanced arena matchmaking system but it is meaningless if you don't have balanced classes. Fix the classes first.

Superdooper

Bloodhoof

363. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 02:41:13 PM PST

This sounds like a bunch of good moves, here are a couple suggestions that I think would fix 90% of the problems.

1) Start people out at the lowest rating (1000) or so, let them feel like they are "earning" their ranking.

2) Allow all PVP gear to be purchased regardless of rating. Higher rated (better) players will obviously earn theirs faster (arena points earned can be adjusted to make this happen at what Blizz thinks is a reasonable rate).

3) Allow the elite players purchase gear that isn't accessible to the normal folk so they can still show off to everyone. (Make it a different color/style...whatever, but give it the SAME stats!)

I should work at Blizz, I would make them a lot of money.

Warbossrob

< Dragonsbane >

Jubei'Thos

364. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 03:00:38 PM PST

i would love to be able to see my hidden rating rather than guessing.

Also one thing i never quite caught. Say i often play 3's with a glad level player. if hes MMR is 2000 while mine is 1650 i take it his MMR will be used to match? or is it an average between the 3 players involved?

Badw

< SiNS >

Frostwolf

365. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 03:03:57 PM PST

Q u o t e:
i would love to be able to see my hidden rating rather than guessing.

Also one thing i never quite caught. Say i often play 3's with a glad level player. if hes MMR is 2000 while mine is 1650 i take it his MMR will be used to match? or is it an average between the 3 players involved?

Average of the people on the team.

Grstaka

< The Shin Kickers >

Malygos

366. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 03:12:53 PM PST

Q u o t e:

You are by no means pigeonholed in the 1300's, it simply means that to rise to 1600 you'll have to be able to beat 1600 teams half the time. As stated above, if you're still 1300 it's because you're still losing to 1300 teams half the time, which kind of means you really should be at 1300, not because a rating system is keeping you there out of spite.

Hey, we re-made out team to 1500 after purposely diving to 1200. We have won 90% of our matches sense, and retain a 1462 rank.

Will we ever get more than 1-3 points a win? (ya the 5+ games at zero point wins was fun! trust meh!)

Sun Tzu's Art of War is not based upon, nor does it relate too, 2 teams of Japanese Fighting fish amidst Mortal Combat in a Gold Fish Bowl.

Yet, somehow, PvP in WoW does....

Ginkgo

< Huge in Japan >

Kil'jaeden

367. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 03:14:25 PM PST

Q u o t e:
A: At some point, we'll probably expose the hidden rating and the calculations behind the MMR and such (although possibly only on the website rather than in game). We didn't expose the hidden rating in game because we felt it would be too confusing to see a 3rd rating, particularly considering players don't need to make any decisions based on it. You play the same opponents you would play whether you see the rating or not, and it isn't necessary to know the rating to be able to get points, buy gear, etc. However, I'm certainly open to at the very least showing the MMR of a team you just played against on the scoreboard, so that you can make more sense of why you gained/lost as much rating as you did, and at the very least showing your team's MMR on the armory. Exactly what patch/timeframe that might happen in, I'm not entirely sure.

Showing enemy team MMR on scoreboard is fine, but I would be careful about posting personal MMR's seeing how they were so divergent within a team when the PR used to track it.

Badw

< SiNS >

Frostwolf

368. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 03:15:57 PM PST

Q u o t e:
Honestly, the fallacy that arenas are more about gear is getting a little old. From the best we can possibly and objectively tell, it is clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that skill is far and away the #1 factor in determining arena success, regardless of gear. You can put 2200+ players in the blue level 80 gear and they'll still convincingly trounce 1500 skill teams decked out in the best available gear in the game, by a clear and obvious margin.

Q u o t e:

Really? Let's take a look at this so called "fallacy" shall we?

Team 1: Hateful Gear or Deadly Gear (you pick) , same skill as Team 2
Team 2: Savage Gear, same skills as Team 1

Team 1 wins... No fallacy at all, basic common sense.

Wow are you serious, please tell me how using an example of 2200 "skill" players in blues going against 1500 "skill" players in epics equivalates to two teams of equal skill (one having better gear) facing off.

Also

Q u o t e:
skill is far and away the #1 factor

Doesn't mean ONLY factor.

Gear is most definitively a factor, as well as class comps.
But gear is something that is only really an issue at the beginning of seasons, I'm sorry but this far into the season if you are still vastly outgeared by people that is your problem, gear is readily available nowadays, much more then in the past.
And in your example team 2 most definitively has a chance to win.

[ Post edited by Badw ]

Bobbysworld

< Doyt Fanclub >

Kel'Thuzad

369. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 04:39:00 PM PST

Q u o t e:

It's not fun to you because you're putting an expectation of getting gear out of the system for time spent. So when you continuously lose for whatever reason and witness your rating tank, IT GIVES YOU A BIG SADFACE BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT GETTING PURPLES ANYTIME SOON.

Contrast this with how you would feel if you won 10 in a row and climbed 25 points a game, suddenly having access to so many pieces you have to take off from arenas for 2 weeks so you can grind honor to purchase them all? I bet you'd feel pretty awesome and you'd be liking arenas.

What's the difference between these two scenarios? You, the level of your play, and your class composition. Every class in the game (including warlocks) have a chance to hit 2k nowadays. You might not like the spec (resto vs feral, as an example), but you could do it with some L2P.

TLDR: People still can't grasp the difference between time spent (old BGs) and skill (arenas).

I'm effing TERRIBLE at arenas, but I look forward to playing them as much as possible. I guess that's where we're difference. I don't do Archavon at all because I want to earn my gear by getting better. I guess you just want it handed to you regardless of where your score goes.

Yes, skill is imporant. So is class balance (in a rock/paper/scissors world) and luck. How does the system account for those things? It doesn't. If you get unlucky and have to fight a team combination that you can't possibly win against 10 times in a row, that has absolutely nothing to do with skill. It has everything to do with luck, especially in 2v2 and 3v3.

The assumptions you make about what I want out of arenas are asinine. I simply want to see a system that doesn't downtrend new teams so quickly (proposed fix is a lower starting point) and maybe a built-in sanity checker to not match two teams 5-6 times in a row if one team continually loses. It's not fun at all to lose so many points so quickly to an FOM team combo. I can deal with it, but it's not FUN, especially if we're going down and they're going up - why would we continue to be matched against them?

Back to the "skill" discussion, think about 2v2s where there are classes (overall, not just specs) that are -clearly- inferior. What if you happen to play one of those classes? All the skill in the world won't make up for a lack of balance. Sure, you can definitely pair up with a class that most benefits/mixes with your own, but you will still always run into other combos that you're nearly powerless against. That's just the way it is, and there's not a lot skill can do to make up for that.

Kalgan

Blizzard Poster

370. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 04:54:29 PM PST

Q u o t e:
No, my team does not have that kind of power over the 2700 team, but multiple teams like mine do have the power to effect say.. the 1600 bracket.

As for street fighter, EVERYONE has the option to choose the same character. The oppurtunity is there to chose who you want instantly. In Wow, you do not have this option, instead, you have the option to roll a FOTM and hope that it doesnt get nerfed by the time you hit 80. It's not comprable.

We have had this thing called the tournament realm, where all competitors had access to exactly the same template characters and character class choices. By no surprise, the same players that tend to top the ladders on their respective battlegroups were at the top of the pile in the tournament realm. Skill > comp/gear, it's that simple. A team's skill in the arena is capable of causing a shift of well over a thousand rating points, gear and class choice don't cause anywhere near that kind of shift. Even anecdotally, at Blizzcon 2008 everyone watched as the world champion team chose a comp of warrior/warrior/mage (iirc)... a rock-bottom "worthless" comp by anyone' estimation (not to mention one they aren't even used to playing) and dominated a team of above-average players using a reasonable comp.

So again, while both gear and comp absolutely affect a team's rating, the point is that the effect of skill on one's rating is far more significant than the effect of gear/comp. This of course doesn't change the fact that arenas should be fun for most players, that there should be compelling rewards for the vast majority of players to progress toward, it's merely to state that if a player were looking to improve their rating, the best thing they can possibly do is improve how well they're playing as a team, and let gear/comp act as a meaningful bonus on top of that.

Winkithia

< Molten Flan Babies >

Silvermoon

371. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 05:01:55 PM PST

Q u o t e:
Skill > comp/gear, it's that simple.

The battered spriest in me disagrees with this :(

Mordecus

< The Steel Brotherhoo… >

Twisting Nether

372. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 05:07:07 PM PST

Q u o t e:
PvP is already horribly imbalanced, much worse than BC was. This new system rewards the OP teams almost immediately because at 1500 they start against mostly non-OP teams. And once they shoot up a little bit, the system pushes them up higher and faster until they start losing half their battles. And once they are there, against all the other OP teams, they will remain there, as that is what the system is seemingly designed to do.

It's a huge mistake at the very least because of how discouraging it is to players who are not playing OP classes. And Blizzard, please do NOT pretend that you do not know what the player base means by OP classes. You know which ones they are, and you know why.

This. The system MIGHT be fair if all group comps were equally viable and if all classes were balanced. This isn't the case. My team runs DK/Warrior/Priest. We'll never be as good as DK/Warrior/Paladin, but we run that comp because we like playing with friends as opposed to complete strangers. So the current arena system penalizes players that play less-than-totally-OP classes and it penalizes people that want to actually play with their friends and have some fun, rather than be the top of the 1337.

Blizzard, thank you for continuing to show that you care more about fostering the elitist aspects of MMORPGS than fostering the social aspects.

Vaneras: Every time you post a nerf warlocks thread, we buff warlocks more! (http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=88829610&pageNo=2&sid=1#38)

Nerodius

< Wanderers >

Whisperwind

373. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 06:07:44 PM PST

I have sort of an odd question. The old system was actually extremely poor at ensuring "average" players were at 1500. The new system seems to be a LOT better at this. Not to hurt anyone's feelings, but if you plummet to ~1200 in the new system, you are genuinely worse than 50% of players playing arena, at least from what I've seen.

Now, with everyone starting at 1500, determining this seems rather easy. But with people starting at 1200 (or where ever the new starting point is in S6 so that sub-50% teams still have something to work for), how do you prevent 1200 from becoming the new average? Does the system have an overall view of the entire battlegroup that it uses to determine "average", and then adjust everyone's MMR based on their win/loss to maintain that average? Is that why we see a massive top-rating inflation (like 2700) in 2v2 under the new system, while 5v5's top teams still meddle around 2200? Is this kind of system-wide overview necessary, or can you "seed" the system by making everyone's MMR start at 1500, despite their team rating starting at whatever lower value, and it will "automatically" make 1500 "average"?

Basically, how is 1500 as the baseline (50 percentile) determined? Are you confident you can maintain 1500 as the midpoint indefinitely? Is this question too complex for the WoW General forums? :P

Slickbãck

< Aces Of Azeroth >

Baelgun

374. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 06:12:12 PM PST

Q u o t e:
Skill > comp/gear, it's that simple.

Yea. I have to disagree with that too. Not that skill is important, because it is. (You're not gonna hit 2k as a keyboard turner xD)

Fact is: equal skill and gear, some classes just have an overwhelming advantage over others.

Say a rogue / holy pally goes up against a warlock / Priest

or DK / holy pally vs shaman / warrior.

Even if it were possible to out-play them, fact is the later combos will have to work *much* harder to achieve that win.

I have high hopes that 3.1 fixes a lot of these issues, but as it stands right now they *are* issues in arena. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

[ Post edited by Slickbãck ]

Holy Pallys make me QQ in my cornflakes

Stuffnthings

< PvP Is Not Dead >

Kel'Thuzad

375. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 06:35:48 PM PST

Q u o t e:

We have had this thing called the tournament realm, where all competitors had access to exactly the same template characters and character class choices. By no surprise, the same players that tend to top the ladders on their respective battlegroups were at the top of the pile in the tournament realm. Skill > comp/gear, it's that simple. A team's skill in the arena is capable of causing a shift of well over a thousand rating points, gear and class choice don't cause anywhere near that kind of shift. Even anecdotally, at Blizzcon 2008 everyone watched as the world champion team chose a comp of warrior/warrior/mage (iirc)... a rock-bottom "worthless" comp by anyone' estimation (not to mention one they aren't even used to playing) and dominated a team of above-average players using a reasonable comp.

So again, while both gear and comp absolutely affect a team's rating, the point is that the effect of skill on one's rating is far more significant than the effect of gear/comp. This of course doesn't change the fact that arenas should be fun for most players, that there should be compelling rewards for the vast majority of players to progress toward, it's merely to state that if a player were looking to improve their rating, the best thing they can possibly do is improve how well they're playing as a team, and let gear/comp act as a meaningful bonus on top of that.

release the nerf notes before you say something like that, atm comp>skill in some occasions.

Haoshi

Mug'thol

376. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 07:07:43 PM PST

Q u o t e:

There will be changes made before 3.1.

PLZ come back to WoW. PLZ!!!!!1

Selaah

< Calamity >

Gul'dan

377. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 07:08:58 PM PST

Q u o t e:

release the nerf notes before you say something like that, atm comp>skill in some occasions.

I agree 100%.

There is no way that at LEAST, this one statement can be denied.

Foogacity

< Demise >

Burning Blade

378. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 07:31:11 PM PST

Q u o t e:

We have had this thing called the tournament realm, where all competitors had access to exactly the same template characters and character class choices. By no surprise, the same players that tend to top the ladders on their respective battlegroups were at the top of the pile in the tournament realm. Skill > comp/gear, it's that simple. A team's skill in the arena is capable of causing a shift of well over a thousand rating points, gear and class choice don't cause anywhere near that kind of shift. Even anecdotally, at Blizzcon 2008 everyone watched as the world champion team chose a comp of warrior/warrior/mage (iirc)... a rock-bottom "worthless" comp by anyone' estimation (not to mention one they aren't even used to playing) and dominated a team of above-average players using a reasonable comp.

So again, while both gear and comp absolutely affect a team's rating, the point is that the effect of skill on one's rating is far more significant than the effect of gear/comp. This of course doesn't change the fact that arenas should be fun for most players, that there should be compelling rewards for the vast majority of players to progress toward, it's merely to state that if a player were looking to improve their rating, the best thing they can possibly do is improve how well they're playing as a team, and let gear/comp act as a meaningful bonus on top of that.

With all due respect, that wasnt Season 6.

Oprahwinfury

< Descent >

Eonar

379. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/07/2009 07:34:38 PM PST

So by your definition, the mages who kill me in an imp CS are extremely skilled, right?

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