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

Qingjao

< Defiance >

Kul Tiras

40. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 02:36:53 PM PST

Q u o t e:
There will be changes made before 3.1.

Any changes to resil? Should we clothies keep trying to stack it while other classes skate by without?

Destrega

Bloodhoof

41. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 02:40:12 PM PST

We do believe that we can improve the experience for teams that start at 1500 and go down from there. However, the changes we prefer merit waiting for the next arena season.

I must be missing something, how can making the majority of the people that play arena feel like losers that also can't progress in gear to advance as skill improves, improve ones experience.

Not to mention those people who may enjoy the aspect/thought of arena, only to find out their class isn't one of those OP classes of the Season.

Mcstoner

Azgalor

42. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 02:51:54 PM PST

I don't like this system. If you start later in the season, you need to be better than everyone else in your same rating "range" just to compensate for the gear difference. If you can't, than you won't get the gear even if your team is just as skilled. Some may see this as a type of leveling system, but most just think why bother.

The way I see it, if you weren't doing arenas right after an expansion comes out (and new levels = gear reset), then you're doomed to play catchup until the next expansion.

Eurytos

< Untold Prophecy >

Zul'jin

43. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 02:54:48 PM PST

Q u o t e:

-- But it can go higher and lower. Great luck = 16, Terrible luck = 150

This is what is so terrible about this system.

[ Post edited by Eurytos ]

Chastore

Korgath

44. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 03:05:34 PM PST

thank god i no longer play arenas or this insane crap would be really enraging

This FAQ doesn't answer a few real obvious issues:

- Why does a player's previous 1250 rating that he got with terrible teammates, different team comp, worse gear, and perhaps different spec now affect in any way his current BRAND NEW 1500 team with all new team-mates.

- Why did you add the torture of getting 2-5 pts per win and 25 pts per loss on a brand new 1500 team that's facing other 1500-type teams. Screw the 50-50 crap, you can play 40 games, win 30, and EASILY still be at around 1500. how many games and hours do you think most people can arrange per week??? without going nuts.

The fact that you bothered with the CRAP, when most people weren't complaining about the old system (while this new one is pretty much universally panned), and the cheating/selling was already eliminated... in a season where you have 35% paladins and 1% warlocks in ALL brackets, as just one example out of dozens of total imbalance... really shows no understanding of what your customers want or what makes a FUN and COMPETITIVE ladder system.

Shadoweric

< Eyes of Justice >

Terenas

45. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 03:15:09 PM PST

K, been doing arena this afternoon.

First off, this happened:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2qc1ov5.jpg

But beyond that, won 6 games, lost 5 so far (we're still going). Wins: 1 point, 2 points, 0 points, 6 points, 3 points, 4 points. Losses? All above 20 points lost.

So team rating is now below 1300.

We've never been that low. Ever. Not in BC, not in LK. i mean we're just doing this for fun, not top of the ladder stuff, but I had at least enough rating to get the legs in S4...

So I mean, I understand the concept. We apparently have a hidden rating that's horrible (how ?), so we keep losing tons of points, winning few. But umm... how low is this gonna get ? I thought we'd bottom out in the 1300s and go back up, but it's still going down ?

As I said, we do this for fun. And I suspect many people do. This is very discouraging. You're not making it fun for your target audience, which, let's be honest, is not hardcore players. So how am I supposed to enjoy this ? Let's not even mention the fact that I'll never see gear, although it was better in BC. I know I'll never get the top gear and therefore I'm doing it more for fun, but the easiest gear was at least a target before. Now it's not.

Is 1300 the middle point now ? Can we please get some sort of estimate of where most casual teams stand these days ? I don't wanna know how your system works, but give us some hope please. I keep seeing my rating dropping below 1300. I know we're not elite arena players, but we're not THAT terrible.

You know, I kinda just wanna keep losing games until it becomes less than 20 points a loss, then maybe I'll have a feeling of accomplishing something when I win a game

To me it seems you didn't know where the hidden ratings would land once you threw the new calculations at players. Turns out it's throwing most casual players around 1200-1300 from what I'm reading. Yet, your gear allocation and minimum ratings were all based around 1500 being the most common rating.

So we have gear requirements that do not match what the wow population is now at with the new calculations. I suspect the comments about gear in this thread confirm my theory. So we're looking at much lower gear requirements next season. Or you could shift up all the ratings by 200 points. And/or change the starting rating of 1500 since it's apparently 1300 now.

I just can't understand why you didn't check averages, standard deviations and other stats on your hidden ratings before pushing them live. Coming up with hidden ratings consistently lower than current team ratings should have raised a flag surely, don't you think ?

Signed: a rather discouraged player.

Selaah

< Calamity >

Gul'dan

46. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 03:21:32 PM PST

Most everything that I have to say, has been said. This new system ... sucks. My arena rating today went down from 1638 to right at 1500. We broke even on wins and losses.....So tell me, why did I waste an entire afternoon trying to get a handful more points to purchase my bracers when the games that were won meant nothing. I would have been better off, logging on...entering an arena...and just standing there for several games. It would have ended in the same amount of frustration....the same loss of points...but not my time wasted.

**Why are we around 3 months into an expansion and people are honor capped with nothing to buy???
**Why are we around 3 months into an expansion and people are working on alts already???

Selaah

< Calamity >

Gul'dan

47. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 03:24:34 PM PST

Q u o t e:
thank god i no longer play arenas or this insane crap would be really enraging

This FAQ doesn't answer a few real obvious issues:

- Why does a player's previous 1250 rating that he got with terrible teammates, different team comp, worse gear, and perhaps different spec now affect in any way his current BRAND NEW 1500 team with all new team-mates.

- Why did you add the torture of getting 2-5 pts per win and 25 pts per loss on a brand new 1500 team that's facing other 1500-type teams. Screw the 50-50 crap, you can play 40 games, win 30, and EASILY still be at around 1500. how many games and hours do you think most people can arrange per week??? without going nuts.

The fact that you bothered with the CRAP, when most people weren't complaining about the old system (while this new one is pretty much universally panned), and the cheating/selling was already eliminated... in a season where you have 35% paladins and 1% warlocks in ALL brackets, as just one example out of dozens of total imbalance... really shows no understanding of what your customers want or what makes a FUN and COMPETITIVE ladder system.

100% agree.

Blizzard...try to explain it all you want, but stop a sec...look around...and listen to your customers. We are paying YOU money each month to even play this game. WE are unhappy. I CHALLENGE you to put out a poll and see what the end results are....

Deathbayne

< Drunken Mystics >

Cenarion Circle

48. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 04:15:10 PM PST

Q u o t e:
There are way too many complaints about the gear rating requirements. New system, old system, whatever. It's a simple progression just like with pve and it takes some work. It's completely optional, so if you don't like it don't do it, but stop requesting the entire system to change just because you don't want to put the effort in.

If you are having trouble getting rating for hateful mainset and deadly offset

* Have you done everything you can with bgs? 5 piece savage full hateful offset and a decent weapon from a heroic, upgraded trinket, a crafted ring perhaps and neck perhaps.
* Do you have the best chants and gems?
* If you are struggling in 2s, have you tried 3s or 5s?
* Are you playing a comp that makes sense? I won't vouch for all specs (in particular the prot pally earlier in the thread!), but I'm pretty confident every class has at least one spec which is arena viable in some bracket. Some have more options, but mastering the ones you have is more productive than crying in a forum.
* Have you read up or given some thought to the strats for that comp versus others?
* Are you running arch10/25 every week? (I completely disagree with the idea of it dropping free hateful/deadly and seriously hope this is not a practice blizzard extends to future seasons...but, it's there now and not going away so play the game)
* Do you have professions leveled to a point where you can achieve some bonus ability from them? Special JC gems, herb hot, rocket boots, mining stam, skinning crit, lw fur, etc etc etc.

These are all things that are within the control of every single player. They take time and effort, but so does running the same raids every week so that you can get enough gear to be let in the door of the next one. Think of arena the same way as raid progression. Set goals for each week and look at what you are doing to push that little bit further.

I think the new system is actually really awesome in that sense. If you just want to casually do arena, it sounds like the system will drop you down to a nice comfy 1300 or whatever it takes to get you pairing 50/50 win loss.

And lastly, for the random comment on resil, there is nothing to fix there. It works, it does what it says it does. Kinda hard to tell what your situation is though since you are afraid to post on your main. Folks who run in pve gear are dangerous but fragile. As a response, you can either choose to be dangerous and fragile as well, or stack resil/stam a bunch, but in addition to that you probably need to run with a comp and a strat that can deal with it.

You are only right about one thing...it's optional. TOTALLY off-base about it being simple. When you win a match against an even rated oponent and get 2 points, ok...keep winning. Then you lose one against that same oponent and you lose 20 points...NOT FAIR. The system is dropping everyone in order to create a larger baseline. You would have to play well over 50 games a week at this rate to bring your rating up above 1600 if you were to average winning 60% or higher...(if even that).

Another point, alot of us that PvP DONT or CANT raid to get the raid drops...thats why we DONT RAID! We PvP. It doesnt make any sense to be honor capped or to have 2000 arena points and not be able to spend them on things.

The system is VERY QUICKLY loading the bottom end of the arena ladder and there is no change in gear to support it. Until the system is changed and re-calculates the hidden ratings of people, it is nearly impossible to gain rating changes enough to get into the 1650 rating gear.

[ Post edited by Deathbayne ]

"He who has not carried your weight, does not know it's burden."

Kalgan

Blizzard Poster

49. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:15:10 PM PST

Q u o t e:
K, been doing arena this afternoon.

First off, this happened:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2qc1ov5.jpg

But beyond that, won 6 games, lost 5 so far (we're still going). Wins: 1 point, 2 points, 0 points, 6 points, 3 points, 4 points. Losses? All above 20 points lost.

So team rating is now below 1300.

We've never been that low. Ever. Not in BC, not in LK. i mean we're just doing this for fun, not top of the ladder stuff, but I had at least enough rating to get the legs in S4...

So I mean, I understand the concept. We apparently have a hidden rating that's horrible (how ?), so we keep losing tons of points, winning few. But umm... how low is this gonna get ? I thought we'd bottom out in the 1300s and go back up, but it's still going down ?

As I said, we do this for fun. And I suspect many people do. This is very discouraging. You're not making it fun for your target audience, which, let's be honest, is not hardcore players. So how am I supposed to enjoy this ? Let's not even mention the fact that I'll never see gear, although it was better in BC. I know I'll never get the top gear and therefore I'm doing it more for fun, but the easiest gear was at least a target before. Now it's not.

Is 1300 the middle point now ? Can we please get some sort of estimate of where most casual teams stand these days ? I don't wanna know how your system works, but give us some hope please. I keep seeing my rating dropping below 1300. I know we're not elite arena players, but we're not THAT terrible.

You know, I kinda just wanna keep losing games until it becomes less than 20 points a loss, then maybe I'll have a feeling of accomplishing something when I win a game

To me it seems you didn't know where the hidden ratings would land once you threw the new calculations at players. Turns out it's throwing most casual players around 1200-1300 from what I'm reading. Yet, your gear allocation and minimum ratings were all based around 1500 being the most common rating.

So we have gear requirements that do not match what the wow population is now at with the new calculations. I suspect the comments about gear in this thread confirm my theory. So we're looking at much lower gear requirements next season. Or you could shift up all the ratings by 200 points. And/or change the starting rating of 1500 since it's apparently 1300 now.

I just can't understand why you didn't check averages, standard deviations and other stats on your hidden ratings before pushing them live. Coming up with hidden ratings consistently lower than current team ratings should have raised a flag surely, don't you think ?

Signed: a rather discouraged player.

Shadoweric, to try to clarify what was happening under the hood here's a report of the games your team played. My following post comments as to what was going on with the system (it's too long to all post in this one). For reference, TR is your team's rating, MMR is your team's matchmaking rating (the "hidden rating"), OMMR is the opposing team's matchmaking "hidden" rating, TRC is your team rating change, MMRC is your team's average matchmaking rating change.

CREATED_TIME	TR	MMR	RESULT	OMMR	TRC	MMRC

1/24/2009 2:50	1434	1350	Lost	1378	-15	-72

1/24/2009 2:57	1419	1278	Lost	1240	-19	-83

1/24/2009 3:04	1400	1195	Lost	1093	-22	-83

1/24/2009 3:16	1378	1112	Lost	1313	-16	-34

2/5/2009 22:08	1362	1078	Lost	1154	-23	-49

2/5/2009 22:12	1339	1028	Lost	928	-28	-77

2/5/2009 22:18	1311	950	Won	842	1	40

2/5/2009 22:23	1312	991	Won	923	2	41

2/5/2009 22:28	1314	1032	Won	689	0	13

2/5/2009 22:32	1314	1046	Won	1109	6	60

2/5/2009 22:38	1320	1106	Lost	1166	-21	-38

2/5/2009 22:42	1299	1067	Lost	957	-27	-62

2/5/2009 22:48	1272	1004	Lost	1133	-21	-29

2/5/2009 22:52	1251	975	Won	932	3	38

2/5/2009 22:57	1254	1013	Won	1004	4	36

2/5/2009 23:32	1268	1167	Lost	1061	-21	-53

2/5/2009 23:39	1247	1114	Lost	1000	-24	-59

2/5/2009 23:45	1223	1055	Lost	1132	-17	-29

2/5/2009 23:48	1206	1025	Lost	1035	-22	-39

2/5/2009 23:55	1184	985	Won	1090	8	45

2/5/2009 23:58	1192	1031	Lost	1015	-20	-34

2/6/2009 0:04	1172	997	Won	1042	8	40

[ Post edited by Kalgan ]

Kalgan

Blizzard Poster

50. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:15:20 PM PST

Comments on the results...

- Your team started with the system believing that your skill as a team was around 1350, but with a low degree of confidence in that number because the system was new. Your team lost versus a team we believed to be of around 1378 skill, so the system starts trying to aggressively lower the quality of your opponents to see if you do better (the lack of confidence the system had in your rating is why it is changing your MMR quickly at ths point).

- Your team continued to lose versus teams we believed to be around 1240 rating, 1093 rating, 1313 rating, 1154 rating, and even 928 rating. That's six losses in a row to teams far below your team's currently displayed rating, your currently displayed rating of 1311 is pretty high considering the teams you're losing to and the game believes you are probably not 1311 skill.

- You win your first game, versus a team the game believes to be about 842 rating (as seen in their MMR above). Your team only gains 1 team rating, because after all your team's visible rating is already 1311, and this win was merely versus a 842 skill team. Your matchmaking rating goes up by 40 points though, as the game thinking there's definitely a chance you're better than 900 rating.

- You win 3 more in a row, versus teams the game believes to be of about 923, 689, and 1109 rating. Your matchmaking rating is going up meaningfully, but since these teams are rated so far below your team's rating, you aren't gaining much for it.

- You lose 3 in a row after this against teams of 1166, 957, and 1133 quality. These teams are significantly below your team rating, and the system is gaining confidence that your current skill is not 1300+, so it's moving you toward around a 1005 rating (this is why you're losing a lot of team rating for your losses)... the system is pretty confident based on who you're beating versus who you're losing to that you're overrated at your 1200+ rating.

- Your team wins a few versus teams of 932 and 1004 rating, teams we expect you to beat close to 50% of the time now, so the game is matching you against opponents that are probably close to your skill, but unfortunately your team rating is way higher than that already, so you aren't gaining much TR for the wins (no surprise).

- Your team loses 4 more games versus teams of around 1000 rating, indicating that maybe 1000 rating is even possibly too high, your team rating keeps moving below 1200 on it's way to around 900 pretty quickly (losing between 17 to 24 team rating per game).

- You win, lose, win versus teams of about 1050 average matchmaking rating. You're going about 50/50 versus teams that the game thinks is about your rating (1000 or so), so your team rating continues to move toward that.

As explained in the FAQ's, your team rating is moving toward a rating where you beat opponents about 50% of the time. To remain at the 1434 rating your team started at, you would have had to have been winning 50% of your games versus teams that were significantly more successful.

As some of you might see, the matchmaking rating actually adapts very quickly. By no means are you pigeonholed at a rating, it adapts more quickly in many respects than a traditional Elo system. However, you do have to be able to beat teams of a given rating about 50% of the time in order to get your team rating to a given level.

BTW, hopefully in the process of copy/pasting data and trying to get the formatting right I didn't mess up any of the data.

[ Post edited by Kalgan ]

Meowth

< GoThIc LoLiTa PrOpAg… >

Bleeding Hollow

51. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:24:45 PM PST

Care to explain how this happened in my sig? I purposefully lost those 10 games. Those were the first 10 games my Mage has ever seen, and the Priest played 3 the previous week.

You thought arena ratings were broken before? Try this on for size.

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/7278/02012009204453nl0.jpg
(ï½¡â—•â€¿â€¿â—•ï½¡)

Bodo

Skywall

52. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:29:38 PM PST

wonderful post, but how is this fun for anyone?

except for numbers people, this system is obscure by design and rather byzantine.

as a non arena player I just feel that the resources spent on this mini game are out of proportion to any entertainment it provides.

that of course is not my decision to make.

my decision is whether to play or not in arena, and that was decided long ago.

baring massive changes to the fun factor, I don't see any reason to reevaluate.

[ Post edited by Bodo ]

Rockefeller

< Jaded Souls >

Steamwheedle Cartel

53. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:40:35 PM PST

Q u o t e:
wonderful post, but how is this fun for anyone?

except for numbers people, this system is obscure by design and rather byzantine.

as a non arena player I just feel that the resources spent on this mini game are out of proportion to any entertainment it provides.

that of course is not my decision to make.

my decision is whether to play or not in arena, and that was decided long ago.

baring massive changes to the fun factor, I don't see any reason to reevaluate.

I would argue that the old system was far less fun. Yes, they need to re-evaluate the reward structure - but Kalgan has already acknowledged this.

Also the system IS obscure by design, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The rating system will work itself out fairly quickly and like most averages will smooth out with more data. Also, anything that'll help prevent some of the ridiculous S4 teams carrying folks up is aces by me.

When I play Arena I want to play teams that are challenging to me, not teams that are impossible to me. I don't want to have to go through 20-50 games a week to get there because I'm busy losing to team rerolls or 4 kids in S4 with one warrior wearing of the whale gear. This new system provides that, and for that I'm cautiously appreciative of it.

Bucwild

< RHOT >

Detheroc

54. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:42:04 PM PST

wow, thanks for all the great details Kalgan.

"Not summer’s bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness and hardness..."
-Max Weber

Dazzel

< Skylawl Progression >

Skywall

55. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:42:16 PM PST

What I'm getting from this is the system has a serious problem matching people way below their team rating.

Just consider the 4 wins he had where he only gained 1 to 6 points. Why was this match made in the first place. If thats all he's gaining its pointless to even have played those games. So the system can adapt, very very slowly.

It seems it would take 50 games just for it to figure out matches that were within 200 points of his actually rating/skill.

50 games is a lot, atm it looks like whatever new system this is.. has turned out to be a huge timesink.

Edit. Sorry if that sounded like QQ, its just very discourging.

[ Post edited by Dazzel ]

Holmes

< LORE >

Dragonblight

56. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:44:32 PM PST

Why am I 1300 when my record is 50/50? 70/30?
Let’s turn the question around first. Why is my record 50/50? If your record is 50/50, that means your match-making rating (MMR) is almost exactly correct for you. It means we are finding teams that as near as possible match the ability of your team. It means that you are being matched as fairly as possible. If we matched 1300 teams at 1500 instead, they would only win 30% of their matches. We would rather those teams win half their matches.

But I’m 70/30, what about that?
If you are 70/30 and we think you are 1300, your MMR will climb to roughly 1533. You will then be matched with 1500+ teams, and your record should decrease to 50/50. (<-- which will decrease your rating back to 1300)

Mistletoe

< The Goon Squad >

Kel'Thuzad

57. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:47:13 PM PST

Q u o t e:
Why am I 1300 when my record is 50/50? 70/30?
Let’s turn the question around first. Why is my record 50/50? If your record is 50/50, that means your match-making rating (MMR) is almost exactly correct for you. It means we are finding teams that as near as possible match the ability of your team. It means that you are being matched as fairly as possible. If we matched 1300 teams at 1500 instead, they would only win 30% of their matches. We would rather those teams win half their matches.

But I’m 70/30, what about that?
If you are 70/30 and we think you are 1300, your MMR will climb to roughly 1533. You will then be matched with 1500+ teams, and your record should decrease to 50/50. (<-- which will decrease your rating back to 1300)

No, your record will be 50/50 against 1550'ish teams.

Kalgan

Blizzard Poster

58. Re: Arena Matchmaking System FAQ 02/05/2009 07:48:57 PM PST

Q u o t e:
wonderful post, but how is this fun for anyone?

except for numbers people, this system is obscure by design and rather byzantine.

as a non arena player I just feel that the resources spent on this mini game are out of proportion to any entertainment it provides.

that of course is not my decision to make.

my decision is whether to play or not in arena, and that was decided long ago.

baring massive changes to the fun factor, I don't see any reason to reevaluate.

Part of the point of the responses I've been making are to try to illustrate a belief I have that many people are associating their lack of fun with the new math behind the rating system. I totally believe that Shadoweric (and players in similar situations) are not having fun, but not because of the math behind the new system that finds equivalent opponents for their team, but for two other reasons.

1. Teams that are below 1500 in terms of their effectiveness in arenas feel crappy because the rating they start a team with is as high a rating they'll see in a long time (until they improve, or possibly ever). Bunk.

2. Gear that most players consider to be worth their time (including the players below 1500 rating) have requirements that are too harsh relative to how hard it is to get "good" gear through other parts of the game (including by buying hateful gladiator gear for emblems).

Those two problems are solve-able, and we plan to solve them, but the problems/solutions really have nothing to do with the new fancy math itself.

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