Hey everyone,
I'm a avid PvPer over on the Agamaggan realm and looking really forward to starting my Arena career, as I'm sure all of you are too. I see a lot of people making threads and asking questions everywhere, so I thought I'd make this thread to focus the questions/concerns, or at least answer questions before people ask them. I've done a LOT of research on the old PvP system, and naturally I've done the same with this new Arena system. While I do not know ALL the answers, I think I've got a pretty good hold on things to make this thread to answer everyone's questions.

If you have any questions that weren't answered, please post them here, and I'll do my best to answer them. Right now I'm having a friend post this for me while I'm at work (I can use a proxy to view the forum, but it won't let me login, haha). I'll log on when I get home and do my best to answer any posts. So here goes.

NOTICE:
This is NOT a guide on how to create/form Arena teams, this is a guide to how the Arena System WORKDS.

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The Arena system is both similar and different than the old Honor system. It's similar in that your rank/rating determines how many points you get for that week However, it's different in that more time does NOT equal more honor.

Once your team is formed (I believe how to do this is covered in another thread), you que up and play AT LEAST 10 "rated" Arena games. These games will affect your rating. Your rating is what determines the amount of points you get at the end of the week. You can play as many games as you want, but keep in mind the more you win, the more your rating goes up, but if you lose, your rating goes down.

Basically some simple advice, if you have a low rating, you want to play as many games as possible. If you are happy with the amount of Arena Points you are earning per week, you want to play only your minimum 10 games per week to maintain that Rating, and not risk losing Rating. (thanks Smahleedrood)

I'm sure everyone has seen the formulas that Blizzard has up on it's Arena page. They might not make a lot of sense to you, so I put this little graph together so everyone gets a better idea.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/ratingvsarenapoints.jpg

Basically the rating system works a lot like (for you NCAA sports fans) the RPI or BCS systems. The higher your rating the better you team is. This is different than the honor system of old. If your rating is 1, you are NOT the #1 team, you are actually one of the worst.

You compile rating points and as you can see in the graph, the higher your rating, the more Arena Points you will earn. The concept is rather simple, you win games, you earn Rating, you lose games, you lose Rating. I cannot quote exact numbers, but let's say for example you have 2 evenly rated teams. Here's the scenario.

Team 1 (Rating = 1000)
Team 2 (Rating = 1000)

Team 1 defeats Team 2

Team 1 (Rating 1010)
Team 2 (Rating 990)

Notice there is a point swing of 10 points. This is what I would call the "base" Rating value per game, and this is what most people will be earning the first couple weeks of Arena battles because all of the teams will start out at the same Rating. Now while my Rating numbers are nothing close to exact or even a good guess, I'm just using it for an example. One thing to keep in mind is however, if you defeat a team with a high Rating, you will earn MORE Rating. Conversely you will lose more honor for losing to a lower ranked team. The bigger the difference, the bigger the swing in Rating. For example

Team 1 (Rating = 1000)
Team 2 (Rating = 100)

Team 2 defeats Team 1

Team 1 (Rating = 900)
Team 2 (Rating = 200)

Notice a point change of 100 here instead of 10. This is because the teams have a large difference in their Ratnig. Again, these numbers are just hypothetical and used to illustrate a point.

Now a lot of people have been asking if we start a 0 Rating, and have to "grind" our way up. While I do not know the answer, I tend to believe in the rumor that all teams will start with 1500 Rating. This makes sense because when you look at the equations and the graph I posted above. 1500 Rating is the exact point at which the graph changes from linear to logrithmic. This basically means teams below 1500 Rating will earn points at a slower rate than those who have above 1500 Rating.

Arena Points will be distributed at a certain point during the week. This is different from the CURRENT honor system, but it is the same as the OLD honor system. I'm assuming that the Arena Points will be given out after Tuesdays server restart, although I have no evidence to back this up, just going by the way the old PvP system worked.

*** Continued from above ***
Everyone on your team will have the same Rating. One important thing to keep in mind though is that players will only count as being "on the team" if they participate in 30% of the "Rated" arena battles. That is to say, if your team plays 100 rated games in a week, you need to have participated in 30 of the games in order to get Arena Points based on your Team's Rating.

Now for those of you who will be playing on multiple Arena Teams (5v5, 3v3, AND 2v2) you will only get Rating Points for your HIGEST RATED TEAM. For example;

Your 5v5 Team = 1673 Rating
Your 3v3 Team = 1149 Rating
Your 2v2 Team = 2344 Rating

You will be given Arena Points for whichever of your teams earns the MOST points. Supposedly you get more Arena Points for 5v5 than you do 3v3 or 2v2. That is to say, 1500 Rating for a 5v5 team is worth more than 1500 Rating for a 3v3 or 2v2 team.

Furthermore, as teams start to win and lose more according to their skill, the Arena will match you up against teams that are close to the same Rating as you. This will help ensure that teams are not going to get trounced by players in Tier 4/Tier 5 gear. Sure the first few weeks, maybe even a month (depending on how fast you can earn Rating) will have it's fair share of teams being outgeared and outmatched. But hang in there and soon there will be enough difference in Rating for some real competitive battles to happen!
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I really commend Blizzard for comiing up with this system, it really (I think) eliminates the problem of honor "botting" and the whole time = honor thing. If only they could apply this to the battleground system as well. If you have any questions, please ask them here and I'll do my best to answer them. Just trying to help out anyone who's attempting to get a handle on what's going on.

You sir are a prince.

When can I birth your children?

Seriously though thanks for putting up the examples for everyone. Best of luck to you in Arena sir.

Oh, cool, so they're basically doing the same sort of system that the USCF uses (and what WotC used for the DCI ratings when they first started that system up for M:TG).

This is definitely a great way to be going about it, and thanks for the post explaining it. :)

You said 10 game cap. on the blizzard website it says you need to play a minimum of 10 games. i would take that to mean you can play 100 if you want? they only rate 10?

Your team needs to have fought a minimum of ten matches per week to be rewarded with Arena Points, and a player must have been in at least 30% of all your matches to be eligible for that week's points.

where did you see a 10 game cap? is there a blue post about the arenas that i missed?

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Q u o t e:
You said 10 game cap. on the blizzard website it says you need to play a minimum of 10 games. i would take that to mean you can play 100 if you want? they only rate 10?

Your team needs to have fought a minimum of ten matches per week to be rewarded with Arena Points, and a player must have been in at least 30% of all your matches to be eligible for that week's points.

where did you see a 10 game cap? is there a blue post about the arenas that i missed?

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yes min is 10--- you can play as many as you want... it is important to note that if you play MORE games than the min. 10--- you actually can hurt your rank if you lose.

going 10-0 for the week will net you a better rank than going 10-1.... if that last game is the loss

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Q u o t e:
*** Continued from above ***

Now for those of you who will be playing on multiple Arena Teams (5v5, 3v3, AND 2v2) you will only get Rating Points for your HIGEST RATED TEAM. For example;

Your 5v5 Team = 1673 Rating
Your 3v3 Team = 1149 Rating
Your 2v2 Team = 2344 Rating

You will only get the Arena Points for the team that holds the HIGHEST Rating, not all 3. So in the above example, you would earn the Rating Points that correspond with 2344 Rating Points. If you want to know exactly how Arena Points that is, use the appropriate equation on the Arena webpage.

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You get to keep the scores of the team with the most points, not neccessarily the best rating. You may get more points in 5v5 with a rating of 1673 rating than 2v2 with a rating of 2344. I am not sure which would give more points because I can't find the post that had the cool calculator.

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Q u o t e:
You said 10 game cap. on the blizzard website it says you need to play a minimum of 10 games. i would take that to mean you can play 100 if you want? they only rate 10?

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no, it means that there is some sort of averaging going on. That in the end it does not matter if you won 5 games and lost 5 games in the week, or won 50 lost 50. All that matters is that you played at least ten games, and how well you did with certain rated teams...

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Q u o t e:


no, it means that there is some sort of averaging going on. That in the end it does not matter if you won 5 games and lost 5 games in the week, or won 50 lost 50. All that matters is that you played at least ten games, and how well you did with certain rated teams...

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No, it is not win/loss ratio.

EVERY GAME your rating may go up or down depending i fyou win or lose.

If someone wins 50 games in a row in the first week, his rating will be astronomically high and much higher than someone who won 10 games in the first week.

That team would also LOSE a large rating score should they ever lose to a lower-ranked team.

In ELO, Low ranked teams want to play large amounts of games to rank up. High ranked teams want to play few amount of games in order to keep thier rank.

So the 10 games minimum is to force players at high ends of the system to continue to play matches.

where do you sign up to create a team?

I know its nub.....but I cant find a promoter

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Q u o t e:


You get to keep the scores of the team with the most points, not neccessarily the best rating. You may get more points in 5v5 with a rating of 1673 rating than 2v2 with a rating of 2344. I am not sure which would give more points because I can't find the post that had the cool calculator.

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I was going to post this, but this mage is correct. You keep points from the team that gets the highest arena points for the week. It is NOT done by rating.

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Q u o t e:
Wouldn't it be bad for a team to excel too much right off the start?

Say team A gets a huge rating off the first week; like 3500. They get a ton of AP. Now on week #2, they end with 3000 rating, would that mean they don't gain any AP?

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Nope. The first week they would get ~2800 AP, the second week they would get ~2500, if the posted graphic is correct. They'd get less AP, but AP is additive.

do you know if the higher you are ranked do they try to pair you up against higher ranked teams?

or is it completely random

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Q u o t e:
Wouldn't it be bad for a team to excel too much right off the start?

Say team A gets a huge rating off the first week; like 3500. They get a ton of AP. Now on week #2, they end with 3000 rating, would that mean they don't gain any AP?

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No, if they held the same they, would get the same number of AP's for their 3500 rating. if they dropped to 3k rating, they gain fewer AP's in week 2.

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Q u o t e:
do you know if the higher you are ranked do they try to pair you up against higher ranked teams?

or is it completely random

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You are paired with teams closer to your rank.

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Q u o t e:

I was going to post this, but this mage is correct. You keep points from the team that gets the highest arena points for the week. It is NOT done by rating.

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Ok, lets see if i understand this. If you are on 3 teams you get the Arena points from the best performing of the teams?

Arena points = currency / Is there a rating requirement to spend the points on rewards?

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Q u o t e:
Wouldn't it be bad for a team to excel too much right off the start?

Say team A gets a huge rating off the first week; like 3500. They get a ton of AP. Now on week #2, they end with 3000 rating, would that mean they don't gain any AP?

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you'll never get to 3500 rating in the first week. your rating will increase gradually over time as you win. it will also only increase decently by beating other highly rated teams if you're highly rated yourself.

basically, it will take teams a few weeks to break 2k rating and the rate at which they increase their rating will level off even if they keep winning. in the course of a season, i doubt we'll see any teams break 3000 or so rating (if the rating gains are similar to other Elo systems) Even Garry kasparov never broke 3000 rating in chess and the Elo system was invented for chess.

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Q u o t e:


No, it is not win/loss ratio.

EVERY GAME your rating may go up or down depending i fyou win or lose.

If someone wins 50 games in a row in the first week, his rating will be astronomically high and much higher than someone who won 10 games in the first week. I'm going to edit this into the original space.

That team would also LOSE a large rating score should they ever lose to a lower-ranked team.

In ELO, Low ranked teams want to play large amounts of games to rank up. High ranked teams want to play few amount of games in order to keep thier rank.

So the 10 games minimum is to force players at high ends of the system to continue to play matches.

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PING!!

This sounds correct. I went back and and reread the Arena page, I was wrong.

Apparently you can "grind out" as many arena games as you want. Like the above poster said though, you're going to want to grind out until you get to a Rating value where you like the amount of Arena Points you are getting per week.

So teams that have high rating are going to want to only play their minimum 10 games, while teams with low rating will want to play as much as possible.

rating = arena points?
if not, how many arena points do you get each game,week,month?