Ben Brode Unhappy with Ranked Ladder System
There is a bug (or as Bob Ross would say, a happy accident) right now where you'll get a win streak after 2 wins instead of 3. After a lot of discussion about it Ben Brode came to reddit to announce that it's indeed a bug and explained some of Team 5's thoughts about the current ranked ladder system.
Quote from Ben BrodeSeeing some comments here about how people are enjoying easier laddering due to this bug, and hoping we leave it unfixed. I thought I might chime in and talk about the ladder a bit, and hopefully get some feedback!We have been discussing the ladder system a lot recently - we're not 100% happy with it.
Here are some things we are currently discussing:
Rank 18 players are higher ranked than 50% of HS players. That number doesn't make you feel like you are in the top 50%, and that's a missed opportunity. We try and counter this by telling you all over the place what the mapping is to the rest of the population, but it'd be better if expectations and reality matched here.
We've received feedback that the last-minute jostling for high Legend ranks at the end of a season doesn't feel all that great.
We've received feedback that the ladder can feel like a grind.
We are reanalyzing the number of ranks, the number of stars per rank, the number of bonus stars given out at the start of the season, and other parts of the system.
We are developing simulation systems that let us predict what changes to the ladder would do to the population curve. If we inflate too many stars, the whole population ends up in the Legend bucket and while that might feel great for a single month, the entire system falls apart eventually. People who played waaaay back may remember when "3-star master" was the pinnacle of achievement, and it meant nothing because so many people ended up in that bucket. With better simulation tools, we are planning on trying a lot of crazy things. Iteration is important in design, and getting the tools to iterate quickly is very important.
Something I want to emphasize is that while I think we can improve the ladder, the metric for that improvement isn't necessarily any one player's individual rank increasing. Players want the better rewards (and prestige) associated with high ranks, or the Legend card back, so any change we make that increases the chances of those are likely to be perceived as "good", at least for the short term. But part of what makes the ranked ladder compelling is that exists to rank players. If you want to see how you stack up, ranked is the place to do it. So while some inflation might improve the experience, we need to be careful and make sure we end up with a system that makes people feel rewarded for increases in personal skill or for finding a new deck that breaks the meta.
Have you considered not making the fall in rank so severe in the start of the new season? When I was a new player at rank 21 it didn't feel good to lose against a wicked good deck all the time with my inferior cards.
Yes, that's what I meant by this: We are reanalyzing [...] the number of bonus stars given out at the start of the season.
We think it's a reasonable direction to explore in, but in general it's hard to predict the results on the population distribution among the ranks. Hoping to do some simulation there and make sure there aren't other, better options, too.
Is this really that bad considering legend has its own internal ranking system?
Yes, I think so. Imagine just one bucket and we sort by MMR. There aren't breakpoints with rewards as you increase in skill. There isn't an obvious way to communicate with others about how good you are. It's also difficult to know if you are bad or good. (Is Legend 135003 good? What about Legend 27809?)
The way we communicate our skill or progress is important. Ever heard a friend say "dude! I got to rank 5 this month!"? What is that achievement in a world where everyone is in the same bucket? Watching discreet rank buckets go by (and feeling that progression) and feeling the thrill of reaching a new rank that you've never hit before... those are pretty important, I think.
That's so weird Ben, everyone else is unhappy with it too. Thing is, we don't have the power to fix it and you do, yet you haven't done anything. For years.
And We are unhappy with You. Go away Brode! HS became so much for You. You need take your Blizzard bonus and share stocks and let new blood give a HS a better managment.
If you leave the ladder climbing system...... Change it to this....
Decks with no 1 drops get 2 stars for every win and 3 for a win streak.
Play my idea simply.
Bronze, silver, gold
cant lose stars. 25 ranks each level.1,2 and 3 stars respectively. Player is asked when reaching rank 1 and full stars if they would like to move to the next level. If they fail to reach rank 1 of the next level they would de-level at end of season. Gold level rank 5 to 1 to legend. 5,6,7,8,9 stars. Then legend. Legend players only play legend players. Legend players can de-rank back to level 5 of gold. No stars can be lost on the ladder until end of season or your-rank in legend. Basically if your mmr in legend reaches that of a gold player then you de-rank. Have your mmr visible the entire time so players can gauge their skill. Losses count against mmr but not stars. Basically you would get to a point where your skill would cap you out. Maybe lose stars but not rank or whatever
I like it as well. Does it need to be refined? Yes.
I was also playing around with an idea of having the same system we have now. But after a certain number of games played in a day you could ban a class(for a certain # of games). But I thought it could be prone to exploiting.
Diversity is a nice solution for me.
It was boring to face the same class over and over and over again with most of them having the same archetypes. So, one thing that I would propose is to make it so you wouldn't face the same class for a second match (i.e. you won/lost against Shaman last match, now you face Warlock). I'm not sure if they can do something with the archetypes but at least you won't see the same class cards three times in a row (Knife Juggler broken sh* :P).
Also, since the game is so RNG dependent, not dropping ranks might be a good idea. You don't get anything when you lose, so a lose streak wouldn't be that frustrating because after you've lost all your stars on any rank, you say that "at least I don't have anything else to lose".
I would completely agree, that not loosing ranks is the only way to make Hearthstone more interesting. And that is not so, if you can't loose rank you will get legends in 500 or 1000 games anyway. I would say that there are tons of people, who reach rank 5 or 4 each season but can't go higher. And that will be the same if ranks can be loosed. Higher ranks will be even harder, because there will be much more good players who play on the same rank.
Also I think that a good way to go is to make when you don't loose rank only if you got maximum amount of stars on it. Say you got at rank 5 and after 100 games you finally achived first star on rank 4. You should not already be allways on that rank, and if you loose you can go back to zero stars on rank 5. But if you finally got all stars on rank 4 - that rank should be set to "achieved" and now you can fall back only to rank4 zero stars. Also higher ranks can have more stars, say 8 stars on 5-3 and 10 stars on 2-1.
This change will really improve metagame and pleasure from the game. You know, when you reach rank5 first week then you have to choose one of 1-2 top meta decks or one of 1-2 their counters and just grind for crazy amount of hours daily. 90% of your opponents are absolutelly the same decks and very often games depends on rng. Nobody want to try some new archetype because of fear to loose ranks. Even nobody can't test new archetypes, because casual mode is not a test, you need to test it on real meta. And when you try some new deck on ranked and after 10 games you loose 5-6 stars you think "no this deck don't work", but actually you need 50-100 games at least to make good cards setup and learn how it will play best.
Right now all way to legend in first 2 weeks is a hundreds games dull grind with Midrange shaman or rng luck with freeze mage/ctrl war. If ranks will not be loosed we will have really large amount of different decks. Yes, there will be much more people who reach rank 5 or 4. But Legend itself will be much harder to obtain because you could not achieve it in 2 days with lucky counter-deck or just grind it in few hundreds mirrormatches.
PS: Also I would say that legend rewards should be changed. This is not correct, when you got your legend card back with secret paladin a year ago and now it is allways with you. You should keep legend cardback or some other legend title only if you achieved it last season. Also some new reward should be made to make legend more attractive to achieve, say something like "discover golden legendary from newest set".
The word is "lose."
I posted similar thoughts in this thread and I really like your specifics regarding increased stars at higher ranks in tandem with "rank achieved" after reaching max stars on a rank.
This really would be a great solution to the "testing on ladder while still grinding for Legend" dilemma many of us deck builders face each season. Theorycrafting outside of casual can be done but it adds so many games to an already brutal ladder climb, forcing a choice that shouldn't exist. Should I theorycraft or net deck? Having to choose is very discouraging to my inner Johnny/Spike*.
The present design runs counter to Hearthstone's initial allure - discovery. Discovering meta solutions need not be the exclusive domain of streamers and pros. If more players felt encouraged to test odd-ball ideas then perhaps when the Unicorn Priest does finally gallop in on an expansion the general population might have a chance at taming it.
The benefits to the meta would be magnitudes better than the thinly distributed strategies available to classes under the current system. Running tech cards (more teching options should definitely be added to the game moving forward) would actually be viable, and perhaps even necessary, on ladder instead of being largely a tournament strategy.
* One of the many psychographic profiles detailed by Magic The Gathering's Head Designer Mark Rosewater.
In the photo, Ben did not look upset.
Here's my suggestion: Elo rankings like chess, with modifications.
By focusing on overall winrate rather number of wins/win streaks you neutralize the aggro bonus currently infecting the meta. You still have a numeric ranking that shows the talent difference between players.
Blizz can then add whatever modifications (i.e. your rating deteriorates over time, is reset every month/3 months, etc.) they feel are appropriate to keep players engaged.
I hope they go this direction because rank should reflect how good of a player you are and not how many games you play.
I understand they probably want to motivate people to play more often, but that should only effect a player's rewards and not their rank. Rewards should also be based on time played and not games played so aggro doesn't have an inherent benefit.
I'm also not convinced that overall winrate is the best way to do it because that forces players to be too safe. If you try a new deck and it turns out bad that would effect your winrate for at least the rest of the month, so nobody would ever try anything new on ladder. I'm sure there is some way to integrate forgiveness into the system though, such as having tiers that safeguard your rank from falling too far.
They really need to just take the Casual constructed room and break it into two rooms, one for players looking to test decks vs other skilled players looking to do the same, and one for new players with limited collections who are just looking to learn the game vs real players and not the Innkeeper. This would help players get the gaming experience they want without wasting their time playing matches that don't help their personal reasons for playing the game.
While my ladder feedback doesn't necessarily deal with the things Brode discussed specifically, I feel there is an aspect of ladder which can be improved and that is giving players a compelling reason to play non-aggro decks to ladder. It is clear to most players that if you want to ladder quickly and not waste tons of time grinding the low/mid ranks (ranks 20 to 5) that you are best served by playing aggro. The faster your deck plays/wins the more games you can play and therefore the faster you can rank up since all wins are worth the same amount of stars. This makes the meta on ladder less diverse. Give players the incentive to build slower control and combo decks by making wins for games which go over a certain number of turns worth more stars. This way a deck that usually takes until turn 9+ to win will earn stars at a rate more in line with what you can get playing faster decks.
*this comment right here* is so true. The very concept of laddering rewards aggressive play style and it shapes the entire meta for the worse. Countless strategy's, cards, decks, (and lately even classes) aren't or never will see the light of day because of this.
While I don't know if more stars or game length would help at all, something need to be done to stop the system from rewarding aggressive play styles the way it does, basically 70% of our content is being ignored because of it, and people are losing interest in the game altogether because of it.
They could easily make a new card (or cards) for Priest which have abilities something like "Your hero's maximum health is increased by 5. Restore 5 health."
"Rank ladder system - we're not 100% happy with it" Well you don't say....
"Blizzard never talks to us, let's criticize them for it."
<Brode publishes a long, thoughtful post>
"Blizzard is talking to us - let's criticize them for it!"
You can't slap someone in the face for 2 years and then suddenly come to him and say "well... I don't think it's TOTTALY ok that I've been slapping you" and think to yourself "yeah... that was good. I've made him a whole". So no... I'm not criticizing them for telling us that. I'm criticizing them for acknowledging it like at least (and I'm being generous here and throwing them a bone) a year too late.