I can't prove it but anytime I play from my computer at home I can't get Legend. I play on my phone or computer at my office (after hours of course :) and I always get Legend, interesting...no? :)
I find I play worst when I'm playing at home on my PC/Notebook, simply because I tend to do/watch multiple things while playing. For me, it's much easier to do on mobile, or a PC that is not my normal gaming PC, because of less distractions from my current game.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"The world outside is so big, but it's safe in my domain Because to you I'm just a number and a clever screen name..."
I THINK FOR MYSELF, THEREFORE.... I'M AN ATHEIST !!!
I have been thinking about this a lot recently, more in the context of Legend ranks since climbing past D5 with 11x is a lot easier so I don't even notice anymore, but certainly remember a time when I faced the same issue at D5-D1 level and am experiencing it now at arbitrary Legend levels. I've even started playing against some good, known players and haven't won against any of them yet. Why? Because psychologically I psych myself down, get intimidated or whatever is at play that makes me play worse than I otherwise would.
Think how you play in Casual? Nothing is a bother, you take risks, you are free. I'd like this experience on ladder as well so that you actually play with good decks against good decks and players but somehow just can't make myself forget about ranks. So, it would be neat if ranks and opponents names could be obscured in-game somehow, until the game ended (for names) and for ranks until your whole play session has ended. I'd love that.
Edit: and before anybody tells me to grow up, stop caring, become a better player, why are you bothered etc.? Yes, I should work on all of that but probably won't so something to help me would be great.
Do you realize that in order for someone to win, someone has to lose. I do not think that the matchmaking algorithm targets certain players, no. Unless you are suggesting that there are blizzard bots in d1 gatekeeping, maybe there is discussion to be had there (though I doubt it, that would be really weird and I’m not sure what that would accomplish).
you’ll never see someone post a question about your game after 10 consecutive losses being rigged in your favor. 9 win streak is already pretty phenomenal, it coming to an end I don’t think at all suggests rigged matchmaking. I bet you have lost many more games at 1 star and 2 stars, the sample size for 3 stars is just so much smaller.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Take a look at my most recent deck, Watch post, totem, menagerie shaman.
The matchmaker might be pitting you against slightly more difficult opponents as you approach legend/your MMR goes up. Or you just had an unlucky streak.
Lol imagine struggling to hit legend, its 10x easier since the rank changes just need to put the games in!
While I don't think the condescending tone is necessary, you actually make a pretty good point here: I think most players heavily underestimate the number of games it takes on average to climb to legend. Let's say, you play a good meta deck with a winrate of 55% on average. Most decks won't have a better winrate over a large sample size, if there isn't some gross balance issue, so that's pretty reasonable. Then, you will make 0.55-0.45=0.1 stars per game played on average, meaning for the 16 stars necessary from Diamond 5 with 0 stars to Legend, you will need to play 16:0.1=160 games on average. Even if you play an aggro deck to be faster, you will need about 5 minutes per game, so you will spend around 13 hours of total time just playing one game and one game mode. And it can easily be much more, if you get even slightly unlucky or play a control deck. So, if you want to reach legend, you need to
(a) be a way above average player that exceeds the usual winrate of a deck by a huge margin,
(b) get very lucky or
(c) invest an amount of time that most casual or semi-casual players won't have for such a task. Especially if you want to enjoy playing some meme decks, other game modes or other games in general.
If you don't make up your mind about that, it is easy to believe that you're being screwed, when in fact you're still well in the expected time frame.
The more you win in a row, the higher ranking people you are playing against.
Thus, if you win 8 in a row and at D1 three stars, you most likely are playing against legend ranked players. Thus the deck compositions are totally different.
D5 to D1 you face mainly the same decks over and over. Legend, you face totally different decks.
It's a progress gate. Blizzards matchmaker is programmed to halt you periodically in an attempt to get you to buy more cards. They acquired King which is a company which specialized in this approach. Halting players in Candy Crush so they'd buy power ups. From the horrible work place to the predatory monetization of the mobile diablo game, blizzard has not been about making good games for over a decade. They make trash designed to make you spend. Just take one look at mercenaries and all will be clear.
It didn’t take long for the entire community to forget that activision blizzard literally has an algorithm that they created that preys on people who do not spend money on games, by teaming them up with people who do. Such blindness comes from simping, for anything. Time to wake up to the real world. These things are not some theory, like most of the other things you probably believe in lol
'It's progress gating to force you to buy power ups like in Candy Crush' would be a more persuasive argument if Hearthstone sold power ups like in Candy Crush.
Or allowed you to spend money to get better cards or upgrade your existing cards, like you can do in Diablo Immortal with your equipment and whatever.
....improve it beyond choosing the 30 cards you want to put in your deck, I mean, but at this point in the season chances are OP wasn't missing any key cards in the deck they were pushing for legend with. So they'd have no reason to go buy more packs because there's no reason to think that having a bigger collection (of unused cards) but playing the same deck would improve their win rate.
"Create a problem and sell you the solution" might be a scummy business model but at least it makes sense. "Create a problem, deny that it exists, secretly bundle the solution in with unrelated products and hope that your players figure it out" would be insane.
And it's not like Blizzard are that committed to hiding their pay to win mechanics where they exist.
'It's progress gating to force you to buy power ups like in Candy Crush' would be a more persuasive argument if Hearthstone sold power ups like in Candy Crush.
Or allowed you to spend money to get better cards or upgrade your existing cards, like you can do in Diablo Immortal with your equipment and whatever.
....improve it beyond choosing the 30 cards you want to put in your deck, I mean, but at this point in the season chances are OP wasn't missing any key cards in the deck they were pushing for legend with. So they'd have no reason to go buy more packs because there's no reason to think that having a bigger collection (of unused cards) but playing the same deck would improve their win rate.
"Create a problem and sell you the solution" might be a scummy business model but at least it makes sense. "Create a problem, deny that it exists, secretly bundle the solution in with unrelated products and hope that your players figure it out" would be insane.
And it's not like Blizzard are that committed to hiding their pay to win mechanics where they exist.
Just going to remind people that think the game is rigged, the burden of proof is on you.
good way to hide from the question. The burden is on the business to prove it's honest when the overwhelming circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise. But that would require honesty and transparency from blizzard and we both know that will never happen.
'It's progress gating to force you to buy power ups like in Candy Crush' would be a more persuasive argument if Hearthstone sold power ups like in Candy Crush.
Or allowed you to spend money to get better cards or upgrade your existing cards, like you can do in Diablo Immortal with your equipment and whatever.
....improve it beyond choosing the 30 cards you want to put in your deck, I mean, but at this point in the season chances are OP wasn't missing any key cards in the deck they were pushing for legend with. So they'd have no reason to go buy more packs because there's no reason to think that having a bigger collection (of unused cards) but playing the same deck would improve their win rate.
"Create a problem and sell you the solution" might be a scummy business model but at least it makes sense. "Create a problem, deny that it exists, secretly bundle the solution in with unrelated products and hope that your players figure it out" would be insane.
And it's not like Blizzard are that committed to hiding their pay to win mechanics where they exist.
I've seen it a few times in threads like this, sure.
I don't see how something like that would work with Hearthstone, no.
The article you linked to talks about encouraging players to purchase specific items by rewarding them (giving them favourable matches) when they do and matching them up against players who have the items you're trying to push until they buy them.
You can't purchase specific items in Hearthstone. So the equivalent would be encouraging you to craft specific cards I suppose? But I don't play decks that are missing key cards.
If I make a quest priest deck, for instance, I already have the 30 cards I most want to put in the deck long before I'm thinking about pushing for Legend. Screwing me over with RNG, like in the original comment, to stop my getting legend with that deck wouldn't make me buy more packs because there's no intuitive reason to think that opening any other card that I don't put in my deck is going to improve my success.
I feel like I'm repeating myself a bit and I've tried to explain the issues I see with proposed rigging as clearly as possible. If you can tell me how it would work or what I'm not understanding then I'm happy to listen.
It's a progress gate. Blizzards matchmaker is programmed to halt you periodically in an attempt to get you to buy more cards.
This is literally just how Blizzard's MMR works. The matchmaker will pit you against increasingly skilled opponents until you lose. If you keep winning, the opponents will get tougher, if you lose, then they won't.
Like how is this even remotely scummy or underhanded?
'It's progress gating to force you to buy power ups like in Candy Crush' would be a more persuasive argument if Hearthstone sold power ups like in Candy Crush.
Or allowed you to spend money to get better cards or upgrade your existing cards, like you can do in Diablo Immortal with your equipment and whatever.
....improve it beyond choosing the 30 cards you want to put in your deck, I mean, but at this point in the season chances are OP wasn't missing any key cards in the deck they were pushing for legend with. So they'd have no reason to go buy more packs because there's no reason to think that having a bigger collection (of unused cards) but playing the same deck would improve their win rate.
"Create a problem and sell you the solution" might be a scummy business model but at least it makes sense. "Create a problem, deny that it exists, secretly bundle the solution in with unrelated products and hope that your players figure it out" would be insane.
And it's not like Blizzard are that committed to hiding their pay to win mechanics where they exist.
This post sums it up perfectly.
I have every card Hearthstone has made for play. What would be the point then of trying to "Champ Block" me, by pitting me against opponents I can't defeat? If Blizzard were to do this, what do they expect me to do, monetarily wise, that will help me win? Nothing!!! There is no amount of money I can 'spend to win', once I have every card. At that/this point, winning would come down to skill and luck. There is nothing in it for Blizzard to bother with rigging something that has no effect on their bottom line. Now, players without every card may have a argument about being forced to buy additional packs to get the dust/gold/cards needed to push forward because Blizzard is "Champ Blocking" them (In their eyes). All I can say is ... if winning at Hearthstone is such a big deal, get good, or spend the cash, if ya feel that's what it takes to win.
'It's progress gating to force you to buy power ups like in Candy Crush' would be a more persuasive argument if Hearthstone sold power ups like in Candy Crush.
Or allowed you to spend money to get better cards or upgrade your existing cards, like you can do in Diablo Immortal with your equipment and whatever.
....improve it beyond choosing the 30 cards you want to put in your deck, I mean, but at this point in the season chances are OP wasn't missing any key cards in the deck they were pushing for legend with. So they'd have no reason to go buy more packs because there's no reason to think that having a bigger collection (of unused cards) but playing the same deck would improve their win rate.
"Create a problem and sell you the solution" might be a scummy business model but at least it makes sense. "Create a problem, deny that it exists, secretly bundle the solution in with unrelated products and hope that your players figure it out" would be insane.
And it's not like Blizzard are that committed to hiding their pay to win mechanics where they exist.
This post sums it up perfectly.
I have every card Hearthstone has made for play. What would be the point then of trying to "Champ Block" me, by pitting me against opponents I can't defeat? If Blizzard were to do this, what do they expect me to do, monetarily wise, that will help me win? Nothing!!! There is no amount of money I can 'spend to win', once I have every card. At that/this point, winning would come down to skill and luck. There is nothing in it for Blizzard to bother with rigging something that has no effect on their bottom line. Now, players without every card may have a argument about being forced to buy additional packs to get the dust/gold/cards needed to push forward because Blizzard is "Champ Blocking" them (In their eyes). All I can say is ... if winning at Hearthstone is such a big deal, get good, or spend the cash, if ya feel that's what it takes to win.
Most people aren't stupid enough to put that kind of money into hearthstone, Blizzard has your money, the algorithim is pointed at people who don't have all the cards.
Most people aren't stupid enough to put that kind of money into hearthstone, Blizzard has your money, the algorithim is pointed at people who don't have all the cards.
I'm F2P, I've never put any money into the game. Obviously, I don't have all the cards. I'm not a genius and make enough mistakes when I play. Can you explain how it became possible for me to get to legend 55 times?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
And how would put a f2p player against a paying player make it lose automatically?
It's been repeated over and over in this thread, but the problem with this line of reasoning is not that it is absurd, it's that there's no 'whales' in the gacha sense on Hearthstone. Whales are players who can change deck the most frequently because they have more cards. If I, a f2p, wants to play some deck they have to spare the dust, work towards it, craft the cards, then play the deck until it bores me to death or I can afford a new one.
The way they try and make me spend money is rather obvious indeed: print new cards, make balance changes constantly, have an ever changing meta. This way I cannot sit on the same deck for as long as I may need to acquire a new one. But alter matchmaking so that I get matched with an opponent with more decks than me? Well that won't do nothing. Countering my deck constantly until I spend some money? That may do, but I can clearly see my winrate is positive so that's not the problem.
And how would put a f2p player against a paying player make it lose automatically?
It's been repeated over and over in this thread, but the problem with this line of reasoning is not that it is absurd, it's that there's no 'whales' in the gacha sense on Hearthstone. Whales are players who can change deck the most frequently because they have more cards. If I, a f2p, wants to play some deck they have to spare the dust, work towards it, craft the cards, then play the deck until it bores me to death or I can afford a new one.
Why are you asking me how? For me it makes no sense. I'm asking him why he thinks that algorithm is "pointed at me" and why that "pointing" doesn't work at all. The line of reasoning that Hearthstone somehow rewards you for spending more money or having bigger collection is absurd exactly for the reason it's not a gacha game and there's no whales. I don't get what you're arguing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I find I play worst when I'm playing at home on my PC/Notebook, simply because I tend to do/watch multiple things while playing. For me, it's much easier to do on mobile, or a PC that is not my normal gaming PC, because of less distractions from my current game.
"The world outside is so big, but it's safe in my domain
Because to you I'm just a number and a clever screen name..."
I THINK FOR MYSELF, THEREFORE.... I'M AN ATHEIST !!!
I have been thinking about this a lot recently, more in the context of Legend ranks since climbing past D5 with 11x is a lot easier so I don't even notice anymore, but certainly remember a time when I faced the same issue at D5-D1 level and am experiencing it now at arbitrary Legend levels. I've even started playing against some good, known players and haven't won against any of them yet. Why? Because psychologically I psych myself down, get intimidated or whatever is at play that makes me play worse than I otherwise would.
Think how you play in Casual? Nothing is a bother, you take risks, you are free. I'd like this experience on ladder as well so that you actually play with good decks against good decks and players but somehow just can't make myself forget about ranks. So, it would be neat if ranks and opponents names could be obscured in-game somehow, until the game ended (for names) and for ranks until your whole play session has ended. I'd love that.
Edit: and before anybody tells me to grow up, stop caring, become a better player, why are you bothered etc.? Yes, I should work on all of that but probably won't so something to help me would be great.
Do you realize that in order for someone to win, someone has to lose. I do not think that the matchmaking algorithm targets certain players, no. Unless you are suggesting that there are blizzard bots in d1 gatekeeping, maybe there is discussion to be had there (though I doubt it, that would be really weird and I’m not sure what that would accomplish).
you’ll never see someone post a question about your game after 10 consecutive losses being rigged in your favor. 9 win streak is already pretty phenomenal, it coming to an end I don’t think at all suggests rigged matchmaking. I bet you have lost many more games at 1 star and 2 stars, the sample size for 3 stars is just so much smaller.
Take a look at my most recent deck, Watch post, totem, menagerie shaman.
The matchmaker might be pitting you against slightly more difficult opponents as you approach legend/your MMR goes up. Or you just had an unlucky streak.
It's definitely not rigged.
While I don't think the condescending tone is necessary, you actually make a pretty good point here: I think most players heavily underestimate the number of games it takes on average to climb to legend.
Let's say, you play a good meta deck with a winrate of 55% on average. Most decks won't have a better winrate over a large sample size, if there isn't some gross balance issue, so that's pretty reasonable. Then, you will make 0.55-0.45=0.1 stars per game played on average, meaning for the 16 stars necessary from Diamond 5 with 0 stars to Legend, you will need to play 16:0.1=160 games on average. Even if you play an aggro deck to be faster, you will need about 5 minutes per game, so you will spend around 13 hours of total time just playing one game and one game mode. And it can easily be much more, if you get even slightly unlucky or play a control deck.
So, if you want to reach legend, you need to
(a) be a way above average player that exceeds the usual winrate of a deck by a huge margin,
(b) get very lucky or
(c) invest an amount of time that most casual or semi-casual players won't have for such a task. Especially if you want to enjoy playing some meme decks, other game modes or other games in general.
If you don't make up your mind about that, it is easy to believe that you're being screwed, when in fact you're still well in the expected time frame.
Ceterum censeo classum magi esse delendam.
The more you win in a row, the higher ranking people you are playing against.
Thus, if you win 8 in a row and at D1 three stars, you most likely are playing against legend ranked players. Thus the deck compositions are totally different.
D5 to D1 you face mainly the same decks over and over. Legend, you face totally different decks.
It's a progress gate. Blizzards matchmaker is programmed to halt you periodically in an attempt to get you to buy more cards. They acquired King which is a company which specialized in this approach. Halting players in Candy Crush so they'd buy power ups. From the horrible work place to the predatory monetization of the mobile diablo game, blizzard has not been about making good games for over a decade. They make trash designed to make you spend. Just take one look at mercenaries and all will be clear.
"I don't understand how matchmaking works, so clearly it must be rigged!"
It didn’t take long for the entire community to forget that activision blizzard literally has an algorithm that they created that preys on people who do not spend money on games, by teaming them up with people who do. Such blindness comes from simping, for anything. Time to wake up to the real world. These things are not some theory, like most of the other things you probably believe in lol
Just going to remind people that think the game is rigged, the burden of proof is on you.
Check out my fun and innovative decks here:
Beat your opponent to a pulp with Revenant Warrior or outlast them with Demon Reno Warlock.
'It's progress gating to force you to buy power ups like in Candy Crush' would be a more persuasive argument if Hearthstone sold power ups like in Candy Crush.
Or allowed you to spend money to get better cards or upgrade your existing cards, like you can do in Diablo Immortal with your equipment and whatever.
....improve it beyond choosing the 30 cards you want to put in your deck, I mean, but at this point in the season chances are OP wasn't missing any key cards in the deck they were pushing for legend with. So they'd have no reason to go buy more packs because there's no reason to think that having a bigger collection (of unused cards) but playing the same deck would improve their win rate.
"Create a problem and sell you the solution" might be a scummy business model but at least it makes sense. "Create a problem, deny that it exists, secretly bundle the solution in with unrelated products and hope that your players figure it out" would be insane.
And it's not like Blizzard are that committed to hiding their pay to win mechanics where they exist.
Have you ever seen the patent they hold on beating you with items you don't yet have in your inventory? Think something like that might work with cards? https://kotaku.com/activision-patents-matchmaking-that-encourages-players-1819630937
good way to hide from the question. The burden is on the business to prove it's honest when the overwhelming circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise. But that would require honesty and transparency from blizzard and we both know that will never happen.
I've seen it a few times in threads like this, sure.
I don't see how something like that would work with Hearthstone, no.
The article you linked to talks about encouraging players to purchase specific items by rewarding them (giving them favourable matches) when they do and matching them up against players who have the items you're trying to push until they buy them.
You can't purchase specific items in Hearthstone. So the equivalent would be encouraging you to craft specific cards I suppose? But I don't play decks that are missing key cards.
If I make a quest priest deck, for instance, I already have the 30 cards I most want to put in the deck long before I'm thinking about pushing for Legend. Screwing me over with RNG, like in the original comment, to stop my getting legend with that deck wouldn't make me buy more packs because there's no intuitive reason to think that opening any other card that I don't put in my deck is going to improve my success.
I feel like I'm repeating myself a bit and I've tried to explain the issues I see with proposed rigging as clearly as possible. If you can tell me how it would work or what I'm not understanding then I'm happy to listen.
This is literally just how Blizzard's MMR works. The matchmaker will pit you against increasingly skilled opponents until you lose. If you keep winning, the opponents will get tougher, if you lose, then they won't.
Like how is this even remotely scummy or underhanded?
This post sums it up perfectly.
I have every card Hearthstone has made for play. What would be the point then of trying to "Champ Block" me, by pitting me against opponents I can't defeat?
If Blizzard were to do this, what do they expect me to do, monetarily wise, that will help me win? Nothing!!! There is no amount of money I can 'spend to win', once I have every card. At that/this point, winning would come down to skill and luck. There is nothing in it for Blizzard to bother with rigging something that has no effect on their bottom line.
Now, players without every card may have a argument about being forced to buy additional packs to get the dust/gold/cards needed to push forward because Blizzard is "Champ Blocking" them (In their eyes). All I can say is ... if winning at Hearthstone is such a big deal, get good, or spend the cash, if ya feel that's what it takes to win.
"The world outside is so big, but it's safe in my domain
Because to you I'm just a number and a clever screen name..."
I THINK FOR MYSELF, THEREFORE.... I'M AN ATHEIST !!!
Most people aren't stupid enough to put that kind of money into hearthstone, Blizzard has your money, the algorithim is pointed at people who don't have all the cards.
I'm F2P, I've never put any money into the game. Obviously, I don't have all the cards. I'm not a genius and make enough mistakes when I play. Can you explain how it became possible for me to get to legend 55 times?
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
And how would put a f2p player against a paying player make it lose automatically?
It's been repeated over and over in this thread, but the problem with this line of reasoning is not that it is absurd, it's that there's no 'whales' in the gacha sense on Hearthstone. Whales are players who can change deck the most frequently because they have more cards. If I, a f2p, wants to play some deck they have to spare the dust, work towards it, craft the cards, then play the deck until it bores me to death or I can afford a new one.
The way they try and make me spend money is rather obvious indeed: print new cards, make balance changes constantly, have an ever changing meta. This way I cannot sit on the same deck for as long as I may need to acquire a new one. But alter matchmaking so that I get matched with an opponent with more decks than me? Well that won't do nothing. Countering my deck constantly until I spend some money? That may do, but I can clearly see my winrate is positive so that's not the problem.
Why are you asking me how? For me it makes no sense. I'm asking him why he thinks that algorithm is "pointed at me" and why that "pointing" doesn't work at all. The line of reasoning that Hearthstone somehow rewards you for spending more money or having bigger collection is absurd exactly for the reason it's not a gacha game and there's no whales. I don't get what you're arguing.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.