Tucker, I think you nailed it. There needs to be new game modes, or a seperate ladder for the legend players. That way, if you want to compete at a high level, when you reach legend you can compete there without grinding through the regular ladder. I Think there probably needs to be a way to knocked out of the legend ladder, im not sure how that would work. maybe only top 1000 or top 500 stay in legend ladder or something.
A system like this inherently has issues. One aspect of the ladder that you may have forgotten about is the fact that you cannot lose stars if your rank is above 20. So everyone can eventually get to the cardback. In this new scenario, there would be a vicious fight for those at rank 16 to get up to rank 15, where most players would then stop. Because why would you risk getting back down to 16 and not get the cardback? I'd have no incentive to see if I could get up to rank 12, because there's only risk and no reward.
This also doesn't provide a lot of incentive for new players, in fact it provides reasons why they shouldn't play. They're not getting nearly the free stuff the people at higher ranks are, so it makes it even harder to compete. I know I personally would hate a system like this because it would feel like I'm getting left in the dust by those people who do want to regularly climb the ladder up to the single digits.
A better option would be to have the ladder be just for those who want to see their global rank, and have rewards based on simply the number of wins you earn in Casual Mode (but, of course, the matchmaking code in Casual would need to be improved.) Win 5 games in a month in Casual? You earned a cardback! Win 50? Here's a pack. I'd much rather see things tied to win numbers instead of repeatedly climbing a weird ladder system where new people are constantly put up against massively overpowered decks of people at rank 20 trying to grind golden heroes.
I don't really care about more rewards, I just wish seasons lasted longer. 2 months minimum IMO.
As others have mentioned, more game modes would be nice. For example, the casual mode we have now is actually more challenging than ranked is, at least that's what i'e experienced.
Honestly from my perspective the season system makes absolutely no sense. It isn't even timed with the release of new cards/card changes, which you would think would be the #1 reason to have seasons.
If Blizzard is married to the idea of seasons fine, keep them in place, but there should be an overall ELO system as well. There should also be class ELO ladders where only games played in the competitive area with a certain class are counted. I'm fine with having this system opt in or even pay-to-play. Package it with two more pages of deck slots, a really nice stats package where you can track all your win rates etc and sell it all as a "competitor package" for $10.
I think I actually agree with both sides of this. I agree with Noxious that giving more rewards to people who get higher on the ladder in the form of gold/dust/packs/etc is a bad idea. It's just a case of the rich getting richer and has a distinct chance of driving away the more casual players as they end up further behind when they don't want to pay for packs and can't earn stuff as quickly. On the other hand I can't manage to build up any interest in actually trying to climb the ladder. I play ranked play to complete the daily quests and usually end up the month in the mid to low teens but I don't really care where because getting the card back of the month is a given, the gold reward from wins is horrible and I'm never going to spend enough time to even get close to getting legend.
I'm not sure what the answer is. I don't know if cosmetic rewards would be enough for me to care about climbing the ladder more. Odds are anything I'd get would be pretty common and there for not really that big a deal. A longer season might help but I don't know that even 2 or 3 months would be long enough for me to take a serious look at trying to get legend and even if it did that would really only be a one time thing for the card back. Online constructed tournaments would be fun but I also doubt I'd have many chances to play in one as guaranteeing a couple hours of availability to play multiple matches for a tournament wouldn't be easy for me.
I like the idea of bolstering the achievement system. I proposed something similar to Noxious' system after Naxx came out and was lacking flare. It would be cool if there were meta achievements similar to WoW and or regular achievements even that could be achieved by killing bosses in a special manner. This would also make some of the encounters much more interesting.
Kill Instuctor Raz with a mind controlled minion
Last 12 turns vs. Patchwerk
Kill Noth the plague bringer without raising a single skeleton.
There are so many possibilities and they would also be able to encorporate much more game flare that were parts of the raid encounters from WoW. They would require crafting special decks to achieve the special goal, and in most cases would probably be much more "fun" than the RNG requirments of simpliy killing the bosses on heroic. I would add as a reward to these meta achievement "guild up tokens" similar to Noxious' that could upgrade Naxx/BRM cards to their golden counterparts. A complete Naxx golden set cost some 32,000 dust which is just silly.
My issue with the ladder is its a grind, its not a competition of skill as much as dedication. I think we need an Arena style format for constructed decks that way i can grind when i want to and i can pay 150-250 gold to play in a tournament if i want to be competitive.
It kind of seems like a rich get richer scenario. I don't really think the Legend ranked players really need an extra legend/more rewards then someone who can't get enough cards to leave the ~rank 20-15 zone. I think people in the zone of ~rank 20 would probably rather get a Card pack then 60 dust, which seems kind of useless. Sure, on average it will be 40 dust if they have all of the cards, but it would at least fill their collection faster. If you have enough cards that packs give 40 dust on average, you're probably well enough equipped to get past the rank 20 area.
I just did my first try hard run of ladder and got to rank 5 using an aggro/value paladin deck.
I'm slightly disappointed that the only thing people get as a reward for participating is a card back, and everyone can get one...
Considering that most people who have high rankings have spent money on packs/expansions in order to get higher valued cards, I think there should be some give back from blizzard. I mean, if a guy spends $50 on cards and gets to rank 1, I don't think it's insane to give that guy an end of season pack or two for investing his time and money into the game... Especially considering you can't even sell the cards you purchase... Asking for a pack or something for doing well in ranked games isn't really asking for much, especially if the community really helps support the game.
Thinking about the problem I kind of got back on my critical inicial view: The game probably needs a way to allow new players to "get competitive" faster ... there is one (hard to solve) problem for Blizz however: If you significantly pump up the reward system, players with a nigh complete collection will never have to spend money in the game again as the increased rewards will mean to give them the possibility to easily get the new content with a f2p attitude ... not that I would not love this move by blizz, but after all they're filthy capitalists and not the salvation army!
I think the way blizzard went with the "spectate quest" is a step in the right direction, for both sides - players and company : Giving players "old" packs tremendously helps new players while it decreases in value the longer you play (for die-hards the pack basically means 40 dust most of the time)... Blizzard just could add this "old pack" thing on more (regular) spots in the game: On ladder you could simply leave the 10 gold per 3 wins and add an "old pack" for every 10 wins (in the future this means a random pack - classic, GVG, XXX)...
This system would reward ladder play for all players and especially for the ones that need it the most, because, face it, competitive Idiots like myself will probably go on playing for the mere sake of wining and going legend (and also feel a little bit better cos' of the packs ...)
on a sidenote: Sooner or later, Blizzard will need to add "formats" with limited cardpools (last 3 expansions/adventures for example - just like MTG), because in 5 years it will be more or less impossible for a newbie to get into an "eternal" format without spending a lot of money ....
Especially these formats could drop "old content" as an additional reward, and even a lot of it (in addtition to in game gold of course) ...
Ok, first let me say thanks for all the comments and ideas guys, did not expect this topic to get so big. I just have to say this; I am really and I mean really opposed to giving card packs as ladder rewards. The reason why is because it will effectively decrease the profit made by Blizzard and would be a bad move on their part. Now don't get me wrong I think that 2 years down the line older card packs can be given as rewards to help new players catch up but the game is not there yet, not even close. Some improvements to ladder will have to happen this year I think to really keep the game fresh and the main play mode active.
I also want to touch on giving out gold as rank achievements which many have commented about, thinking it is the best idea. I think this has the same problems as giving card packs to an extent. We already get gold for 3 wins, dailies and arena runs we don't need to give more for whatever rank you get. People would buy less card packs effectively because all the gold they could possibly get at the end of a season. My rank 1-5 achievement does include a gold reward but in a random way so it is not guaranteed plus the amount "if" gold is received is static. I think that is the best way to do it.
Also please remember that the longer you play the better you get at the game, some take longer but still. You can not really say that a rank 20 player needs the rewards of a rank 1 player because one the time commitment is massive comparatively and the skill level on just on how a rank 1 plays the game is quite a bit higher. Rewards in any game and even in real life should reflect effort, time, knowledge and skill.
Ok, first let me say thanks for all the comments and ideas guys, did not expect this topic to get so big. I just have to say this; I am really and I mean really opposed to giving card packs as ladder rewards. The reason why is because it will effectively decrease the profit made by Blizzard and would be a bad move on their part. Now don't get me wrong I think that 2 years down the line older card packs can be given as rewards to help new players catch up but the game is not there yet, not even close. Some improvements to ladder will have to happen this year I think to really keep the game fresh and the main play mode active.
IMHO, the game already is pretty close to that point - just add the next expansion that will be out this summer/autumn into the picture and you will have a game where (in its current reward state) a new player will have to spend somewhere around 200-300 Euros to be able to get a collection that lets him effectively build several tier 1 decks... Don't get me wrong, this is still a long way down to a game like Magic, but still, The situation this player will face compared to the people who picked the game up after its release is just huge and might turn him down before even getting into the game!
Also Hearthstone doesn't have a "rotation", like Magic does in the Standard format. So while this helps longterm players not have to continually buy new cards like in Magic it makes it even harder for a newer person to catch up. (Imagine if we all needed black lotuses to play in standard today).
Ok, how about this? (specific numbers can be tweaked, obviously)
Remove the current "10 gold per 3 wins" system.
Keep daily quests completely unchanged.
Add a "stars for gold" system: 1 star for each turn you played at least one card in. 10 stars for winning a game. Each time you gain 50 stars, you are rewarded with 10 gold. Capped at maximum of 50 gold per day. (i.e. 250 stars)
Add an end-of-month "ladder bonus": At the end of each season, award bonus gold based on the highest rank you attained during that season, according to the following table: Rank 25 = 0 gold Rank 24 = 0 gold Rank 23 = 0 gold Rank 22 = 0 gold Rank 21 = 0 gold Rank 20 = 0 gold Rank 19 = 25 gold Rank 18 = 50 gold Rank 17 = 75 gold Rank 16 = 100 gold Rank 15 = 125 gold Rank 14 = 175 gold Rank 13 = 225 gold Rank 12 = 275 gold Rank 11 = 325 gold Rank 10 = 375 gold Rank 9 = 450 gold Rank 8 = 525 gold Rank 7 = 600 gold Rank 6 = 675 gold Rank 5 = 750 gold Rank 4 = 850 gold Rank 3 = 950 gold Rank 2 = 1100 gold Rank 1 = 1250 gold Legend = 1500 gold
Reasoning:
Removing gold for wins - the problem with this system is that it discourages doing your best on ladder and instead encourages maximizing the number of games you get to play in any given amount of time. As noted in one of the videos, this manifests in aggressive decks (ones that win or lose by turn 5) being overwhelmingly prevalent, because they "cycle" through the system faster. The system also makes it so that Casual mode is anything but.
Stars for turns - this would even things out for decks of different speeds, as games that took you longer to win would gain more progress towards earning gold. The losing player also has to gain something, otherwise they would just concede the moment they lost advantage in a game, rather than stick around till the end. Counting only turns you played cards in prevents exploiting the system by stalling games.
Ladder bonus - fairly straightforward, this would entice people who play on the ladder to seek the highest rank rather than the highest number of games. The gold rewards have to ramp up as you go through the ranks, where it becomes much more difficult to advance. Since these are awarded once per month rather than once per day, the high disparages wouldn't affect things too drastically.
Overall gold rate - if I did my math correctly, you can earn a maximum of 3050 gold per month this way (sans quests), which is almost identical to what you can currently do with gold for wins.
will just play into the hands of the pay to win players and alienate casual players who just want a bit of fun
Level 20 for the card back is the only reason to touch the ladder for me, thats enough of a challenge to get these days as it is, so don't try and ruin it for a lot of people
Level 20 for the card back is the only reason to touch the ladder for me, thats enough of a challenge to get these days as it is, so don't try and ruin it for a lot of people
I'm no legendary player, but rank 20 is a cakewalk, and I don't see how a revamped gold system that focuses on properly rewarding those that work their way further up the ladder is going to ruin the fun for others.
Level 20 for the card back is the only reason to touch the ladder for me, thats enough of a challenge to get these days as it is, so don't try and ruin it for a lot of people
I'm no legendary player, but rank 20 is a cakewalk, and I don't see how a revamped gold system that focuses on properly rewarding those that work their way further up the ladder is going to ruin the fun for others.
I assume he's referring to the rich getting richer aspect. You've paid for a number of packs so you have more and better cards so you can build better decks and it is easier to get higher on the ladder. You get higher on the ladder so you get more rewards that let you get even more and better cards so you have an even easier time of getting higher on the ladder. The new player or typical F2P player just falls farther behind on their card collection and has even less of a chance to be competitive (unless they want to play facehunter apparently).
Have posted this before, but I don't think rewards are the answer. I would ditch the current ranked system and replace it with something like:
1) Rank in class = # of wins in class. You are matched with people as close to your rank as possible.
2) 500 wins in class = Legend in class. From then on ranked play in that class is on legend ladder.
3) Reset legend ladder monthly (or quarterly).
Fixes the farming issue and the grinding issue for legend players. Encourages playing more classes. Ditches the whole reset/losing stars thing which seems like a total hack to me.
Tucker, I think you nailed it. There needs to be new game modes, or a seperate ladder for the legend players. That way, if you want to compete at a high level, when you reach legend you can compete there without grinding through the regular ladder. I Think there probably needs to be a way to knocked out of the legend ladder, im not sure how that would work. maybe only top 1000 or top 500 stay in legend ladder or something.
A system like this inherently has issues. One aspect of the ladder that you may have forgotten about is the fact that you cannot lose stars if your rank is above 20. So everyone can eventually get to the cardback. In this new scenario, there would be a vicious fight for those at rank 16 to get up to rank 15, where most players would then stop. Because why would you risk getting back down to 16 and not get the cardback? I'd have no incentive to see if I could get up to rank 12, because there's only risk and no reward.
This also doesn't provide a lot of incentive for new players, in fact it provides reasons why they shouldn't play. They're not getting nearly the free stuff the people at higher ranks are, so it makes it even harder to compete. I know I personally would hate a system like this because it would feel like I'm getting left in the dust by those people who do want to regularly climb the ladder up to the single digits.
A better option would be to have the ladder be just for those who want to see their global rank, and have rewards based on simply the number of wins you earn in Casual Mode (but, of course, the matchmaking code in Casual would need to be improved.) Win 5 games in a month in Casual? You earned a cardback! Win 50? Here's a pack. I'd much rather see things tied to win numbers instead of repeatedly climbing a weird ladder system where new people are constantly put up against massively overpowered decks of people at rank 20 trying to grind golden heroes.
This would be absolutely terrible. The other ideas I'd be okay with, but this should never happen...
I don't really care about more rewards, I just wish seasons lasted longer. 2 months minimum IMO.
As others have mentioned, more game modes would be nice. For example, the casual mode we have now is actually more challenging than ranked is, at least that's what i'e experienced.
Honestly from my perspective the season system makes absolutely no sense. It isn't even timed with the release of new cards/card changes, which you would think would be the #1 reason to have seasons.
If Blizzard is married to the idea of seasons fine, keep them in place, but there should be an overall ELO system as well. There should also be class ELO ladders where only games played in the competitive area with a certain class are counted. I'm fine with having this system opt in or even pay-to-play. Package it with two more pages of deck slots, a really nice stats package where you can track all your win rates etc and sell it all as a "competitor package" for $10.
I think I actually agree with both sides of this. I agree with Noxious that giving more rewards to people who get higher on the ladder in the form of gold/dust/packs/etc is a bad idea. It's just a case of the rich getting richer and has a distinct chance of driving away the more casual players as they end up further behind when they don't want to pay for packs and can't earn stuff as quickly. On the other hand I can't manage to build up any interest in actually trying to climb the ladder. I play ranked play to complete the daily quests and usually end up the month in the mid to low teens but I don't really care where because getting the card back of the month is a given, the gold reward from wins is horrible and I'm never going to spend enough time to even get close to getting legend.
I'm not sure what the answer is. I don't know if cosmetic rewards would be enough for me to care about climbing the ladder more. Odds are anything I'd get would be pretty common and there for not really that big a deal. A longer season might help but I don't know that even 2 or 3 months would be long enough for me to take a serious look at trying to get legend and even if it did that would really only be a one time thing for the card back. Online constructed tournaments would be fun but I also doubt I'd have many chances to play in one as guaranteeing a couple hours of availability to play multiple matches for a tournament wouldn't be easy for me.
I like the idea of bolstering the achievement system. I proposed something similar to Noxious' system after Naxx came out and was lacking flare. It would be cool if there were meta achievements similar to WoW and or regular achievements even that could be achieved by killing bosses in a special manner. This would also make some of the encounters much more interesting.
Kill Instuctor Raz with a mind controlled minion
Last 12 turns vs. Patchwerk
Kill Noth the plague bringer without raising a single skeleton.
There are so many possibilities and they would also be able to encorporate much more game flare that were parts of the raid encounters from WoW. They would require crafting special decks to achieve the special goal, and in most cases would probably be much more "fun" than the RNG requirments of simpliy killing the bosses on heroic. I would add as a reward to these meta achievement "guild up tokens" similar to Noxious' that could upgrade Naxx/BRM cards to their golden counterparts. A complete Naxx golden set cost some 32,000 dust which is just silly.
My issue with the ladder is its a grind, its not a competition of skill as much as dedication. I think we need an Arena style format for constructed decks that way i can grind when i want to and i can pay 150-250 gold to play in a tournament if i want to be competitive.
Magni
It kind of seems like a rich get richer scenario. I don't really think the Legend ranked players really need an extra legend/more rewards then someone who can't get enough cards to leave the ~rank 20-15 zone. I think people in the zone of ~rank 20 would probably rather get a Card pack then 60 dust, which seems kind of useless. Sure, on average it will be 40 dust if they have all of the cards, but it would at least fill their collection faster. If you have enough cards that packs give 40 dust on average, you're probably well enough equipped to get past the rank 20 area.
Shaku, the Collector gave me the Plague
I just did my first try hard run of ladder and got to rank 5 using an aggro/value paladin deck.
I'm slightly disappointed that the only thing people get as a reward for participating is a card back, and everyone can get one...
Considering that most people who have high rankings have spent money on packs/expansions in order to get higher valued cards, I think there should be some give back from blizzard. I mean, if a guy spends $50 on cards and gets to rank 1, I don't think it's insane to give that guy an end of season pack or two for investing his time and money into the game... Especially considering you can't even sell the cards you purchase... Asking for a pack or something for doing well in ranked games isn't really asking for much, especially if the community really helps support the game.
Thinking about the problem I kind of got back on my critical inicial view: The game probably needs a way to allow new players to "get competitive" faster ... there is one (hard to solve) problem for Blizz however: If you significantly pump up the reward system, players with a nigh complete collection will never have to spend money in the game again as the increased rewards will mean to give them the possibility to easily get the new content with a f2p attitude ... not that I would not love this move by blizz, but after all they're filthy capitalists and not the salvation army!
I think the way blizzard went with the "spectate quest" is a step in the right direction, for both sides - players and company : Giving players "old" packs tremendously helps new players while it decreases in value the longer you play (for die-hards the pack basically means 40 dust most of the time)... Blizzard just could add this "old pack" thing on more (regular) spots in the game: On ladder you could simply leave the 10 gold per 3 wins and add an "old pack" for every 10 wins (in the future this means a random pack - classic, GVG, XXX)...
This system would reward ladder play for all players and especially for the ones that need it the most, because, face it, competitive Idiots like myself will probably go on playing for the mere sake of wining and going legend (and also feel a little bit better cos' of the packs ...)
on a sidenote: Sooner or later, Blizzard will need to add "formats" with limited cardpools (last 3 expansions/adventures for example - just like MTG), because in 5 years it will be more or less impossible for a newbie to get into an "eternal" format without spending a lot of money ....
Especially these formats could drop "old content" as an additional reward, and even a lot of it (in addtition to in game gold of course) ...
Ok, first let me say thanks for all the comments and ideas guys, did not expect this topic to get so big. I just have to say this; I am really and I mean really opposed to giving card packs as ladder rewards. The reason why is because it will effectively decrease the profit made by Blizzard and would be a bad move on their part. Now don't get me wrong I think that 2 years down the line older card packs can be given as rewards to help new players catch up but the game is not there yet, not even close. Some improvements to ladder will have to happen this year I think to really keep the game fresh and the main play mode active.
I also want to touch on giving out gold as rank achievements which many have commented about, thinking it is the best idea. I think this has the same problems as giving card packs to an extent. We already get gold for 3 wins, dailies and arena runs we don't need to give more for whatever rank you get. People would buy less card packs effectively because all the gold they could possibly get at the end of a season. My rank 1-5 achievement does include a gold reward but in a random way so it is not guaranteed plus the amount "if" gold is received is static. I think that is the best way to do it.
Also please remember that the longer you play the better you get at the game, some take longer but still. You can not really say that a rank 20 player needs the rewards of a rank 1 player because one the time commitment is massive comparatively and the skill level on just on how a rank 1 plays the game is quite a bit higher. Rewards in any game and even in real life should reflect effort, time, knowledge and skill.
IMHO, the game already is pretty close to that point - just add the next expansion that will be out this summer/autumn into the picture and you will have a game where (in its current reward state) a new player will have to spend somewhere around 200-300 Euros to be able to get a collection that lets him effectively build several tier 1 decks... Don't get me wrong, this is still a long way down to a game like Magic, but still, The situation this player will face compared to the people who picked the game up after its release is just huge and might turn him down before even getting into the game!
Also Hearthstone doesn't have a "rotation", like Magic does in the Standard format. So while this helps longterm players not have to continually buy new cards like in Magic it makes it even harder for a newer person to catch up. (Imagine if we all needed black lotuses to play in standard today).
Ok, how about this? (specific numbers can be tweaked, obviously)
1 star for each turn you played at least one card in.
10 stars for winning a game.
Each time you gain 50 stars, you are rewarded with 10 gold.
Capped at maximum of 50 gold per day. (i.e. 250 stars)
At the end of each season, award bonus gold based on the highest rank you attained during that season, according to the following table:
Rank 25 = 0 gold
Rank 24 = 0 gold
Rank 23 = 0 gold
Rank 22 = 0 gold
Rank 21 = 0 gold
Rank 20 = 0 gold
Rank 19 = 25 gold
Rank 18 = 50 gold
Rank 17 = 75 gold
Rank 16 = 100 gold
Rank 15 = 125 gold
Rank 14 = 175 gold
Rank 13 = 225 gold
Rank 12 = 275 gold
Rank 11 = 325 gold
Rank 10 = 375 gold
Rank 9 = 450 gold
Rank 8 = 525 gold
Rank 7 = 600 gold
Rank 6 = 675 gold
Rank 5 = 750 gold
Rank 4 = 850 gold
Rank 3 = 950 gold
Rank 2 = 1100 gold
Rank 1 = 1250 gold
Legend = 1500 gold
Reasoning:
Removing gold for wins - the problem with this system is that it discourages doing your best on ladder and instead encourages maximizing the number of games you get to play in any given amount of time. As noted in one of the videos, this manifests in aggressive decks (ones that win or lose by turn 5) being overwhelmingly prevalent, because they "cycle" through the system faster. The system also makes it so that Casual mode is anything but.
Stars for turns - this would even things out for decks of different speeds, as games that took you longer to win would gain more progress towards earning gold. The losing player also has to gain something, otherwise they would just concede the moment they lost advantage in a game, rather than stick around till the end. Counting only turns you played cards in prevents exploiting the system by stalling games.
Ladder bonus - fairly straightforward, this would entice people who play on the ladder to seek the highest rank rather than the highest number of games. The gold rewards have to ramp up as you go through the ranks, where it becomes much more difficult to advance. Since these are awarded once per month rather than once per day, the high disparages wouldn't affect things too drastically.
Overall gold rate - if I did my math correctly, you can earn a maximum of 3050 gold per month this way (sans quests), which is almost identical to what you can currently do with gold for wins.
Sorry, but face is NOT place :P
Don't need levelled rewards, its a silly idea
will just play into the hands of the pay to win players and alienate casual players who just want a bit of fun
Level 20 for the card back is the only reason to touch the ladder for me, thats enough of a challenge to get these days as it is, so don't try and ruin it for a lot of people
How so?
I'm no legendary player, but rank 20 is a cakewalk, and I don't see how a revamped gold system that focuses on properly rewarding those that work their way further up the ladder is going to ruin the fun for others.
I assume he's referring to the rich getting richer aspect. You've paid for a number of packs so you have more and better cards so you can build better decks and it is easier to get higher on the ladder. You get higher on the ladder so you get more rewards that let you get even more and better cards so you have an even easier time of getting higher on the ladder. The new player or typical F2P player just falls farther behind on their card collection and has even less of a chance to be competitive (unless they want to play facehunter apparently).
Have posted this before, but I don't think rewards are the answer. I would ditch the current ranked system and replace it with something like:
1) Rank in class = # of wins in class. You are matched with people as close to your rank as possible.
2) 500 wins in class = Legend in class. From then on ranked play in that class is on legend ladder.
3) Reset legend ladder monthly (or quarterly).
Fixes the farming issue and the grinding issue for legend players. Encourages playing more classes. Ditches the whole reset/losing stars thing which seems like a total hack to me.