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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from FortyDust >>

    You have not established that at all, so I guess we're done here.

     Ok, can you provide some sort of reasoning as to why you think I haven't established that? I cited a very simple statistic (26 games from rank 5 to get legend in the old system as opposed to 16 games from Diamond 5 in the new system) that gives my argument a factual basis. So far as I can tell, your counter-argument to this point hasn't even addressed that at all. You seem stuck on the idea that time is the only criterion for success on ladder and the climb to legend and that skill is relatively inconsequential, but you can't seem to support that rationale with anything other than conjecture. If you can't support your opinion with anything other than your opinion or even directly address my argument, I think it's safe to say that it's hard to attribute credibility to your objections to my points.

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from FortyDust >>
    Quote from Sevasmios >>

     Apologies if I wasn't very clear in my response. I wasn't saying that there weren't win streaks in the old system, I was saying there weren't massive win streaks like there are now (i.e. 22 stars for winning a single match), and unequivocally there were no win streaks or star bonuses past rank 5. If I recall correctly you would only get 1 bonus star if you won 3 plus matches in a row for each win, so you could only progress by 2 stars a win, and never past rank 5. That's 26 games where you need a greater than 50 percent WR to progress, as opposed to 16 past Diamond 5 now, and you can carry a star bonus past Diamond 5. And in the old old system everyone got reset to rank 15 every month regardless of where they placed the season prior. I think it's also worth noting that ranked floors are far easier to come by in the new system: 10 in total as opposed to 5 in the old system. All of which is to say, the new system is easier to progress through (provided you have a decent star bonus of course) and more forgiving towards losses and inconsistency. As such, it is reasonable to make the case that, notwithstanding the enormous changes in HS's meta and how the game is played since the new system was put it place (which is another conversation in itself), greater skill was required to attain legend in the old system than is now required in the new. 

     Again, that conclusion does not follow from the premises. A highly skilled player who does not care to invest the time is not going to get there under either system. A moderately skilled player who is determined to hit legend will hit legend under either system, even if slightly more time was required under the old system. There may be a tiny sliver of the population for whom the small amount of extra time would have made the difference, but I maintain that that number is negligible. Further, those people could have made it by being more determined (committing more time) just as easily as by having more skill (as if "skill" is some fixed amount for any given person).

     Sorry, but I don't see how my conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premises I established. It's quite simple: you needed to win more games with an above 50 percent winrate in the old system to attain legend than you do now. As such, greater consistency (and consequently skill) was required to attain legend. As I've said before, it's not that it took more time, it's why it took more time. You are correct in that, if it were simply a matter of time and there were no other factors that impacted the climb in the old system relative to the new (i.e. consistency and the number of games for which consistency is necessary), then one could safely assert that the skill required to make said climb has not changed. However, as I've established several times now, that is not the case. 

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on What exactly do you do about buff Druid then...????
    Quote from HS_trash >>
    Quote from Crusader2020 >>

    Or just fwck HS and play something else.

     there is no other good HS alternatives

     I've been playing gwent lately. It's actually not bad

    Posted in: Standard Format
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from BrindlePoint >>

     600 legend here (wild). Never have gotten more than 10 stars

     This lines up with everything I've seen and what I've been told about wild legend in NA. I'd be interested to hear whether you get 11 stars if you happen to end the month around 400 

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from SirJohn13 >>

    I've only gotten the 11x bonus 5 times and on 2 different accounts. Once I was ~2200, once ~2000, twice ~1500 and once d5 as described

    I've also seen people on my friend list being at ~30000 legend rank in EU. What's the worst legend rank you remember seeing in NA out of curiosity?

     I think the lowest I've seen for NA was around 21,000, although I'm sure it's possible there have been lower and someone on the forum has seen it. Thanks for sharing which ranks you got 11x with, that's very interesting. I don't play standard much anymore, but I do have friends that get decently high legend in standard fairly consistently and they haven't gotten the 11x bonus even as high as 500 as I mentioned. Were those times you got it recent, or right around the time a particular expansion dropped? That would help to explain why you got it relatively low, unless there are just way more standard legend players in EU than there are in NA every month.

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from SirJohn13 >>
    Quote from Sevasmios >>
    Quote from SirJohn13 >>

    The 11x bonus is given to the top10% (or top15%) or players in terms of MMR. This means that (a) some players who didn't even reach legend (due to not playing enough games) can still get/keep it and (b) in terms of end-of-month legend rank it varies a lot based on both the format and the server. In EU a top2000-2500 finish in standard and a top500-550 in wild generally give you the 11x

     Not sure where you're getting this top 10-15 % figure for the 11 star bonus, but that is completely wrong so far as I know. It's not even close to being the top 10-15%. The 11 star bonus is officially relegated to "high legend" players and I know players that consistently finish in the top 500-1k for standard NA legend that do not receive it, as well as players that have finished below 400 in wild NA legend and not received it. Bear in mind that the top 1,000 players in legend in either format represent less than 1 percent of the player base actively participating in said formats, at least if the statistics we've been provided by Blizz in the past are anything to go by. There is no way in hell that 10-15 % of all players in either standard or wild are top 1k legend. Now I have heard of people with extremely high MMR retaining an 11 star bonus after consistently ending the month very high in legend (top 10-top 100) and then taking it easy for a few months, but they still had to achieve very high legend to get it in the first place. If you have some sort of evidence of players receiving the 11 star bonus despite having never achieved high legend, as well as a reputable source for this random 10-15 % figure, I would be very interested to see those. Otherwise all of the information we've been provided to date by Blizzard suggests that the 11 star bonus is strictly for players that end the month in "high legend" (at least sub 500 in NA in either bracket from what I've been told), which is a sub one percent fraction of players on ladder in each respective region.

     I was talking about top10-15% of players within legend, not from the overall playerbase. As for how this translates to end-of-month ranks I can only speak from personal experience in the EU server. I have achieved the 11x bonus quite a few times, I think my worse finish where I got it was ~2200 and my best finish where I didn't get it was ~2500. I remember a month after finishing at ~2500 and only getting a 10x bonus I didn't feel like grinding to legend so I stopped playing standard after reaching d5 (but with a quite decent WR up to then). Guess what, next month I got the 11x again, despite not even making legend.
    As for wild, I got the 11x for the first time two months ago by finishing in top550. Again EU. A friend of mine who made legend on the very last day and after meme-ing and losing a lot had a ~5000 rank, that's how I estimate that the top10-15% of legend players get the 11x bonus

     That makes a lot more sense, thanks for clarifying. Fascinating that you've finished as low as 2200 and still received the 11 star bonus. The only explanation I can come up with is that a particularly large number of people made legend in EU that month. I understand that more people play in EU than NA and that consequently more people are in legend, but I don't believe there is such a large discrepancy that NA has less than 1/4th of the players in legend that EU does (which would account for you receiving the 11 star bonus at 2200 when a friend of mine in NA does not receive it at 500). With that said, based on what you're telling me I think it's safe to say that the margins for receiving the 11x are a bit inflated in EU relative to NA. Out of curiosity, where do you typically finish in standard while still getting the bonus? 

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from SirJohn13 >>

    The 11x bonus is given to the top10% (or top15%) or players in terms of MMR. This means that (a) some players who didn't even reach legend (due to not playing enough games) can still get/keep it and (b) in terms of end-of-month legend rank it varies a lot based on both the format and the server. In EU a top2000-2500 finish in standard and a top500-550 in wild generally give you the 11x

     Not sure where you're getting this top 10-15 % figure for the 11 star bonus, but that is completely wrong so far as I know. It's not even close to being the top 10-15%. The 11 star bonus is officially relegated to "high legend" players and I know players that consistently finish in the top 500-1k for standard NA legend that do not receive it, as well as players that have finished below 400 in wild NA legend and not received it. Bear in mind that the top 1,000 players in legend in either format represent less than 1 percent of the player base actively participating in said formats, at least if the statistics we've been provided by Blizz in the past are anything to go by. There is no way in hell that 10-15 % of all players in either standard or wild are top 1k legend. Now I have heard of people with extremely high MMR retaining an 11 star bonus after consistently ending the month very high in legend (top 10-top 100) and then taking it easy for a few months, but they still had to achieve very high legend to get it in the first place. If you have some sort of evidence of players receiving the 11 star bonus despite having never achieved high legend, as well as a reputable source for this random 10-15 % figure, I would be very interested to see those. Otherwise all of the information we've been provided to date by Blizzard suggests that the 11 star bonus is strictly for players that end the month in "high legend" (at least sub 500 in NA in either bracket from what I've been told), which is a sub one percent fraction of players on ladder in each respective region.

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from Aegis24 >>
    Quote from Sevasmios >>
    Quote from Aegis24 >>

    Legend is only easy to hit if you devote a lot of time to the game.  With the way the bonus star system works you have to play a lot every month or your bonus stars disappear.  I found that out the hard way

     As I recall the 11 star bonus is purely for… top 1000 legend?  Correct me if I’m wrong here.  When the new ranking system came out I started with 8 bonus stars.  I never really devoted the time under the old system, I think rank 3 was as high as I ever got.  I was exited for the new system, but the meta was just so damn boring for me so I couldn’t focus, playing just wasn’t fun.  Fast forward to last month I found myself down to 4 bonus stars.  I found a deck I really enjoy right now so I’ve climbed up a bit, as it stands right now I should have 6 stars at the end of the month but I’m hoping to get back up to Diamond 10 and get back to 8 stars.  So while you’re right it’s not so bad with 11 bonus stars, getting to that point is quite a bit of work and effort and possibly a multi month endeavor depending on your play time.

     Opinions vary on where exactly the 11 star bonus begins. I've heard top 400-200. Generally I think 400 is a safe bet. So yeah, most players are not able to take advantage of it. As far as how hard it is to achieve, I think that really depends on a variety of factors. How much time do you have, what decks are you playing, how good are you at the game, how lucky have you gotten with matchups, draws, RNG, how well can you resist tilt, etc. It definitely will take time and effort to achieve high legend. With that said, I'm still of the opinion that even with the 10 and 9 star bonuses, legend can be easier than it was back in the day. Primarily bc those get you up to or close to D5 and from that point the grind to legend is not as bad as it used to be. I definitely would not characterize it as "easy" if you don't have the 11 star bonus, but it's easier than it was in the old system. But I hear where you're coming from. If you took a break or you're new to the game or if you're just having a hard time breaking into the higher ranks, building up a high star bonus can be very grindy. 

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from FortyDust >>
    Quote from Sevasmios >>
    Quote from FortyDust >>

     But the skill needed hasn't changed. I'm not convinced the time investment was so much greater in the old days that any determined, reasonably capable player would have failed to hit legend because the clock ran out. Thus, determination is the most important factor, with skill and time in a tie for distant second.

     Ok, so I do disagree that the skill required hasn't changed. I stated my reasoning as to why that would be the case in my initial reply to you (greater consistency required in the old system since there were no massive star bonuses or win streaks). If you have some sort of counterargument entailing why that would not be the case I'd be interested to hear it. With that said, I think it's pretty hard to appraise the value of a relatively esoteric concept like determination against more quantifiable things like time and skill. All are important to hit legend, I have a hard time accepting the premise that determination, abstract as it is, is exponentially more pertinent to the achievement than time or skill. I don't see much use in deliberating over that though, that's pretty philosophical and virtually impossible to definitively establish one way or the other. We can agree that determination is important, as are time and skill. I would be interested to hear specifically why you think, in terms of skill, the climb to legend now is exactly the same as it was in the old days.

     You are not remembering the old system accurately. There were win streaks, and your starting rank at the beginning of a season was determined by your highest rank in the previous season, which is equivalent to the bonus stars of the current system.

     Apologies if I wasn't very clear in my response. I wasn't saying that there weren't win streaks in the old system, I was saying there weren't massive win streaks like there are now (i.e. 22 stars for winning a single match), and unequivocally there were no win streaks or star bonuses past rank 5. If I recall correctly you would only get 1 bonus star if you won 3 plus matches in a row for each win, so you could only progress by 2 stars a win, and never past rank 5. That's 26 games where you need a greater than 50 percent WR to progress, as opposed to 16 past Diamond 5 now, and you can carry a star bonus past Diamond 5. And in the old old system everyone got reset to rank 15 every month regardless of where they placed the season prior. I think it's also worth noting that ranked floors are far easier to come by in the new system: 10 in total as opposed to 5 in the old system. All of which is to say, the new system is easier to progress through (provided you have a decent star bonus of course) and more forgiving towards losses and inconsistency. As such, it is reasonable to make the case that, notwithstanding the enormous changes in HS's meta and how the game is played since the new system was put it place (which is another conversation in itself), greater skill was required to attain legend in the old system than is now required in the new. 

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Playing Standard after Playing Wild

    Having played to a pretty high level in both formats, I can safely say for myself that I find wild exponentially more fun and entertaining. Sure, standard might be more intense and the level of competition is generally higher, and I won't fault anyone if that's what they find fun. It's just not fun in a conventional sense like wild is, where the games are typically much faster, the power levels are much higher, and many people are actually trying to have a good time and aren't super sweaty all the time (with the exception of people who play res priest, those people are worse than anyone in standard 🤮). This, at least, has been my experience.

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from FortyDust >>

     But the skill needed hasn't changed. I'm not convinced the time investment was so much greater in the old days that any determined, reasonably capable player would have failed to hit legend because the clock ran out. Thus, determination is the most important factor, with skill and time in a tie for distant second.

     Ok, so I do disagree that the skill required hasn't changed. I stated my reasoning as to why that would be the case in my initial reply to you (greater consistency required in the old system since there were no massive star bonuses or win streaks). If you have some sort of counterargument entailing why that would not be the case I'd be interested to hear it. With that said, I think it's pretty hard to appraise the value of a relatively esoteric concept like determination against more quantifiable things like time and skill. All are important to hit legend, I have a hard time accepting the premise that determination, abstract as it is, is exponentially more pertinent to the achievement than time or skill. I don't see much use in deliberating over that though, that's pretty philosophical and virtually impossible to definitively establish one way or the other. We can agree that determination is important, as are time and skill. I would be interested to hear specifically why you think, in terms of skill, the climb to legend now is exactly the same as it was in the old days.

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from FortyDust >>
    Quote from Sevasmios >>

    So I don't know that it's safe to say that skill was not as important as time in the old system, although this is definitely subjective. Time is certainly less of an issue now with the star bonus. And I think you are perhaps misrepresenting or misunderstanding precisely what made the climb so much more difficult in the old days. It wasn't just that it took more time, it was why it took more time. You had to play and win more games and win those games more consistently to get to legend than you do now (provided you have a good star bonus, of course). As such, skill was far more impactful in the old system with regard to who reached legend and how quickly it was reached than it is now. So I would hardly characterize legend in the old system as trivial, given how the grindy nature of it was actually favorable to more skilled players attaining high rank due to the greater consistency that was required. 

     I think my point is that, under either system, determination is the critical component. If you want to reach Legend, you can, and could before, and most people are not likely to get there by accident either way unless they've already done so and started at a high rank (old system) or have a lot of bonus stars (new system), in which case it doesn't matter because they have already achieved the goal in question.

     If that was that you meant, then yes, I tend to agree that actually wanting to hit legend is generally necessary to hit legend. You could say that about pretty much any pursuit in any area of life but sure, it holds here. And I agree that generally getting there doesn't happen on accident. I still think it's important to note, however, that determination is not the sole prerequisite for getting there. You can't just get legend because you want to get legend: you have to reach a certain level of proficiency with your deck and with the game overall, and not everyone can necessarily do that. Some people just aren't that good at card games, and of course many more don't have the time or don't want to spend the time necessary to achieve legend. I'm sure you know this as well, I just wanted to clarify bc it sort of sounds like you're saying all you need to hit legend is determination. 

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from FortyDust >>
    Quote from Nargacuga15 >>

     You know Priest is like one of the easiest classes to grind with right now in standard?

     Priest games are always very long, so I would not entirely agree. Many games at a slightly lower win rate will climb much faster than a small number of games at a slightly higher win rate.

    With the right amount of time on your hands, everyone can hit legend playing the dominant tier 1 deck. It is really not a challenge. 

     This has always been true.

    To the thread in general: One thing to remember is that there are more Hearthstone players now than there were in years past, so it stands to reason that there would be more people reaching Legend. I'm not saying as "hard" as it used to be, but skill has never been as important as time spent playing on that climb.

    So any meaning you may have assigned to Legend rank in the past was always more about free time than ability, which to me makes the achievement fairly trivial, like a Perfect Attendance award in high school.

     This is an interesting premise and it raises an interesting question. That is, to what extent is and has been success in the climb to legend been attributable to skill as opposed to time? I think the answer to this question is dependent on just how much time it takes the climber in question to reach legend: if they do it in a relatively short duration of time as opposed to a long duration, then it is quite logical to propose that ability (or at the very least luck) was more critical to their success than how much time they had. If they need more time, then it is similarly logical to propose the opposite. This was just as much the case in the old system as it is the case now.

    So I don't know that it's safe to say that skill was not as important as time in the old system, although this is definitely subjective. Time is certainly less of an issue now with the star bonus. And I think you are perhaps misrepresenting or misunderstanding precisely what made the climb so much more difficult in the old days. It wasn't just that it took more time, it was why it took more time. You had to play and win more games and win those games more consistently to get to legend than you do now (provided you have a good star bonus, of course). As such, skill was far more impactful in the old system with regard to who reached legend and how quickly it was reached than it is now. So I would hardly characterize legend in the old system as trivial, given how the grindy nature of it was actually favorable to more skilled players attaining high rank due to the greater consistency that was required. 

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on When is secret mage gonna be nerfed?

    The archetype has been top tier for awhile but it's not THAT strong. Darkglare, mozaki, reno priest, res priest, reno sham, pirate warrior, etc. are all just as strong and some are arguably stronger. 

    Posted in: General Discussion
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    posted a message on Legend has become to easy to hit
    Quote from Aegis24 >>

    Legend is only easy to hit if you devote a lot of time to the game.  With the way the bonus star system works you have to play a lot every month or your bonus stars disappear.  I found that out the hard way

     Easy is relative, but I don't know that you necessarily have to devote a lot of time to hit it with relative ease. Initially sure, you have to learn how to play and get good with whatever archetype you've chosen to focus on, but once you are good enough and dedicate enough time to hit high legend and you do things become significantly easier. This is primarily bc of the 11 star bonus, which just makes the grind so much less difficult after you hit Diamond 5. So far as I understand it this is not affected by how many games you play each month, or at least this hasn't been the case for me. If you play a relatively small number of games to high legend with a good WR and barely play for the rest of the month, you're still getting that 11 star bonus so long as you remain in the higher ranks (and sometimes even if you don't if your overall mmr is high enough). With that said I definitely am not attempting to trivialize the process of getting good enough or putting in the time/effort to reach this point. I just don't think that attaining legend is nearly as difficult once you have the 11 star bonus.  Granted I'm referring to a pretty small proportion of the player base, but I still think it's worth pointing out that legend can be much easier to hit than it was in the old days.

    Posted in: General Discussion
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