Hearthpwn

That's... fairly standard for MMR systems?

I've seen some streamers gain MMR for 6th place, I've seen others lose MMR for second place. All just depends on the specific lobby, and what your personal rating is relative to everybody else.

Like... think about Chess ELO - if Magnus Carlsen got first place in some local pub tournament (that also happened to matter for worldwide Chess ELO), it likely wouldn't impact his ELO score because he's at such a high level compared to everybody else that it wouldn't make sense for him to gain any points.

The battlegrounds MMR system *is* the equivalent of ELO, so if you lose in an 8k lobby as a 2k player, it isn't going to really matter, but losing in a 2k lobby as a 12k player is *devastating*

Quote from 3nnu1 >>

Quote from Bengalaas >>

Activision does own a patent for rigging games to drive sales and some people believe that it is applied to Hearthstone.

Now, as I understand it that patent has two main parts. One is that it tries to match players without a desirable in-game item with players that have it, thus advertising the item.

The second is to match players in games they would enjoy when they're having a bad streak. This is described to be done by analysing the players most effective role and the teammates and game modes he does better with and attempting to put them in that situation.

None of it is about a players win/lose ratio, because none of it needs to be. A simple rating system is enough to achieve a near 50% winrate for everyone after they reach their respective rating, however players that are stuck at low ranks are often unwilling to accept that this is the rank they deserve, so they blame "rigged matchmaking" for it.

 So you think that a multibillion dollar corporation would not use a patent that they own which is designed to generate revenue in hearthstone. Is that correct?

 Acti-Blizzard says they don't use it in any of their games, and that includes Hearthstone.

...

Now if you believe that line or not is up to the individual to determine, especially considering how trustworthy they have been the last decade or so, but I squarely fall on the side of the fence where they're probably using a very mild version of that system to drive sales.

Whether you call that "rigging" is none of my business, but I would say it is, even if it isn't actually impacting the aggregate stats.

Quote from Skeng >>

So how do the same players consistently get to the top of legend every month? Or how do GM players consistently perform at a high level? They're immune to the rigging or something?

Because the algorithms utilized probably don't really care about the top players, as far as sales are concerned.

I've talked about Acti-Blizzard in the past, and how they own a patent for utilizing matchmaking to drive microtransaction sales - and it does so specifically by analyzing psyche profiles (every action in game, from random clicks to mulligan choices are tracked) by matching veteran players with less experienced players, in order to incentivize the less experienced players to buy products they may want.

It's not much of a stretch to say that HSreplay might not be able to track such things because of incomplete information pertaining to those psyche profiles, and that individual players might have their matchups tweaked with to drive sales, in such a way that also happens to line up with wins/losses being skewed positively or some people, and negatively for others, and the whole thing comes out as net neutral in aggregate.

Put another way: It's not necessarily rigging for/against a particular person's winrates, but may be putting greater weight on certain matchups to drive sales independently of what the winrate is for that player.

For reference, the patent in question:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160005270

MtG isn't on record saying that your cards will always be playable.

It isn't that there is or isn't a banlist at all - there being rotated sets in standard is itself a form of banlist. Duels has a banlist because some cards are legitimately a problem.

The issue is that the devs have pitched X thing (you will always be able to use XYZ cards in wild, even if those cards numbers change) and will need to turn around and immediately contradict X. (We will change cards in wild so they don't function the same way they did in standard) in order to unban said cards from Wild, come rotation.

Put another way: having a Wild banlist is not a gameplay issue, but a "how trustworthy are the devs" issue - if they're willing to go back on this small promise, what prevents them from going back on bigger promises?

I've said it before, and I'll keep harping on this until the devs hear:

Having a banlist at all in Wild is fundamentally a problem.

The whole point of Wild - in Blizzard's own words - is that you can play all your old decks. They've gone on to elaborate that they intended to mean that the cards would all *function* the same way they did before, even if the individual numbers/power level changed.

Banning a card in Wild runs completely counter to this, since it means they intend to rework the card when it eventually rotates... but if they rework it, it's no longer the same card functionally. And if they don't rework them, those cards are extremely toxic to the Wild format, and will ruin the experience for everyone, so they'd have to stay banned, and be unplayable in *any* gamemode.

Banning cards in Wild is the same as sending the message "we're okay with just flat out deleting your card collection", even if that isn't the intended message.

If I had to guess, when summoned that way, it technically exists in multiple zones before attacking the face, meaning the aura buffs on cthun start multiplying.

The problem, ultimately, is that Blizzard has promised some dozen features and additional game modes in the past (stuff which could be used to drive monetization in other ways), and they've all been sidelined for... what honestly seems kind of mediocre, and obvious cash grab.

Pair that with a meta where something like 75% of Blizzards own advertising team (streamers) are contemplating quitting the game because the meta for standard is just unfun for them... and the whole thing comes off as seeming like Blizzard is throwing Standard and Wild under the bus for a quick cash grab, instead of making a game people want to spend money on for its own sake.

Quote from Wyrdward >>

It doesn't need to be nerfed it's really not that strong. We don't even have blizzard's data publicly so there's no way to know the win rates currently, face hunter could be the top deck now or a priest deck we aren't aware of.

As far as nerfs go we just had a round of them I don't understand the rush for even MORE changes.

Blizz probably wants to keep the new cards competitive for the expansion anyways so there's no way to nerf the warlock quest, stealer of souls or zoo in general.

Buffing other classes and cards doesn't solve the problem, these are indirect nerfs which reduce the viability of warlock too, if every other class gets buffed that is a nerf to warlock.

 Problem I would say with this line of thought is that, even after the nerfs, Warlock is still the only class with a banned Wild Card: Stealer of Souls

So something still needs to be done, eventually, in order to allow said card to be played once it rotates, and it just so happens to be used in a prominent "feels bad" archetype with a positive winrate (whether it's out of scope power wise or not).

Only question would, therefore, be whether the card/mechanic gets changed sooner or later, and I'd argue sooner is better for Hearthstone, since it is such a feels bad archetype right now.

Quote from LxVaiN >>

Quote from XanKortal >>

Simple: change it so cards/effects that cost life instead of mana don't count as damage.

Stealer of Souls stops counting towards progression and doesn't outright murder the opponent post completion, and simultaneously fixes the issue where it had to be banned out of wild for it's interaction with immune cards.

Win win win.

 While i think this is by far the best way to change things, i dont know if that would happen ever since it may require a change in the hearthstone game code itself and we dont know how much work that might be. It could be potentially very easy, it also could be a nightmare depending on how it is programmed.

They already have 'non damage' and 'non-healing' health manipulation effects in the code (Alexstrasza) that still preserves maximum health.

I imagine it's not that hard.

Simple: change it so cards/effects that cost life instead of mana don't count as damage.

Stealer of Souls stops counting towards progression and doesn't outright murder the opponent post completion, and simultaneously fixes the issue where it had to be banned out of wild for it's interaction with immune cards.

Win win win.

Hrmmmm... no.

The problem is you've presented two contradictory desires. There was a GDC talk about this called 'Cursed Problems in Game Design' where one or more promises made to players are not being met because your other promises to players contradict that promise.

So, here's the problem:

Quote from Magpai_ >>

At this point in time my main gripe with wild is in the inability to play decks I used to enjoy playing.

[...]

As a Wild player, I don't mind losing to better decks, but I do mind not being able to play my favourite decks of the past!

 Does not align with this:

Quote from Magpai_ >>

I realise that everyone will have their favourite classes and cards: be it 1-mana Execute, 2-mana Equality, 2-mana Flametongue Totem, 0-mana Hunter's Mark, 1-mana Mana Wyrm, original Shadowboxer, original Dreadsteed, original Preparation or 2-mana Wild Growth. Notable Neutral cards would be: 5-mana Giggling Inventor, 4-mana Barnes, and 5-mana Naga Sea Witch.

 Because many of those cards were never in standard decks, or continued to be used post nerf, meaning different decks used the card for different purposes.

For example, reverting Execute to 1 mana allows Classic decks to be rebuilt in Wild, but now Even Warrior decks (yes, they were a thing, even reaching rank 39 legend) can't use the card.

Or using the Dreadsteed example - Dreadsteed + Defile was never a combo in Standard or Wild specifically because it was nerfed before Defile even entered the game.

Unnerfing any of these examples will not fix Wild because it would only break your own expectations in other ways - and not because of overall power, but because your expectation doesn't fit with the current rules of the format.

If you want to unnerf any of the quoted cards, you'd also need to implement a system where including the unnerfed versions of said cards also bans any cards that were released after said nerfing, or any card released after those cards rotated into Wild (in cases like Barnes where the nerf happened post-rotation), and frankly, Wild is not a game mode with a big enough player based to implement those kinds of systems.

Classic already exists for this exact fantasy.

Ehhhh...

I'd normally agree, but MTGs devs have admitted to making last minute changes to cards countless times (Skullclamp and Oko, anyone?) which hints at structural issues with playtesting beyond "they don't playtest enough".

If changes like that can be made mere hours before sending it to print, that means that what playtesting is being done is usually on versions of these cards that just flat out aren't getting to print - which is fine if you were iterating and continued playtesting the final version, but typically that just doesn't happen.

(Also, Blizzard is on record saying they don't even look at wild when designing cards, so they *definitely* don't playtest wild formats, which was the problem here)

Mmmmm disagree on the Jaraxxus point: 2 mana summon a 6/6 is certainly strong, but you completely miss that several of the DK death knights *can* go infinite in the right contexts.

For example, DKrexxar can generate several beasts that shuffle new cards into the deck (namely Augmented + Educated Elek's and Raptor Hatchling), meaning it goes infinite on its own, not "with other cards", but its own hero power, while simultaneously generating tempo.

Quote from DeafKnight >>

Quote from TheArcanist236 >>

This is a SEVEN MANA combo that removes ONE SINGLE MINION. In what world is this problematic?

 In the world of a game which heavily relies on minions for win conditions for the greatest percentage of decks. 
Wonder what game that might be. Something beginning with "Hearthst....."?

And your comment kind of shows you don't see what this combo actually does. It removes 2 minions, not one.
And it also only costs 5 mana, with the discounts mentioned above.

 So. Let me get this straight: this is a 4 card, 14 mana combo (still need to pay for the cards that give discounts) that removes one card from your opponents hand permanently. (The second one just needs to have the demon killed to return it, so not permanent), OR, a 5 card, 23 mana, combo to remove 2 cards permanently and a third temporarily.

...

This will not see play.

Edit: Before you say "Dark Portal" or "free admission", this combo already dependa on a youthful brewmaster, which is a 2 mana, non demon, so it very easily mucks up the combo, making the whole thing cost more than it did in the first place.

Quote from PetiteMouche >>

But the new one is a dead minion in damage spell related decks, same story..

 Except it isn't dead in damage spell related decks.

It can *always* give +1 attack to the other totems your HP creates.

Wrath of Air totem is a textless 0/2 totem in decks that don't use spell damage effects. The new one at least has an effect regardless of how you built your deck, even if that effect is relatively minor.