Dean "Iksar" Ayala Talks About Battlegrounds - Ranked Resets, Party MMR & More
Earlier today, Dean "Iksar" Ayala shared some insights on Reddit about Battleground parties, ranked resets, and more.
There will be a rating reset in a patch 18.4 and they will reset again every major Battlegrounds patch.
Quote from IksarWe have two core goals directly relating to group queuing. One is to allow you to play with your friends when you want. The other is to create a fun and fair experience for all players involved in a game. Ideally, there is a solution that allows for both of these things to happen.
There are a bunch of potential solutions to solve group queue issues relating to competitive integrity. The TL: DR is there is some data collection involved in understanding the kind of advantage group players have over solo players so we can accurately matchmake and rating adjust. Once we have an accurate baseline of the advantage different skillsets of players get (4k, 6k, 10k, etc) by grouping together, we can adjust the matchmaking rating of those grouped players to create a fair experience. There are many more details about how the end of game rating calculation would work, but the general idea is that whether you queue up into a game with grouped players or solo players your expected rating adjustment end of the game would be the same.
If this doesn't work for whatever reason (actual or perceived fairness), there are many other paths we can go down. We can disable group queue, disable group queue about a certain MMR, only pair groups together, create a separate queue, etc, etc. All of these solutions involve some amount of downside that we'd like to avoid if there is an alternate solution with minimal downside.
Beyond 18.2, we have plans for a rating reset in 18.4 and we will reset again every major battlegrounds patch. Rating reset will also likely involve some iteration based on player feedback, so we'll continue to adjust until players feel like we're in a good place. In the interim, hope you are enjoying BG and you get really big pogos.
Quote from IksarMatchmaking Rating: Your rating that we match you with Visual Rating: Your rating you see on your account
When a reset happens your visual rating will go to 0 and your matchmaking rating will stay the same. You will progress from 0 for 30-60 games until your matchmaking rating and your visual rating are roughly aligned, at which point you will stay the same rating unless your skill level improves.
It's very similar to how the star rating reset system works in constructed Hearthstone. We feel like that system was relatively successful because hardcore users zoom through the system pretty quickly and less hardcore users get to play in a system that is mostly progression based. It can feel pretty crappy if you are a new bg player and your experience is just tanking your rating for your first X games.
Quote from IksarHaving a greater advantage to playing in a group because you do it better than other groups I would guess is true of any game you can queue with friends.
As for the rest, if you are a solo player who queues into a group, the expected result of your game placement should end up being the same. I think that the overwhelming majority of solo players will not know or care if they are playing against grouped players, but ideally in the cases that they are aware they aren't in a disadvantaged position because they are individually much higher skilled than the grouped players they are playing against. You could argue that playing against a group of 4 is unfun regardless of what the outcome of the game is, but that is somewhat subjective. Implemented appropriately, I think it does adjust for the solo player in the 4v1v1v1 scenario so I'm not sure where you are coming from.
And for the last point, we're talking about exploitation. We have some things in place to find and displace players taking advantage of the system through unfair play but I don't like to talk about these things in detail because it makes working around those solutions easier.
Quote from IksarThere are many 'what about x' scenarios that are hard to cover in one post. In this scenario, the 12k players don't face higher rated players (because they don't exist), but their rating would still be adjusted to account for being grouped.
So 12k players queue in a group of 4, we adjust their rating to (example) 14k because they are grouped. They match with a bunch of other 12k players because those are the best players. If the group of 4 players does well, they gain less rating than normal because they beat players who were 2k worse than them (14k vs 12k). If the solo players lose, they lose less because they lost to players who had a 2k matchmaking rating higher than them (12k vs 14k).
While in terms of fairness I think this math works, it can still sucks to be disadvantaged in terms of win/loss potential at the high level. These are also players who are the most aware of when they are playing against solos or groups. For this reason, we discussed potentially making group queue disabled above X MMR, but I'd like to wait and see before taking that step.
Quote from IksarThe adjustment for x% more skilled player vs group will be a calculation based on real data. It should be accurate.
Quote from IksarThere is a lot of data and research to suggest that partying in games does not offer nearly as big of an advantage as players perceive it might give, however, perception matters a lot :).
one thing/change I would love to see in BGs is that, when you are at worse place than your opponent, you should always attack first, giving you a chance to comeback, also your opponent should know how to manipulated minions, it would be more interesting, than when I'm in shitty place I get more rekt by RNG..., also one thing I noticed is that early triples and discoveries are game winning..., sometimes happens, that my opponents have like 2-3 triples while I am on doubles, and getting rekt by them..., not fun also like many comments said, cap the damage from loses... getting 30+ dmg due to ******* RNG is not ******* fun
Oh no, how much time do we have until the BG MMR reset?
Would really like to tryhard for Top 200 before that.
Problem with this is it makes tokens even stronger. I like the idea of higher tavern tier minions hitting harder...maybe halve it or something, so tier 5 and 6 hit for 3, 3 and 4 hit for 2...
Honestly though I think it'd be more simple to just look at the health totals, as they're going to want to keep creeping the power levels with new heroes and minions over time.
I understand your frustration, but have you ever wondered what you may have done, so that Blizzard has it out to get you. Obviously you must have done something HUGE against Blizzard for them to write a separate/special code in the game, just to make sure your opponent gets the exact cards he/she may need to beat you. Maybe the RNG is not the problem. I'd try to find out what I did to piss Blizzard off if I were you.
Just saying.
After nerfs this meta it's just toxic as the previous one. This is my last expansion...they didn't fixed the game.
Also, hiding your "real" rating is just a pathetic idea. It's a bad idea on ladder and it's another bad idea here. You should absolutely be shown your real MMR that is used to rank you.
When I queued as an arranged team for ranked in Warcraft 3, I only fought other arranged teams. Blizzard can't even get this right 15 years later??
Claiming "Well it doesn't help as much as you think it does" is only because people haven't gotten GOOD at manipulation yet. Only matter of time until they do. Numerous ways I can easily think of.
1. Place high value unit first against your Rafaam buddy to give them exactly what they want.
2. If you know you can't win and are about to die vs a buddy, sell all but one unit they want to guarantee Murozond gives them what they want.
3. Don't play any units turn 1 against buddies to guarantee ties and no damage early on.
4. Coordinated level ups when facing buddies instead of buying units to strengthen current board.
I'm sure people will figure out more, AND get better at coordinating with their friends to game the system.
What if people just start multiboxing on bg's?, Terrible idea.
Nice
Too much damage. Too much damage. from the mid-game through to the late game.
Its not fun to have a decent build going and suddenly be blown out for 35 damage. Especially in games where you know you had a chance to win, but attack RNG sinks you. If you're sunk by RNG you shouldn't be taking this kind of damage, ever. Yet it happens, and frequently.
It's not fun to have half the lobby dead after a few mid-game turns (turn 11 or thereabouts). Fundamentally this because you only get the freedom to start picking minions and making decisions on the direction of your build, rather than just taking what you are given when you hit the mid-game.
Some heroes need to be weaker than others, tokens need to do damage, RNG does need need to swing games, I understand why these frequent complaints don't get answered. However considering the general power creep in the game that leads to the above two problems I mentioned, I don't really think 40hp is suitable health total to start with, especially for the much weaker heroes. We already have Patchwork on 50hp (and frankly he needs another buff at this point, but that is a seperate minor issue), maybe its time to start staggering the health pools between hereos more to give balance, and maybe just generally increasing the hp totals across the board as well?
Completely agreed!
I would personally like every minion to deal 1 face damage instead of up to 6. That's still a worst case scenario of losing 1/3d of your total health in a single fight, which seems fair. Getting hit for 20+ hp is just never fun, under any circumstances.
Wish they would at least address the damage. Making any token cause 0 damage would be a good start...
In dota 2 this has always been case. Grp of 5 coordinates teams beats others. Bur at low rank doesnt matter. And at gigh rank you need to find team for yourself. Nothing new here
So you don't tick that clean anymore, right? Maybe for this reason many players didn't play dota ?! Do you think so far? Of course the scribe is right in what he says. It's a shame that you can really "cheat" now. That makes BG a pure fiesta, and I don't feel like eating pickles.
There is big difference between a 5vs5 and an "last man standing" everyone against everyone with 8 playern...
If you want to compare it to Dota 2 it would be 5vs.1vs.1vs.1vs.1vs.1
This is how ranked works in HoTs not Dota and it is not fun for solo queue players.
For me, this change ruins solo experience and makes me want to play BGs less. Now every game there are chance i am playing with group of players who might or might not at some level create an unfair game. Boosting potential is very big in this setup.
Good point.
Remember when Millhouse was a trash tier hero, and then making it so he started with three coins instead of two made him top tier?
My point is, even the smallest advantage adjustment can create big swings in how well a player does. I think a four player team taking on solos is going to have a strong advantage.