Anomaly in the Bonus Stars

Bug Report
1

I contacted the Tech Support, i play on EU server, and they sent me here, not even looking close to the matter i clearly described.
The anomaly i got on day 1 of the new season, June 01, is related to the 3 bonus stars in ranked mode; lately i played less cause of my job, but before i always alternated the 3 ranked modes, only maybe standard played less or nothing. On May i just played for the card back, cause literaly had no time, and played ONLY one mode, Classic.
Now when i opened the game yesterday i saw the bonus stars dropped for no reason at all, and in details i had:
BEFORE (May)
Standard x6-x7
Wild x9
Classic x3

AFTER the begin of June, i founded:
Standard x4
Wild x3
Classic x3

Like i said without even playing a single game in Standard or Wild. Why are affected the 2 others modes?Is not decay, cause i still played in the previouses months, or if is it, is not applied right; like the FAQ Overhaul of the new Ladder System says, you can or can’t have a decay after months or even a year that you leave the game (a lot of players asked after in the thread), but is in the order of a small one adjustment in stars, or even doesn’t have it at all. (“may o may not have” the FAQ says)
Or bewteen a season to the next one the variations are close, and that’s what i always had until yesterday.
So, what is it this strange anomaly??
Fix it.

2

Its the same by me. I play wilde rarely, but when i do i hit legend so 10 stars. This month i look at my wild stars and i hawe only 5 instead of 10… i didnt play wild for 3 months but a 5 star decay is a lot… In standart im an active player…

3

After the ladder resets each month, every single player is reset to rank 10 Bronze. The amount of bonus stars you are awarded is based upon how far you made it into each season. The players that made it the furthest (Legend for example), will receive the most bonus stars. This is to help them quickly rank back up to where they were. The players who played the least and didn’t rank much are awarded the least bonus stars because they weren’t very active and didn’t earn their way through the ranks, thus earning extra / additional bonus stars. It’s to reward active players who rank high so they don’t have to trudge through the lower ranks at the start of the new season.

-Valas

4

Yeah i know, i mean it always worked with small adjustments between months, like i experienced to pass x8-x9 in wild a lot of times. And even months i didn’t played a single game, like May. So i don’t know if they changed something or is a bug.

@Valas
Not at all, the system for me is clear by day 1. And the MINIMUM stars are awarded by the rank reached in the season, then there is the part of the MMR, that can add more. Also, like said in the FAQ and what is happened until now for me, has always been that between months you experience small changes of the stars, and is not even justified by a decay.
Nope is not to help players who play more, and are active, cause in any case all players get bonus stars that is made to help fast ranking. Also this statement is something made by you, in OFFICIAL communications on the system there’s no such thing like that written.

5

“The following is a table of the minimum Star Bonus a player can start with at the start of a season, provided the player’s best rank performance in the last season”

|Bronze 10|2x|
|Bronze 5|2x|
|Silver 10|2x|
|Silver 5|3x|
|Gold 10|4x|
|Gold 5|5x|
|Platinum 10|6x|
|Platinum 5|7x|
|Diamond 10|8x|
|Diamond 5|9x|
|Legend|10x|
|High Legend|11x|

You indicated that you, “literally had no time and ONLY played one mode (Classic)”. Because you didn’t rank / level at all in the other modes, you finished @ Bronze 10. This means you would only qualify for 2x bonus stars + MMR. Your MMR clearly didn’t increase due to a lack of playing, and thus you qualified for only 3x bonus stars in in Wild and Classic.

Players who finish “High Legend” receive 9x more bonus stars than players who finish Bronze - Silver 10. This system does help players who play more level faster by rewarding them for actively playing and ranking. Sure, “all players get bonus stars” but I bet you’d rather have 9 bonus stars than 2, and they only way you can qualify for that many is by, “playing more and being active”.

The hearthstone wiki has no reference to “decay” so that term / statement is, “something made by you” to use your words. Your lack of playing is what disqualifies you for a higher amount of stars, which is why the other modes you aren’t playing are effected. If you’re not actively playing, you’re not going to qualify for many bonus stars the following season.

The more you play, the more you’re rewarded.

-Valas

6

Before classic was introduced, when a player missed a month or two, star bonus won’t be affected much, since it was mostly based on MMR. It would be extremely difficult to reach Diamond, when your MMR is too low, because when your star bonus reaches 1, you are matched aganst players of your current rank, not your current rating, and on diamond most players would be with a much higher MMR, hence you would loose to much to raise a league.
going from 9 stars to 3 in a single month is most likely an error, or some major change in rank system, that was not announced.

1 Like
7

I indicated i got no time and played just for the card back, not caring at all of winrate or else. And played only ONE mode, Classic. So how the others mode are affected?Like you can ask to every single player, and all will tell you that even if they didn’t play for example wild at all by years or even never, they have X star bonus; that star bonus is hold trough months even if you don’t play a single game, or at max you can observe a variation of 1star +/- . You are telling me that until now to mantain your star bonuses in the multiple ranked modes, you had to play them all?Come on, not right at all.
What are you saying, i repeat, is made up by you. Quote me the official source/s i am curious about, is your interpretation and what i retain reliable is the Overhaul Ranked FAQ thread, where all is answered about, even referred to “missing multiple seasons” and the “decay of the stars and MMR”. Guess you miss it, cause is right there, and i can read.
By officials sources about this clear drop of bonuses, there is none. Cause passing to x9 to x3 is pretty abnormal. So that’s why i asked and opened a thread like the Tech Support advice me to do, cause they don’t handle such things and can’t do anything.
So watching others having the same problems that opened similar threads, i am waiting for someone of Blizzard who can enlight us about.

@mawile
If i recall right even after classic was launched, cause i played wild and classic 2 months ago or when Classic came out, not standard, and the stars were mantained the same as usual in all the 3modes. But if they tell me “hey there is a patch notes we made these variations”, well okay me like all others players are aware. Right now for me is an anomaly, on a system that even if they tried to explain in the period of its introduction, remain in some major points still confusonary and unprecise.

8

here is a quote from the FAQ btw:

1 Like
9

Because you finished in Bronze, you qualified for 2 stars.

Because you only played 5 games, the system was not able to recalculate your MMR accurately.

Pikacool150 said this in the other post: “if you don’t play, it can’t calculate the MMR you use and so lowers your star bonus.”

The FAQ Mawile linked (thanks for sharing it) states: “Mathematically, a re-normalization process takes place at the start of each season to keep the distribution in a nice bell-shaped curve.” Your MMR certainly took a hit, whether intended by Blizzard or not, because you only played 5 games.

Another post asking about star bonuses being independent / dependent between modes was answered by SSD with the following: “Yes, you missed the initial announcement that star bonuses are independent between modes.” Considering you finished with

Standard x6-x7
Wild x9
Classic x3

in the Month of may is further evidence that the modes have independent star bonuses from one another.

Every other player experiencing the same problem you are have indicated they did not / hardly played at all last season (May).

Rucho: “Last season (May) I did not play standard”.

Maybe the introduction of Classic mode (as Mawile suggested) reset players MMR or impacted it to the point of greatly reducing following a month of non-play.

Sorry you lost your star bonus, you’ll probably have to play more to regain where you were at opposed to hoping Blizzard does something about it in a decent amount of time, should they even do anything at all.

-Valas

10

number of games has nothing to do with MMR. MMR can only be changed when a game is finished. Playing just 5 games means MMR has not changed much during the month. (That does not mean, MMR was high enough when Diamond 5 was reached in April though)

It is true, MMR is kept for each format separately, so reaching high ranks in Wild won’t provide bonus stars in Standard or Classic. But that has nothing to do with this issue.

I agree, chances this issue will be addressed are pretty low, still, if MMR was randomly (or massively) reset for several players, that’s indeed a bug and devs should at least investigate. What’s the point telling people, they were not playing enough hence it is their fault?

1 Like
11

At the end of the day, MMR is a fairly invisible thing to players of which Blizzard has not specifically outlined how it applies to bonus stars. Sure, they’ve answered general questions, but there is no statement such as: “An MMR rating of 2500 will net you x2 additional bonus stars”.

Q: How many stars bonuses do I get at the start of the season?

A: It depends on your current MMR and the rank you reached from your previous season, whichever gives a higher value.

The term: “Whichever gives a higher value” implies that only one, not both conditions, contribute towards your total bonus stars at the start of the following season.

FiL11 stated: “You are telling me that until now to mantain your star bonuses in the multiple ranked modes, you had to play them all?Come on, not right at all.”

I informed him of the star bonuses being independent / dependent between modes because of this. My response was intended to help clarify upon his belief, not address the primary issue.

Pikacool150 said this in the other post: “if you don’t play, it can’t calculate the MMR you use and so lowers your star bonus.”

If true, the fact that FiL11 only played 5 games last season may have had an impact on why his bonus stars were lower than expected.

Another player “wg15” from last year quoted Blizzard’s statements on how bonus stars work on the hearthpwn forums, went on to share his experience, and concluded that Blizzard has provided inaccurate information that gave him a wrong impression of how bonus stars should be working in that system.

Blizzard even addresses this on their FAQ website:

Common Problems

  • With the season roll over I was assigned fewer stars than I expected.

For all we know, Blizzard updated the MMR bonus stars to award what they had originally intended with the introduction of the system, and up until now players had been profiting off of an influx of bonus stars. Sure, that’s just speculation, but that seems to be all anyone has.

At the end of the day, playing the game more actively is going to be the only solution to reacquiring what was lost. That’s not telling the player, “it’s their fault”. That’s telling the player a solution to a situation no one can truly answer and that Blizzard won’t likely be addressing.

-Valas

12

Still waiting your quote of official sources about what you said before.
In anycase i followed instructions after messages with Tech Support, that just copy paste prepared phrases and finally told me that they don’t resolve such problems, and sent me here, where i like others just want to know and learn more about the issue. I am not even expecting someone of Blizzard is going to respond, not even thinking about the fix of the stars. But the FAQ are clear from day 1 to me, and there are always been separate MMRs in each mode.
So again, how i and others got affected in the reduction of bonus stars in ALL modes, without even playing in some of them?1st problem

2nd problem
Abnormal drop of stars, not linked to decay, suddenly from a month to another. Cause in a year happened the same to me, to just play sometimes few games or always ONE mode not ALL, like 90% of the player do, and like said the stars were mantained or were in the same order of value, not certainly that big drop.

And i didn’t see any announce about modifications or else.
Yeah of course, playing more just give you the abscence of these issues, cause like others problems are more likely to not present cause you play play play and you don’t even encounter them; but can happen, cause at the end of the day is just a game, periods where people got less time and others priorities, like happened to me in May, or just don’t like the metas. So would be nice to understand the cause of the issue or if they changed something that wasn’t even written in the patch notes.
Just that, for now and for the future, at least players know. And still after 1year the system is confusonary and obscure in a lot of aspects to giving stars.