Battlegrounds MMR Updates

Greetings Friends!

With the launch of today’s patch, a Battlegrounds MMR change accidentally found it’s way in as well. While this change was still going to happen, it was meant to go live after we messaged out what the change was… apologies on that!

Now, let’s dive into what actually was changed.
 
The Problem: Players at very high MMR were continuing to climb by playing lots of games. Despite playing against players with a lower MMR, the MMR awarded at the end of the match was still very high.

We got feedback from several of our top players asking us to adjust this downward, even though it will lower their rating and climbing speed after the change.
 
The Solution: At very high MMR, you’re more likely to matchmake with other players that have an average rating above or below you. In these cases, the multiplier has been greatly increased.

In the old system, if you played against 7 opponents with an average of 1,000 rating below you, you would still get ~90% of your points for first place. In the new system, you will get about ~50% of your points for first place in that same situation (please note that these numbers are not exact). So, if you land 8th place when playing against 7 opponents with an average of 1,000 MMR below you, you will now lose a lot more points than before.

If you’re paired against opponents with an average rating equal to your rating then nothing changes. This means that players around 3,000 - 5,000 MMR will not see any difference.
 
TL;DR: Players with very high MMR will see a change in how many points they are awarded at the end of their matches. The majority of players will not see a change.
 
In the future, we are considering an MMR normalization pass. What this means is that we would bring in everyone’s MMR closer to the 4,000 range.

We are continuing to keep an eye on MMR and how it affects your play experience. We hope you enjoy the balance changes and we’ll see you on the Battlegrounds <3

Cheers,
The Hearthstone Team

  • 12/5 UPDATE: In regards to the potential MMR normalization pass, we are aiming to adjust players above 5,500 rating down to 5,500. We will keep everyone updated on final decisions.

  • 12/6 UPDATE: We’re in process of reverting the change that was accidentally made yesterday. What this means it that everything will be just as it was before yesterday’s changes. As far as the future of the MMR system is concerned, we’re still discussing how we want to proceed. We’ll be sure to keep you all updated!

4 Likes

Respect for posting this on the hearthstone forums and not just reddit.

8 Likes

So does this mean there won’t be an MMR reset?

1 Like

There definitely should just be a straight-up MMR reset w/ this change

1 Like

“top players” = people at 9k who thought it would be funny to screw over people above them? Watching collins get 16 points for a first place win was about as sad as you can get with this new system. Someone else getting 20 points for 1st and -180 for 7th due to RNG? RDU just got -19 for a 2nd place finish. LOL That’s completely broken in every way.

5 Likes

With the new system there should be a MMR reset and/or a better matching system. Name one incentive to play when you see some one with 10k rating lost 25 points for a 3rd place.

Not sure how Blizzard thought this new system would make anyone happy, newer players can never reach the top and older top players cannot play anymore without losing their spot. The people at the top right now can never be unseated if they simply choose not to play anymore.
I’m really upset seeing as though this wasn’t even in the patch notes and I lost like 600 rating before I found this post.

a guy at 10k mmr plays for a living therefore he doesn’t care about winning or losing lol

Nope, they’re just playing smurf accounts now. Still get the views all while staying on top on their other account.

Mmr should probably automatically normalize for inactive accounts so they can’t stay at the top without playing.

Also a softcap on mmr is a good thing, but any time they change the mmr calcs they should reset it to 4000 for everyone.

Honestly a monthly reset to 4000 is probably a good thing, we could crown a monthly champion

2 Likes

those change are fine imo, they just forget to reset the MMR.

Love the changes. It’s so much fun losing 200 mmr for 6th place and gaining 30 for 2nd! I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my time or effort from the past 4 hours on a single loss! Thanks Blizzard. Please be sure to make these changes without notice and more punishing in the future!

2 Likes

Reset mmr. End of history…

This change make sense. Currently top player just climb endlessly and they play alot widening the gap due to grind not skills. Now it don’t make sense because their rating will keep dropping but it will eventually stabilised when all good players is around 7-8k and they will gain / lose more normally again.

2 Likes

This system is awful. I don’t want accidentally get -200 for 8th or +20 for the 1st because the other players have different rating from mine. To be honest rating above 7k is just how much time have you spend on game and there are practically no skill differents in players from 8k and 9k for example. If we got this system can we maybe now play only against people with the same MMR?

This new MMR accidentally released is horrible!

My MMR is tanking hard from 9.1k to 8.5k. Probably will be under 8k in no time.

Just got 4th in a game and lost exactly 100 points! insane. How is this reasonable? I have to get 1st 3 times to offset a 4th place “lost”? I can’t even imagine getting 8th. My score would explode to negative infinity jesus.

1 Like

Let’s out it this way. In a normal elo based system, a 9k vs 7 7k should have a 99% win rate. Anything lower than number 1 is consider bad. If your skills is really 2k above the 7ks you should win 99% of the time in long run negating RNG. If that don’t happen, the 7k are alot closer to you in skills and you should be maybe 7.5k instead of 9. Currently it make no sense to take hard hit on MMR but once the soft reset is done together with prolong playing at this new system, a good player will still be good and stay above the rest. Except its not about grinding anymore but just how skillful you are base on win rates.

2 Likes

If I had total control over gameplay I would agree with this ranking system but because it 75% of ai based decisions, which are usually contradictory to what I would choose, and a random draw of cards, losing should not affect ranking that much. I have had a great hand and been winning into the final round at 35-4 health and lost due to poor draws for 5 straight rounds. Couldn’t get a match to save my life. Still needs work but getting better.

1 Like

FIX…THE…TIMER… this mode really sucks because I cant make my brain work like a comp :roll_eyes: Being the last 2 in a match and losing because you only have 30 sec to change your board because you lost the last 2 times against the same number 1 spot, is just lame. All the animations are pointless, can we please have an option to turn all that crap off already?

2 Likes