I agree with Neon, although my care factor is a lot lower. This obviously has an adverse effect on players who have a low rank / high MMR.
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The question is why they have a low rank / high MMR in the first place.
If they dont play enough - extremely casual, but play very well when they do play - then whats the problem? You dont play enough for it to make a significant impact anyway!
If youre not playing enough for this to actually be a factor, then why should your experience be considered???
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Seems like a weird way to design it. Like if Andy Murray had to face Djokovic when playing each round of challengers during his comeback.
The purer approach would be to ditch ranks and rewards, and just have MMR. However purity is not the goal of the current system.
I do think more transparency on matchups helps with the UX, i.e. showing your and opponent’s MMR.
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So we’re talking about two things here, and I think maybe that’s why this conversation keeps going in circles. I’m mostly talking about rank, not MMR, because rank dictates what kind of rewards we can get at the end of the month. Previously, if you were an above average player, being matched by rank after running out of bonus stars would mean that you would likely win more against the average player at lower ranks, then the following month you would be at an advantage because of your star bonus that you received because you were previously matched against easier opponents. Now that all matches are mmr based, no one going forward will have this advantage.
I also think legend population is slightly higher than 1% now, but I could be wrong about that. I’m not sure there are any recent accurate numbers to reference
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No where did we say that the MMR is stagnant, we said that we are stuck in a ranking bracket playing players in a higher bracket due to the match making change.
Our climb has been stunted by the change, and this shouldn’t be a dispute.
Exactly.
I said this as well.
The MMR only match system works just fine on the legend ladder and is fair when everyone earned their same rewards and is just jockeying for final rankings for pride.
The change makes rank not important in the match, but still important to monthly rewards.
That seems like an error.
It really isn’t this, though.
Take a player who is at their highest legend rank ever playing their best matches they can based on their skill. Are they still going to have a positive win rate? Not likely, their progression will be capped by skill and they will hover around the same legend rank.
Everyone in the game is now matched exactly like this - in such a way that climbing out of the lower ranks will require you to hold a positive win rate against equal competition the entire grind… and the grind will increase in difficulty, stopping your progress, the better you do.
It’s a massive change.
Your entire premise is based on the assumption that prior rank and MMR are uncorrelated. They really are pretty tight, and they said so during the announcement of the change and the explanation of why most players wouldn’t see a difference.
Of course, that won’t stop people from deliberately convincing themselves of s difference to avoid responsibility for their own performance.
But they are not better players. Therefore, your path to victory is equally difficult.
How many times must this be said?
I’m not saying that they are uncorrelated. I am saying that it will take more time to achieve a higher rank for a new above-average player now because they are not getting the easy matches that everyone else used to get when being matched by rank alone. I’m not saying advancement is impossible, just that it is more of a grind now if you don’t already have 10x bonus stars
You are just wrong here and that’s the plain facts.
You’ve failed to understand the entire discussion, so continuing to make the same points differently won’t do anything because you’re not arguing in good faith at this point.
Exactly this, and dramatically more difficult.
I linked a chart that showed average games needed to climb to legend based on bonus stars and win rates.
The change to matching will squish win rates at all ranks, functionally making the grind dramatically harder for all persons not already climbing to legend regularly.
Wow, haven’t thought this topic will get that far.
Anyway, another test - now on EU. So far it goes good and first games are clearly silver/gold players (hard to tell for sure as all the plague DKs look the same to me, more or less).
Anyway they are not aware of Zarimi priest so definitely not high ranks. Strange is that this time I’ve got 4 stars vs. 3 stars on US.
I’ll continue to monitor but there are two possible reasons for difference:
- yesterday’s maintenance
or - lack if people to play with as my TZ is deep night in US and prime time in EU.
Let’s see how it goes. 
And what I am saying is that they can only be easier if non-bonus-star rank and MMR have large discrepancies. Which they don’t, and never have.
No, you just refuse to acknowledge that MMR is actually more effective at gauging skill than rank. Your entire whine is about seeing people with higher rank matched against you, and claim it’s unfair. But if you’re being matched with them, then it is fair.
The “plain facts” have been clearly stated by Blizzard, who have access to the entire population data of matchup history. You accused them of lying, so you don’t get to vote.
That was the whole idea behind the change. It is amusing how many poeple don’t realise it.
WHOOOOOOSH.
Again, you fundamentally are missing the entirety of the point, Mand.
Again, nope. Not the point.
They are making a guess and they said as much on Reddit.
It will take a bit of data for this to shake out, but I expect changes in the not too distant future because this change has a massive impact on rank rewards.
Both Celestalon and Ridiculous had separately denied this on reddit over the last several days.
They specifically said it is primarily to stop people from matching with bots.
They didn’t discuss the collateral damages from the change.
Then try saying it again, this time without using arguments that aren’t making up how the matchmaker works.
Yes they do, when you are new, because it takes time to climb without bonus stars
Only when smurfing, which was the whole point.
An actual, new, bad player with no collection won’t ever climb quickly. What you allege simply doesn’t happen.
I’m not talking about a bad player. I’m talking about an above average player.
And I’m literally only talking about the first time someone decides to try to climb, or if someone tries to climb after their MMR has decayed to a point where they have less than 10 bonus stars. After that, they’ll have bonus stars, and ranking up is relatively easy if you do it with bonus stars every month.
An average player isn’t new, and has already established their MMR fairly.
Again, not talking about MMR, talking about rank, because that’s what rewards are based on. If rewards were based on MMR, I would fully agree with you. But rewards are based on rank, and everyone who got bonus stars under the old system have unfair advantage in rank (not mmr) over newer players