Here’s the algorithm I use to counter Blizzards imperfect match making algorithm.
a) +1 day for every 3 losses
b) +2 days for every arena of 0 wins
c) +4 days for every opponent faced who has 500 wins on a hero when mine has less than 500
d) +2 days for every match that has to be conceded at match start either due to poor match making (500 hero wins vs 35 hero wins for eg. or unbelievably poor card draws)
Currently I’m up to 96 days before I will consider spending money on/in Hearthstone. Imho it would appear that your match making is doing more harm to your revenue (at least from me) than good.
Hero wins mean nothing and basing your assessment of fairness on “my opponent had a golden hero” is a terrible idea.
I have less than 200 wins on every single hero in the game and I’ve still made it to rank 5 and have beaten most players with golden heroes I’ve come across.
It just means they have 500 wins. That doesn’t mean they’re good, they could very well have done them all at rank 20.
With 500 wins
A) how much gold have they earned to purchase card packs
i) how many of those card packs contained legendary cards
ii) how many cards were disenchanted for crafting, both duplicates and golden
iii) how much crafting material did the get
iv) how many ‘preferred’ cards would they have been able to craft to create a deck that is one of the ‘recommended’ power decks?
B) How many solo games have they earned cards from?
C) How many special cards have they received from events? (Like the mech one just given.) ie: 500 wins takes time and I’m sure the majority of 500 win hero/players have received more than just the mech in that time.
I prefer the word balanced as opposed to fairness Life ain’t fair, but Blizzard could and should, do a better job of balancing opposing players based on their deck value as derived by the cost it would take to create each card. Some cards are worth a lot more in the right deck than others. This is why it usually costs a lot more to craft them. Someone who has won 500 games (who knows maybe 1K or more with other hero’s) has earned enough duplicates to disenchant, to craft cards needed for those (shall we call them?) Icyveins decks? Where as the person like myself would be lucky to break 300 wins across all hero’s combined is not going to have the cards for a comparatively comparable deck.
Which rank they earned the wins at is irrelevant, the benefits I’ve outlined above remain the same. Skill only plays a small part. The best skilled player with the most basic cards, is likely going to lose 9/10 vs a 500 win hero. The two biggest factors are Luck, then cards, skill falls third.
I’m not trying to bash you, but your view point (like many others) is very narrow and not thought deeply enough through. Compared to chess, you’ve only thought through 2-3 moves ahead, whereas I’ve thought through at least 10 and say Blizzard can do better.
edit: not to mention all the gold earned from quests, brawl awards or arena’s in that time either.
You can build top level decks with nothing more than the free packs from ranks 50-25. Deck quality isn’t an issue either.
If you decided not to do some research on what decks you should be going for, that’s on you. Bomb Hunter can be made for under 4000 dust and is arguably the best deck right now.
Golden portraits mean nothing, most people I see with them above rank 15 suck
That may be, but this is still the algorithm I use. It’s their lost revenue not mine. They CAN do better with their match making. I EXPECT them to do better with their match making. Until they do, this is the system I will use.
(upto 122 days now - don’t like hunter. try priest or shaman tell me what it costs)
So in other words, you add days to the counter whenever you make misplays.
Clear.
And also -4 days when your +500 wins heroes queue into -500 wins opponents?
BTW, I think I already explained that golden vs non-golden hero plays no role at all in matchmaking and that it also is no indication of levle.
There are no matches that “have to be conceded”, you are deciding that yourself.
I have been playing since 2015. I have never spent a single penny on the game. My Arena average is 4.27 per run. My highest rank ever was 4 (now much lower because I don’t have enough time to play a lot and I enjoy Arena more).
I’m not telling you this to brag, but because I want to tell you WHY I play at a level that is definitely below “top” but also definitely above “average”. It is because when I lose a game, I do not blame it on matchmaking, card draw, people who spend money to get more, etc. I blame it on one thing, and one thing only: the quality of my decisions vs those of my opponent. Were there any turns where with hindsight I should have played different? Were there any signs in the earlier plays of my opponent that would have allowed a read on their hand? Did they make smart plays that I can learn from?
If you want to win more, then you need to do the work for that. And I can already let you in on a secret: abandoning your weird counter of days until you start to spend money will make less of a difference then you might think. If you bought enough packs to get all the cards you want, then you might gain a few ranks due to simply having a more powerful deck. But your strategy, your plays, and your reads on your opponents’ hand will still suck. After climbing those few initial ranks you will again be stuck, facing opponents that are a bit better than you on the same decks, or much better than you on worse decks.
Having 500 wins (and hence a golden hero) does not make one a better player. However, what DOES make one a better player is having 50 losses AND honestly reviewing those losses to see what YOU could have done different.
I don’t care whether you spend money on Hearthstone or not. And my bet is that neither does Blizzard - a single player makes no measurable difference to their bottom line.
If you choose to spend some money, then you will probably gain a bit.
If you choose to invest some effort, then you will certainly gain a lot.
Yes, and also when I lose 3 arena matches due to bad luck, and poor deck draws. Not every arena deck is strong or capable of winning many matches. Hence why Blizzard has the “Retire” button. Why would any one want to retire an arena deck if it was a given that the deck was always capable of winning so long as you never made a mistake and got lucky. Some decks just end up getting poor 3 card draws after another, whilst other players get extremely lucky in their 3 card draws. That is not balanced, and I penalize them for it when it happens. Even a sub average deck with average skill should be able to win 1/3.
I don’t have any 500 win heros. My best is 150 I think. But yes, when I do achieve one, I will apply the inverse, but that will be at least a year or two, maybe three at the current status quo.
True. I suppose I should have been more concise for those inept in being able to discern the point and feel a need to show they are right and I am wrong to boost their own ego. An intelligent person would have read the statement and derived it’s meaning as follow;
d) +2 days for every match that will be conceded at match start either due to poor match making (500 hero wins vs 35 hero wins for eg. or unbelievably poor card draws) as I don’t feel like wasting my time. My time is valuable to me and I have a limited number of minutes in a day to accomplish every thing I intend to do. Wasting 10-15 minutes on a match that at start appears to be a 1/50 chance of successfully winning is potentially wasting that time. The number of games I can concede and start again in that same amount of time is at least 1 a minute depending on if I choose to see what the first round draw turns up as. In 15 new games, I am likely to get an opponent that is less than 500 hero wins, and even have a better starting draw. Usually it only takes 3-4 tries. Need I explain the rational further for you? Or do you understand the concept a little better now?
Obviously you have not been victim of bad luck.
Here’s a scenario I recently encountered.
My hero: 3 health
Enemy: 2 health
Enemy has a taunt minion out 6 health 4 dmg
I have one minion on the board 3/3 dmg
I have 3 silence based cards in the deck. None have been drawn.
I have 4 cards left in my draw pile.
It is my turn.
If I draw 1/3 silence I win the match.
If not. I lose.
You as the player are saying you would blame your own skill and ability for not drawing a silence (75% chance) rather than luck. How would you improve your play style in this scenario? what could you have done differently starting at this point in the game? Lets just assume that all previous turns where played as best as could possibly be played in retrospect. It’s an easy out just to say it’s my fault from some previous turn. Could have been. But if it wasn’t, where does the blame lay. You have said you would still blame yourself for drawing the wrong card. I’m sorry but I don’t believe you.
Likewise, Blizzard implementing a deck weight, treating it like ranks in OW would accomplish much of the same thing (bronze/silver/diamond etc.) I recognize that those those that reap the benefits of the sub optimal matchmaking, don’t want to see it change and do what the can to silence, stifle, belittle, demean, the players that raise this concern to further that end. Age old rich get richer - poor get poorer philosophy.
Likewise neither does it fix the unbalanced match making. I can lose as many games as you like, review them all with a panel of grandmasters, and it still won’t fix it.
That’s a little presumptuous and I can assure you it’s more than a single player that feels this way. I can not say if others speak with their wallet like I do but with me they lose out on more than just a mere $4.95 US occasionally.
I have 4 accounts. I used to run them as multi-box in wow (off and on mind you)
Because of changes in their game, I don’t and they’ve lost that revenue.
My oldest account is over 15 years. Because of changes in their game, policies I don’t agree with, and other stuff I can’t mention that would get me banned or the topic deleted I don’t play wow on that anymore either. They’ve lost that revenue also.
Finally, when they make a decision that I can’t agree with or become to complacent to see that there is a disparity or even put in effort to investigate it (in HS for eg.) I don’t just stop spending money in HS, I stop spending money with the company across all their products. No subscriptions, no shirts or hats or figures, no card packs or skins. If they fail (imo) with one of their products, then none of their products are worth spending my money on
Let’s keep insults and personal attacks out of this, shall we? I enjoy discussion. I do not enjoy exchanging insults.
I got all that already and I can do without the condescending tone, thank you very much.
Conceding at the start of the turn means you confirm your prejudice without even challenging it (so this is probably why you still believe that golden hero means better player - you never actually played them). It also means you rob yourself of the chance of a miraculous upset. And, most of all, you deny yourself the chance to learn. Play the game. Try to get as far as you can. Then, once done, review the game and see where you could have done better.
Your statement “Wasting 10-15 minutes on a match that at start appears to be a 1/50 chance of successfully winning is potentially wasting that time” sums up in a nutshell why you are not improving your level of play.
Don’t put words into my mouth. I would not have said it’s the wrong draw. You cannot influence draw (though you can sometimes influence odds).
You are looking at the last turn of the game and asking me whether that turn only was luck or not. Yeah, that turn only was luck. But it IS important to look at all the turns before that. Were there any turns where you could have gotten in 2 more damage to the face? Did you use any taunt removal prematurely that would have won you the game if you still had it in hand? Did your opponent at any time bait you to use a large removal while holding back on their ACTUAL threat? Did you have any chances to bait out removal from them? Heck, perhaps you made a minor bad decision in the mulligan that could have changed the result.
I didn’t see the game, so I cannot tell. You can.
So you say that if you queue up a specific deck (e.g. Mech Paladin) and you get queued up vs a professional player such as Trump or Dog playing that exact same deck, it’s fair matchmaking? And when you queue up that deck and you get paired with someone who has the approximate same amount of wins and losses as you but plays a different deck it’s not fair?
There IS no unbalanced matchmaking.
If you get better (either by improving your deck, or improving you play, or both) then you will win more than you lose. That will cause you to climb in ranks. And since other better players also rise in ranks, you will then start queueing into those better players, and your win rate will go down again to approximately 50%.
It’s similar to the league system used in many sports. The best in their league get promoted and will face better opponents next year. The worst in their leage get demoted and will have an easier time next year. Over time, each team is playing at their own level. There may be minor disruptions (eg a new team starting at the bottom and quickly rising because they are actually good, or a good team losing their star player and then struggling in their league) but overall the system just works.
Turn about is fair play as I took one of your previous responses as an insult also.
Lets leave it at that. I won’t any more.
So in other words, you understood what I meant, but responded as if I meant something else? That is what some might call manipulative or devious if that’s what happened. Is it?
Most of this is valid and possibly, but I DO NOT feel a player with a golden hero always means they are a better player intrinsically because of said golden hero. I DO feel they are going to have a better deck, and a better selection of cards to compete with compared to mine, and I consider that an unbalanced pairing.
Again presumptuous and belittling (insult?). I’ve sat threw enough matches vs 500 hero’s where I go second, start with coin, and 5,6,7,9 mana cards(after redraw) when I have many that are 1,2,3 mana to know how it ends up. I do play them sometimes. Usually for quests, play X cards Y times. same story, wait for lower cards (sometimes I’m so unlucky I can’t play anything until 4 mana crystals) I’m usually half health by then and any minion that I could play will get insta killed by the 4 enemy minions on the table. I’ve tried waiting for strong combo to setup (lucky) tried forcing them to attack my minons. various things. 7/10x it ends the same with a loss, and I’ve wasted x time and found a new game, better draw, had more fun, and actually had a chance at winning.
I didn’t put words in your mouth. You did that.
The rest I totally agree with. I do make bad plays, been baited, and regretted throwing a card back. I also get right pissed off when a strategy used by 500+ win hero/player can only be used because they’ve had the resources gained from all their wins/quests to craft the needed cards. (it’s not to say that some could have spent a few hundred on packs, for dust and use it at low wins, but is less likely I’ll face that player as they are far and few between)
I agree that wins/losses as they are should be a ‘part’ of how matchmaking is decided. (Picking arbitrary numbers) A deck that would cost 7000 dust to build should not be pitted against a deck that would only cost 2500 dust to make. Even if both players have the same W/L/T stats and have been playing roughly the same amount of time. Craftable cards have a cost to them for a reason. Most commonly the more powerful they are, the higher the cost. Many strategies utilize these high cost cards. Too many of them in a game from your opponent (working 2-3 high end strats in a deck), and unless you get real lucky drawing (and happen to have effective counters in your deck) your likely toast.
There IS unbalanced matchmaking.
You bring your pocket knife to my house, I’ll get my shotgun and body armour.
You might be very skilled with your pocket knife, and I’m average with my shotgun.
If we fought, what are the odds you’d win? Would our weapons (deck) be closely balanced vs one another? Would it be reasonable for a Staff Sgt. to send his officers out only armed with pocket knives. We could tell them it doesn’t matter if the criminals have guns. Just get better with your pocket knife and you’ll do fine.
If you’re not balancing the weapons, it’s not a balanced fight. Skill and luck can only carry you so far. Better weapons are needed. Hence why I feel players that are so far advanced in their quality of weaponry should compete with other players carrying similar advanced weaponry.
Another reason golden heroes is trash as a basis for skill:
Golden copies of Zayle, Shadow Cloak and Whizbang the Wonderful randomly select one of the decks in their pool (Zayle chooses from 5, Whizbang from 18) and make the entire deck and the hero golden.
Zayle and Whizbang are bad. I have less progress toward Golden heroes than you do, but I still have a golden Whizbang and a golden Zayle, so sometimes my hero is golden anyway.
And on a side note, though their decks are bad I’m willing to bet I could beat you much more often than not with them.
I’m not trying to goad you into anything. I just think your real issue here is that you’re bad at the game and while BigHugger is too polite to come out and say it, I am not.
Well, you are entitled to think what you like. We’ll never really know as we will never have an opportunity to review my last hundred games or so to establish just how many games lost were my fault, matchmaking (deck inbalance), or bad luck. So while as you claim your comment was not made with any negative intention, it adds no facts that can be confirmed. Does not flow with the current conversation being had, and frankly adds nothing useful to it.
Now that I’ve had time to think, I believe I have seen your name pop up in other threads I’ve been in. And again just like here, in short you’ve always taken the contrary position and called me stupid. I’m beginning to form the impression that it really doesn’t matter what I say, this is how it will be with you and it’s starting to feel like harassment. I’ve also noticed both your first couple of posts have been liked by one person. Makes me think your using an alt account (or friend) to do that so as to try and make me feel more inferior to yourself. Do you actively search my posts, simply to bash me because it sure feels like it and get yours liked?
Oh, I never said my comment had no negative intentions. I just said I wasn’t goading you.
I don’t know anyone on this forum personally, nor do I have an alt, nor am I stalking you. I just read all 4 main forums in my down time and have no problems with calling out people who blame their problems on things out of their control, like you.
You’re partially right, it doesn’t matter to me what you say until you take responsibility for your situation. You’re stuck at 20 because of YOU, nobody else. You won’t get to 15 until you acknowledge that and act on it. So yes, until you do that, as long as you’re blaming bad luck or matchmaking for YOUR MISTAKES, it doesn’t matter what you say, I’m going to disagree with you and, in all probability, call you on it.
I do think your basis of literally anything on “my opponent has a golden hero” is unbelievably stupid. Whether you choose to take that as “I think you’re stupid” is up to you.
I get notifications when people reply to me, as does everyone here. So no, I’m not stalking your posts, I’m literally getting notified of them because you reply to me and because given that I’m active in this thread, I’m actively following it.
Hearthstone is designed for those who can’t achieve in real life, so need a little bit of a ‘helping hand’.
Between the ‘match making’ and the card combinations that ‘helping hand’ works magnificently.
It is also why there is no card/deck weighting to even things up, there would be no chance for high weighted/high % win decks to be matched against beginners then.
You obviously aren’t the target demographic - as neither am I, but I am sure those that are spend a hell of a lot of money, the formula ( amount of $/£/E spent + amount of time spent researching cut and paste decks = % of success ) undoubtably applies.
My score using that formula is 0 + 0 = <5%, although to be fair I only ever play trash daily decks randomly put together simply to complete them as fast as possible.
My apologies then. Please tell me where I offended you, so I can review how I phrased that and learn to get better.
No. I was keeping my reply short because I thought it was evident what I meant. And because it apparently wasn’t, I clarified that in my later reply.
You may feel that, but you’d be wrong.
I have been playing since 2015, but never invested any money. I now have two golden heroes. My card collection has grown to a decent size over time, but I still lack lots of cards. And while I do have a nice stash of dust to craft cards I really want, I cannot afford to just play any deck I like. After crafting two or three I’d be out of dust.
If my neighbour creates an account now, gets out his credit card, and starts buying packs until he has a full collection of all cards currently in standard, so he can play any (standard) deck he wants, then he absolutely has a better selection of cards than me. And depending on how he builds his decks, there is a good chance that this also implies he’ll have a better deck.
And yet, I am the one with two golden heroes. He has none.
Not at all. I was stating a simple fact. If you (or anyone else) concedes a match before it is really over, then you/they are robbing yourself/themself of all the opportunities that match would have brought. And every match has the opportunity of good RNG, had the opportunity of misplays from the opponent, and gives both players the opportunity to learn from both their own and their opponent’s good and bad decisions.
If this happens only very sparingly, then yeah, it happens. Everyone has bad luck once in a while.
If this happens a lot, then you should review your deck building strategy. Either you have a deck with insufficient early cards so that the chance of having nothing at the start is too high; or you have a deck that is built around late game but lacks the proper tools to still somehow survive the early game.
Especially the latter type of deck can be extremely hard to play well. You have to know exactly which cards to keep and which to return depending on opponent class. You have to make sure to play your removals exactly at the right time - too late and you’re dead, but too early and you run out of removals before the opponent runs out of threats. This deck archetype, more than any other, is one where a player learns the most from reviewing their losses.
If all you care about is fun and winning, and if reviewing losses to analyze why you lost is not fun to you, then I understand that you don’t want to “waste time” on games that you lose.
One consequence of that decision is that you will not improve. Which of course is also fine, if improving is not your goal.
But another consequence is that you must be honest. If you choose not to take certain matchups, to consider them a loss without even trying, they you should stop blaming those matchups on Blizzard. If you choose not to learn how to get better in those games, then it is your choice that lands you in so many matches that you consider losing.
“You as the player are saying you would blame your own skill and ability for not drawing a silence (75% chance) rather than luck”
“You have said you would still blame yourself for drawing the wrong card”
Yeah, I am pretty sure I never said those things. You put them into my mouth.
Draw is not a skill, and if there is any message in this threat where I claim otherwise then point me to it. The skill is in doing the best possible plays with those draws, and in maximizing your chances of a good draw.
Crafting cost of a deck is a terrible way to measure their strength. For instance, Kripparian (in case you don’t know him, he’s quite a popular streamer, playing mostly Arena but sometimes switching to ranked) has a deck made of legendary cards ONLY. That is a 48,000 dust cost deck. It’s also one of the worst decks you can find, because there are way too little low-cost legendaries to get consistent early game, and not enough good removal in the entire legendary pool.
Now that is a meme deck so yoy would be right in saying that it should not be considered. So let’s look at some of the decks that are actually very popular on ladder right now. https://hsreplay.net/decks/#minGames=1000 (site shows live data, so when you click this you’ll probably see slghtly different numbers than what I see now).
The second most popular deck right now, Token Druid, costs less than 3K dust to craft and has a win rate of 58.3%.
The sixth most popular deck right now, Water Rogue, costs far more: 9.2K dust. By your logic it should be “better”. And yet it has a lower win rate, at only 50.3%.
And this is over tens of thousands of recorded games, from many different players. So you can not blame this on a specific player not being able to navigate the deck. The Token Druid deck has, at this time and in the current meta, simply a better chance to win a match then the Water Rogue deck, despite being cheaper.
If you peruse the list, you will see lots of decks with the same cost but a very different win rate. And lots of decks with the same win rate but a very different crafting cost.
Your example throws away the competition aspect, and the rankings.
So let’s use that as a base to build a more realistic example. We’ll set up a fight competition that allows armed and unarmed combat, with the only exception that lethal violence is not permitted (otherwise the competition would be too shortlived). So no shotguns, but than that most weapons are fair game.
You don’t know me, but if you imagine me as a 50+ guy with a desk job, not enough exercise, and too much love for food, you’re about right. Imagine me in that arena, wearing clothes made out of studded leather, and carrying a sword and a shield. My opponent is Jackie Chan, wearing shorts and armed with only his fists. Do you think I stand a chance?
Your argument is to say that the fight was unfair becuase I was better equipped than Jackie, so Jackie should have had a sword and studded leather armour as well. But in reality, this would only be a fair fight it Jackie were blindfolded and had his hands tied behind his back.
My argument is that if such a match were too happen I would still be the underdog and probably lose, and then the competition system ensures that Jackie will rise in rank and his next opponent will be a better fighter than I am; and I will lose a rank and my next opponent will be easier. So after a few rounds of fighting everyone will be at their proper rank. I with sword and armor will be at rank 18 (without the equipment I would be 25). Jackie barehanded is at rank 3 (with weapons he’d be legendary). And Jackie blindfolded and with hands tied would be at rank 18.
If you are a slightly better fighter than I am, then perhaps you are at rank 18 with a pocket knife and no armour. In that case, your opponent might be someone of equal skill, with equivalent equipent, Or it might be me, with sword and armour but also with pot belly and barely enough stamina to climb a flight of stairs. Or it might be Jackie Chan, blindfolded and with his arms tied behind his back. In each of those cases the chances would be about equal. Robbing me of my sword and armour and giving me a pocket knife instead makes you a huge favorite. Removing Jackie’s blindfold and ties and giving him a pocket knife means you stand not a chance.
In the case of my coming to your house, there is no competition. There were no hundreds of other matches for each of us to determine our relative skill. So it’s not a fair comparison to Hearthstone.
In the case of Hearthstone, your rank is a good measure of a combination of factors: your skill, your card collection, and your deck choices.
I have seen streamers take a deck with only basic cards (the ones you get for levelling your heroes to level 10) to single-digit ranks. I would never be able to do so but they are better players than I am. All their opponents have better decks than them but their skill compensates enough that they still manage to get an over 50% win rate - until they hit the spot where it’s exactly 50%, usually between 10 and 5. (I have also seen streamers take a “free to play” deck to legend, but I don’t think I have ever seen someone take a “basic cards only” deck that far.
When playing between ranks 10 and 20 (where I usually am), I often queue into people with decks that I recognize as copies of decks that popular streamers play. Or copies of decks that are featured on popular websites. Those decks are allmost always better than mine (I build most of my decks myself, but I am not very good at it). And when I then play out the game I often see them making bad choices. Misplays that I can capitalize on to increase my chances in that game.
I also often queue into people with lower quality decks than I have., They tend to punish my small mistakes hard, and I really need a bit of luck to defeat them because I can see that they are better players.
My overall win rate in ranks 10-20 vs better decks? Approximately 50% since most of those better decks are navigated by worse players.
My overall win rate in ranks 10-20 vs worse decks? Approximately 50% since most of those worse decks are navigated by better players.
Good luck fighting Jackie Chan while both are carrying the same equipment.
I think it is more exciting when players compete who, given the total of skill, experience, and equipment, have an approximate equal chance.
Not going to quote the whole thing. I did read it all, and was very well written. I can see your position more clearly now. I can’t say I agree with it entirely, as I still have this feeling that there is something wrong with the match making system. Even with out my concedes I’m probably around a 25% win rate (if that). a year ago I was closer to 40%-50% (no hard data) just the feeling. I’m confident that my skill hasn’t deteriorated that much over that time. So either it’s my decks, my luck, or match making. I’m leaving out skill with new mechanics/cards etc as there should be some drop in performance but 15%-25% seems high.
It’s food for thought, and given me some things I’ll be more mindful of before, during and in retrospect of a match.
I have to say I do appreciate the patience and time you’ve taken to explain a lot of things. Thank you.
Yes. I’ve started to track my games today. So far it’s not as bad as it seems i’m still closer to 50% than it feels. Here’s the tally thus far, with no insta-abandon’s
Wins: 11 Losses: 11 Games: 22 Percent:
coincidentally My next match I got trounced, and couldn’t play anything. Died at 3 crystals/4 for opp. Rank 19.
edit: today I’m starting to record golden hero’s for each win/loss. should be interesting see what my win/loss ratio is vs golden/normal hero’s. Just for hard data and arguments sake.
