It finally happened. First time ever this happened to me.
I beat a priest, I wait 4 minutes in queue, and then I play the same priest again.
Context: playing on NA, 11-stars but haven’t played this month at all, so starting from Bronze
Every queue at least 2 min long, sometimes longer than 4
https://ibb.co/9rKcKqr
You were probably the same, on high MMR and pre-Legend. The Devs had reported they really try to not match Legend with non-Legend if they can find an alternative.
This happens to me all the time at all ranks. Unfortunately there are very few people remaining who play the game
Normal occurrence with high Legend mmr in pre Legend.
Earlier this month I played vs Photon 3 games in a row and it was actually already in Legend which is crazy.
Your MMR was probably insanely high and likely inside the top 50 or around it. PS I suspect the MMR is definitely not just win rate based, but also it feeds faster from a win against a high rank.
Otherwise people who play very little but with very high win rates would match with high ranked but they don’t.
It also explains that if someone plays badly (low win rate) but they go Legend: their stars easily go 10.
I mean yeah I finished rank 17 in December and the games vs Photon were at like rank 12 so it was def in top 50 mmr…
Also you actually get less mmr from winning against someone who is higher rank than you.
I just wanted to give a little update to anyone concerned, who didn’t know how this works by now (if any such exist except me)
I got pleasantly surprised tonight when I realized that I kept my 11 stars on NA, even though I only made it to Dia 7 last season
Had no clue that’s how it works
It means that the MMR truly does get a soft reset every month, otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible to keep the same MMR as players who won additional 50-500 games with a positive winrate.
I believe they reset it to an anchor number pertaining to each category of matchmaking (top of the top, 11-stars, 10-stars, other stars…) and then just order their ranks based on their finish last season.
You don’t even need to play to keep your 11 stars. It’s MMR based, not what rank you hit.
MMR doesn’t decay quickly from inactivity.
I understand that, but in my mind, I already have a pretty decent picture of how MMR as a function behaves, and one thing which is clear to me is that number of games played is an important variable in deciding/calculating MMR, as the more games you play, due to the nature of the game and the winrates (always more than 50%), that means that the global average MMR as a function also grows, and that means that by not playing, you stagnate, while the people who had same MMR as you are now getting increases in their own MMR-s.
So how do you reconcile the two conditions? On the one hand, I can skip playing for a month or two and still keep my 11-star category status, but on the other hand, people I shared that status with have won more games and increased their MMR.
The only thing which makes sense is that there exists a soft reset every month. It’s a necessary conclusion.
EDIT: Actually, it’s not a necessary conclusion. It’s possible that MMR has an upper bound, one which it continuously approaches asympthotically, but never reaches. If that’s what their MMR function is, it’s possible to get the same result without a soft reset.
Also, there is no real upper limit to the 11x bonus, so people performing better are just more safely in the range. It would be stranger if you didn’t play, kept the 11x bonus and someone that was previously ranked higher than you and won more than you that month somehow lost it.
You also getting the bonus doesn’t really say much.
THey’ve told us what they do, though you refuse to listen.
They re-norm the distribution to fit a bell curve, which squeezes the tails back into the group. The order is unchanged, the number is squished.
Nor does it change very much each month for the typical player.
right, this is why the upper and lower ends are called tails, and the distribution becomes skewed over the course of the month.
I think I heard the Devs said there is decay of MMR, but it’s not immediate so it probably stays easily similar within ~6 months. Well unless you lose a lot.
Also they had mentioned normalization which implies the extremes are pushed to the center of the mean so that they are not left in small “islands”.
That means extremely high MMR lowers but low MMR may be RAISED so that both can match easier with other more populous MMRs.
I forget who it was but someone posted on Twitter last month getting the 11 star bonus and they were Diamond 3 or 4. Can’t remember which. It was a top player but they took the month off basically.
That’s what happened to Altair above (with D7 even), and it’s normal if they easily had 11x stars before.
It would be weird if they had never legended though and then got 11 inside diamond.
Those stars are definitely not just win rate based. E.g. 10X is easy by just legending.
I was talking about the upper limit of MMR in general, and I’m pretty sure that there’s another, hidden category, apart from 10 and 11-stars reserved for top of the top of the legend, because I almost never get matched against the best during the legend grind, almost always during the season while in legend, and the only times I have been was when I was top 100, and even then, only on NA, never on EU
I mean, when you’re analyzing everything you experience, after some time you begin learning things, and adding them up. That’s what I’m doing with MMR. I observe, I analyze, and I add the conclusions up, always trying to get a clearer picture of the formula
It’s quite complicated, but pretty intuitive.
And in this case, that serves as a soft reset. I only said there was one, never specified in what way
Thanks for the additional info, ig
We know what they’re based on. Top 10% of all legend players that month, by MMR, not by rank, get 11-stars, although around 100 of the best ones never get matched against the other 11-star players during the placements, while for anyone else it is a fair shot, even 10-star players if both are on their respective “tails”.
This also explains why the placement/Legend grind gets easier and easier as the month progresses. Every day you don’t play, the next one you’re guaranteed to be on the tails of the distribution of players searching for a game, as everyone else already played and won some, so their MMR increased, which guarantees your next game is going to be against the higher end of the lower category.
If you were the last guy in legend last month, you WILL be playing against Diamonds.