Wow! Do you even know how to read? I never mentioned a card shortage, I’m arguing for exactly the opposite of one “end all be all deck” (I want VARIETY!), and I have absolutely designed decks that beat ALL metas…. dominate some decks, split the difference on others… If you actually learned how to design a deck, you would know that playing a deck that ISN’T what everyone else is running allows you to beat all of the decks with regularity. So now you listen and listen close, my win rate is just fine. My position is not based on some “I can’t win” mentality… it’s based on knowing what the game was and what it has descended into. It’s based on liking variety rather than just playing the same deck over and over… the fact that everyone can name a deck (Big Priest, Mech Hunter, Cube Lock, etc) tells me it’s too common. The fact that you lack the ability to win without these cards shouldn’t mean that the rest of us should have to suffer through a sub par game so the masses like you can feel you have some level of skill and can win. And, if you think I’m using a stance in my argument that cannot win, you don’t realize that I’m using Blizzards own arguments… every nerf, every retirement, every change they have made since the start of the game has been based on the same arguments I’m making now. They just don’t apply it to new cards because it makes little fan boys like you excited that you might actually be able to win.
Its what you hope for but then the other how to win hearthstone games plays the factor.
THE RNG.
I was up against a Shaman. Yep they drop Hagatha on 8, the other way to win HS games, the cough consistency factor in decks.
Then, oh look the RNG game me another Witches Brew! Well that’s your fourth one of the game. Oh look! The RNG game me another Hex! And that too is your fourth one of the game. Could also have come off of Elysianna.
And he also had Krag’wa the frog so. When you can make copies of the best spells possible against your opponent - yeah…
I had her as well but ooftah! These card options suck. So he could survive all the bombs thanks to 4 witches brews. His Elysianna choices were better than mine.
How could I have won? Idid get a mechathune. And I could have drawn an execute but I would not have lived that long.
You can also get yet another Priest in your cue
You don’t have brawl in you hand all game. They get Archmage Vargoth. They have played Witchwood Grizzly earlier, they also played the Enforcer.
Then…on the fateful turn 9 on cue
Mass Resurrection! And it plays twice because of Vargoth. And just like that
Two 3/12s Two 2/14s with divine shield, and 2 Vargoths. Oh how you need a brawl bad because you know the 2 cards in his hand are guaranteed. They are always therein under 10 cards.
Nope. And then there its. Not only did they top deck perfectly the cards need to turn 9, they also have 2 double health and an inner fire. Complemented with 2 well timed Mass Dispells. All in under 15 cards.
GG.
Its not about skill folks.
People talented in math know early on that the ranked ladder must be strongly manipulated to prevent everyone from moving into legend. It is sort of like testing the speed of word of mouth, or disease transfer rate. Here is a simple analogy. Imagine we had ten million people paired off to run one versus one races. Let us say we used a brackets system to move winners up. However, instead of the #1 winner ending the bracket, that winner is moved out of the races, and into legendary status. Now, consider that we make this very efficient by splitting runners into many separate brackets. What happens is that the ones who win races are no longer there to prevent slower runners from winning. This is a pull effect. The number of races to get all ten million through is far less than what we intuit. You know that question: would you rather have a million dollars or a penny doubled every day for one month? Because of this unavoidable outcome, the ranked ladder must be manipulated to restrict the throughput of each rank. The system used does not naturally cause such restriction without strong manipulation.
I am convinced that there is a heavy reliance on bot matches. This would explain why players have a similar experience of not getting curve draw consistency as often as their opponent. It would make sense that a simpleton AI would need a standardized draw to standardize its gameplay. Also, this standardization would act as a truth test in various ways. It would indicate if players were throwing games, or making bad plays, or making exceptionally good plays. It would provide an objective means of comparing deck and player strengths. You see? The benefits analysis for Hearthstone devs would indicate that bots must be used if that is all they looked at for game health.
I thought I was pretty good at math but apparently not talented enough.
Perhaps you can, as my math teacher used to say, “show your work” ?
What your completely math-less scenario shows is that given enough time and effort, everyone will eventually reach legend. However, your entire explanation is based on three fallacies.
- You assume that the fictional ten million people running races have unlimited time and resources to keep running races, over and over again, until they are moved out of the races and into legendary status. Real Hearthstone players have only limited time. A small group of professional players put in many hours per day. Most other players can perhaps play 2-3 hours on some days, a half hour on other days, and occasionally have to skip a day.
- You assume that the ten million racers can continue to try racing until they all reach legend. In reality, Hearthstone resets the ladder every month. If you need more than a month to reach legend, you never reach legend.
- You assume that those who reach legend are taken out of the race. In reality, legendary Hearthstone players still compete. And especially at the lower end of the legendary scale, they are often queued up against players at rank 1 and 4 or 5 stars. (Or, conversely, at rank 1 and 4 or 5 stars there is a real likelihood of queueing into a low legendary player).
If you want to claim that math proves your point, that show the actual math, and do not start from incorrect assumptions. I’m looking forward to seeing your work.
I have seen some evidence of bot matches at the extreme low end of the new player ranks (ranks 40-50) during low-traffic hours, and in casual play for players with very low MMR (in other words, after losing dozends of casual games). It is unclear whether these are bots from players that decide to risk their account by violating the TOS, or provided by Blizzard to ensure that even the least skilled players can find opponents at the approximate same skill level.
I have not seen evidence of bots at high rank level. And that makes sense. Bots are unable to win against skilled players. There is a reason why the bosses in solo adventures have overpowered decks and hero powers - because without them they limitations of the AI would make them a walkover.
Occam’s Razor: The simpler solution is more likely to be correct. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor)
Observer Bias: There are lots of reasons why people are terrible at making unbiased observations. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer-expectancy_effect)
If you want to do a proper experiment, then first download software that tracks all games you play on hsreplay.net. Play until you have at least 100 games (more is better). Then review all of them, don’t skip a single one. For each game, write down the following things:
- Did you have a good opening curve? Did you mulligan hard for it or did you keep essential late- or mid-game cards instead? Did you play with a deck with a lot of early game (and hence high chance of good curve)? Did you have the coin?
- Did your opponent have a good opening curve? Did they mulligan hard for it or did they keep essential late- or mid-game cards instead? Did they play with a deck with a lot of early game (and hence high chance of good curve)? Did they have the coin?
Once that is done, tally up the results. Make seperate categories for (1) you vs opponent; (2) coin vs no coin; (3) deck with or without lots of early game; and (4) hard mulligan or not. (That’s 16 categories total, reason why even 100 games is actually a bit low). In each category, track how often there was had perfect / reasonalble / bad curve.
At this point, if you actually see a significant difference between you and your opponents, you may be on to something. (Allthough at just a 100 observations there is still a lot of possibility that the results are confounded by statistical variance).
Nimbai you ARE still posting play by plays in almost every thread you visit!
Friggin beautiful. Hahaha
(Edit - phone keyboard borked while typing)
Math is super simple because of formulas and because it poses precision logic. I do not think that there are people particularly “gifted” at math. I believe that algebra ought to be taught no later than grade four, such that children who struggle with it, at first, must be enrolled in remedial courses to accelerate them to the expected learning curve. Since you asked, though, I will entertain you.
There are 85 stars between rank 20 and legendary. Here is the breakdown for the most difficult climb; where no winning streak bonus stars were awarded [EDIT: and no ranks with hard floor exist].
METHOD: S*(100%/(2*(R-50%))); where R is win rate, S is stars (85)
| GAMES REQUIRED | @WIN RATE |
|---|---|
| 4,250.00 | 51% |
| 2,125.00 | 52% |
| 1,416.67 | 53% |
| 1,062.50 | 54% |
| 850.00 | 55% |
| 708.33 | 56% |
| 607.14 | 57% |
| 531.25 | 58% |
| 472.22 | 59% |
| 425.00 | 60% |
| 283.33 | 65% |
| 212.50 | 70% |
| 170.00 | 75% |
| 141.67 | 80% |
| 121.43 | 85% |
| 106.25 | 90% |
| 94.44 | 95% |
| 85.00 | 100% |
From the above table we can extrapolate the following requirements for legend:
| WIN RATE | DECK TYPE | AVG GAMETIME | AVG PLAYTIME |
|---|---|---|---|
| 57%+ | face | 10m | PER WEEK: ~3hr@5d + 8h on weekend |
| 66%+ | tempo | 15m | PER WEEK: ~1hr@5d + 10h on weekend |
| 70%+ | control | 30m | PER WEEK: ~4hr@6d |
| 75%+ | face | 10m | PER WEEK: ~1hr per day |
| 80%+ | tempo | 15m | PER WEEK: ~2hr@4d |
| 90%+ | control | 30m | PER WEEK: ~3hr@4d |
We could further calculate the odds of 50% of the population passing into legendary status using standard deviation factors, but that would only confuse people who failed to train themselves adequately in math. To those who have, this information extracted from factual values makes it obvious that significant manipulation of ranked matches must occur to prevent a large minority from achieving legend. That is all.
Thanks, FuntaC, for running those numbers. (Allthough a computation of going from rank 4 to legend, what most legend players do after each season reset, would be more useful).
I do have one question. How exactly do these numbers prove that “ranked ladder must be strongly manipulated”?
You failed to include that final step. You went from win rate to average games required to advance to legend. And then from there to play time required to reach legend.
But how do these numbers prove that ladder must be manipulated?
Another problem I have with your work is that you assume a win rate that doesn’t change. That is an incorrect assumption. Due to how ladder works (better players advance, worse players fall back) and how matchmaking works (tries to find opponent at same rank), matchups get harder as you advance so you will see a decline in win rate as you climb higher. Your mathematical model does not take that into account.
The power creep in this game is ridiculous. We need Vanilla Hearthstone servers!
I think Blizzard realized that model does not pay as much, people will just play 2-3k dust decks and not spend 300-500 dollars (10-15k dust) for a deck like Warrior…
And Sadly that is why we are where we are at now.
This dude’s never played against control warlock ^ (Sargeras wins immediately, and the rest of the deck sucks)
This is hearthstone in a nut shell right now.
This thread is four years old. Let it rest in peace.
Or, you know, sick to death of seeing the same boring, busted and over included cards in every single deck, regardless of class. Yogg is STILL too god damned good. Its the "oh hell, I’m getting my !@# handed to me, better play this and clear the board. PAtchwork destroys, with no negative effects, three minions. SHould I list more of the busted garbage the devs have added? DO us all a favor and stop defending the utter !@#$ this game has become. Just stop.
Boreas post is four years old, at that time the cards, you mentioned, didn´t even exist.
Never has been. People gaslight themselves trying to rationale against that point.