Having folks be 3k first week and 3500 end of season was weird. Seasonal goals being seasonal is fine, this is what detoxing feels like. Just breathe and focus on playing well and enjoy the game.
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The biggest issue is that the best advice for people who want to push rating is ājust donāt play 90% of the season and push towards the endā
However you feel about deflation or inflation, it should not incentivize not playing.
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If rating is the only thing you play forā¦thatās a failure of game design ?
Like ideally you enjoy the game and want to play it, and itās okay to have an mmr cap of 2100 at start of season, 2700 around when fully geared, and 3k end of season.
So you just play for fun and because of inflation have some fake sense of progress even if youāre not actually improving, or at least avoid negative swings of playing at your rough skill level.
Yesā¦if the only thing you play for is a rating target āget glad or transmog asap and stopā then sure make āasapā = week 1 I guess. Thatās just not a mindset Iām considering that much
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The opposite is also true, then. It shouldnāt matter what cr everyone is if you think āplaying for funā is the only thing that matters.
Day 1 4k rating shouldnāt matter to you, right? Just play for fun!
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Yeah thatās fair ! Youāve changed my mind. I donāt actually really care what the mmr schedule is. I just prefer it to have more than exactly zero inflation, have not so much inflation that for title purposes only the last weekend of play matters, and for above all be consistent across seasons. Just be consistent across seasons so rating X always means a similar thing
Those two R1 titles and glad achievements you have is why you feel this way. If you were staring at LFG for an hour where every group is ā1500cr 2500xpā you might feel differently if you were someone who got Rival/Challenger a few times and just wanted to queue games for fun but no one would take you, OR you could sit a 40 minute queue.
Your experience with the game is not the same as most playerās.
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Yeah thatās totally fair. Iām a healer who doesnāt have time to play serious 3s anymore, what is fun for me and gives a āsense of progressionā might be very different. But part of the perspective is also my lower xp friends who also play. And I think their mentality is wrong and Iām trying to highlight that. They just care about rewards or are discouraged from playing if their cr is below their max xp. Iām saying ādont think like thatā. If someone is not like me I really am saying āgame is more fun when you donāt think like thatā.
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Itās kind of just a human issue. Most people want their dopamine highs, and if they donāt get it they quit. Which costs participation, which in turn costs the people who stick around.
I fully get the philosophical āplay for funā mindset, I love WoW PVP thatās why Iām still here, but youāve got to let people get a bite of the carrot every now and then to keep interest. Unfortunately inflating MMR has been the only reliable way to ensure the playerbase is active enough to ensure seasons feel okay. (That Iāve seen anyway)
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I think this type of mindset is a lot easier to have when certain rewards are basically given for a person every season. Itās a lot different when you can barely get 24/21/18 or whatever and really want X reward yet the season is super deflated and you get really discouraged. Personally I have spammed BGās and done yolo arenas the entire time Iāve played WoW and am probably a prime example of someone that just enjoys pvpāing for the sake of it, but I still understand how most people are going to be turned off by the current situation.
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3k first week is dumb yes but this current mmr system is very flawed.
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I personally would be curious to see the system start a season with āend of seasonā numbers. No inflation added throughout the season but a much higher baseline mmr with the cap set at a number similar to how an end of season would look. See how participation plays out. I feel like when numbers are really high and people climb quickly they play the crap outta their alts, try new classes and donāt sweat their rating so much. Iāve always personally endeavored to hit my goals for the season and once I do, Iāll play with other āless expā players to help them out because thatās how I learned about pvp from more experienced players who helped me out. When rating is held down I never get to that point because goals donāt get reached until near the end and Iām burnt out by then and just take a break.
I donāt mind rating deflation, but I donāt like the crunch, and the fact that who you plays with and vs isnāt strict enough. I shouldnāt be playing with people that have no 400-500 mmr lower or higher than me bc ppl need healers.
It doesnāt feel rewarding for climbing rating if you are playing with the same people.
Dumb said it best, a system that incentivises not playing 90% of the season is not a good system and overall not healthy for the game. Watching my wheels spin at 1800 for weeks is not fun, so we quit doing it
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Sure, but having inflation all backloaded discourages early season play beyond capping vault.
Every other game Iāve ever played has no artificial deflation. You start off at a bit lower of a cosmetic rank in League, but within a week youāre back to around where you were and back to trying to improve your peak.
It is a bloody mystery why WoW players think it might ever be an issue. The system arena uses where you only hit your real rank near the end of the season is both idiosyncratic and incredibly moronic.
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our gameplay loop can be different and thatās okay
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I definitely think they need to make some sort of change. Maybe they can implement an mmr cap but it needs to be high, like whatever they want seasons to end at. That way prestige achievements like glad can have it tailored to a ranking that will have consistent value and all that. Iām fine with eating resetting and stuff but it would be nice to climb to my ātrueā rating much earlier.
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I think they just put one in to keep people from slamming their way up to 3k in the first week like with last season.
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Agreed. Even if Iām capable of hitting glad toward the end of the season I wonāt. Iām too busy to grind out that volume of games in the last two weeks. If I can only squeeze two or three hours of ques in per week, but itās only possible right at the end Iām screwed lol. Heaven forbid I decide I want to take a trip somewhere and blizz decides to announce the end of season. The system is kind dumb.
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Yeah I mean I get that but is that so bad? Implement decay to force queues if thatās the issue but itād be nice to have the gates open. I think anyway. I donāt know Iām spitballinā here.