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Hearthstone | Posted by | 6 years ago
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The new ladder system

So the new ladder system kicked off yesterday and there are a few interesting things about it to observe. Personally, my first surprise was when I received a multiplyer of x10 when I "only" finished on rank 2 in march - x10 was communicated to be distributed to players hitting legend. I haven't played more than 10 games yet, but I must say the new system feels very rewarding, especially if you manage to pull off a win streak. Cruising through those ranks, seeing more and more rewards getting added to your chest feels cool (not to mention the first time achievements).

Much more important seems to be this blog post, though:

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/faq-ranked-mode-overhaul-matchmaking/27937

One of the key infos is, that your multiplyer is determined EITHER by the rank you achieved the previous month OR your MMR, whichever is higher; now combine that with the statement that your MMR will only change slightly from month to month and you can conclude that you will keep a good multiplyer for a long time if you have a high MMR. On the other hand, having a low MMR but finishing in high ranks only gets you a bonus for the new month, no longtime benefits. 

So if get this correctly, Blizzard has modelled the new ladder system to be beneficial for long time players (who should tend to have a higher MMR than new players) for once.

Anyway, my first impression is very good - at the start of the season everybody gets at least 2 times the profit from winning than the loss from losing a game and that just feels nice to me. What are your thoughts about the new system?

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  • So the new ladder system kicked off yesterday and there are a few interesting things about it to observe. Personally, my first surprise was when I received a multiplyer of x10 when I "only" finished on rank 2 in march - x10 was communicated to be distributed to players hitting legend. I haven't played more than 10 games yet, but I must say the new system feels very rewarding, especially if you manage to pull off a win streak. Cruising through those ranks, seeing more and more rewards getting added to your chest feels cool (not to mention the first time achievements).

    Much more important seems to be this blog post, though:

    https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/faq-ranked-mode-overhaul-matchmaking/27937

    One of the key infos is, that your multiplyer is determined EITHER by the rank you achieved the previous month OR your MMR, whichever is higher; now combine that with the statement that your MMR will only change slightly from month to month and you can conclude that you will keep a good multiplyer for a long time if you have a high MMR. On the other hand, having a low MMR but finishing in high ranks only gets you a bonus for the new month, no longtime benefits. 

    So if get this correctly, Blizzard has modelled the new ladder system to be beneficial for long time players (who should tend to have a higher MMR than new players) for once.

    Anyway, my first impression is very good - at the start of the season everybody gets at least 2 times the profit from winning than the loss from losing a game and that just feels nice to me. What are your thoughts about the new system?

  • I also got 10 stars at the beginning and I was at rank 11 last month because I was only playing battlegrounds - I think that you are right with your thesis because I'm also a longtime player

  • I saw a streamer complaining in Twitter about him reaching Legend much faster than with the old system, if that happens too often then maybe the bonus system will need to be tweaked a bit. I reached rang 9 last season and got a 8x multiplier, that feels a bit too much if you take into account a legend player gets 11x, but I'm not going to complain!

  • Just now I've managed to hit rank 5 Diamond in wild with a very casual deck (Reno Dragon Steal Priest). Dunno what to feel about the new system. The only thing I am certain about is that the dev team did a very good job improving the rewards and I am really grateful for that.

    That said, I feel like the new ranking system is too easy and just grind-y. It didn't take me too much effort to hit the platinum ranks, where I started to face more competitive decks like Quest (Reno) Mage, Burn Mage, Even Shamans etc and losses started to pile up. However, every win I achieved afterwards nullified them, which killed the sense of hard work. I didn't really get punished for bringing a casual deck to the ladder, so ranking up was just a matter of time and persistence on my behalf. Nothing was at stake.

    And the "grind" part will become even more apparent in the future, when a new season starts, we get placed in Bronze and we have to repeat this process all over again. Since our MUs are determined by our MMR, once we hit Bronze again, we would stumble upon other players with similar winrates, which would make the experience more exciting, but imho the multiplyer thing just makes all of the losses prior to Diamond 5 meaningless. Like, the game literally holds your hand and pushes you to the higher ranks. You just have to commit a bit of effort and you will be rewarded.

    The real "hardcore" grind is from Diamond Rank 5 to Legend and maybe in the Legend rank too, but the latter regards only a handful of players, who actually care about the Legend ladder. And if we compare the old rank5 - Legend grind to the new one, we can see that it's easier to reach Legend currently, because you need less stars than before.

  • I hit legend last month and started with an 11 star multiplier. 

    What really shocked me though was even if I lost several games in a row (it happens to us all), my multiplier remained the same. So there is no cost to losing games... at least in that sense.

    But then I hit Platinum 5 today. I still had a 2 star multiplier. So I only need to win 15 stars to hit legend, and I get two stars per win, and only one per loss. (I'm almost there.)

    On the one hand, this is great. Maybe my MMR is higher than I suspected. My matches have for the most part been challenging, so it doesn't feel like I'm playing against easy opponents.

    But if this keeps up, legend may become a quick breeze for those who've made it many times before (high MMR?) and much harder to others. Is that good? People who regularly make legend will get there faster.  I suspect by the end of the month we will see a much higher legend pool than we normally do, and "high" legend will be very different from "dumpster" legend.

  • Quote From Starscream

    I hit legend last month and started with an 11 star multiplier. 

    What really shocked me though was even if I lost several games in a row (it happens to us all), my multiplier remained the same. So there is no cost to losing games... at least in that sense.

    But then I hit Platinum 5 today. I still had a 2 star multiplier. So I only need to win 15 stars to hit legend, and I get two stars per win, and only one per loss. (I'm almost there.)

    On the one hand, this is great. Maybe my MMR is higher than I suspected. My matches have for the most part been challenging, so it doesn't feel like I'm playing against easy opponents.

    But if this keeps up, legend may become a quick breeze for those who've made it many times before (high MMR?) and much harder to others. Is that good? People who regularly make legend will get there faster.  I suspect by the end of the month we will see a much higher legend pool than we normally do, and "high" legend will be very different from "dumpster" legend.

    Yeah, same experience here, no easy wins, but that's not too bad because the multiplier makes up to this.

    But... there's still diamond after platinum so you've got 45 stars to go, don't you? And if I remember correctly, the star bonus ends at rank 5 diamond at the latest and there also is no more win streak bonus from there on. 

    • Quote From anchorm4n

      Yeah, same experience here, no easy wins, but that's not too bad because the multiplier makes up to this.

      But... there's still diamond after platinum so you've got 45 stars to go, don't you? And if I remember correctly, the star bonus ends at rank 5 diamond at the latest and there also is no more win streak bonus from there on. 

      My guess is, that the user confused the names of the last two leagues prior to Legend and they actually meant Diamond 5.

      Last month I returned to hs constructed, reached rank 13 and received a multiplier of 10. When I reached Platinum 5, the multiplier became 3. On Diamond 10 it decreased to 2 and right now I don't have any bonuses as intended. I'm telling you this, because I don't think a user with a multiplier of 11 would lose the bonus stars that soon. 

      [Edit] After reading the blue post again, I realized that on rank 5 Diamond only the win streak bonus is lost. If a person reached Legend last month and their multiplier is 11, once in Diamond 5 it will drop to 2.

  • i think it is more rewarding because you fell you climbed a lot, but the thing i loved the most is that after the 5 wins you can already use the cardback from that season

  • I think the new ranking system is supposed to allow players to climb ladder fast, back to where they were previously. It took me only 2 days to reach diamond, but I'm not complaining.

    The new MMR system matches you to players around your actual rank. I've been facing high level decks all around my climb to diamond, and that hasnt stopped. A little disappointing that I dont get to know what their rank really was, but they were assuredly not anywhere below diamond.

    If blizzard would change anything at all, I think they might consider increasing the star requirement for each rank up above gold or platinum. 3 stars is a little meh to be honest. Maybe increase gold and platinum to 4 stars and diamond to 5.

    Still, if the MMR works as it should, nobody should be complaining since they're likely to be facing players more matching with their actual rank no matter what their current rank is anyway. If nothing else, this only make it easier to players to get better monthly rewards for less effort, and I would genuinely support that.

    Friendly
    • Quote From dapperdog

      If blizzard would change anything at all, I think they might consider increasing the star requirement for each rank up above gold or platinum. 3 stars is a little meh to be honest. Maybe increase gold and platinum to 4 stars and diamond to 5.

      I agree, especially with the thing I quoted. The number of stars after Platinum is too low.

      [Edit] Maybe decreasing the multiplier by 1 wouldn't be a bad suggestion either. I feel like from rank 5 Diamond to Legend people should get only 1 star - regardless if they reached Legend or not.

  • This matchmaker thing does not really work at all - I have a relative who has an account, but does not play, and hasn't purchased an expansion in some time. Has not even achieved rank 20 most months. There are few DoD cards and only first chapter Gala Awakening cards. For fun, I figured I'd play it, get away from all the disgusting meta decks I've been suffering through, see if I couldn't re-discover some of the fun of the game. Ha. Ridiculous.

    From bronze 10 to bronze 9 I got matched against 1 golden portrait hunter high in the silver league, and then somehow 2 1000 win portrait hunters in the span of three matches, a golden warlock, a golden mage, and of course, Galakrond warriors and Galakrond rogues. 

    That's some high-level algorithm they worked up there. I seriously don't know how any new or "gee, I haven't played in awhile" players can ever get a win, lol.

  • Yeah I don't like this new system either. I've only been playing 6 months, and have a small collection, but I managed to reach 5 every month since I started, but now I keep facing Legend cardback players with top tier meta decks, and I just can't win (I have to improvise my own decks since I'm missing crucial cards). I played 10 games today and lost 9, and this is at Bronze 6 for crying out loud.

    • Quote From troY

      Yeah I don't like this new system either. I've only been playing 6 months, and have a small collection, but I managed to reach 5 every month since I started, but now I keep facing Legend cardback players with top tier meta decks, and I just can't win (I have to improvise my own decks since I'm missing crucial cards). I played 10 games today and lost 9, and this is at Bronze 6 for crying out loud.

      They have similar mmr than you, so they should be equally good, but I'm sure that if you lose a lot, you'll face "weaker" players eventually

    • Quote From troY

      Yeah I don't like this new system either. I've only been playing 6 months, and have a small collection, but I managed to reach 5 every month since I started, but now I keep facing Legend cardback players with top tier meta decks, and I just can't win (I have to improvise my own decks since I'm missing crucial cards). I played 10 games today and lost 9, and this is at Bronze 6 for crying out loud.

      I think your issue may be one similar an issue I had a while back when I started a new account.


      I wanted to start Hearthstone over on a new account to see how the new player experience had changed, and to see what it was like to climb through ranks 50-26. It was super easy for a good bit of it, but then by the time I got about rank 35-30 or so, I had a much harder time winning. I had climbed through a lot of ranks in only a few days, but my opponents had been playing a lot longer and so they had opened a lot more packs. They had way more legendarys and way better decks than me. 

      It could be a similar issue for you. You haven't been playing as long, but are still a good enough player to have a high MMR, so you are being paired with opponents of the same skill level as you, but they have bigger better collections because they have been playing for longer.

       

      About my own personal opinion about the new ranked system: I don't give two mules for the climbing experience or how challenging it is to reach legend or whatever. I am earning more rewards, and therefore it is better.

      Friendly

  • The way the MMR system works is that it takes the highest historical rank or your previous rank, whichever higher, you've managed as the indicator. So you can be stuck at rank 20 last month but so long as you have historically got rank 15, that's where the MMR will match you with.

    There's no mention on what is the time length for this measurement, or how exactly the MMR works. So it could be that repeated losses to a certain group might prompt the system to change your MMR.

    The main reason for this is to prevent abuse by obviously high level players to grind lower levels for golden/1000 wins portraits. Now that there a new class, sporting an incredible 1000 wins portrait, it is more so important to have a MMR system like this to prevent such abuses.

    Friendly

  • After the first few days I must say I really like the new system. Each single game feels harder then on the old ladder and I think I lose more games because of it. But then the star multiplier kicks in and that just makes up for all of it. So my personal experience is that the new system encourages me to play more. I reached diamond 3 yesterday, which is the second highest I ever achieved in wild and might be an indicator for the climb being a bit too easy. But then I had no multiplier from diamond 5 onwards so maybe it's just fine.

  • A few people have said that Blizzard should consider adding more stars for higher leagues. I think that point of view shows a bit of "high ranking" blinders. When you're a player who is finding that they're easily climbing the ladder all the way to the top, it's tempting to think that the ladder climb isn't hard enough, and that they should add more stars to create larger gaps in the upper leagues and make players work harder as they get higher up.

    I think this is anathema to what they're trying to do with the ladder. The reason so many people hated the old ranking system is because it often felt like the ladder tested your amount of free time more than your skill. Taking myself as an example, I'm someone who has hit Legend in the past, but who rarely had enough time to play back up to Legend rank in any given season because of how long it took to go from Rank 5 to Legend. (It doesn't help that I prefer slower, grindier decks...) And that sense of stagnation on the ladder was amplified if, in a given month, I simply had very little time to play. I'd just end up lower than normal at the start of the next season, stuck wasting my limited play time at lower ranks.

    I think the big question to me is "if you're a highly skilled and/or competitive player, why do you even care about the lower leagues?" In this new system, you're going to get to Legend fairly quickly and then your rank will simply be your MMR (which is ultimately a much more precise way to measure your ranking anyway). If you're not at that level yet, the ladder will provide you with an opportunity to make progress month over month until you reach that level.

    Taking the 2019 ranked data as a reference, that means something like 6% or 7% of players are going to skyrocket to the top and start using MMR as their benchmark, and the rest are going to have rewarding laddering experiences for the first time in a long time. The ~93% bulk of players are really who the various intermediate leagues were made for.

    • Quote From meisterz39
      Show Spoiler

      A few people have said that Blizzard should consider adding more stars for higher leagues. I think that point of view shows a bit of "high ranking" blinders. When you're a player who is finding that they're easily climbing the ladder all the way to the top, it's tempting to think that the ladder climb isn't hard enough, and that they should add more stars to create larger gaps in the upper leagues and make players work harder as they get higher up.

      I think this is anathema to what they're trying to do with the ladder. The reason so many people hated the old ranking system is because it often felt like the ladder tested your amount of free time more than your skill. Taking myself as an example, I'm someone who has hit Legend in the past, but who rarely had enough time to play back up to Legend rank in any given season because of how long it took to go from Rank 5 to Legend. (It doesn't help that I prefer slower, grindier decks…) And that sense of stagnation on the ladder was amplified if, in a given month, I simply had very little time to play. I'd just end up lower than normal at the start of the next season, stuck wasting my limited play time at lower ranks.

      I think the big question to me is "if you're a highly skilled and/or competitive player, why do you even care about the lower leagues?" In this new system, you're going to get to Legend fairly quickly and then your rank will simply be your MMR (which is ultimately a much more precise way to measure your ranking anyway). If you're not at that level yet, the ladder will provide you with an opportunity to make progress month over month until you reach that level.

      Taking the 2019 ranked data as a reference, that means something like 6% or 7% of players are going to skyrocket to the top and start using MMR as their benchmark, and the rest are going to have rewarding laddering experiences for the first time in a long time. The ~93% bulk of players are really who the various intermediate leagues were made for.

      You've brought up very interesting points and I agree with most of them. Being a fan of control decks myself, I also considered the old rank 5 - Legend grind to be horrendous because of how time-wasting it was. It also caused ladder anxiety and frustration the higher you climbed. I remember how I tried to reach Legend with my previous N'zoth Priest deck a couple of months ago and I even managed to reach Rank 1***** twice or thrice before falling down to rank 5 and losing motivation to continue forward. I also won't deny the fact that newer players won't be able to skyrocket through the leagues like veterans and they will be forced to grind every single star from every single rank from every single league (if we, of course, forget about the win streak bonuses for a second). So, yes, taking into account the things I mentioned above, it's logical to assume that the new ranking system is a huge improvement over the old one and still creates a fair environment for all types of players.

      However, I don't agree with the philosophy behind the multiplier. On paper, it's a good idea to have that in the game, since people can reach their previously reached rank quickly and continue from there. However my issue with this feature comes from the fact, that it makes our losses meaningless. A person can breeze through the ranks regardless of the real win-rate of their deck. In order to illustrate what I mean, I would like to give myself as an example. I'm a returning player, I stopped playing constructive hs since October. I got tired of reaching rank 5 for the sweet epic, I got tired of playing 5 games on the ladder just for the card back and I even stopped doing my dailes at one point, so you can imagine how my rank dropped. Last week I decided to give hs another try, I created a fun Reno-Thief Priest deck and jumped on the ladder. This is the current list (though if you check the spoiler, you will see what it used to include initially):

      Highlander Thief

      Wild · Thief Priest · by Kovachut · 6 years ago

      21,500 Dust 1,048 0 Copy Deck Code

      Show Spoiler
      I used to run 1x Mind Control, 1x Princess Talanji, 1x Mindgames, 1x Curious Glimmerroot, 1x Convincing Infiltrator.


      I managed to reach rank 13 before the season ended. Then, on 1. April I had some free time, I wanted to try out the new ladder and get some of that phat loot. My multiplier was 10, when I started. I went from bottom Bronze to bottom Platinum relatively quickly, then losses started to pile up, so I removed the cards I mentioned in the spoiler and used the deck you can see above. With it I continued to rank 5 Platinum and took a break. On the next day I reached rank 5 Diamond and as glad I was for climbing that high and for being able to benefit from an epic at the end of the month, I also felt really disappointed with how easy the ladder was for me. You can say anything about the deck above, but I consider it to be extremely casual - it lacks proper card draw, early game and it features some clunky cards + it's super weak against combo (especially the popular quest mage). Yet, I managed to reach rank 5 in just two days and the losses I had didn't stop me from progressing. Now imagine what it would have been if I had started the season with a multiplier of 11. Imagine how I would have been able to reach Legend with a casual deck, cuz I would have gained 2 stars per win after rank 5 Diamond. And if I had reached Legend with it, nothing would have stopped me from doing the same thing in the upcoming month. Is this what someone would call competitive ladder?

      My problem comes from the size of the multipliers. For me they are by 1 number too high. Losses just don't feel like punishments anymore, rather they feel like mild inconviniences, which imho also destroys the meaning of competitiveness. Reaching rank 5 Diamond for me felt like a straightforward "quest", where the path to the goal was certain. It felt more like a friendly Tavern Brawl rather than a rough arena, so reaching that rank didn't feel special anymore. New players might not consider this to be the case right now, but if they do their best to reach that level, as you said, they could feel it eventually.

      • Quote From Kovachut
        I managed to reach rank 5 in two days and the losses I had didn't stop me from progressing. Now imagine what it would have been if I had started the season with a multiplier of 11. Imagine how I would have been able to reach Legend with a casual deck, cuz I would have gained 2 stars per win. And if I had reached Legend with it, nothing would have stopped me from doing the same thing in the upcoming month. Is this what someone would call competitive ladder?

        My problem comes from the height of the multipliers. For me they are by 1 number too high. Losses just don't feel like punishments anymore, rather they feel like mild inconviniences, which imho also destroys the meaning of competitiveness. Reaching rank 5 Diamond for me felt like a straightforward "quest", where the path to the goal was certain. It felt more like a friendly Tavern Brawl rather than a rough arena, so reaching that rank didn't feel special anymore. New players might not consider this to be the case right now, but if they do their best to reach that level, as you said, they could feel it eventually.

        I hear you on feeling that losses don't matter when you have a multiplier. In a lot of ways, I think this is a feature (e.g. you can play non-optimized meta decks or tier 2, 3, and 4 decks and still make progress), but it also makes things easier. But the question I have is, what sense of accomplishment did you get out of getting back to rank 5 in the old system? It sounds like you were pretty worn out in October by the grind of it, and I can sympathize a lot with that sense of ladder anxiety when you're close to a goal. The first few times I reached a new ranked floor it felt like an accomplishment, but for me getting back to the Rank 5 - Legend range every season has felt like a chore for a long time - not really an accomplishment so much as an obligation, like I was punching below my weight if let my rank slip.

        You ask if I'd call this new system a competitive ladder. I absolutely would, but I think it's competitive in a way that isn't as clear as the old system. The old system was designed to be bottom heavy, and to make it much harder to get to the highest ranks. In that sense, it was a competitive ladder - most players were low on the ladder, some were in the middle, fewer still were in the highest ranks. It looked the way a competitive ladder should look, but as we know, there was a lot of grinding out ranks that didn't really reflect skill growth or competitive ability.

        In the new system, there may be nothing stopping you from getting back up to Legend every season with a tier 2 or 3 deck, but it's not really an accomplishment either, and you're not really competing. This new system lets you "hang out" at a rank if you're satisfied with just getting there and stopping. You still have to log in and work your way back there (of course, because Blizzard needs to incentive you to keep playing), but it's no longer hard to just post up at a rank and be done. And that's fine - if you want to bask in your success and just enjoy racking up bonus packs and card backs, go ahead. But if you want to compete, then each season you need to push on to the next rank floor or beyond. And if/when you reach legend, you need to push to increase your legend rank.

        At the end of the day, your competitive ranking for the Hearthstone ladder isn't your league/rank pair, it's your MMR. The leagues and ranks are a shiny veneer to make ranking up feel good and to keep you engaged while you're competing for higher MMR. But the MMR is the heart of the competitive game.

        • Quote From meisterz39
           
          Show Spoiler

          I hear you on feeling that losses don't matter when you have a multiplier. In a lot of ways, I think this is a feature (e.g. you can play non-optimized meta decks or tier 2, 3, and 4 decks and still make progress), but it also makes things easier. But the question I have is, what sense of accomplishment did you get out of getting back to rank 5 in the old system? It sounds like you were pretty worn out in October by the grind of it, and I can sympathize a lot with that sense of ladder anxiety when you're close to a goal. The first few times I reached a new ranked floor it felt like an accomplishment, but for me getting back to the Rank 5 - Legend range every season has felt like a chore for a long time - not really an accomplishment so much as an obligation, like I was punching below my weight if let my rank slip.

          You ask if I'd call this new system a competitive ladder. I absolutely would, but I think it's competitive in a way that isn't as clear as the old system. The old system was designed to be bottom heavy, and to make it much harder to get to the highest ranks. In that sense, it was a competitive ladder - most players were low on the ladder, some were in the middle, fewer still were in the highest ranks. It looked the way a competitive ladder should look, but as we know, there was a lot of grinding out ranks that didn't really reflect skill growth or competitive ability.

          In the new system, there may be nothing stopping you from getting back up to Legend every season with a tier 2 or 3 deck, but it's not really an accomplishment either, and you're not really competing. This new system lets you "hang out" at a rank if you're satisfied with just getting there and stopping. You still have to log in and work your way back there (of course, because Blizzard needs to incentive you to keep playing), but it's no longer hard to just post up at a rank and be done. And that's fine - if you want to bask in your success and just enjoy racking up bonus packs and card backs, go ahead. But if you want to compete, then each season you need to push on to the next rank floor or beyond. And if/when you reach legend, you need to push to increase your legend rank.

          At the end of the day, your competitive ranking for the Hearthstone ladder isn't your league/rank pair, it's your MMR. The leagues and ranks are a shiny veneer to make ranking up feel good and to keep you engaged while you're competing for higher MMR. But the MMR is the heart of the competitive game.

          1) You want to know what sense of accomplishment I got from reaching rank 5 in the old system? Well, I wouldn't describe it as a huge accomplishment as it was for some players in the vanilla ranking system (i.e. before the introduction of the milestones), it was just a "shiny veneer" that offered me a golden epic. You rightfully called the grind from rank 10-5 a chore and I do too, in a way, but it felt like a true ladder, that also reflected my preferences for competition. In those ranks I faced a lot of high-tier decks, but there was some variety to it unlike from rank 5-Legend. The latter grind was tiresome, as people were too frightened to play anything but tier 1-2 decks, and since I don't consider myself to be a hardcore player, I had no interest climbing higher past rank 5 (+ the rewards in the old system were pretty pathetic). Reaching it may not have been as challenging as it was before the MSoG March patch, but it was still interesting and it wasn't handed on a silver plate.

          Show Spoiler
          Btw I wasn't worn out from the rank 10-5 grind. I just found WoW Wotlk to be more interesting to play + I lost motivation to play constructive hs after I fell from rank 1 *****. xD

          2) I see where you are going at. Yes, the new system gives us more freedom regarding where we want to "hang out" and that could be considered a good thing, but then again, if our multiplier helps us skip ranks, why would someone decide not to benefit from it? Let's say I reach Legend this month. If next month I just climb to rank 5, I will lose the benefit from the 2-point multiplier between rank 5-Legend and won't get an 11-point one in the next season. I will have a harder time reaching Legend again and I won't get the extra pack with ease, so I would only screw myself, if I do that. That's why I think, that it's pointless not to benefit from your current multiplier and the "freedom" the game offers is just us punishing ourselves. The game holds our hands, while we are climbing, so I don't think it's logical to avoid the obvious support.

          That said, l don't like how the new ranking system is suited more for casuals. Reading my first paragraph and then your text, I realize that we both have different preferences for the ladder. For me, with the presence of a high multiplier the "shiny veneers" lose their previous value. They mean nothing anymore, reaching them more than once doesn't feel challenging, they turn into an inconvinient obsticle we have to overcome every single season. So the ranking system is still a chore, but for me it's not even interesting, because I can bring a weak deck and won't get punished for my decision. I guess I value the grind in the old ranking system more than I thought.

          Btw I warmly agree with you, that the MMR is now the true reflection of our skill/competitiveness and not the ranks as that used to be the case in the past. But let's not forget, that the game doesn't reward us for our MMR, rather for the "shiny veneer" we are currently sitting on. If a person wants to enter tournaments, then, ye, they will continue playing on the ladder and try reaching top XXX of all players. Personally I was never interested in that, reaching Legend was the only finishing line. And seeing how the path to the goal becomes more accessible for all of us, reaching it won't be an achievement anymore. That's why I thought it was a good idea to see some tweaks to the multiplier feature.

  • I am loving the new system - because 1) it's making the climb less of a grind, 2) the rewards are actually now rewarding enough to make the effort mean something, and 3) most importantly (to me) since it's "more forgiving" I'm seeing so many different, not hyper-refined-tier-1 decks throughout the climb.

    The main reason I never played the ladder on the old system was I get so tired of facing the exact same 2 or 3 decks over and over and over, so Casual (GENERALLY) had greater variety and people willing to play fun or interesting decks. At least in the first week I'm not seeing that anymore, even as I get to the "more serious" leagues i.e. played a person yesterday on Gold 2 with a funky High Priestess Jeklik disco/buff deck featuring Deathwing. That's what I like to see and I am here for it.

    • Quote From ArngrimUndying

      I am loving the new system - because 1) it's making the climb less of a grind, 2) the rewards are actually now rewarding enough to make the effort mean something, and 3) most importantly (to me) since it's "more forgiving" I'm seeing so many different, not hyper-refined-tier-1 decks throughout the climb.

      The main reason I never played the ladder on the old system was I get so tired of facing the exact same 2 or 3 decks over and over and over, so Casual (GENERALLY) had greater variety and people willing to play fun or interesting decks. At least in the first week I'm not seeing that anymore, even as I get to the "more serious" leagues i.e. played a person yesterday on Gold 2 with a funky High Priestess Jeklik disco/buff deck featuring Deathwing. That's what I like to see and I am here for it.

      My experience on point 3) is the exact opposite. I'm a meme player who stubbornly refuses to use decks I know are strong, so used to keep myself at the low-mid ranks (15-10) to better my odds of encountering non-meta decks. Like you this was about variety rather than preying on the weak.

      The issue now is that my MMR is actually quite solid, getting 8x multiplier in both Wild and Standard, so I have only encountered the folks who traditionally made their way to rank 5 with meta decks. The frustrating part is that I cannot manipulate it by staying at low ranks any more. Now the system tells me I'm a good player and forces me to play against people who care about climbing the ladder, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid.

      I appreciate the additional end of month rewards I get with very little effort because the 8x multiplier makes is easy to reach Platinum 5 with a 30% win rate, but I play HS for the fun of variety not the rewards. So sadly, the new system is even more likely to push me into casual than the old one.

      • Quote From AngryShuckie

        My experience on point 3) is the exact opposite. I'm a meme player who stubbornly refuses to use decks I know are strong, so used to keep myself at the low-mid ranks (15-10) to better my odds of encountering non-meta decks. Like you this was about variety rather than preying on the weak.

        The issue now is that my MMR is actually quite solid, getting 8x multiplier in both Wild and Standard, so I have only encountered the folks who traditionally made their way to rank 5 with meta decks. The frustrating part is that I cannot manipulate it by staying at low ranks any more. Now the system tells me I'm a good player and forces me to play against people who care about climbing the ladder, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid.

        I appreciate the additional end of month rewards I get with very little effort because the 8x multiplier makes is easy to reach Platinum 5 with a 30% win rate, but I play HS for the fun of variety not the rewards. So sadly, the new system is even more likely to push me into casual than the old one.

        That's interesting as I did the same in the old system (never climbed past rank 15) but also have a fairly high MMR (7x multiple for both standard and wild) - perhaps a difference in local meta? 

        I do think though you'll see a trend in the new system akin to the old: the first week or so the bronzes/silvers/lower golds will be the climbers jumping up, and by the end of week 2 most of the people bumming around the low ranks will be people like us: memers and the generally non-competitives with high MMRs. Everyone who puts in any effort at all will find themselves as you said in platinum/diamond/legend without much stress, so they'll "self-select" out of the pool for the majority of a given month.

         

  • That's why I think, that it it's pointless not to benefit from your current multiplier and the "freedom" the game offers is just us punishing ourselves. The game holds our hands, while we are climbing, so I don't think it's logical to avoid the obvious support.

    It sounds more like you are addicted to use everything possible to achieve the best possible result and in this case, yeah you are right it's easier, but I see this from a different perspective, because now with the new ranked system Hearthstone can be a game what it is advertised: A fun and fast game with strategy elements. Casual players now have a better chance to get better rewards, better progress, but they still won't be legend, because you need still some grind for it, even it is faster than the old one.

    • Quote From Yusuke

      It sounds more like you are addicted to use everything possible to achieve the best possible result and in this case, yeah you are right it's easier, but I see this from a different perspective, because now with the new ranked system Hearthstone can be a game what it is advertised: A fun and fast game with strategy elements. Casual players now have a better chance to get better rewards, better progress, but they still won't be legend, because you need still some grind for it, even it is faster than the old one.

      Call it addiction, if you wish, I just see it as something logical. The multiplier feature is part of the game and just like the animations we can't disable it. So, since reaching certain milestones could mean getting extra packs, would you not want to climb higher on the ladder and improve your collection?

      They can get to Legend eventually, if they wish. They just have to invest some time and, most importantly, decide to do that. If those casuals are new players or playing from a new account, they can get one of the good competitive decks, which the devs offer, and use those to rank up with relative ease. I can honestly see some people "casually" ranking up each month, because they would probably want to get some nice rewards, which get better and better with each milestone (especially on platinum 10 and beyond, when you start to get epic cards as first-time rewards). Like I've said, it's up to them to do that. The game offers a pretty friendly ladder experience and if they wish, they can aim to Legend for the classic legendary and the card back once they reach rank 5 Diamond.

      If a player is a true casual, like a meme-level casual, then ye, they probably wouldn't be interested in reaching Legend. They just have to ask themselves at what rank they would be most comfortable.

  • Did 4 more games today, lost all 4. This is in Bronze mind you, the old rank 25-20 range. I used to get rank 5 every single month for the last 6 months (since I started), slowly climbing throughout the month, but I just can't win a single game since all my opponents are Legends with full top tier decks, my halfass decks just can't cope ugh

    • Quote From troY

      Did 4 more games today, lost all 4. This is in Bronze mind you, the old rank 25-20 range. I used to get rank 5 every single month for the last 6 months (since I started), slowly climbing throughout the month, but I just can't win a single game since all my opponents are Legends with full top tier decks, my halfass decks just can't cope ugh

      What deck are you playing, if you dont mind me asking.

      If you could get up to rank 5, that's usually a sign that you can match up to lower legend players.

      Friendly
    • Quote From troY

      Did 4 more games today, lost all 4. This is in Bronze mind you, the old rank 25-20 range. I used to get rank 5 every single month for the last 6 months (since I started), slowly climbing throughout the month, but I just can't win a single game since all my opponents are Legends with full top tier decks, my halfass decks just can't cope ugh

      It matches you against people whose overall win-loss record matches yours. It also doesn't show their rank, so I'm kinda curious how you know you're being matched against legends

      • Quote From sto650
        Quote From troY

        Did 4 more games today, lost all 4. This is in Bronze mind you, the old rank 25-20 range. I used to get rank 5 every single month for the last 6 months (since I started), slowly climbing throughout the month, but I just can't win a single game since all my opponents are Legends with full top tier decks, my halfass decks just can't cope ugh

        It matches you against people whose overall win-loss record matches yours. It also doesn't show their rank, so I'm kinda curious how you know you're being matched against legends

        Don't know specifically for OP, but I know my "MMR rank" because "10 stars = Legend". One of the reasons that I've never been that interested in reaching Legend is that there is no deck variety. Everyone there is playing the latest 4-5 tuned meta decks. I can't afford them.

        Used to be able to tell as the competitive must-win-with-my-expensive-meta-deck players arrived at the start of the season. One could wait for them to pass (head on up the ranks) and then go ahead with playing more budget decks. Now it doesn't matter what rank they achieve, my MMR pits me against more of the same.

  • A lot of you seem to be missing the point. I'm F2P and have never reached legend. However, my multiplier was 10. No matter what rank I am at, I'm being pitted against someone with similar MMR - that is Legend players with meta decks. There's no point in waiting for people to get Legend - because those players still get drawn against non-Legend ranked players - ie me.

    Which leaves my options as a) keep losing b) spend money to get a meta deck c) switch to casual d) quit

    I guess they want to get rid of F2P.

  • I don't understand. How is it harder to win now that you are being paired with someone based on your win rate? Wouldn't be a more fair matchup now? My experiences have been pretty positive. I feel like I have a fighting chance in the majority of my games, I never face an opponent who I feel is way better than me, or way worse.

    If you are being paired against someone with the legend cardback and 1,000 win portrait, that doesn't necessarily mean you are fighting a world champion, it simply means they have been playing for a long time and have made legend at least once. It doesn't reflect skill so much as patience.

    If there is any issue with the matchmaking so that people are being paired against opponents who are too tough then they will fix it.

    Friendly
    • Quote From KANSAS

      I don't understand. How is it harder to win now that you are being paired with someone based on your win rate? Wouldn't be a more fair matchup now? My experiences have been pretty positive. I feel like I have a fighting chance in the majority of my games, I never face an opponent who I feel is way better than me, or way worse.

      If you are being paired against someone with the legend cardback and 1,000 win portrait, that doesn't necessarily mean you are fighting a world champion, it simply means they have been playing for a long time and have made legend at least once. It doesn't reflect skill so much as patience.

      If there is any issue with the matchmaking so that people are being paired against opponents who are too tough then they will fix it.

      To be fair, does anyone ever actually feel like they're playing against a 'good' opponent? 95% of the time you can't tell this without knowing their entire hand, which rarely happens.

      Of course I'm talking about mid-high MMR gameplay here. Not the 'coin hero power turn one'-MMR.

  • A bit silly though you get the new expansion packs as a rewards in may, but overall I think the rewards are very good value. I climbed to gold 5 in just 6 undefeated games (which if I'm correct is the old rank 10), so that's very fast. Once I run out of stars though the climb will be harder, but does anyone know if you winstreaks continue to Legend now?

    • Quote From DelkoHS

      A bit silly though you get the new expansion packs as a rewards in may, but overall I think the rewards are very good value. I climbed to gold 5 in just 6 undefeated games (which if I'm correct is the old rank 10), so that's very fast. Once I run out of stars though the climb will be harder, but does anyone know if you winstreaks continue to Legend now?

      It stops after Diamond 5

    • Quote From DelkoHS

      A bit silly though you get the new expansion packs as a rewards in may, but overall I think the rewards are very good value. I climbed to gold 5 in just 6 undefeated games (which if I'm correct is the old rank 10), so that's very fast. Once I run out of stars though the climb will be harder, but does anyone know if you winstreaks continue to Legend now?

      Actually no, because the gold league is more in line between 15-11 (old rang) and rang 10-6 is platinum and diamond is rang 5-1.

  • Well, I made it:

    It took me 2 days to go from bottom Bronze to Diamond 5, then I goofed around with the Thief Reno Dragon deck until I decided to change it with my N'zoth variant 3 days ago and I used the latter deck to climb to Legend. So it took me 5 days of somewhat serious climbing (with long breaks, of course).

    Well, I don't know what to say. On the one hand, I still stand on my standpoint, that our multiplier should be decreased by one number, so that the whole Diamond league can feel like a place for true competitive players (we will still keep the win-streak bonus prior to rank 5 Diamond though, I am not suggesting that we should remove that feature) and it wouldn't reward them needlessly for using weak decks. I mean, it feels really strange to gain extra stars from wins while playing a fun deck, while there are other people, who are puting a lot of effort to grind every single star in unconquered leagues and they use serious decks for that matter. But on the other hand, I must admit that reaching Legend in the new ranking system was way more relaxing (in a good way). I had some losing streaks from time to time due to bad card draw RNG, but I didn't feel stressed out, so I didn't lose motivation to continue onward. So that's the undeniable positive of the ladder's recent overhaul.

    Personally I would have liked the new ladder way more if it were a bit too challenging. Maybe I am just kinda salty for gaining easy stars prior to Diamond 5, but seeing how many people actually like the new system, I guess the devs won't be encouraged to implement any changes any time soon.

     

    Btw, I have a question:

    https://outof.cards/hearthstone/1089-tomorrow-april-1-hearthstones-ranked-play-gets-an-overhaul-leagues-stars-and-rewards-explained

    There is an easy way to figure out what your base multiplier for the next season is. Simply add up the number of ranked floors you hit and subtract 1 (it can't go below 1). You may also gain additional multiplier based on your previous MMR. If you're Silver 5, you've hit 4 ranked floors which would give you a star multiplier of 3. Legend players will receive a star multiplier of 10, unless you are "high legend" which gives you a multiplier of 11. If you get close to a ranked floor, you should do your best to hit it to speed up your progression in the next season.

    Does anyone have an idea what "high legend" would mean? Top 200? 100? 50?

    • I find it pretty silly to be upset about reaching legend "too easily." Why on Earth are you upset about it being easier and more relaxed? Some kind of elitist attitude? Or have you just been conditioned over years of playing to believe that only the very, very best, who grind for hours and hours, should be allowed to get to legend?

      Under the old system, there were hundreds of thousands players (maybe millions) who stopped playing at rank 5 because the grind to legend was sooooooooooo absurd. They had the skill to do it; they just didn't want to invest the minimum of 10-hours needed to actually grind it out (assuming roughly 6 minutes per game and roughly 62% winrate). And of course, most people will not manage a 62% winrate from rank 5 to legend, so it will be (a lot) longer than 10 hours for most. I did it once, almost by accident, when a deck I was playing turned out to be way more successful than I expected it to be. Got to rank 2 with it, and decided to just keep going. But even that was a grind, and I had to switch decks, because the meta caught up with the deck that got me to rank 2. 

      I would NEVER, EVER have done legend again, EVER, under the old system, same as the vast majority of the playerbase, because the grind was beyond absurd. I welcome a system that is less absurdly grindy. I might even try to hit legend again.

      • Quote From sto650
        Show Spoiler

        I find it pretty silly to be upset about reaching legend "too easily." Why on Earth are you upset about it being easier and more relaxed? Some kind of elitist attitude? Or have you just been conditioned over years of playing to believe that only the very, very best, who grind for hours and hours, should be allowed to get to legend?

        Under the old system, there were hundreds of thousands players (maybe millions) who stopped playing at rank 5 because the grind to legend was sooooooooooo absurd. They had the skill to do it; they just didn't want to invest the minimum of 10-hours needed to actually grind it out (assuming roughly 6 minutes per game and roughly 62% winrate). And of course, most people will not manage a 62% winrate from rank 5 to legend, so it will be (a lot) longer than 10 hours for most. I did it once, almost by accident, when a deck I was playing turned out to be way more successful than I expected it to be. Got to rank 2 with it, and decided to just keep going. But even that was a grind, and I had to switch decks, because the meta caught up with the deck that got me to rank 2. 

        I would NEVER, EVER have done legend again, EVER, under the old system, same as the vast majority of the playerbase, because the grind was beyond absurd. I welcome a system that is less absurdly grindy. I might even try to hit legend again.

        Please quote the part in my previous post, where I critisized the ladder for being relaxed. I've specifically stated that this was an "undeniable positive of the ladder's recent overhaul", which I enjoyed.

        Anyway, your reaction to my post is more than understandable. Maybe I'm really an elitist jerk and I'm just too stubborn to deny it. I won't deny the fact, that the old rank5-Legend grind was horrendously time-wasting (I even agreed with another user about it in the previous page) with no true rewards other than getting a shiny digital brown gem and for those reasons I was never interested in participating in it unless I played a deck I enjoyed or the meta had a lot of variety in it. I remember the time before the first ever change to the ranking system (i.e. before the implementation of the so-called milestones). That was a true nightmare, people were discouraged from playing something off-meta or unrefined and I am glad we never have to experience that thing ever again. A few years later the devs gave us the 4-ranks rollback, which also saved a lot of needless grind (people weren't placed at the very bottom anymore). If I had reached rank 5 or rank 4 in a certain season, I would have been placed either on rank 9 or 8 in the next one, so the grind for the golden epic was shorter, which I also enjoyed. And the win-streak bonuses also shortened the path to that threshold.

        So it's not like I'm a masochist, who wants to have everything rough. But the thing I don't like in the new ranking system is, like I've stated multiple times before, the size of the multiplier. When a new season starts and I'm placed at the bottom, I get a huge multiplier than gives me a big chunk of stars per win. This is implemented, so that we can reach our previously reached milestone quicker and continue our journey from there, which sounds good on paper, but if you think about it our losses become meaningless. Those aren't the things anymore, that make us consider our actions or decklist and incentive us to improve ourselves/the list we are using. I've managed to hit rank 5 Diamond by using an unrefined, win-conditionless semi-casual deck and I didn't get punished for it, while I'm sure some people are still struggling in the Golden or Platinum leagues, yet alone in Diamond. I guess I could consider this the "4-rank rollback" we had in the previous system, but it feels so weird for playing something weak and get rewarded for it needlessly. It felt like the game was constantly holding my hand. And the system is still somewhat grindy, because at the start of each season we get placed at the bottom and have to repeat the whole process all over again. Before you say it - yes, my MMR matched me with opponents on my level, but it didn't matter, because the extra stars I got nullified the occasional losses. 

        So, yes, maybe I am an elitist jerk, but I truly believe that a ranking system should reward more dedicated players. I haven't played Starcraft 2 or Overwatch competitively, I also didn't play 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 arenas in WoW, but I am sure that the ladder there is way more challenging. If a player wants good rewards or to be considered as part of the best, they have to put effort in achieving it. Competitive hs became too casual to my taste. But I guess that's only my opinion and I am part of the minority, who thinks like this. If the majority of players are happy with the state of the new ranking system, then, congratulations, the needed changes have finally arrived and you can all enjoy the ladder to the fullest.

        Show Spoiler
        Btw in another forum I've linked the following video. I don't consider myself a hardcore player, but I guess I still show some character traits of an "achiever":

        • Here ya go, the quote you asked for. I highlighted the part that shows that you're upset.

          Personally I would have liked the new ladder way more if it were a bit too challenging. Maybe I am just kinda salty for gaining easy stars prior to Diamond 5

          • Quote From sto650

            Here ya go, the quote you asked for. I highlighted the part that shows that you're upset.

            Quote From Kovachut

            Personally I would have liked the new ladder way more if it were a bit too challenging. Maybe I am just kinda salty for gaining easy stars prior to Diamond 5

            That's because I was and still am kinda salty about the easy stars PRIOR to rank 5 Diamond. The grind afterwards was relaxing, which I wanted to commend.

            Regarding the quote - I already stated multiple times why I think like so, so I'm not going to repeat myself. I'm just a person, who doesn't like things handed to me on a silver plate.

            [edit] But I must say, thanks for reading my walls of text. I know my posts could be annoying at times.