WoW Arena MMR Clarification
Originally Posted by blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
It feels as though the 3v3 ladder MMR has been nerfed compared to Pre 9.05. Whether this is true or not, the perception remains and higher rated players decline to q because of it.

Please implement weekly / biweekly CR / MMR decay for inactive players to encourage more ladder play.


Shadowlands has seen tremendous participation in Arena with the number of unique players and total matches exceeding those seen in recent seasons. As some have noted, this level of participation has had some unintended effects at the very top of the ladder. The nature of our rating system means that the more people that participate, the more likely it is that the very best players in the world will reach extremely high matchmaking ratings. In this case, a number of players have reached the upper boundary of our rating system and as a result, they may achieve victories that don’t result in rating increases. Since the number of players capable of playing at this level is limited, if they choose not to participate, it becomes difficult for those players immediately below them to also gain rating.

We have two solutions to this problem, one of which is already in place and the other will take effect with weekly restarts on Tuesday.

First, over the past 7 years World of Warcraft has had a rating inflation system in place that increases the mean rating of competitors at a rate of 10 points per week (note: This is the rate of increase for clarity but the number is actually increasing with each second). This means that the number that all ratings – including the highest rating possible – are calibrated at increases by 10 points each week, so players that continue playing throughout the season have an advantage compared to those who stop when it comes to end of season rewards. Ultimately, if high end players choose not to play, their rating will be overcome by those who do.

Second, we are going to increase the upper bound of our matchmaking rating system with weekly restarts this week. This should mean that players at the top of the ladder should have less matches that reward no rating change.

We appreciate everyone letting us know about this issue and hope that the upcoming increase the matchmaking cap will improve the situation for the few players affected.
This article was originally published in forum thread: WoW Arena MMR Clarification started by Stoy View original post
Comments 34 Comments
  1. Electric Lighter's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Gorsameth View Post
    Rather then unnerf M+ loot and bring back the problem of legion/BfA the 'better' choice would probably be to nerf PvP loot acquisition to bring it more in line with PvE loot. Or if Blizzard doesn't want to go that way bring back Resilience to make PvP gear suboptimal for PvE (but then we're back to new PvP players getting wrecked until they manage to farm up a resilience gearset).
    I don't think making things more tedious should ever be an answer a entertainment good decides on. No offense but it seems utterly moronic to even ponder going down that path.
  1. JoakimB's Avatar
    "Shadowlands has seen tremendous participation in Arena"

    I wonder why.
  1. Snufflupagus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by datguywhocomments View Post
    Yet...you give no reason why.
    If I need to explain it to you honey you’re not gonna get it.
  1. Alanar's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by datguywhocomments View Post
    Yet...you give no reason why.

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    Look...arenas were born out of all the "duel" ists that stood outside org and IF all day testing their ONE VS ONE skills.
    Maybe it's about time we fcus on 1v1 balance and go from there. Sounds more fun like that, but hell a lot of work

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mexh View Post
    Blizzards slogan needs to be “One step forward, two steps back”
    players:

    I am not mad..
    I am not disappointed..
    It's in the line of expectation.
  1. CLAUDIAOGODX Gladiator's Avatar
    I’ve been playing this game for 15 years and I’ve never seen a rank rank as horrible as it is today .. a lot of horrible guys playing with rank1 players and mult gladiator carrying a lot of bad guys who are from pve .. these guys are selling gold carry , or fake real money in the dead of night ... several players are doing it .. blizzard please solve this problem .. put a global MMR for each player ie if the guy and 3400xp in a char puts this mmr to be shared in the entire account and let him get face to face with the same XP as him .. it's horrible to rise from 2400 + cr
    I am mult gladiator mult class 2700 + xp and I don't have a team to play because the lfg is horrible
  1. GreenJesus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Twdft View Post
    They know, and I'm pretty sure their sentiment is "mission accomplished".

    Blizzard trys from time to time to get pve players into pvp and vice versa. Sometimes it gets abysmal feedback like requiring BGs for cloak in MoP, this time it seems to have worked better.
    Getting more players into pvp is BiS for blizzard since they don't need to make tons of new content and art assets to keep players subbed. As long as they get involved in climbing pvp rating they won't care about content droughts.
  1. tomten's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by GreenJesus View Post
    Getting more players into pvp is BiS for blizzard since they don't need to make tons of new content and art assets to keep players subbed. As long as they get involved in climbing pvp rating they won't care about content droughts.
    Pve players don't care about rating or pvp. Its all about getting easy gear, once that is done? Nobody will pvp anymore.
    I can't even imagine how people enjoy the cancer that is wow pvp lol.
  1. GreenJesus's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by tomten View Post
    Pve players don't care about rating or pvp. Its all about getting easy gear, once that is done? Nobody will pvp anymore.
    I can't even imagine how people enjoy the cancer that is wow pvp lol.
    True. Now that I've gotten my 1800 gear and honestly am not good enough to get 2100 I just haven't bothered PVP'ing. However, if blizzard can get more players on the PVP bug, the less people that stop subbing once they get bored of getting AOTC or whatever. It gives Blizzard more breathing room since they barely have to do anything. PVP just supports itself. Even if the meta is complete garbage and unbalanced, pvp players somehow keep playing games.
  1. tomten's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by GreenJesus View Post
    True. Now that I've gotten my 1800 gear and honestly am not good enough to get 2100 I just haven't bothered PVP'ing. However, if blizzard can get more players on the PVP bug, the less people that stop subbing once they get bored of getting AOTC or whatever. It gives Blizzard more breathing room since they barely have to do anything. PVP just supports itself. Even if the meta is complete garbage and unbalanced, pvp players somehow keep playing games.
    I get what you mean, my point was, just like subs drop off after AOTC or whatever, the same PVE player will drop out soon as they are done, resulting in pretty much the same outcome.
    Except they've now pissed off the pve players that despise PVP and the real PVP'ers who get affected by boosters and what not.
    Its a lose lose for blizz to force either player base to grind instead of grinding their respective base.
  1. Marrilaife's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Twdft View Post
    They know, and I'm pretty sure their sentiment is "mission accomplished".

    Blizzard trys from time to time to get pve players into pvp and vice versa. Sometimes it gets abysmal feedback like requiring BGs for cloak in MoP, this time it seems to have worked better.
    "Worked better", you mean volumes of complaints written how raid doesn't drop loot and m+ drops too low ilvl to be worth anything? "Success" indeed.

    I bet they also love when all the boosters moved from selling hc / mythic raid runs and m+ armor stacks to arenas and rbgs where they fuck over other players who play against them, while pve boosting doesn't have such an adverse effect on people (well, except gear inflation / devaluation of achievements).
  1. Twdft's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Marrilaife View Post
    "Worked better", you mean volumes of complaints written how raid doesn't drop loot and m+ drops too low ilvl to be worth anything? "Success" indeed.

    I bet they also love when all the boosters moved from selling hc / mythic raid runs and m+ armor stacks to arenas and rbgs where they fuck over other players who play against them, while pve boosting doesn't have such an adverse effect on people (well, except gear inflation / devaluation of achievements).
    "worked better" as in more people actually playing a non trivial amount of pvp who were not doing that before. Blizzard will try to adress the negative side effects, but the reward structure to make people do pvp will stay. At least for this expansion.
  1. cparle87's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dwimmerlaik View Post
    Literally every game has it.

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    Real question: Why isn't there rating decay? If you stop playing, if you stop competing your rating should decay.
    They had that in the vanilla pvp system, and it sucked.
  1. Starscream101's Avatar
    Thats why they need to go back to the WoD system for gear the gear sucked in PvE but just touch me in pvp and ilvl jumps up. I do not know why they got away from that WoD and panda system
  1. Frosteye's Avatar
    WOD pvp gear would be lit (speaking as a person who just wants to PVP)

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