Holinka's new PvP matchmaking system will likely fail

[docterfreeze]

In the QnA yesterday, Holinka said people who have prestiged (reset) their honor talents 0-1 times are considered the inexperienced players, and will be matched against players that are also inexperienced. Players that have prestiged multiple times will never be grouped with 0-1 players.

From what I've seen, this won't change a thing. I don't think any players dedicated to PvP will be giving up their honor talents. They want to be high rated in arenas and RBG's, so as soon as they have all their talents and gear they will go straight to the ladder climb. Instead of having multiple brackets, there will only be one bracket, and it consists of both newbie players and PvP gods. Just like how it is right now.


A solution that I had in mind would fix this AND other problems people have with legion PvP, all they have to do is reward a piece of the best PvP gear for each prestige, and after a player has all the items, then they get rewarded cosmetic junk. That way this system can work, and RNG boxes can go away.

[GiefEpixe]

You sure he said that?

The transcript says: "The Honor Level is being used as a gauge of experience. A few weeks after launch, if you are below honor level 10 and prestige level 0, you will be placed in a different bucket from everyone else for random battlegrounds."

[Katie45]

how well it fail if after you level up it turn into how it is now, expect instead of gear that guy will have more skills than you

[docterfreeze]

You sure he said that?

The transcript says: "The Honor Level is being used as a gauge of experience. A few weeks after launch, if you are below honor level 10 and prestige level 0, you will be placed in a different bucket from everyone else for random battlegrounds."

Okay. So everyone will be in that bracket. Doesn't make what I said untrue.

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how well it fail if after you level up it turn into how it is now, expect instead of gear that guy will have more skills than you

Rating is a gauge of skill, prestige level is a gauge of # of games played.

[GiefEpixe]

Okay. So everyone will be in that bracket. Doesn't make what I said untrue.

If it was just about prestige, yes. But they specifically stated that honour level will serve as a criterion as well.

Again: "A few weeks after launch, if you are below honor level 10 and prestige level 0, you will be placed in a different bucket from everyone else."

Any reasonable PVP player will obviously be at Honer level 50 by then.

[klaps_05]

this is how it will work from my POV:

1) do everything in game (quests, world quests, garrison 2.0, etc) to max out Artifact
2) grind up to level 50 honor talents(i actually only need level 37 as the rest of the talents are shit for me)
3) grind 3s to 2800 to 2900 rating for safe season ranking(r1/glad)
4) not play any more arenas and only do RBGs/BGs to farm prestige until prestige 4 level 37 when i can safely queue again towards end of season with all my necessary talents

i do not like any of the pvp changes, except this one. right now i just have my main camping the 3s rating and i barely play it AND have nothing else to do. at least this way with prestige i dont care about which pvp talents i have anymore as i queue only into randomness BGs and casual RBGs. this has the potential to actually make BGs more skilled if there really is some kind of "fixed" grouping so prestige 4 players play only with prestige 4 players.

and now if only they would make 5-6 new BGs this prestige will be tolerable.

[docterfreeze]

If it was just about prestige, yes. But they specifically stated that honour level will serve as a criterion as well.

Again: "A few weeks after launch, if you are below honor level 10 and prestige level 0, you will be placed in a different bucket from everyone else."

Any reasonable PVP player will obviously be at Honer level 50 by then.

this is how it will work from my POV:

1) do everything in game (quests, world quests, garrison 2.0, etc) to max out Artifact
2) grind up to level 50 honor talents(i actually only need level 37 as the rest of the talents are shit for me)
3) grind 3s to 2800 to 2900 rating for safe season ranking(r1/glad)
4) not play any more arenas and only do RBGs/BGs to farm prestige until prestige 4 level 37 when i can safely queue again towards end of season with all my necessary talents

i do not like any of the pvp changes, except this one. right now i just have my main camping the 3s rating and i barely play it AND have nothing else to do. at least this way with prestige i dont care about which pvp talents i have anymore as i queue only into randomness BGs and casual RBGs. this has the potential to actually make BGs more skilled if there really is some kind of "fixed" grouping so prestige 4 players play only with prestige 4 players.

and now if only they would make 5-6 new BGs this prestige will be tolerable.

Guess I'm the only one that doesn't care enough about the cosmetics to intentionally handicap myself. Could've sworn it would have been the popular opinion. Oh well.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

Guess I'm the only one that doesn't care enough about the cosmetics to intentionally handicap myself. Could've sworn it would have been the popular opinion. Oh well.

You are correct Doctor Freeze. It's just that most people who understand this wouldn't even be here posting on their websites, they are so deeply involved in PvP efficiency.

I'm not happy with the prospect of players being lured by non-essential goals turning into live bait for players who are just asshats. I wanted to be one of those asshats, but at this point, I don't think I have what it takes to refuse to become bait, nor the masochism to become the bait.

[GiefEpixe]

I don't get what you want.

You've said: There'll be a separate bracket for anyone with a prestige level of 0-1.

What they actually said: There'll be a separate bracket for anyone with a prestige level of 0 AND AN HONOR LEVEL BELOW 10.

I don't know how to highlight the important part any further.

What exactly is your point again now? You obviously didn't quite get the criteria for the bracket in the first place, still you insist that it's not going to work?

[Katie45]

Okay. So everyone will be in that bracket. Doesn't make what I said untrue.

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Rating is a gauge of skill, prestige level is a gauge of # of games played.

skills as in abilities

[goblingirl]

I'm unsure this will last very long, simply because historically speaking, segmenting does bad things to queue times. One segment will get completely shafted with eternal waits, and complaints about 60 minute random BG queues will lead to blending the groups again.

I get what they are trying to do. They are trying to get non-PvP people to try it and not get roflstomped.

But I suspect that the <rank 10 <1 prestige group will rapidly shrink to the size of unviability for any kind of decent queue waits, so climbing out of that group will take a very long /played time consisting mostly of /wait time.

[Grimsparkle]

I'm unsure this will last very long, simply because historically speaking, segmenting does bad things to queue times. One segment will get completely shafted with eternal waits, and complaints about 60 minute random BG queues will lead to blending the groups again.

I get what they are trying to do. They are trying to get non-PvP people to try it and not get roflstomped.

But I suspect that the <rank 10 <1 prestige group will rapidly shrink to the size of unviability for any kind of decent queue waits, so climbing out of that group will take a very long /played time consisting mostly of /wait time.

I agree - shrinking the already small pvp population (not to mention server-faction balance) into segments will work for a few days. Then it will probably be like queuing for Highmaul Coliseum - everyone will have moved on.

[Caolela]

Rating is a gauge of skill, prestige level is a gauge of # of games played.

Let me correct that for you: rating is a gauge of how well you bot/script/hack, or play on teams that use them. CR/MMR means exactly nothing in Rated play and hasn't for quite awhile, especially on the ladder rankings which are a joke.

If and when Blizz ever puts a serious dent in the hackers (like they do in Overwatch), then we might begin to have a meaningful discussion on ratings.

[Cempa]

Serious question, name three things which in your opinion Holinka succeeded in regarding WoW PvP?

[nodq]

What i dont get about prestige system is why they are using it at all. They are always about fun and all that. How is it fun to someone having taken away their honor talents/skills and play crippled vs other players to get something they want (cosmetics mounts etc) It is like saying, here is a new raid tier. It is the same as before but now you have to do it without your talents and after every raid clear you get 1 talent to use again. In my opinion that is just a stupid effin system to use for pvp.

[Woadnson]

The system is simply an echoing of the prestige system that CoD has used for years. It's about challenge, not fun.

[Deleted]

What i dont get about prestige system is why they are using it at all. They are always about fun and all that. How is it fun to someone having taken away their honor talents/skills and play crippled vs other players to get something they want (cosmetics mounts etc) It is like saying, here is a new raid tier. It is the same as before but now you have to do it without your talents and after every raid clear you get 1 talent to use again. In my opinion that is just a stupid effin system to use for pvp.

They are part of activision. Activisions biggest game is COD wich has a Prestige System. They simply copied it. Just take a look callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Prestige_Mode

Of course resetting weapon unlocks in COD isn't a big deal, your gun shoots a bit worse, it's more like a small gear reset in WOW than losing game-changing abilities like smoke bomb wich are tied in legion to the pvp talent system. At the same time their rewards are worse. COD offered PVP rewards for going through that Ordeal. They offer Pets&Mounts which are irrelevant for pvp.

Overall it seems to target pvp casuals who have no aspirations to play ranked as either way for them it doesn't matter to get a handicap with the reset.

[Toppy]

Unless prestiging is something that can be capped within reasonable time per level (2-3 game days comes to mind) I don't think it will appeal to anyone who wants to push rating so prestiging will actually take away people from rated. Not sure what the implcations will be in random BG also but it seems to me that prestige players are not necessarily "bad" or "inexperienced" quite the opposite so putting them together fresh pvpers etc doesn't sound very right.

Personally I will just cap all my talents/skills asap and move on with pvp no time to prestige for crap rewards and recolored mounts

There are only 4 levels of prestige per season. It'll likely be a whole week or more per level. They wont want people capping all four levels in a week or two.

The system is simply an echoing of the prestige system that CoD has used for years. It's about challenge, not fun.

They are part of activision. Activisions biggest game is COD wich has a Prestige System. They simply copied it. Just take a look callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/Prestige_Mode

Of course resetting weapon unlocks in COD isn't a big deal, your gun shoots a bit worse, it's more like a small gear reset in WOW than losing game-changing abilities like smoke bomb wich are tied in legion to the pvp talent system. At the same time their rewards are worse. COD offered PVP rewards for going through that Ordeal. They offer Pets&Mounts which are irrelevant for pvp.

Overall it seems to target pvp casuals who have no aspirations to play ranked as either way for them it doesn't matter to get a handicap with the reset.

Yeah thats the thing. They are putting an FPS system into an MMO while ignoring the fact that they are entirely different games.

[Deleted]

Serious question, name three things which in your opinion Holinka succeeded in regarding WoW PvP?

Fucking it up.
Fucking it up some more
And Continuing to fuck it up.

[Deleted]

Okay. So everyone will be in that bracket. Doesn't make what I said untrue.

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Rating is a gauge of skill, prestige level is a gauge of # of games played.

Takes like 10 world quests (pvp ones) to get to lvl 10. If you can't do that, you just ain't trying.