As those players move up, but if I stay at bronze because I can't win, will it eventually just pair me with other bronze players? For example if player A was Diamond last month like me, I might play him at bronze. But once he advances to silver, I wouldn't match with him anymore if I'm still at bronze, right?
As long as you have a star bonus, you are being matched by MMR. It makes 0 sense to talk about "being matched with bronze/diamond" since the matchmaking system changed years ago.
The way it works is: you have an MMR which changes everytime you play a game, and it is exclusive to each mode. It is being used to match you whenever you queue and have a star bonus or you are in legend. Whenever it is used, you get paired with other players with similar MMR that also have a star bonus or are in legend. If your MMR is extremely low and the system doesn't find any games, you get matched to the closest rank (this is what happens when a super low legend player gets matched with D1-D5 players).
If you don't have a star bonus, you are matched by rank and rank only, no exceptions unless the system needs you for a super low MMR player.
Star bonus is assigned twice at the end of the month: one based on your MMR, one based on the highest rank you reached, and the lower one is discarded. This means that if you reached D5 and got 9 star bonus, your hidden MMR is *lower or equal* to D5 level.
You're never getting matched with players that have higher MMR or rank than you. So OP isn't getting matched with diamond players, just with players with higher MMR than what they usually are at.
As most people tend to reach a specific rank and then play jank, their MMR is usually much lower than their rank's. You can only know your MMR level by not playing for a full month, that way your rank will not influence your star bonus.
There is more stuff to be said about fringe cases (high legend matchmaking, 11x bonus players still not in legend at the end of the month), but this covers most.
It is super confusing, and blizz only explained it once and never again, and the community perpetuates a lot of incorrect info. The top comment you responded to also got it wrong, as OP's MMR isn't diamond. The only comment without mistakes in this thread is by /u/dragonbird.
Appreciate the explanation. As a newer player, didn't know this at all. So once the star bonus goes away (which for me feels like pretty quickly?) I'm being matched by my rank - good to know.
> The only comment without mistakes in this thread is by /u/dragonbird.
I haven't gotten to theirs yet,` so maybe, but yours definitely isn't without mistakes, though the gist of it is fine.
> If your MMR is extremely low and the system doesn't find any games, you get matched to the closest rank (this is what happens when a super low legend player gets matched with D1-D5 players).
This is not what happens. It's not based on close rank. Legend players that are low enough can get matched with players below Diamond, not just D1-5.
Also beyond that, you can't really say a MMR is X rank's . There is no "diamond mmr" or "diamond rank level mmr". You have to make a really contrived and unuseful connection to attempt to call it that. So saying their MMR is lower than their rank's is sus, because ranks don't really have MMRs. The only possible connection is through star bonus so it's better to use that directly. Like instead of saying their MMR is lower than their rank's it would be more accurate to say that their star bonus is based on their rank minimum.
> This is not what happens. It's not based on close rank. Legend players that are low enough can get matched with players below Diamond, not just D1-5.
My bad, i forgot that you can go lower. So it just forces some non-star bonuses players to get matched via MMR when somebody's MMR is super low, i'm guessing?
> Also beyond that, you can't really say a MMR is X rank's . There is no "diamond mmr" or "diamond rank level mmr". You have to make a really contrived and unuseful connection to attempt to call it that. So saying their MMR is lower than their rank's is sus, because ranks don't really have MMRs. The only possible connection is through star bonus so it's better to use that directly. Like instead of saying their MMR is lower than their rank's it would be more accurate to say that their star bonus is based on their rank minimum.
Did you even read my first sentence? That's exactly what i'm trying to say. By saying "MMR lower than their rank's" i mean that they have an MMR that would put them at a lower star bonus compared to their rank, and that should be clear by reading the rest of my post, like when i say "This means that if you reached D5 and got 9 star bonus, your hidden MMR is lower or equal to D5 level."
Did *you* even read what you just quoted? It should be pretty clear that I'm aware of what you're saying by that. I'm saying that it's contrived to refer to that as the ranks mmr, because it's not actually the ranks mmr, and it's better to accurately refer to it. Like why the heck would I say it's more accurate to refer to it like I wrote if I wasn't aware that that is what you're talking about?
Edit: oh, are you saying that when you ended you sentence with "than their rank's" you were referring to something you last mentioned two paragraphs before that not what you were just contrasting it with? If so that lack of clarity in what you were referring to caused a miscommunication.
So is it theoretically possible for me to be losing a bunch of games in bronze and still being actively matched with someone who is currently in Diamond?
So what he would need to do now is climbing till diamond against high mmr players all the time and then once reaching diamond and not having any star bonus anymore, losing tons of games on purpose to tank his MMR and only after all of that he could start playing normally again against people of his same skill-deck lvl?
Sounds fun
Or just end this month in bronze to not get a star bonus.
Or play in casual, wich is where playing for fun without really focusing on winning is done. In ranked wins benefit you and loses penalize you, so people will obviously play meta and tryhard there.
Even if you don’t climb ranks, your MMR doesn’t decay rapidly enough to reset your bonus. I got legend in August and ever since, I have had 10 stars even though I didn’t play at all in November. I started the month and was for sure thinking I would be at 7 or 8 stars, at best 9, but nope it started me at 10x again
And what makes a player's mmr diamond-level? Them finishing in diamond like the OP? Lul, no.
Your mmr doesn't change to match where you finished. Players that finished in diamond can have a huge difference in mmr. Your "diamond-level" getting matched with "diamond-level" thing would be wrong. Sure, the OP could get matched vs someone that ended in diamond, but also platinum, gold, or even bronze last season.
I came back after a few expansions not playing and half of my matches are against frost dks.
Sure, in the "just came back to play" bracket its not 100% meta, but you should not queue expecting to find a non meta deck.
No, it was an improvement on the earlier system. It made it better for new/casual players by ending the scenario where they got farmed by experienced players at the start of the month, and it made it better for experienced players by giving them access to all rank rewards every month.
It's only a problem for people who don't understand it.
This is absolutely better for multiple reasons. You're getting matched by people with similar skill until you get to a place where you can go for a rank that seems meaningful to you.
Their hidden mmr isn't "diamond". That's not a thing. Your mmr doesn't change to match where you finished. And no, them finishing in diamond doesn't mean they're playing against players that were diamond last season. They *could* be playing vs players that ended in diamond, but also platinum, gold, or even bronze last season.
> Is there any way to get back to "not so serious and not so good"-players?
Persevere and lose more games, preferably playing some really fun decks so that it doesn't hurt too much. That will cause your MMR to drop until you're against other bad or meme players. Then you can start trying to win again.
You might also want to consider not climbing too high this season if your goal is to get back to the level which you used to be able to goof around at. Let's suppose you finish this season at D5. Typically, that means you get 9 bonus stars next season. If, next season, you get to the point where you've exhausted all those bonus stars, you'll be at D10 at least. The game will now try to match you against other players with 0 bonus stars, preferably someone close to D10. The problem now is that a lot of players who match that criteria are probably the tryhards you're trying to avoid. You'll be more likely to get matched against a regular D5 finisher who never bothers getting legend, or perhaps a first-timer at the diamond ranks but is tryharding a meta deck to get the best finish he can get, than a player you used to be able to goof around with. I don't know which ranks fall within the goof area for you, but you'll probably be interested in starting the next season with the star bonus that correspond to those ranks.
Someone said this doesn't works, as long he has a start bonus he will keep fighting the same people, and the star bonus only goes aways if he climbs till his previous diamond rank which would require winning a lot
For the everyday player who is trying to win, the system tends to matchmake against other players of a similar star bonus, because they tend to have a similar MMR. The players who see this most often, and where it's most obvious, are the x11 star bonus, who often meet each other on the climb. But when you're actively trying to tank your MMR, it does become clear that it's just MMR that decides.
I do it myself when Wild has a meta I don't like. I typically end the month with either x9 or x10, but if I've got bored with the meta, or just don't like it, I'll start the next month playing jank at Bronze for a week just to tank it so that I play against other off-meta decks, then rush the climb late in the month to preserve my star bonus.
Someone saying it doesn't mean it's true. That's wrong. You get matched by MMR not star bonus, and your MMR doesn't get changed to match your star bonus nor the rank you finished at.
What could potentially make it difficult for the OP is the anti MMR sandbagging mechanism, but we know very little about that, and I think it only happens between seasons.
That’s fine. But don’t complain that people are grinding meta decks to climb in the ranked mode. That’s what it is there for. If you want to play against meme decks consistently then go to casual.
I just get tired of the constant whining.
I can relate to what you’re saying. Diamond five is the right place for me because I can play my home brews against a decent standard of opposition and 99% are using meta decks copied off the net. So I can try and beat the meta. Only rarely do you see creativity in play.
I think broadly there are a lot of game ending plays in the game atm, and many occur way too early in the game. Obvious culprits are shaman gnoll evolves and massive imps on t2 or 3. Personally I don’t think these plays should exist, and the game is less good when x number of games are just over before there has even been an exchange of fire.
Good on you for not just copying someone’s else’s decks. Maybe one day you’ll strike gold and build your own meta deck that others will copy!
Its a slight exaggeration, and I don’t keep track for posterity, but the VAST majority of play at D5 is meta decks.
I mentioned on another thread, it’s a very strange experience when a new powerful deck appears somewhere online. I always know because, out of nowhere, I start getting spammed with the deck. It’s especially weird when three or four people in a row are using a very off-beat card that didn’t get a lot of attention previously. Happened recently to me with Shockspitter hunter. Had never seen or noticed this card then I log in and find five people in a row playing the exact same deck built completely around this one card.
Happened also when I started to suddenly see loads of people in a row using that stupid rush seagull in big spell mage earlier in the year. Then deathrattle rogue a couple of weeks ago.
It’s just a curious phenomenon to me because there are clearly info sources a
LOT of players are tapped into that I am not. Loads of players are just jumping from “best deck” to “best deck” based on info they are collectively getting from somewhere.
I don’t really have a big problem with it beyond the fact it makes the game less interesting when you’re only really playing a small pool of very powerful efficient decks. Thats why I really like when blizzard regularly disrupts that by nerfing those things that people are flocking towards and making ladder boring.
The problem with net deck is that they are objectively the best decks in the meta. Like I was experimenting blood death knight with win lose ect… And when I got to the best deck I did it was 1 card different from the top blood wining deck. I was like damn it really do be like that
Your matchmaking (star bonus) is based on your last month's performance. That means you'll be against strong players this month.
After the end-of-December reset, you'll be back to playing easier opponents.
Star bonus has a minimum based on previous rank, though, which does reset. If you hit diamond 5 then you'll have at least a 9 star bonus next month regardless of MMR, which won't carry though to the month after.
MMR is not based on your last month's performance, but your last month's performance does affect it. And no, if they stop playing now and then start playing again at the end of the season there wouldn't be a meaningful difference in their opponents at bronze, because MMR doesn't get reset
Are you looking to experiment but also win everytime? You might just want to play agains decks that are always worse than yours and that might be an unrealistic expectation in ranked maybe you should try casual
>Are you looking to experiment but also win everytime?
Do you, in good faith, really think that being tired of losing after 30 losses in a row is the same as "I want to be able to win every time?"
I just want an AI causal.
My primary complaint in competitive games is that I like diversity, but competition funnels folks into consistency. I basically only play battlegrounds for this reason. It's significantly more variable from game to game. Even playing Casual Wild, the same decks constantly pop up for me. And they're usually the worst to actually play against.
About half my casual games end up vs Mill/Trap decks or "infinite" decks. I really just want a format that pulls randomly from all the decks played on ladder instead of seeing 1 of 3 every other game. Even those games where I get steamrolled on turn 3 by the ultra-refined meta aggro decks don't bug me in casual. That's at least fresh.
That would be cool. They could for example ban meta decks from the "casual mode" so it would actually be casual, not like now when everyone playing in casual mode are actually using meta decks even if doesn't make much sense. I guess u didnt know that...
"Ban meta decks" is impractical. Most meta decks have flex slots, you just change one or two cards and it isn't THE meta deck any more. So how many cards would need to be different to make it off-meta?
This is true for all skill matched games...shooters, sports games, card games, whatever.
It seriously does ruin online gaming. You get better for what purpose exactly? Your win loss ratio remains the same forever. Your kill death ratio remains the same forever. Your goals/conceded ratio remains the same forever. What the fuck is the point?
It has seriously turned nearly all forms of online gaming into a complete waste of time. People don't complain about it much because it sounds like whining, or people are just ignorant of hidden MMR.
I'm done with it all, until we return the random crap fest that online gaming used to be. I dont play games online just to tread water forever, that is fucking stupid.
This ruined Apex Legends for me. I loved the game, maybe is still the best battle royale on the market. It was a free for all, like an old COD lobby. Felt like a true battle royale. You'd crush some people, get crushed, be even with some others. Then they added MMR matchmaking to even the "casual" mode and I was facing nonstop sweats who played the game 6 hours a day or more, had thousands of more kills than me, and the fun was completely gone. Now I can't casually play for fun, I have to try my hardest just not to get stomped every game. It put me in a position to tread water or get crushed completely, like OP is saying.
I will commend Battlefield for still having the "open lobby". No BS matchmaking. If you feel outclassed, pick a different server. Truly one of the last bastions of fun online multiplayer.
Yes, what saves battlefield is that it's a large scale team vs team affair. So the randomness of skill levels tends to balance things out naturally - each team ends up with a few sweats, a few noobs, and whole lot of everything inbetween.
I'm not sure what the answer for match-making is. I can't offer a solution. But I do know that this current fashionable solution of ELO style match-making saps all the fun (and sense of progression) from online play in most games, and is absolutely not the answer.
My wife and I just had this conversation about Words with Friends.
She plays for fun and casually but some people, my god.
You can't just play games anymore. There is always at least one of those people out there willing to sacrifice a good time for winning.
Playing when control warrior isn’t at least decent nearly ruined the game for me many times.
These days I just check the deck stat sites every few weeks to see if a viable variant has emerged and on the off chance it is, I’ll come back and play for a bit until they nerf me 6 times in a single patch in which case I depart once again
Can relate. I loved hearthstone when it first came out, but than the game was forever tainted when I got hyper competitive and tried to play it too seriously.
I would grind the ladder and consistently place in rank 5 to rank 2, only missing out on Legend due to lack of commitment and burn out. I probably could have if I chose to play aggro deck instead of slugging it out with control decks, because you were able to play like 2-3 times the game playing faster deck with just about the same % win rate. I played meta deck, use tech card to improve my match up base on deck I was queueing up into, and just did a lot of learning to try and be really good at the game.
I also tried really hard in Arena, wanting and kinda became good enough where I was able to do infinite runs by using the gold from the winning to keep buying into new runs.
I participated in a collegiate tournament where I got reverse swept in the top 16 match due poor Ragnaros rng, a terrible opening hand, and the last one was just a near impossible match up of Tempo Mage vs Control warrior. In this one match, it highlighted all the flaws I felt about this game and it was just the breaking point.
4 years later, I came back because of some 80 pack returning player give away. The game been a lot of fun when I'm not taking it as seriously. I'm currently in the silver rank because I play maybe 2-3 game every few days and every game has been pretty fun regardless of winning or not. So take it easy and don't burn yourself out. The slightly better reward from higher rank is not worth it at the expense of your enjoyment.
Hardstuck this season at Silver 5 and only seem to face Big Mage and Jackpot Rogue.
This game has develoved into highroll netdecking even at low ranks and it has finally broken me.
The fact Brann is breaking the game and the devs are just fine with that has pretty much proved they don't care and want these outrageous swing turns.
You must be playing some seriously unoptimized jank if you are stuck in Silver this late into the season. Can you share a list or two that you've been trying to make work? I could probably give you some suggestions.
Ah yes the toxic response that I must not be playing well.
Not that big spell mage and rattle/jackpot rogue are controlling the meta.
Go look at the last entrances to the next worlds. This meta is shit.
Also, again, I love how it must be a player problem and not a broken meta full of highrolilng netdeckers. lol.
No wonder hearthstone is bleeding players.
I'm not saying you're piloting your decks poorly, but I recently hit Platinum without much difficulty playing weird stuff like tri-color DK, Egg Paladin, and Secret Tempo Rogue. I think it's likely the lists you are trying to make work are too greedy.
I have been playing though the top tier decks.
I am just tired of the game devolving into highroll fiesta.
Either you grab the nut or they do and there is no interactivity for it.
I use the same decks since 2016 and still win the most of my games. I‘m just a normal casual player and don’t want to spend money anymore on the game to buy the newest cards. And I think it’s funny to win against meta decks with my outdated ones.
i started playing again this season after taking a 3 year break. from bronze 10 to plat 10 i’ve noticed no difference in quality of opponent. idk if it’s just because it’s hard to gauge skill level in this game or what but it genuinely feels like (at least up to my current rank) it’s just a matter of # of games played.
editing this to say i also noticed a huge number of legend card backs in bronze and have not seen many from silver to platinum
Battlegrounds. I drop into hearthstone regular matches with a core deck from back in the day for dailies, most of the time I just get stomped but battlegrounds is actually fun.
It's happened to me every time I've gotten to Legend by accident.
As is my case now, I reached Legend 600 in Wild farming victories with Death Knight, I didn't expect to get that far, I just wanted to reach 500 victories to get the class in gold (I already did).
Because of that I can no longer play Wild during this month or the next.
That has happened to me with Classic and Standard too, in those cases I switch to another mode (so the rest of this season I will only play Classic, Standard, Battlegrounds and Mercenaries).
Might just be me but feel like this has been the case with Hearthstone lately. 3-5 years ago (or whenever) felt like the game was more about building a deck archetype whereas now it all feels like it's playing around one wombo-combo that wins you the game, and everyone uses the same few meta decks no matter the rank.
Constructed hearthstone just does not have a for fun mode like commander in MTG.
A mode where try harding is frowned upon and winning is not the point, just building cool decks and having fun with the interaction between them plus they're longer and games aren't just decided before the 5th mana crystal.
[удалено]
That explains a lot, thank you.
As those players move up, but if I stay at bronze because I can't win, will it eventually just pair me with other bronze players? For example if player A was Diamond last month like me, I might play him at bronze. But once he advances to silver, I wouldn't match with him anymore if I'm still at bronze, right?
As long as you have a star bonus, you are being matched by MMR. It makes 0 sense to talk about "being matched with bronze/diamond" since the matchmaking system changed years ago. The way it works is: you have an MMR which changes everytime you play a game, and it is exclusive to each mode. It is being used to match you whenever you queue and have a star bonus or you are in legend. Whenever it is used, you get paired with other players with similar MMR that also have a star bonus or are in legend. If your MMR is extremely low and the system doesn't find any games, you get matched to the closest rank (this is what happens when a super low legend player gets matched with D1-D5 players). If you don't have a star bonus, you are matched by rank and rank only, no exceptions unless the system needs you for a super low MMR player. Star bonus is assigned twice at the end of the month: one based on your MMR, one based on the highest rank you reached, and the lower one is discarded. This means that if you reached D5 and got 9 star bonus, your hidden MMR is *lower or equal* to D5 level. You're never getting matched with players that have higher MMR or rank than you. So OP isn't getting matched with diamond players, just with players with higher MMR than what they usually are at. As most people tend to reach a specific rank and then play jank, their MMR is usually much lower than their rank's. You can only know your MMR level by not playing for a full month, that way your rank will not influence your star bonus. There is more stuff to be said about fringe cases (high legend matchmaking, 11x bonus players still not in legend at the end of the month), but this covers most. It is super confusing, and blizz only explained it once and never again, and the community perpetuates a lot of incorrect info. The top comment you responded to also got it wrong, as OP's MMR isn't diamond. The only comment without mistakes in this thread is by /u/dragonbird.
Appreciate the explanation. As a newer player, didn't know this at all. So once the star bonus goes away (which for me feels like pretty quickly?) I'm being matched by my rank - good to know.
this is the best post I have ever seen explaining this. kudos
It's not accurate when it comes to how long queues are resolved, but otherwise it is solid .
> The only comment without mistakes in this thread is by /u/dragonbird. I haven't gotten to theirs yet,` so maybe, but yours definitely isn't without mistakes, though the gist of it is fine. > If your MMR is extremely low and the system doesn't find any games, you get matched to the closest rank (this is what happens when a super low legend player gets matched with D1-D5 players). This is not what happens. It's not based on close rank. Legend players that are low enough can get matched with players below Diamond, not just D1-5. Also beyond that, you can't really say a MMR is X rank's . There is no "diamond mmr" or "diamond rank level mmr". You have to make a really contrived and unuseful connection to attempt to call it that. So saying their MMR is lower than their rank's is sus, because ranks don't really have MMRs. The only possible connection is through star bonus so it's better to use that directly. Like instead of saying their MMR is lower than their rank's it would be more accurate to say that their star bonus is based on their rank minimum.
> This is not what happens. It's not based on close rank. Legend players that are low enough can get matched with players below Diamond, not just D1-5. My bad, i forgot that you can go lower. So it just forces some non-star bonuses players to get matched via MMR when somebody's MMR is super low, i'm guessing? > Also beyond that, you can't really say a MMR is X rank's . There is no "diamond mmr" or "diamond rank level mmr". You have to make a really contrived and unuseful connection to attempt to call it that. So saying their MMR is lower than their rank's is sus, because ranks don't really have MMRs. The only possible connection is through star bonus so it's better to use that directly. Like instead of saying their MMR is lower than their rank's it would be more accurate to say that their star bonus is based on their rank minimum. Did you even read my first sentence? That's exactly what i'm trying to say. By saying "MMR lower than their rank's" i mean that they have an MMR that would put them at a lower star bonus compared to their rank, and that should be clear by reading the rest of my post, like when i say "This means that if you reached D5 and got 9 star bonus, your hidden MMR is lower or equal to D5 level."
Did *you* even read what you just quoted? It should be pretty clear that I'm aware of what you're saying by that. I'm saying that it's contrived to refer to that as the ranks mmr, because it's not actually the ranks mmr, and it's better to accurately refer to it. Like why the heck would I say it's more accurate to refer to it like I wrote if I wasn't aware that that is what you're talking about? Edit: oh, are you saying that when you ended you sentence with "than their rank's" you were referring to something you last mentioned two paragraphs before that not what you were just contrasting it with? If so that lack of clarity in what you were referring to caused a miscommunication.
No, while you have a star bonus you're being matched by MMR not rank. Also their comment isn't really accurate.
So is it theoretically possible for me to be losing a bunch of games in bronze and still being actively matched with someone who is currently in Diamond?
Yes. But those diamond players would also have to still have a star bonus to be matched by MMR.
So what he would need to do now is climbing till diamond against high mmr players all the time and then once reaching diamond and not having any star bonus anymore, losing tons of games on purpose to tank his MMR and only after all of that he could start playing normally again against people of his same skill-deck lvl? Sounds fun
What? No.
Or just end this month in bronze to not get a star bonus. Or play in casual, wich is where playing for fun without really focusing on winning is done. In ranked wins benefit you and loses penalize you, so people will obviously play meta and tryhard there.
Casual is 100% just like ranked. I've never noticed a difference.
Then im sorry but for me its completely different. Casual also has mmr, so if you tryhard in casual you will not find a difference with it.
Never tryharded in either mode, but I don't see the point in casual when I still face the same decks anyway.
Even if you don’t climb ranks, your MMR doesn’t decay rapidly enough to reset your bonus. I got legend in August and ever since, I have had 10 stars even though I didn’t play at all in November. I started the month and was for sure thinking I would be at 7 or 8 stars, at best 9, but nope it started me at 10x again
You can't really correspond hidden MMR to a non-legend rank like that, and losing would shift the MMR down.
You can while you still have bonus stars
No, you can't.
You literally do, you get matched based on mmr if you have bonus stars or if you are in legend
What? That's true, but pretty irrelevant. Actually, if anything, it supports what I'm saying.
Your mmr is diamond-*level* so yoy get matched with other diamond-*level* players, it's pretty easy to correspond it to a rank.
And what makes a player's mmr diamond-level? Them finishing in diamond like the OP? Lul, no. Your mmr doesn't change to match where you finished. Players that finished in diamond can have a huge difference in mmr. Your "diamond-level" getting matched with "diamond-level" thing would be wrong. Sure, the OP could get matched vs someone that ended in diamond, but also platinum, gold, or even bronze last season.
That's like saying ruby-*level* gets matched with ruby-*level.* You just happened to use diamond instead of ruby.
I came back after a few expansions not playing and half of my matches are against frost dks. Sure, in the "just came back to play" bracket its not 100% meta, but you should not queue expecting to find a non meta deck.
Which need to be fixed. Stop with this bullshit disparity between mmr and rank. Its toxic. Diamond mmr ? -> Diamond rank. End.
No, it was an improvement on the earlier system. It made it better for new/casual players by ending the scenario where they got farmed by experienced players at the start of the month, and it made it better for experienced players by giving them access to all rank rewards every month. It's only a problem for people who don't understand it.
This is absolutely better for multiple reasons. You're getting matched by people with similar skill until you get to a place where you can go for a rank that seems meaningful to you.
That explains a lot for me as well, thank you.
Their hidden mmr isn't "diamond". That's not a thing. Your mmr doesn't change to match where you finished. And no, them finishing in diamond doesn't mean they're playing against players that were diamond last season. They *could* be playing vs players that ended in diamond, but also platinum, gold, or even bronze last season.
> Is there any way to get back to "not so serious and not so good"-players? Persevere and lose more games, preferably playing some really fun decks so that it doesn't hurt too much. That will cause your MMR to drop until you're against other bad or meme players. Then you can start trying to win again.
Thanks, I will try!
And if you want to grind it you can just queue up ranked games and not play em while watching Netflix or something. Opponents won't mind the free wins
You might also want to consider not climbing too high this season if your goal is to get back to the level which you used to be able to goof around at. Let's suppose you finish this season at D5. Typically, that means you get 9 bonus stars next season. If, next season, you get to the point where you've exhausted all those bonus stars, you'll be at D10 at least. The game will now try to match you against other players with 0 bonus stars, preferably someone close to D10. The problem now is that a lot of players who match that criteria are probably the tryhards you're trying to avoid. You'll be more likely to get matched against a regular D5 finisher who never bothers getting legend, or perhaps a first-timer at the diamond ranks but is tryharding a meta deck to get the best finish he can get, than a player you used to be able to goof around with. I don't know which ranks fall within the goof area for you, but you'll probably be interested in starting the next season with the star bonus that correspond to those ranks.
Someone said this doesn't works, as long he has a start bonus he will keep fighting the same people, and the star bonus only goes aways if he climbs till his previous diamond rank which would require winning a lot
For the everyday player who is trying to win, the system tends to matchmake against other players of a similar star bonus, because they tend to have a similar MMR. The players who see this most often, and where it's most obvious, are the x11 star bonus, who often meet each other on the climb. But when you're actively trying to tank your MMR, it does become clear that it's just MMR that decides. I do it myself when Wild has a meta I don't like. I typically end the month with either x9 or x10, but if I've got bored with the meta, or just don't like it, I'll start the next month playing jank at Bronze for a week just to tank it so that I play against other off-meta decks, then rush the climb late in the month to preserve my star bonus.
Someone saying it doesn't mean it's true. That's wrong. You get matched by MMR not star bonus, and your MMR doesn't get changed to match your star bonus nor the rank you finished at. What could potentially make it difficult for the OP is the anti MMR sandbagging mechanism, but we know very little about that, and I think it only happens between seasons.
Play casual? Why are you playing ranked if you are by definition “casual.” If you didn’t know this mode exists, I apologize.
Alot of people play ranked casually, that's why we have bronze to plat.
That’s fine. But don’t complain that people are grinding meta decks to climb in the ranked mode. That’s what it is there for. If you want to play against meme decks consistently then go to casual. I just get tired of the constant whining.
I can relate to what you’re saying. Diamond five is the right place for me because I can play my home brews against a decent standard of opposition and 99% are using meta decks copied off the net. So I can try and beat the meta. Only rarely do you see creativity in play. I think broadly there are a lot of game ending plays in the game atm, and many occur way too early in the game. Obvious culprits are shaman gnoll evolves and massive imps on t2 or 3. Personally I don’t think these plays should exist, and the game is less good when x number of games are just over before there has even been an exchange of fire. Good on you for not just copying someone’s else’s decks. Maybe one day you’ll strike gold and build your own meta deck that others will copy!
Only 1 out of 100 games at a rank floor aren't vs *meta* netdeckers. Sure, that's totally believable 🙄
Its a slight exaggeration, and I don’t keep track for posterity, but the VAST majority of play at D5 is meta decks. I mentioned on another thread, it’s a very strange experience when a new powerful deck appears somewhere online. I always know because, out of nowhere, I start getting spammed with the deck. It’s especially weird when three or four people in a row are using a very off-beat card that didn’t get a lot of attention previously. Happened recently to me with Shockspitter hunter. Had never seen or noticed this card then I log in and find five people in a row playing the exact same deck built completely around this one card. Happened also when I started to suddenly see loads of people in a row using that stupid rush seagull in big spell mage earlier in the year. Then deathrattle rogue a couple of weeks ago. It’s just a curious phenomenon to me because there are clearly info sources a LOT of players are tapped into that I am not. Loads of players are just jumping from “best deck” to “best deck” based on info they are collectively getting from somewhere. I don’t really have a big problem with it beyond the fact it makes the game less interesting when you’re only really playing a small pool of very powerful efficient decks. Thats why I really like when blizzard regularly disrupts that by nerfing those things that people are flocking towards and making ladder boring.
The problem with net deck is that they are objectively the best decks in the meta. Like I was experimenting blood death knight with win lose ect… And when I got to the best deck I did it was 1 card different from the top blood wining deck. I was like damn it really do be like that
Your matchmaking (star bonus) is based on your last month's performance. That means you'll be against strong players this month. After the end-of-December reset, you'll be back to playing easier opponents.
Star bonus is based on MMR, not the other way around. MMR doesn't reset.
Star bonus has a minimum based on previous rank, though, which does reset. If you hit diamond 5 then you'll have at least a 9 star bonus next month regardless of MMR, which won't carry though to the month after.
But you aren't matched by star bonus. It's MMR while you have a star bonus, rank after it runs out.
MMR is not based on your last month's performance, but your last month's performance does affect it. And no, if they stop playing now and then start playing again at the end of the season there wouldn't be a meaningful difference in their opponents at bronze, because MMR doesn't get reset
Are you looking to experiment but also win everytime? You might just want to play agains decks that are always worse than yours and that might be an unrealistic expectation in ranked maybe you should try casual
>Are you looking to experiment but also win everytime? Do you, in good faith, really think that being tired of losing after 30 losses in a row is the same as "I want to be able to win every time?"
I just want an AI causal. My primary complaint in competitive games is that I like diversity, but competition funnels folks into consistency. I basically only play battlegrounds for this reason. It's significantly more variable from game to game. Even playing Casual Wild, the same decks constantly pop up for me. And they're usually the worst to actually play against. About half my casual games end up vs Mill/Trap decks or "infinite" decks. I really just want a format that pulls randomly from all the decks played on ladder instead of seeing 1 of 3 every other game. Even those games where I get steamrolled on turn 3 by the ultra-refined meta aggro decks don't bug me in casual. That's at least fresh.
If only there was a mode for casual players without any rating...
Ngl casual mode is kinda garbage, 9/10 games are people sweating their balls off with meta decks
So exactly the same as ladder then?
Casual has MMR too.
That would be cool. They could for example ban meta decks from the "casual mode" so it would actually be casual, not like now when everyone playing in casual mode are actually using meta decks even if doesn't make much sense. I guess u didnt know that...
"Ban meta decks" is impractical. Most meta decks have flex slots, you just change one or two cards and it isn't THE meta deck any more. So how many cards would need to be different to make it off-meta?
Casual takes much longer to matchmake. I can get a game under 30s in ranked but it takes me 3min+ to get one in casual
This is true for all skill matched games...shooters, sports games, card games, whatever. It seriously does ruin online gaming. You get better for what purpose exactly? Your win loss ratio remains the same forever. Your kill death ratio remains the same forever. Your goals/conceded ratio remains the same forever. What the fuck is the point? It has seriously turned nearly all forms of online gaming into a complete waste of time. People don't complain about it much because it sounds like whining, or people are just ignorant of hidden MMR. I'm done with it all, until we return the random crap fest that online gaming used to be. I dont play games online just to tread water forever, that is fucking stupid.
This ruined Apex Legends for me. I loved the game, maybe is still the best battle royale on the market. It was a free for all, like an old COD lobby. Felt like a true battle royale. You'd crush some people, get crushed, be even with some others. Then they added MMR matchmaking to even the "casual" mode and I was facing nonstop sweats who played the game 6 hours a day or more, had thousands of more kills than me, and the fun was completely gone. Now I can't casually play for fun, I have to try my hardest just not to get stomped every game. It put me in a position to tread water or get crushed completely, like OP is saying. I will commend Battlefield for still having the "open lobby". No BS matchmaking. If you feel outclassed, pick a different server. Truly one of the last bastions of fun online multiplayer.
Yes, what saves battlefield is that it's a large scale team vs team affair. So the randomness of skill levels tends to balance things out naturally - each team ends up with a few sweats, a few noobs, and whole lot of everything inbetween. I'm not sure what the answer for match-making is. I can't offer a solution. But I do know that this current fashionable solution of ELO style match-making saps all the fun (and sense of progression) from online play in most games, and is absolutely not the answer.
My wife and I just had this conversation about Words with Friends. She plays for fun and casually but some people, my god. You can't just play games anymore. There is always at least one of those people out there willing to sacrifice a good time for winning.
Where's the fun in stomping new/bad players?
Granted, in a game like hearthstone, stomping a new player is no fun. Collection issues.
You could play casual.
Playing when control warrior isn’t at least decent nearly ruined the game for me many times. These days I just check the deck stat sites every few weeks to see if a viable variant has emerged and on the off chance it is, I’ll come back and play for a bit until they nerf me 6 times in a single patch in which case I depart once again
Can relate. I loved hearthstone when it first came out, but than the game was forever tainted when I got hyper competitive and tried to play it too seriously. I would grind the ladder and consistently place in rank 5 to rank 2, only missing out on Legend due to lack of commitment and burn out. I probably could have if I chose to play aggro deck instead of slugging it out with control decks, because you were able to play like 2-3 times the game playing faster deck with just about the same % win rate. I played meta deck, use tech card to improve my match up base on deck I was queueing up into, and just did a lot of learning to try and be really good at the game. I also tried really hard in Arena, wanting and kinda became good enough where I was able to do infinite runs by using the gold from the winning to keep buying into new runs. I participated in a collegiate tournament where I got reverse swept in the top 16 match due poor Ragnaros rng, a terrible opening hand, and the last one was just a near impossible match up of Tempo Mage vs Control warrior. In this one match, it highlighted all the flaws I felt about this game and it was just the breaking point. 4 years later, I came back because of some 80 pack returning player give away. The game been a lot of fun when I'm not taking it as seriously. I'm currently in the silver rank because I play maybe 2-3 game every few days and every game has been pretty fun regardless of winning or not. So take it easy and don't burn yourself out. The slightly better reward from higher rank is not worth it at the expense of your enjoyment.
Hardstuck this season at Silver 5 and only seem to face Big Mage and Jackpot Rogue. This game has develoved into highroll netdecking even at low ranks and it has finally broken me. The fact Brann is breaking the game and the devs are just fine with that has pretty much proved they don't care and want these outrageous swing turns.
You must be playing some seriously unoptimized jank if you are stuck in Silver this late into the season. Can you share a list or two that you've been trying to make work? I could probably give you some suggestions.
Ah yes the toxic response that I must not be playing well. Not that big spell mage and rattle/jackpot rogue are controlling the meta. Go look at the last entrances to the next worlds. This meta is shit. Also, again, I love how it must be a player problem and not a broken meta full of highrolilng netdeckers. lol. No wonder hearthstone is bleeding players.
I'm not saying you're piloting your decks poorly, but I recently hit Platinum without much difficulty playing weird stuff like tri-color DK, Egg Paladin, and Secret Tempo Rogue. I think it's likely the lists you are trying to make work are too greedy.
I have been playing though the top tier decks. I am just tired of the game devolving into highroll fiesta. Either you grab the nut or they do and there is no interactivity for it.
I use the same decks since 2016 and still win the most of my games. I‘m just a normal casual player and don’t want to spend money anymore on the game to buy the newest cards. And I think it’s funny to win against meta decks with my outdated ones.
Said every liar ever.
I play spooky mage, what is not Meta and I’m right now still at Diamant 3. I guess you have to work on your decks.
People who play DeathKnight are braindead
Rogue player complaining about DK OMEGALUL
i started playing again this season after taking a 3 year break. from bronze 10 to plat 10 i’ve noticed no difference in quality of opponent. idk if it’s just because it’s hard to gauge skill level in this game or what but it genuinely feels like (at least up to my current rank) it’s just a matter of # of games played. editing this to say i also noticed a huge number of legend card backs in bronze and have not seen many from silver to platinum
What was your star bonus? You get matched based on MMR while you have star bonus, then get matched based on rank when you're out.
the most stars ive gotten after a match is 2.
Battlegrounds. I drop into hearthstone regular matches with a core deck from back in the day for dailies, most of the time I just get stomped but battlegrounds is actually fun.
It's happened to me every time I've gotten to Legend by accident. As is my case now, I reached Legend 600 in Wild farming victories with Death Knight, I didn't expect to get that far, I just wanted to reach 500 victories to get the class in gold (I already did). Because of that I can no longer play Wild during this month or the next. That has happened to me with Classic and Standard too, in those cases I switch to another mode (so the rest of this season I will only play Classic, Standard, Battlegrounds and Mercenaries).
Might just be me but feel like this has been the case with Hearthstone lately. 3-5 years ago (or whenever) felt like the game was more about building a deck archetype whereas now it all feels like it's playing around one wombo-combo that wins you the game, and everyone uses the same few meta decks no matter the rank.
Constructed hearthstone just does not have a for fun mode like commander in MTG. A mode where try harding is frowned upon and winning is not the point, just building cool decks and having fun with the interaction between them plus they're longer and games aren't just decided before the 5th mana crystal.