Prepare to unravel the mysteries of World of Warcraft's PvP scene as we dissect the age-old MMR system that's got the community up in arms. We're tackling a fiery forum post that's become a beacon for the disgruntled, crunching the numbers on skewed ladders and the peculiar phenomena of players manning multiple alts. Through my own tales of clashing swords and casting spells in the EU 2v2 and 3v3 brackets, we'll explore the true impact this has on gameplay at the very pinnacle of competition. And if you've ever felt the sting of stagnation around the notorious 2K MMR mark, you're not alone. We're addressing the brick wall many face, pondering the true tenets of earning those coveted in-game triumphs.
Shift gears with us as we peer into the crystal ball, brimming with anticipation for the "War Within Alpha." Will it live up to expectations, or will it be a minefield of alpha bugs that we'll come to love as the expansion's 'best feature'? There's only one way to find out. For all of you theory crafters and dungeon delvers out there, this session isn't just analysis and debate; it's a rally to reform a system that should prize skill and commitment. Stay tuned to our social media for all the latest dispatches from the alpha front—after all, who doesn't love a good sneak peek at what's brewing in the cauldron of game development? Grab your gear and join the conversation; this is one tavern talk you won't want to miss.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
The Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go for a variety of subjects With regards to World of Warcraft, so grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We will be carrying on with the PvP sort of not Reddit the forum post that essentially captivates everything that the PvP community want, and I'll be giving my take on it what's good, what's bad. If it's actually correct, that sort of thing and this is the main reason for doing this is because it needs more sort of credibility and it needs to get out there a lot more, because it's really rough for pvp in terms of the mmr system, the way that it works. It is very outdated and it needs to be looked at in many different ways. And, yeah, this post essentially goes over it, but we will start off where we left off, which was at the MMR section of the post. So MMR the current MMR situation, is a much larger problem than it seems. Yes, everybody understands that the MMR inflation as the season progresses, that it is done this way to keep players sub to the game and that given others their desired rating right away would supposedly lead to the opposite. All this is reasonable, but only within boundaries. The current situation is that one single player has a multitude of alts, even of the same class and spec, and that in turn makes the ladder artificially bloated, especially towards the upper end of the normal distribution curve. This is pretty deceptive at first sight. However, even if we omit the fact that people play alt and essentially smurf in brackets they do not belong to due to inability to progress, the numbers in the brackets are nothing short of scary.
Speaker 1:
The following data have been taken from czech pvp on the 27th of january 2024, which marks week 13 of the season. The percentage corresponds to the sample provided, which we know is not the entire sample. Okay, so in the EU 2v2 bracket, people above 2,400 is 167 people, that is, 0.237% out of 100. 2,100 and above, you have 2,818 people, which is 4.015 percent. 1,800 plus, you have 17,700, which is 25 percent. I'm going to round these down or up um, that way we're not getting into the points. Um 1,600, you have 40,000, and that is 58 percent, and 1,500 plus, you have 52,000, which is 75% Like. So what this is essentially is there are 75% of the players that are, you know, 1,500 or above. So there's 25% of players that are below this rating. Yeah, if that makes sense, the sample provided was essentially you need to be over 1,200 rating and the sample, or the number of people that were in the sample, was 70,000. So if you're looking at 1,500 or above, you have 52,000 in there out of 70 000. Then you've got, you know, a fair amount still left. You got about 17 000 somewhere, missing 17, 18 000, you know, between the 300 rating, that is, 1200 and 1500. So that's how it's calculated.
Speaker 1:
Now you need to understand that having 0.2% of the player base above 2400 in twos is not great. Twos is a bit different to threes, but it still shouldn't be that low. That is ridiculous. In 3v3 EU we have 2400 plus and you have 562 people in that. That is 1.5% of EU. 2,100 and above you have 2,800 and that is 7.5%. Now I am part of that 7.5%. You can really feel that there is no one up there because we play the exact same teams the entire time. We play against Mage Lock, we play against the Fist Weavers, we play against, you know, caster teams, but essentially when we log on and do our games, we are against the same four teams and just on rotation, and then maybe, as it gets later and later, it's only the same two teams. You know that kind of deal. It's not great.
Speaker 1:
1800 plus you have 10,000, which is 27%. 1600 plus, you have 20,000, 56%, 1500 and above, you have 27,000, which is 75%. And again the sample provided was above 1.2k rating and there was 37,000 in the sample size. But the thing is I'm part of that think three or four times. So I have my paladin, that is 2100, I have my monk, which is 2k, I have my warlock, which is 2100, and I have my boomkin, which is 2100. So I am four of them. 2786 people in eu that are above that. I'm four of them.
Speaker 1:
That's not okay because it can't distinguish like who's on what account on these sort of servers, so it just takes it via that method, if that makes sense. So it is a bit ridiculous how deflated all of this is. It is absolutely crazy to think so. Keep in mind these numbers do not account for alt characters, like it says in the posts, nor are they taken from an entire sample of what the player base is, only from the like 1.2k and above it's taken from, while not providing the entire sample can be deceptive at first, it still paint paints a very clear picture of what currently is happening at the top of the ladder.
Speaker 1:
Let's move on to consequences. Um, okay, so this is part of the same sort of what is it subheading, which is MMR, so I'm going to let him do his thing. But essentially it's ridiculous because it allows people to not play the game until the very last week of the season and then rush everything that they need to because there is no incentive to play, and then rush everything that they need to because there is no incentive to play. You may as well just sub for that one week at the end of the season, play and then leave. There's no incentive.
Speaker 1:
Overwatch, there is an incentive to play every week because you had a chance to always go up in your rating when it was 1 to 5,000. And even if you're rank one in the world at you know, 4 500 rating, you could in theoretically push even more. You really could. Now, obviously, there's going to be diminishing returns for if you uh win your games because someone's not going to be as high rating as you, but you can still go up in your rating and it is possible now, I think in overwatch, um, there was only one person who ever made it to 5000 rating, and that was like the very first season that that rating system came out, and then they uh altered it slightly so that it was almost impossible to get out there, but you still could gain rating, uh, even if you were rank one. Uh, obviously not at a same speed of what other people could, but you know you still could, and I think that's still the mmr system that they should go to, in my honest opinion. Um, so consequences achievements equal, unreachable.
Speaker 1:
For these numbers, we can draw the following conclusions it's very likely that reaching Elite in any bracket means you need to be performing better than 99% of the entire PvP playerbase. Elite is 2400+. So 1.5% of people in 3v3 EU have that and 0.2% in 2v2 have that. That's how crazy it is. 0.2% in 2v2 have that that's how crazy it is. This begs the question why are the achievements still connected If the MMR discrepancy is this drastical?
Speaker 1:
If you want to advocate for 3v3 formats being harder than 2v2, why share the achievements? And if you wish to advocate for shared achievements, why the disparity? Why not have percent-based achievements that would count, let's say, from week three, instead of having a concrete numerical milestone that are not adaptable with participation, which in turn needs to be manually adjusted, with the exception of rank ones, eg, if you establish duelist as a top 10, you would get duelist reward, if any, at one point If, at any one point, starting on week three, you hit the top 10% of the participation pool. On top of that, while I lack personal experience in the bracket myself, the rbgs in both eu and na have rank one cutoffs below 2.4k, which is the final baseline cornerstone. So they have rank one cutoffs before they have the actual, like gladiator 2.4k rating for rated battlegrounds. That's ridiculous. Rank one, if you have a set numerical value, should be about 3k. It should be about 3k. That way, 2.4k is somewhat achievable by decent players, and by decent I mean like good, like myself.
Speaker 1:
Really, I wouldn't class myself as a shit player. I wouldn't class myself as an amazing rank one player. I would class myself as a very good player though. Um, and yet it's so deflated and you can barely push again. I always come back to I was 2700 rating last season in, or last expansion in, shadowlands season 2. Now that 2.7 rating is a lot worse than 2.1 rating this season, and that's just because of inflation. But I know for a fact I'm a much better player this season in Dragonflight than I was in Shadowlands season 2. I know that for a fact. I can see that a fact. I can see that in my gameplay, I can see that in the decision making. I can see that everywhere when I play the game. Now it's absolutely crazy to think that I'm 600 MMR lower not MMR, but rating lower than what I was in Shadowlands and I got the mounts in Shadowlands but I can't get the mounts in Dragonflight. That kind of deal. It's absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1:
The similar situation occurs in rated solo shuffle for some specs such as Fury Warrior, whose rank 1 cutoff currently sits at 2.4 CR, which again, this is in January, so this is a few months ago. I definitely think that's gone up by now while on the other end of the spectrum, destro Warlocks have a cut off at 2.7, and this is 13 weeks into the season. That's a 300 MR discrepancy. Now, obviously, the higher you go, the tougher it is to find healers, so you're going to be waiting in longer queues. Therefore it's tougher to get your rank one as a destruction warlock in this case.
Speaker 1:
It is a bit stupid. It should be a numerical value, and once you get towards the upper end of that numerical value, it just takes a lot more time to get what you need. You can still achieve it, but you need to win sort of a you know, five games to one kind of deal. You can lose one game, win five and you would still go up. You know, really pushing it if, like, you're really going to go for the top of the top, like rating essentially, um. Furthermore, the more important question for the majority of the player base is how do I even get up there? The answer is you don't.
Speaker 1:
There are people who have played the game almost for a decade and even these people are struggling to reach the top, occupying the lower brackets. We hear it and we see it in practice every day Players at the low, as challenger, are regularly meeting players that are even four brackets above, experience wise, and this is caused by many aspects, such as concrete numerical milestones versus inconsistent MMR distribution and so on and so forth. Now I do have to say that it is a bit ridiculous. I've met BlizzCon champions. I've met BlizzCon champions at 2K MMR when we're trying to push and the thing is it wasn't that like we didn't get steamrolled. It's like we actually held our own.
Speaker 1:
And a 2K MMR game. That shouldn't be happening. That should have been more of a 2.4 at the very minimum sort of like game, like low end for them. But no it's, it's a 2k. This game is happening and that is absolutely ridiculous and shouldn't be a thing. To be honest, um, where was I, where was I for this? Uh, in other words, a rank one player in the bracket will always be able to reach rank one if they invest the time and the top CR is determined solely by their determination to play, as long as they are, as long as there is no hard-coded bottleneck which in turn makes the number oh my God.
Speaker 1:
Essentially, he's saying that there shouldn't be places that you get stuck in your MMR. The only time you should get stuck is when you've hit your rank ceiling. Essentially, but I'm good. But if you have a numerical value of 1 to 5,000 in a rating system, I would say get to.
Speaker 1:
Let's say 3.5k, and then I would hit that brick wall as a player myself, as my skill ceiling, as my understanding of the game. Let's say I hit 3.5k. That should be my brick wall. A brick wall shouldn't be because it's super deflated. That's what it shouldn't be. Therefore, I'm not able to get certain achievements or mounts because of the deflation. I can't get it because I'm simply not good enough. That's how it should be. I'm just simply not good enough.
Speaker 1:
But because the difference of inflation each season makes it really really rough to even try and like get to where you want to be, it should be a thing where I'm able to earn it if I can do well enough, rather than I get stopped because the system is stopping me because there's not enough people participating. There's not enough. You know, mmr injection into the. I keep losing. It's such a big paragraph but essentially it is ridiculous and it shouldn't be in the game. What they've gone over here with stats-wise and stuff, it's such a bloat in the middle of the ranking system that people aren't able to get to the top. Some people are good at the game but they're stuck at maybe 1800, 1900, 2k, 2.1. But they should be up 400 ratings. So 1800 should be 2.2. You know 1900s, 2.3. You know that kind of deal it.
Speaker 1:
It's absolutely crazy that this fewer people are actually getting the mount. So I get it. I get that it's prestigious, these mounts. I get that they are very prestige worthy and they're very cool and they shouldn't be obtained by everyone. I completely understand that and I agree with that. But I should be able to earn it or not earn it because of my skill, not because of the MMR stopping me.
Speaker 1:
If I'm not good enough to earn it, I'm not good enough. It's one of them things. I go, I play the game more, I train, I get better and better and better. If I am good enough to get it, great, I get the mount. And then, because I enjoy the game so much, I'll still play. I'll still maybe help friends get the mount, or I'll try and like just push with a different composition, push as high as we can after we got the mount. You know that kind of deal. It isn't everyone's going to stop playing as soon as they hit their like goal. Some people will, and that's fine, that's for them. But I'm getting stopped from reaching my goal because mmr is stopping me, not because I'm not good enough or not because I'm not shit enough or no, yeah, not because I'm not good enough to earn it and because, yeah, the, my brain is going. My brain is absolutely fried. Now the MMR fries your brain. That's what it does to you. That's how crazy it is. Um, you should be able to earn it if you're good enough. You shouldn't if you're not good enough, and it should be on you, not the MMR. That is the conclusion. Um, so obviously all of these numbers are like from January, but the numbers are still very, very bad and not what you're looking for in the game.
Speaker 1:
What I would hope for in season four. They're obviously not going to do it, but what I was hoping for is that they would try and re-overhaul the entire system, the entire MMR system for Dragonflight season 4. That's what I was hoping that they would do as a sort of test run for the War Within. I really wished that they would do that. They might bring it with the War Within, who knows? But I would have liked a test season. I think a lot of PvP players would have been okay with a test season.
Speaker 1:
In this you test out the old Overwatch rating system the 1 to 5,000, and you see what's good for it, what works in World of Warcraft for it, what doesn't work, how you do rank ones, how you do all of that sort of stuff, and you go from there. But sadly, I don't think we're going to get it. Um, we are hopefully gonna see some changes, maybe, uh, very soon, but who knows? Who actually knows? But yeah, what we'll do is call it for there and go over this. God, there's still so much of this post. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:
This is one of the best posts I've ever seen. Please try and read it. It's called Everything Wrong With WoW PvP Open Letter. It's on the forums. It's absolutely incredible and it's definitely something that people need to look at and have a look through. Even if you're not interested in PvP. It gives you such an eye opener into what we need or what pvpers are asking for. Essentially, um, but yeah, I will leave it there.
Speaker 1:
When this episode goes out, hopefully, hopefully, we should be seeing a war within alpha, because next week is the end of season four or season three and the war within alpha is meant to be out before season four, so a week from now um, well, as of this episode airing. So I'm really hoping that when this goes out, there is a war within alpha out and we all get to see some hero talents. We get to see what this can essentially do. This expansion where it's at like in terms of it's how much it's been complete, what needs doing, what needs to be fixed to all the bugs or? The bugs are the best part about alphas, by the way, by far, easily the best part. But yeah, once again, I'll leave it there. Thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all the socials down below. Constant stuff happening over there. Thank you all very much once again and go, avala friend, goodbye. Thank you.