arena-rating
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Rating issues for Arena and RBG wins
There is a strange issue taking place at the moment with rating. Rating itself is a tricky thing to wrap your head around, especially as it's recently gone thorough something of a shift. Right now, your character has two ratings for every bracket of arena, and for RBGs. One is the MMR, the matchmaking rating. This is the rating the system uses to match you up against similar level players. It's shown at the bottom right of the scoreboard after every match, as an average of your group's character MMRs. The other type of rating is CR, Current Rating. This is the rating that your character earns by winning and losing matches, the one that's shown in green and red letters in the main part of the scoreboard. It's also the rating that gets you titles and mounts. Every season CR is reset to 0, while MMR remains what it was last season. So, if you ended season 14 on an MMR of 1800 and a CR of 1880, you'd have begun season 15 with an MMR of 1800 and a CR of 0. What happens next is that as you win games, your CR increases towards your MMR. You should expect it to stabilize as you reach a CR that's near your MMR. As you win and lose games, your MMR will also shift. Your MMR aims to give you a 50/50 win-loss rate, as when that's achieved you're being pretty evenly matched.
2012 Arena Pass Ranked Ladder Phase 1 has begun!
The 2012 Arena Pass Ranked Ladder Phase 1 has begun! This incredibly well-titled section of the Arena Pass realm has kicked off in the United States and Europe, signaling the start of the ranked phases. EU players need to remember that all the dates in this article should be adjusted to one day later for EU realms. What does it all mean? Well, if you've been in the practice phase, your rating will be reset to 0, and if you add new people to your team after this point, you'll be penalized by 150 points of rating. So if you had a rating of 300 and added a player to your roster, your rating would be adjusted to 150. Sense made? Good! It's not wholly clear whether a team with a rating of 0 would be moved to a rating of -150, but I sincerely doubt it -- and to be honest, it shouldn't be too hard to gain 150 rating points. If a player leaves your team, you won't be penalized, to the misery of PvPing trolls everywhere. This phase will run until May 22, at which point Ranked Ladder Phase 2 will begin and team roster changes will not be permitted, so get your teams sorted out as soon as you can. Registration is open until the end of May 22, so if you want to get involved in the Arena Pass, it's not too late to sign up. If you want your Murkimus, then now's the time to get in the 50 3v3 games required to get him on your live realm characters. Any games you played prior to the Ranked Phase won't count toward earning him, so get involved! Also, don't forget that if you are in the top 1,000 teams at the end of the Ranked Ladder Phase 2, you'll be getting a Vanquisher title on the live realm. By signing up for this Arena Pass, you're also getting access to an exclusive Level 90 Arena Pass Realm once you've upgraded your account to Mists of Pandaria. To the victors, the spoils -- and also to the participants in more than 50 ranked games!
Cataclysm Beta: Arena Season 9 available for testing
Bashiok has just posted that the Cataclysm beta is now host to Arena Season 9. The developers are looking to test arena games and the bugs therein, as well as the much-lauded rated battlegrounds. Fire up those betas for some awesome PvP action. Bashiok -- Arena Season 9 Available for Testing Arena Season 9 is now running and available for testing in the Cataclysm beta. To help facilitate testing we'd like to ask that those interested in providing bug reports and feedback focus on playing arena games, but also participating in the rated battlegrounds. Please let us know if you find any issues or have any feedback. Thanks. source
The Colosseum: A basic guide to the Arena rating system
The Colosseum takes us inside the world of the Gladiator (Brutal, Vengeful, Merciless, Furious, and otherwise), to interview some of the top Arena fighters in the battlegroups. Our goal is to bring a better understanding of the strategy, makeup, and work that goes into dueling it out for fame, fortune, and Frostwyrms. We're especially focused on the people who play these games, to further shed light on the world of the PvP player. When our new PvP guru C. Christian Moore wrote about a team skyrocketing to a 3206 team rating, a commenter pointed out to our staff that all the various language, acronyms, and "points" involved in the Arena can be somewhat confusing. It can be hard to figure out what the heck we're talking about.I think that probably makes sense when you consider there's probably about ten different kinds of "points," three different ratings, a few different ranks, and two different kinds of spendable currency. (While I'm not looking to delve into all the Battleground dynamics here, you have to keep in mind that Honor Points do have a pretty real effect on the Arena.)So, this time in your neighborhood Colosseum, we're going to take a break to enjoy a basic guide to the Arena rating system, and try to clarify the difference between Team rating, Personal rating, and Matchmaking rating. Check it out behind the cut.
2v2s will still be in Patch 3.2, with exceptions
One of the more controversial parts of the Patch 3.2 PTR was the decision to remove the 2v2 bracket from serious arena play. In the 3.2 patch notes thus far it was said that "The newest season of Arena gear can only be purchased if you meet the requirements with your 3 or 5-player team rating. Rating requirements from 2-player teams can still be used to purchase the previous season of gear."That effectively killed off the 2v2 bracket.However today, Blizzard has done an about face on the issue. Sort of. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you. They're listening to feedback and this patch is in testing. The fact that they're willing to make such a major change based on feedback they've received is a great thing.So as of today, your 2v2 rating will count towards your ability to purchase gear, etc... It will mean something. However the following exceptions apply: The current season's weapons will not be available for purchase with your 2v2 rating The current season's shoulders will not be available for purchase with your 2v2 rating Your 2v2 rating will not count towards the Gladiator title/rewards The full announcement after the break.
More on Blizzard's new Arena system
Blizzard has gone the extra mile in trying to explain their extremely mysterious new Arena matchmaking and rating system. They've featured their blue posts prominently on their front page as a feature called 'Shop Talk', collating all the official statements on the subject over the past couple of weeks. This is retroactive transparency going into overdrive, seeing as how they unleashed the system on players without mentioning it or even getting it tested on the PTR. When the system blew up in everyone's faces soon after Patch 3.0.8 was released, they were quick to suspend Arena play and tried to get things right.Now that it's up, players have reported winning games but losing points. In fact, some readers have written in to report extremely successful Arena records but result in low or even negative gains. If Blizzard wanted to make Arenas more accessible and enjoyable, taking points away from winning teams was certainly the wrong way to do it. In the latest chapter of this sordid saga of the new Arena system, Kalgan mentions that Blizzard "made adjustments to the ratings system" in a hotfix applied recently. Notable points after the jump.
Bornakk on arena ratings changes
Apparently there's been some confusion over the exact way that the new arena ratings changes work. Bornakk tried to clarify that a bit today. As he tells it, The adjustment to a team rating will always be based on the other team's team rating, but the adjustment to the personal rating of everyone in the match will be based on the average person rating for the other team. He used the following example:
Relmstein explains arena team ratings, and how Blizzard is working to combat exploiting them
Relmstein of The Many Relms of Relmstein has posted an updated version of a post he originally wrote in 2006 that is one of the most concise and clear explanation of how team ratings work and how people exploit them, including how Blizzard's planned arena rule changes will help stop these exploits.
Forum post of the day: Keep your E-sport out of the Battlegrounds
Drysc's announcement of new gear requirements for season four has not been entirely well received. Doorf of Maelstrom is downright upset with the addition of arena point requirements to battleground honor gear. In a thread entitled "Keep your E-sport out of the Battlegrounds" feels that this new mechanic is unfair and forces people to play in the arena in order to truly enjoy the battlegrounds. Several posters, like Evennia of Feathermoon agree that arena and battleground are separate PvP systems. The forums have many threads today expressing outrage at this change. Dottie of Sargeras believes that this change will be the subject of a lawsuit since it is limiting people's access further to certain aspects of the game. This is an extreme extension of the argument that all players should have access to all game content. Still others, such as Oded of Draenor are once again calling for a separation between traditional WoW and the arena Esport. Don't get me wrong, I love to play in the arenas, but I agree that the arena and battlegrounds should be treated as separate systems. I suppose the change could be an attempt to refocus folks on their PvE goals. By making battlegrounds less fun and requiring arena participation, many casual PvP players may pursue the PvE environment.
"Welfare epics"
To the best of my recollection, one of the WoW developers first coined the terminology "welfare epics" at last August's Blizzcon. I've had difficulty finding the original source, but as I recall, the context of the talk had to do with the goal of the WoW designers to make all players put forth some degree of effort in obtaining quality gear. The specific gear in question was that purchased with arena points.New arena loot was released to the clamoring masses a couple of days ago, and some of the items have arena rating requirements on them, thus setting in motion the designers' plan to avoid a proliferation of welfare epics. As per usual with changes of this magnitude, the official forums are rife with controversial topics. This time around, its the PvE players arguing with PvP players regarding the quality and accessibility of arena loot. Some of this debate spilled over into the comments on one of my own recent posts, piquing my interest in the issue even further.
Arena rating requirement likely 1800 or 1900
The big news on the forums today is arena weapon ratings-- Blizzard announced last month at BlizzCon that they didn't want players just putting their time in every week to rack up enough arena points to grab the weapons, so they're putting a rating requirement on those next season. Drysc says the exact requirement hasn't been set yet, but it'll likely be around 1800 or 1900.The main problem with this, as many players say, is that it's not those folks who need the weapons. Why give the best weapons to the people who are already winning at PvP. That argument doesn't really hold water (because the whole point of the game is to reward the best players with the best stuff), and the fact is that this change won't really affect that many people anyway-- as of each new arena season, the last seasons' weapons will have the requirements removed and be available for arena points only. So if all you want to do is the minimum number of arena matches and save up your points, you can still do that-- you just can't get the latest and greatest.Blizzard's said before that they want arena PvP to be the peak of player-versus-player combat skill (or at least know-how), and a change like this makes it clear that they don't want to give out any free rides to the top.
