The Demon Hunter prologue is now live! Log in to unlock Hearthstone's first-ever new class and prepare yourself f… https://t.co/TMKNljdUiH
11.
You would still have star bonuses from the first season, very likely -- since you only play a couple of ranked games, star bonus would only depend on your MMR.
Hey everyone! We put together a general matchmaking FAQ here for our new ranked system to help answer questions you may have.
For general description of this new system, please refer to our Year of the Phoenix blog.
If you want to learn some basic concepts of matchmaking, here is our previous blog about matchmaking in Battlegrounds.
Q: How does matchmaking work for each season?
A: There are two matchmaking pools: matchmaking by rating (aka. MMR) and by rank.
When your star bonus multiplier is bigger than 1, or you are in Legend rank, you are (generally) in the first matchmaking pool; when your star bonus drops to 1, you are in the second pool.
Q: Why are there two matchmaking pools?
A: Since each player starts at the bottom of the ladder at start, we want fair matches for everyone (aka. win-rate close to 50%). At that time, your progression on ladder is protected by your star bonus, thus your net expected gain will be positive through the ladder. Once other players run out of star bonuses, matching by rank will allow for good players, or players who want to push themselves a bit, to be able to progress to a higher rank.
In short, having two matchmaking pools helps players progress in the ladder without having to grind as much, while still making most matches fair.
Q: If I “tank” my MMR at certain rank floor, will I be matched with easier opponents next season because you are matchmaking by MMR at the start?
A: No, in general you won’t. At the start of the season we will recover your MMR to certain threshold if it is dropped below that value, which is based on what your rank is in the previous season. Therefore, there would be no benefits to intentionally tank your MMR.
Q: How many stars bonuses do I get at the start of the season?
A: It depends on your current MMR and the rank you reached from your previous season, whichever gives a higher value. Generally, the minimal initial star bonuses you get for each rank floor you reached are:
| Bronze 10 | 2 |
| Bronze 5 | 2 |
| Silver 10 | 2 |
| Silver 5 | 3 |
| Gold 10 | 4 |
| Gold 5 | 5 |
| Platinum 10 | 6 |
| Platinum 5 | 7 |
| Diamond 10 | 8 |
| Diamond 5 | 9 |
| Legend | 10 |
As you can see, every player starts with at least two stars bonuses.
Q: Do you reset MMR each season?
A: No, we do not.
Q: Will the value of my previous season’s MMR be exactly same as the new season?
A: Technically no, although the change will be very small and the “value order” will be kept (Player A whose MMR is larger than player B in the last season will still be ordered as such). Mathematically, a re-normalization process takes place at the start of each season to keep the distribution in a nice bell-shaped curve.
Q: If I missed one season, will I lose my star bonuses when I return?
A: No, you won’t.
Q: If I missed multiple seasons, will I lose star bonuses when I return?
A: Based on how long you are absent, there will be some small decay applied to your MMR. Therefore, you may (or may not) lose some star bonuses.
Q: Where do the win steak bonuses end?
A: Diamond 5.
It depends on your MMR when season changes.
Yes, standard and wild MMRs are separate.
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@YukieTAJIMA Fantastic work!
Hi! I put together a general matchmaking FAQ here for our new ranked system to help demystify a lot of questions you may have.
For general description of this new system, please refer to our Year of the Phoenix blog.
If you want to learn some basic concepts of matchmaking, here is my previous blog about matchmaking in Battlegrounds.
Q: How does matchmaking work for each season?
A: There are two matchmaking pools: matchmaking by rating (aka. MMR) and by rank.
When your star bonus multiplier is bigger than 1, or you are in Legend rank, you are (generally) in the first matchmaking pool; when your star bonus drops to 1, you are in the second pool.
Q: Why are there two matchmaking pools?
A: Since each player starts at the bottom of the ladder at start, we want fair matches for everyone (aka. win-rate close to 50%). At that time, your progression on ladder is protected by your star bonus, thus your net expected gain will be positive through the ladder. Once other players run out of star bonuses, matching by rank will allow for good players, or players who want to push themselves a bit, to be able to progress to a higher rank.
In short, having two matchmaking pools helps players progress in the ladder without having to grind as much, while still making most matches fair.
Q: If I “tank” my MMR at certain rank floor, will I be matched with easier opponents next season because you are matchmaking by MMR at the start?
A: No, in general you won’t. At the start of the season we will recover your MMR to certain threshold if it is dropped below that value, which is based on what your rank is in the previous season. Therefore, there would be no benefits to intentionally tank your MMR.
Q: How many stars bonuses do I get at the start of the season?
A: It depends on your current MMR and the rank you reached from your previous season, whichever gives a higher value. Generally, the minimal initial star bonuses you get for each rank floor you reached are:
| Bronze 10 | 2 |
| Bronze 5 | 2 |
| Silver 10 | 2 |
| Silver 5 | 3 |
| Gold 10 | 4 |
| Gold 5 | 5 |
| Platinum 10 | 6 |
| Platinum 5 | 7 |
| Diamond 10 | 8 |
| Diamond 5 | 9 |
| Legend | 10 |
As you can see, every player starts with at least two stars bonuses.
Q: Do you reset MMR each season?
A: No, we do not.
Q: Will the value of my previous season’s MMR be exactly same as the new season?
A: Technically no, although the change will be very small and the “value order” will be kept (Player A whose MMR is larger than player B in the last season will still be ordered as such). Mathematically, a re-normalization process takes place at the start of each season to keep the distribution in a nice bell-shaped curve.
Q: If I missed one season, will I lose my star bonuses when I return?
A: No, you won’t.
Q: If I missed multiple seasons, will I lose star bonuses when I return?
A: Based on how long you are absent, there will be some small decay applied to your MMR. Therefore, you may (or may not) lose some star bonuses.
Q: Where do the win streak bonuses end?
A: Diamond 5.
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The new ranked play overhaul is now live – featuring a new league system, better matchmaking, and more rewards! 🏆… https://t.co/cDDT1o9Ttk
Thanks for the callout. I'll check with the Hearthstone team and get the article updated if needed.
Edit: Yup! Looks like there was a mixup. The article is getting its update. Thanks again!
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Hey /u/PougHS,
You hit the nail on the head. As explained in this new article on our support website, it's a temporary issue while we're in this in-between period before the Demon Hunter class is available. Sorry for the inconvenience!
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EDIT: To clarify, the 50/50 between Easy/Difficult is so that the raw number of quests doesn't skew things one way or another, and applies to both initial daily quest each day, and Easy reroll.
Hey all. We've seen a bit of discussion about daily quest rerolls, and I wanted to give you an update on what the difference you're seeing is.
Daily quests fall into one of two buckets. "Easy" ones are generally completable through most normal gameplay, like play 30 cards, and award 50g. "Difficult" ones ask you to do something directed, like play 20 Murlocs, but reward 60g.
A while back, we added safeguarding such that if you rerolled a Difficult quest, you'd always get an Easy quest (so when you don't want to do a difficult daily, you can reroll and guaranteed get an easier one). No such guarantee existed for rerolling Easy quests; when you have an easy one and reroll, we guess that you just want something different, so give you a different one out of the entire pool.
However, when we added all the different combinations of "play games on these 3 classes", that massively increased the total number of Difficult quests, which made "a random quest from the whole pool" skew heavily toward Difficult, which was unintended. In 17.0, we tweaked that to give you a 50/50 chance of getting Easy or Difficult, when you reroll an Easy, so that it's not so heavily skewed.
(Note, there are still a couple rare higher-value quests in each bucket, like challenging a friend. That hasn't changed.)