Hearthstone: Decoding the Year of the Phoenix ranking system

While not the most exciting part of the Year of the Phoenix announcement, the reworked rank system will play a pretty big part in your gameplay, with the matchmaking algorithm at the heart of it. These changes show that the team is willing to bring complexity to its gameplay system. This article will better explain the new rating system.

Hearthstone’s New Ranking System

Like many other tweaks in Hearthstone, the basics remain the same, but the internals are very different from before. The 50 rank levels remain the same – open to all players – but each rank is reduced to three stars, and every player will be ‘reset’ to the lowest tier at the beginning of each season. The list of ranks includes Bronze 10-1, Silver 10-1, etc., up to Diamond 10-1 and above, Legend. Each promotion is like you reaching Rank 5 for each old “rank”, meaning you will not drop if you lose too much.

At first glance, it may seem like we have to climb the ranks a lot, but the star system has also been adjusted, awarding a lot of points for each win until you return to where you were from last season. Legend players will receive 10 stars for each initial win (11 for those who rank high in the Legend), plus any winning circuit bonus. That is, Legend players can leave Bronze after only 3 wins. Each higher rank reduces the bonus star by 1.

What does the new system tell us in terms of design?

In addition to changing the way ranks are climbed, the new system tells us two important points about the devs’ new approach to key elements in Hearthstone. First, they are willing to bring in more complexity for better results – and second, they are willing to adopt systems that have already been successful from other games.

The Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum/Diamond system has been successful in other Blizzard titles, and we used to find it a bit confusing when Hearthstone always avoided it. Actually, the Hearthstone beta uses a similar system with 9 ranks (Novice, Journeyman, Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master and Grand Master). The March 2018 changes try to keep the current system intact with a few minor tweaks – resetting Legend players to Rank 4 instead of Rank 16 and changing all ranks to 5 stars to improve matchmaking, plus a new update. presence of ‘bare rank’ – but it doesn’t fundamentally change the rank formula. With Year of the Phoenix, the team rebuilt from the ground up. The new system is clearer and more coherent, but the names describing the rank are inadvertently complicated. As can be seen, Blizzard has deliberately avoided this way in the past.

The main goal of these changes is twofold. First, the matchmaking system resets everyone to the bottom, to ensure that each rank has a large number of players at any given time. In the past, low ranks were filled with new players and those focused on plowing gold, creating a bad game experience for those who joined. (at one time, the author tried to climb from Rank 50 with a new account to prepare content for an article, and immediately encountered a lot of meta decks) Now, the number of low ranks will be crowded with players in early in the season – it also removes the need to add 5 stars per rank. This ensures the MMR ranking system can actually find an opponent for you based on previous playability. Former Legends will be matched with good players while new players don’t have to worry about encountering them. Even with a reset, it will still make the climbing experience as satisfying as possible, due to the system’s ability to match you with similar players during the climb.

Second, it makes the plowing journey ‘more enjoyable’ for F2P gamers and invests less money, as well as offers a new way to develop the Classic collection. The fact that Arena rewards packs from the latest sets makes it difficult for new players to collect evergreen leaves. Leveling up now also adds new rewards, which can build on your previous achievements, and promise fairer matches. While it takes longer to explain than previous systems – and is more MMR focused – these are seen as promising changes.

Legend and Wild: Almost unchanged

The game still has some issues even though it’s been pointed out over the years and hasn’t been fixed this time around. Back in January 2017, Ben Brode talked about the problems with Hearthstone’s rank system. While most of them have been fixed in this major adjustment (adding bonus circuit wins for non-Legend ranks, introducing MMR matchmaking and multiple ranks for a more pronounced distribution), the highest ranked players still keep the same.

We’re back to the days when ‘early legends’ were the primary way to get into Hearthstone esports. A lot of people complain that the last day of the season has too much of an impact compared to previous timelines: a win/lose difference, being kicked out of the stream, etc. can push someone out of a high tier Legend, not allowing them to be allowed. they have enough time to remove the antlers. Combined with the instability in rank in general, the tops at the end of the final month are still somewhat random. The increased number of familiar Legend players in every server also reduces the value of climbing the rank. Would a pack from the latest expansion be enough of an incentive for you to plow up Legend after achieving it before? Probably not.

According to Hearthstonetopdecks