Devs are out of their mind right now regarding MMR issues+MMR cap in PvP

Community General Discussion
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It’s week 5 of Dragonflight Season 3 and the MMR cap is up for 3rd or 5th season in a row (depending if we count S3/S4 Shadowlands into this).

For the past 3-5 seasons the rating in this game has been insanely deflated following the insane inflation witnessed in Season 2 Shadowlands. Obviously something had to be done regarding that but what is currently happening is killing this game. Season 1 Shadowlands was the sweet spot - starting from week 4 if you were an “average Glad” you could realistically start pushing your goals, at week 10 it was already more than realistically attainable for your average player who has been PvPing for a while and can be considered decent at the game.

I’ve been PvPing from the moment I started playing this game but at this point I don’t even bother queueing any of my characters - why should I?

  1. if I want to actively PvP right now, first I need to get lucky with first 2-3 vaults and get weapon+a piece of tier set, if I don’t get lucky I’ll be behind on power and lose games thanks to that and might as well wait until conquest is uncapped before I start to seriously play because I’ll always be behind with gear - this is being fixed in war within but nonetheless this is a real issue in the current game right now

  2. capping and obtaining gear right now feels pointless - you can’t realistically do anything in the start of season - you get your 2100 (enchant and transmog) and you’re done, there’s no incentive to push forward - I’m not saying there needs to be an incentive beyond 2100 other than Glad/Legend and tabard, I’m saying it’s completely pointless to play because it is not attainable in a reasonable time frame - imagine if you put a cap on a keystone level that you can do regardless of the gear you have - let’s say that 480 geared players right now are not able to push more than 25’s because further key levels are locked - that’s exactly what’s happening in PvP right now with these rating caps and lack of participation - so why would I want to play something that is not rewarding me and is instead actively demoralizing me/stopping me from progressing?

  3. if I want to push Glad, I’ll get it last 2-3 weeks of the season because pushing real rating for someone who doesn’t PvP 24/7 is basically beyond impossible until week 10+ of the season, and seasons have been going for 15 weeks right now, meaning you do not get to attain your usual rating until well into the season - it’s beyond absurd that I need to wait until week 10 to start pushing rating if I don’t want to sweat myself out and then I have 5 weeks to get it meaning I do not get to plan when I play the game, I’m forced to play it in that time window, and if I can’t dedicate myself to it during that time window there’s no point playing the season at all

This all further decreases participation and further increases the issues regarding MMR and MMR cap in both rated 3s/2s and solo shuffle because players like me simply don’t play. I would push on my main, get my rewards then queue alts - many people used to play like this. Surprise surprise they don’t because of all the issues described above.

Let’s not even talk about how solo shuffle participation is hurting because devs refuse to acknowledge that playing a healer is simply not fun for the majority of the playerbase because on top of the existing MMR issues due to cap and whatnot, healers regularly go 3-3 and 4-2 and lose rating which is beyond absurd. This makes healers simply not queue solo shuffle killing the game mode in the process because DPS players will eventually get bored of 20-40 minute queues.

It’s a vicious cycle of MMR cap decreasing participation then lack of participation decreasing participation because MMR issues are multiplied due to the fact that players aren’t willing to put up with this stuff.

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The sheer unwillingness to accept player feedback on these matters and actually tune the numbers allowing players to actually play the game and feel rewarded is unacceptable, plain and simple, and I’m sure metrics are showing this in decreased arena participation and/or decreased sub counts due to the fact.

To further add to this post, you also need to understand that MMR needs to be adjusted on a case per case basis in regards to seasons.

2400 should always be 2400, 2100 should always be 2100, 1800 should always be 1800. You do not play League of Legends and see massive skill fluctuations between Platinum in season 9 or Platinum in season 12. You also do not see Faker being hardstuck Diamond 3 because the game is actively preventing him from climbing.

You (the devs) have insane amount of metrics at your disposal - you do have the information of how many players are playing the game and you do have the rough estimates of how the game is played and how much people come back for each patch/season.

Adjusting how MMR inflation works to keep ratings feeling the same between seasons based on the number of current participating players shouldn’t be a hard job and instead should be a given, not something that playerbase has to actually mention to the developers and beg them to implement.

Either stop messing with the system or implement it correctly.

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TL;DR - get your stuff together blizzard and stop enforcing MMR caps in rated PvP starting from early season + fix healer MMR and allow healers to climb in solo shuffle more easily

This is no longer Shadowlands where patch cycle is 6-8 months and inflation reaches insane levels. Seasons last for 15 weeks, easen up on the MMR caps and let people play the game. Or don’t and continue seeing PvP bleeding sub numbers.

15 Likes
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Where are you getting your 15 weeks from?

DF Season 1: 12/12/22 - 02/05/23 (22 weeks)
DF Season 2: 10/05/23 - 07/11/23 (26 weeks)
DF Season 3: 15/11/23 - ???

I’m not qualified to comment on the rest of your post, but that stuck out to me, were you speaking in some way figuratively or am I missing your point.

1 Like
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Great post. As an active PVPer it’s really a downer that we have a cap system that’s slowly raising. To be honest I don’t even care if SL season 2 was wildly inflated.
What does that matter?

The deflation is just brutal for players, and actively demotivating. Whereas wild inflation might be spreading rewards too broadly - but that’s a much better problem to have the way I see it

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Won’t fix anything when we’re punished for people not pressing their own CDs.

Just played a game with 2 rogues in it where people died in the sap every round. I only won the round with both rogues because people aren’t pressing their CDs.

Another game earlier a warrior kept dying every round against a moonkin that left stealth with root beam on me. Like, press your buttons.

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Seems like "git gud " issues combined with overdepence on overgearing your opponents in arena :slight_smile:

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Tell me you haven’t played shuffle PvP without telling me you haven’t played shuffle PvP. You can’t overgear someone, because it requires you to have enough item level to join it in the first place.

2 Likes
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pvp unplayable until 2 weeks before end of season as always in df :slight_smile: or at least it easier than now. no one wants to play vs r1 try hards. and healing still trash when you can lose rating with 4-2

1 Like
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this pretty much, in league ppl go to their ranks within a couple of days when the season starts, and challenger players goes to challenger, obviously they go to challenger with low LPs, but they still play between challengers and not vs silvers for 3 months.

For me, the fix is make gladiator mount/tittle not BOA again, so u incentive people to queue on alts after they’re done with the main, cap mmr to like 3k since the day one, so everyone can go to the rating they deserve, give some 1.8 2.1 2.4 rewards so pve’rs are also tempted to play arena, give exclusive rewards for 2s/3s and shuffle differently, so ppl have to play both brackets. And in shuffle, when a healer go 3-3 make it that he can never loss mmr/rating, or if a healer goes 4-2, make it so he have to win rating/mmr no matter what, maybe change the threshold of the mmr of healers.
The game think that if you’re 2290 mmr and u face a 2220 mmr healer, he is going to be insanely worse than you by default and you should atleast 4-2 by default so it gives you a +0?? when in the reality is that there’s 0 difference between a 2290 mmr healer and a 2220 one

3 Likes
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It was more of a figure of speech rather than a set in stone information, my point was that seasons last much less than they use to

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