Solo Shuffle Update - 6 January

PVP Arenas
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Happy New Year champions!

Before the holidays, we posted an update about future improvements that we’re working on for Rated Solo Shuffle, and we want to provide additional information on those updates. For additional information about Rated Solo Shuffle, please refer to the FAQ about Rated Solo Shuffle that was previously posted.

Coming with Weekly Restarts

Next week, we will make an update so that leaving a match will impact both Matchmaking Rating and Current Rating. We’ve received a great deal of player feedback indicating that losing only current rating has not been enough of a deterrent to leaving, and leaving is highly disruptive to the Solo Shuffle experience.

10.0.5 Improvements

We have several changes coming in 10.0.5 to improve how our system handles players who leave matches:

  • Rating will be calculated per-round in games with leavers.
    • This has been a recurring point of feedback that we agree with. The format of Solo Shuffle is intended to have all 6 rounds completed, as there can be composition or skill imbalances between individual rounds. Now, when rating is calculated for incomplete matches (matches with leavers), gains and losses will be scaled linearly based on the number of rounds completed.
  • Matchmaking Value for each player in a match will be displayed on the scoreboard.
    • We want to provide additional visibility to matchmaking. Matches are made based on the matchmaking rating of players, not their current rating. When a player enters a match, we determine the expected performance of players in the match based on player matchmaking rating (MMR). We take all the rounds into account, considering who was on each side and who won, so it matters which specific rounds the player wins, and not just the total number of rounds won, in calculating impact on MMR. We hope this helps players to better understand the matches they’re placed in, as well as rating changes of individual players based on the results of the match.

  • A warning prompt will display the penalties for leaving if a player attempts to leave a match.
    • If a player attempts to leave a match in progress, they will be prompted with a warning that indicates the repercussions of leaving including penalties and forfeiture of rewards. The warning will have a 5 second countdown and the player will be required to hit ‘Accept’ to leave. Our intent with this change is to make the leaver punishments more visible, as well as requiring additional acknowledgement from the leaving player.

Players who leave excessively will be subject to account review and suspensions, as abandoning matches repeatedly is a violation of the terms of service via exploiting functionality to the detriment of the game environment and the intended player experience.

Beyond 10.0.5

Looking to the future, we’re actively discussing options we might take to incentivize more healers to queue for Solo Shuffle to reduce the queue time for the damage role. This includes ways to make Solo Shuffle gameplay a more fun, rewarding experience for healers. We do not have anything to share about that right now, but in addition to leavers, it’s a foremost concern for the team.

We’re also looking into improving the UI further for both those in-queue and those who are about to queue.

As a team, we’re excited about Rated Solo Shuffle and we’re looking to iterate and improve on it in future patches. Your feedback has been valuable and greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much!

17 Likes
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Demon hunter nerfs when?

9 Likes
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Seems like good changes.

To incentivize healers to queue more often, I’d try out something like the Call to Arms bonus reward used for the Dungeon queue. A little goodie bag.

Maybe also a new achievement with a title reward or something, for achieving a certain rating on both dps and healing roles? A bit like the Proving Grounds achievement from MoP that incentivized you to try to master all the roles.

And perhaps also some personal statistics? I think Heroes of the Storm is really good at this, where there’s a post-game statistic telling you something noteworthy you did during the game, like more healing than the average on that map, or the most kills you’ve ever scored in a game, or something like that. So regardless of whether you win or lose, you can take pride in some small personal accomplishment.

6 Likes
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Please re-install the /spit emote so we can moisten the proud leaver buff wearers in the city. Thank you.

10 Likes
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Anything chaning for Tanks? Because right now there is now Chance of winning as a Tank

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Still doesn’t fix the problems of solo queues. Ban should be more punishing.

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Great! I love SS!

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Thank you so much for the update Blizz :heart: I really appreciate the communication and love the changes to deter leavers.

As a healer main I’m excited to see what you announce in the future regarding incentives; but for now I just want to let you know that we appreciate the dialogue! It feels good to feel heard :relaxed:

5 Likes
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Well you said this a couple of times now, better hurry up with that because healers are losing their patience.

  • Healer balance is laughable, there are healers with low mobility and low mana who have to cast a lot in a meta full of cc and interrupts and then there are the two top tier healers (dudu and evoker) who have more throughput than everybody else while it’s also much easier to to apply this healing because of instant casts, stun imunity or super strong hot healing
  • Tune down cc and interrupts
  • Tune down damage (preferably tune down both offensive and defensive cds while buffing healing throughput a bit)
  • Tune down dampening and mortal strike
  • Buff mana of some healers
  • Reward gold for playing solo shuffle instead of giving 25% more of a currency that nobody cares after 2 days of playing
  • Maybe rework the format completely. Make it regular 3v3 instead of having 6 rounds because the current format punishes healers. Or heavily buff healers and turn the game into 4v4 with 3 dps on each round (Overwatch tank treatment kinda)
  • Inflate the healer rating a bit - there are almost as many dhs in 2,4k+ as ALL the heal specs COMBINED
1 Like
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Reduce CC. Reduce interrupts. Reduce burst. Make evokers actually have to use mana. Put a CD on cyclone and make it share DR with all other CC. Don’t penalize the healer if the DPS decides to throw and line of sight and dying.

Oh, also. Remove interrupts from other healers or give priests an interrupt.

2 Likes
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maybe fix class balance before you start suspending people for leaving your mess

3 Likes
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why we have to wait for 10.0.5 to get rid of leavers and gain points if we get a leaver at the 6th round ???

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and make tank get into lobbies with only tanks so they dont grief other lobbies cuz tanks are cringe ppc

1 Like
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Great news, good job and keep it up!

As a suggestion, could we also please have solo queue for rated 2v2s and BGs?

I see no reason why this wouldn’t be positive for the game. All PVP games have solo queue nowadays.

1 Like
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we got confirmation that blizzard is tackling leavers and making a rating failsafe, yet we are still complaining.

come on guys.

2 Likes
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Blizzard - what can I say- great stuff.

Solo Shuffle is my first foray into rated pvp- playing since WOTLK and it has really changed my game experience for the better. Getting conquest gear for the first time, great vault for first time. Also actually motivated to understand arena , think about talents, watch videos etc.

I am a low skill player but love the game, and this week made over 1200 rating,
Chasing 1400 now. I know this is low skill and a pittance for experienced rated players but Im having fun, learning and seeing a whole other side to wow.

This game mode was probably developed for shyer players like me and it’s great you’re improving it. Thanks!

6 Likes
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Because solo shuffle is flawed beyond belief even if those things are fixed.

DPS are forcing 3-3 for healers way too often because they’re throwing.

Then there’s the class balance issue as well.

1 Like
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Looks like Blizzard is still refusing to accept that the only way to shorten queues is bring back tank games or create a 2s double dps bracket.

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We’ve been waiting for months to hear how you’re going to solve ridiculously long queue times which is the biggest problem in the game right now, and you have no information… Are all the employees at Blizzard just on permanent vacation?

2 Likes