Patch Notes TLDR: Ranked Play Season One
by JR Cook - 8 years ago show comments
Today’s patch brings with it one of the most eagerly anticipated events in the history of Heroes of the Storm. Season One of Ranked Play has officially arrived! Not only is Preseason finally over, but Ranked Play itself has also received a dramatic overhaul.
Ranks have been removed and replaced with League Tiers. Rather than working their way down from Rank 50 to Rank 1, players will progress thru a series of Leagues. There are seven Leagues in total, consisting of Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master and Grand Master. Each League is further broken up into five Divisions, such as Gold 5 or Gold 1. If you advance your way to the top of a League, you will have to win a Promotion Match to earn your way into the next highest League. Similarly, if you lose too many games you will have to win a Demotion Match to avoid falling to a lower League. Players must complete 10 placement games before being placed into a League and Division.
New restrictions have also been added to Ranked Play to address some of the challenges that players encountered during Preseason.
The first is that silenced players will no longer be allowed to participate in Ranked Play until their penalty expires. Obviously having a silenced player on your team comes with some negative consequences, so prohibiting them from playing Ranked will make it a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved. The second is the addition of a skill gap restriction for players who wish to to duo queue together. Gone are the days where a Rank 1 player can queue up with his Rank 40 buddy and steam roll a bunch of Rank 20’s. Now players must be within one League Tier of each other in order to group. So for example, a Gold League player could queue up with someone in Silver or Platinum. A Silver Player could duo queue with someone in Bronze or Gold. This restriction should still allow players with a fairly wide range of ratings to play together, while at the same time providing better match quality and less abuse of the system.
Some new systems such as MMR Normalization, MMR Seeding, and Uncertainty Boost have also been added behind the scenes to help address matchmaking and player’s concerns of being stuck at a certain Rank or MMR. Since you are reading this TLDR article, I am going to assume that you don’t want to know all of the details for how these processes work. Suffice to say that the results of recent games will be weighed more heavily that past games, allowing players to more easily advance as their skill improves.
Season One will run thru the week of August 23rd. Player will be able to earn rewards such as portraits, mounts, and gold based on the highest League they are able to achieve in Hero and Team League.
Ranked Season One
- Season One of ranked play has begun, and Preseason has ended.
- Preseason Ranked Rewards have been awarded to qualifying players.
- You can find out more Ranked Rewards in this blog post.
- You can find more details on the Ranked Play Revamp coming with Season One in the User Interface section below.
Ranked Play Revamped
- The ranking system in Heroes of the Storm has received a massive upgrade, and is now divided into League Tiers and Divisions, rather than 50 Ranks.
- There are seven League Tiers in total: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Grand Master. Progress through each League Tier can be tracked as follows:
- Bronze – Diamond: Players are split into one of five Divisions within a League Tier. Earn Ranked Points by winning games to progress from Division 5 to 1 in each of these League Tiers.
- Master: Instead of Divisions, Master League displays the total number of Ranked Points earned, so that players can more easily track progress against others in Master League.
- Grand Master: Only the top 500 players in each region will achieve Grand Master status. Grand Master League Badges will display that player’s rank within the top 500 for that region.
- Play 10 Placement Matches in Hero or Team League to receive a League and Division Placement.
- For Example: Depending on a player’s performance during placement matches, they may be placed into Gold 3. By consistently winning games this player can then be promoted through the Divisions within their League Tier, up to Gold 1. Winning enough games will present the player with a Promotion Match, which offers the chance to be promoted into Platinum 5.
- On the other hand, consistently losing games will result in demotion through the Divisions, down to Gold 5. If the player loses enough games, they will similarly be presented with a Demotion Match. By winning this match, the player will retain their standing in Gold 5. By losing, they will be demoted to Silver 1.
- You can find more information on the Ranked Play Revamp in this blog post.
Matchmaking
Uncertainty Boost
- Players will receive a boost to their uncertainty rating during Season One placement matches.
- Uncertainty represents how confident our system is in knowing that you belong at your current rank or rating. Boosting uncertainty will allow for significant adjustments to be made to MMR during these placement matches.
- Find out more about uncertainty in this blog post.
MMR Normalization
- MMRs have been normalized to bring in outliers on both the high and low end of the MMR spectrum.
- This change should result in faster queue times in all games modes for players at either end of the spectrum without sacrificing match quality.
- Find out more about MMR normalization in this blog post.
MMR Seeding
- Players entering Hero League for the first time in Season One will have their Quick Match MMR used as a guideline to determine their initial matchmaking.
- Future seasons will use Unranked Draft Mode MMR to seed into Hero League matchmaking.
- Team League incorporates a similar system, using a portion of each players Hero League MMR to find an average before matching them appropriately.
- Players entering Unranked Draft Mode for the first time will also use their Quick Match MMR as a guideline to determine initial matchmaking.
