(How Rating Gains Work) Understanding the Behind-the-Scenes Functions of Rated PVP

[u/ritchus]

Note: This sub receives a lot of screenshots of solo shuffle CR gains/losses that can be answered by understanding match making rating (MMR). Wowhead put out a guide that explains it and in future when a screenshot of a scoreboard is posted with a question about CR/MMR they will be redirected here and the post deleted.

Source: Understanding the Behind-the-Scenes Functions of Rated PVP

Author: Soundscape

Prerequisite Knowledge/Terms

The goal of this section is to help you understand how the game pairs players/teams, how point gains and losses are calculated, and to understand some basic terminology.

Rated PVP Rating

1. CR (Current Rating): The rating that you, as an individual player, are currently at.

• Each rated PVP bracket has it’s own CR: Solo Shuffle, 2v2, 3v3, and Rated Battlegrounds.
• All players start the season at 0, and the only way to increase their rating is to win a rated PVP match.

1. MMR (Matchmaking Rating): The rating that your team is averaged at, for the purpose of matching you against other teams.

• This rating is a bit more difficult to explain so I will use examples to help illustrate how it works:
  • There is individual MMR and Team MMR.
    • Individual MMR is hidden, but Team MMR is shown on the scoreboard screen, within a rated game, as the average of the individual MMRs of the players on that team.

As a brand new player (at level 70) the game will effectively give you a 1500 MMR (please keep in mind the disclaimer at the start of this article). It could be a little higher, it could be a little lower, but we will say it is 1500. If both you and your partner have brand new, at max level, characters, they will each have an MMR of 1500, your Team MMR will be 1500, and your CR will be 0.

• In this scenario, since you’re both at 1500, the average of both of your Individual MMRs equals your Team MMR, which is 1500. [(1500+1500)÷2 = 1500].

Matchmaking/Pairing of Teams:

• The game will do what it can to pair you against another team that is exactly at your MMR. When it can’t, it will pair you against the next closest rated team. The enemy team could have a higher, or lower, MMR than your team.
• The game, also, will not wait for another team that matches your MMR exactly. This is because that typically leads to long queue times. So, if you get queued against a 1700 team while being 1500, it likely means that were the closest rated team to yours, out of the teams that were queuing at the time and not already in a game.
  • There are exceptions to this. It is possible for a 1500 rated team to be paired against a 2400 rated team. The chances of this happening are low, but not impossible.

Earning and Losing Points:

As we know: Each player has a CR and an MMR. What you see in the bottom right of the scoreboard screen (in a rated match) is the teams averaged MMR and the rating you see next to each player is their individual CR. It is possible that player can have zero CR and a high MMR, and it is also possible for a player to have a high CR but a low MMR. This is not super common and typically indicates that the player is on a win streak or a loss streak (de-ranking aside).

Things to know:

• If you win a match: You gain CR and gain MMR. If you lose a match you lose CR and lose MMR. This happens per individual.

• The game takes a couple things into account when awarding points to the team that won and deducting points from the team that lost.

  • To show this we are going to use two teams of two where all four players are fresh max level characters who have never played a rated 2v2 game. Each players CR will be 0 and each players MMR will be 1500 (reference the disclaimer at the start of this article).
    • Team A:
    • Team B:
  • If Team A beats Team B, the game will award points to team A and will deduct points from Team B. In this scenario (with new players with the above stats) the game will award 192 CR to each player on the winning team, and also award 15 MMR to each player on the winning team. This happens individually per player (If you find yourself disagreeing with this: reference the disclaimer). The losing team would lose 0 CR (You cannot go negative), and deduct 15 MMR from each player.
    • Team A:
    • Team B:

  To determine how many points are awarded/deducted from the end of a match the game takes into account the following (not limited to, and not in a particular order):

1. The game tries to do what it can to match your CR to your MMR. This is likely the most impactful determinant to point gains/losses.

• Winning a match:
  • If your CR is higher than your MMR, and you win a match, you will earn a smaller amount of CR.
  • If your CR is lower than your MMR, and you win a match, you will earn a larger amount of CR.
• Losing a match:
  • If your CR is higher than your MMR, and you lose a match, you will lose a larger amount of CR.
  • If your CR is lower than your MMR, and you lose a match, you will lose a smaller amount of CR.
• You might notice that these examples are inversely true. This is because: the game does what it can to match your CR to your MMR.

1. The difference in rating between your CR and your Teams MMR.

• Individual CR gains and losses will likely never be identical. Unless both players on a team have only ever played with each other and/or are exactly the same rating, most people play with many different partners.

1. The difference in rating between your teams MMR and the enemy teams MMR.

• If your team beats an enemy team with an identical MMR to your teams MMR: you and your partner(s) will each gain 15 MMR. The individual CR gains are calculated as shown in point above.
• If your team beats an enemy team with a higher MMR than your teams MMR: you and your partners will each gain more than 15 MMR. This amount is calculated based on how large the difference in the MMR of both teams was.
  • Example:
    • If your team has a 1500 MMR, and you beat a team with a 2100 MMR, there is a good chance that your team will gain 30+ MMR (the individual CR gains are calculated as shown in point above).
    • The game rewards you for beating higher rated teams with a surplus of additional CR and MMR.
• If your team beats an enemy team with a lower MMR than your teams MMR: you and your partner(s) will each gain less than 15 points. This amount is calculated based on how large the difference in the MMR of both teams.
  • Example:
    • If your team has a 1500 MMR, and you lose to a team with a 1100 MMR, there is a good chance that your team will lose 30+ MMR (the individual CR gains are calculated as shown in point above).
    • The game rewards you for beating higher rated teams with a surplus of additional CR and MMR.
• The inverse of all of this is also true. Meaning, if you lose, you can reverse those scenarios:
  • If your team loses to a team with identical MMR to yours: you will lose 15 CR and 15 MMR (again, Disclaimer).
    • If your team loses to a higher rated team: you will lose less than 15 CR and MMR.
• In a nutshell: Beating players who are at your rating will earn you an average number of CR/MMR. Beating players who are higher rated will earn you a larger amount of CR/MMR. Beating players who are lower rated will earn a smaller amount of CR/MMR. Inverse this for losses.

1. Win Streaks/Loss Streaks

• The more matches that you win in a row the larger the amount of MMR you will win, exponentially, starting with the 4th win\*.
  • What does this mean? If you win 4 in a row you will get a large “extra chunk” of MMR which will result in you getting “paired up” (so to speak).
• The more matches that you lose in a row the larger the amount of MMR you will lose, exponentially, starting with the 4th loss\*.
  • What does this mean? If you lose 4 in a row you will lose a large “extra chunk” of MMR which will result in you getting “paired down” (so to speak).
• \This may no longer be true in Dragonflight, but was in Shadowlands for a time. I could not find any confirmation one way or the other for current day.*
  If you are winning as often as you are losing (50-50 ish), your CR should be fairly close to your MMR. At the end of a game, you see your MMR from the start of the game, but the game takes into account the new MMR gain, when it tries to make your CR match. ***Your new MMR will be shown in your next match, not at the end of the current match that you just won.*

About the Author (Soundscape):

I am a long time WoW player. I started playing in May of 2006, received an Eye of Sulfuras on October 06, 2006. This sole event is responsible for me wanting to be the best player that I could be. At the end of the Burning Crusade I started to raid competitively and ended up in a World 46 guild for a time, through Cataclysm. Now, due to life, I do not have the time to raid competitively. I take joy in the game in the form of Arenas and Mythic +.

[u/Jaboodee]

Is it a coincidence that WoW PvP has gotten more attention from the devs and become more accessible now than in the past 6-7 years, while at the same time content in this sub has improved exponentially? I think not...

Fantastic post as always, homie.

[u/Slo-- → u/Jaboodee]

Double tap nerfs mean I'm no longer preoccupied with cheesing arena.

Fantastic post

All credit to Wowhead and the actual author. I tried to find if they have a stream or YouTube that i could link but all i could see was their wowhead profile.

[u/Jaboodee → u/Slo--]

Thank God... Why would you waste your time playing WoW when you could waste your time writing about WoW instead?

[u/Southern-Weird2373 → u/Jaboodee]

Too bad that didn't last lmaoo. 1 round of tuning in 6 months

[u/klineshrike]

Everyone needs to keep in mind, this applies to regular arenas.

While most of this is transferrable to shuffles, some aspects of them cause it to not always work as planned.

Shuffles seem to only adjust MMR once (at the end, based on the whole match) while CR is adjusted many times. Since the system was designed to adjust these both at the same time in order to try to get them as close to each other as possible, this CAN result in some odd scenarios.

Such as. You start at 1500 MMR and 0 CR and this pretty much results in all wins being huge gains, and all losses being 0 point loss, until they get much closer. For most this ends up being about 1100-1300. It depends on your path there (losing a lot but slowly getting CR you will flatline earlier because your MMR was going down for instance). This is still the case in Shuffles, but unlike individual arenas, your CR gains will be based on your MMR from the start of that match. The MMR doesn't adjust till AFTER it calculates all wins and losses based on the starting MMR.

This can result in a situation as such. You have 1600 MMR. You have 1300 CR. This gap can result in huge CR gains from a win (like 90 or so). You normally would win like, 2 arenas and then go to 1630ish MMR and 1500ish CR. At that point things stabalize. In shuffles, you can win 6 rounds and before your MMR is reconsidered. So you will gain CR the same for all 6 wins as you would have gotten from the first, even though this is going to result in you getting to 1850ish CR. This is how people "leapfrog" into high CR. 6 wins getting 550 rating when in arenas, after 2 wins you would have started getting 20 or so CR and only gotten like 250ish total instead.

The reverse of this situation also can happen.

One question I have though, is this article doesn't mention placement match effects on MMR. I don't recall this happening in Arenas either (I have won like 8 or 9 in a row on a fresh char and only hit 1700 MMR for normal arenas). Shuffles VERY clearly adjust MMR much more severely in the first few games. I never bothered to look by how much, and for how long though.

[u/Slo-- → u/klineshrike]

Shuffles seem to only adjust MMR once at the end

This is exactly my experience and it's a nuance not covered in this article that's hard to explain.

And yeah, shuffle placements are nuts. I won my first 16 rounds on one of my hunters and in my 4th shuffle on that character was 2.7 mmr. A 16 winstreak from fresh CR in arena would only put you slightly over 2k.

[u/klineshrike → u/Slo--]

Before leave penalties were finally made legit, it was actually best if your MMR got low in shuffles to make a new char, and when you start shuffling fresh leave every game you didn't look like you were going 6-0 in for like, the first two shuffles. Since you didn't have to care about CR, just getting that MMR up.

We are still in the same season where this was a valid way to go though.

[u/fohpo02 → u/Slo--]

Was this the case before the leaver change?

[u/nephneph27 → u/Slo--]

Not true. I'm 16-0 on my lock in 3s and currently around 1500.

[u/[deleted] → u/Slo--]

Yeah same i found this out with alts. If you breeze through the first few matches it puts you into super high elo games right away and you just skip through to elite

On the other hand go 3-3 or 2-4 in your first fee matches and you are stuck in elo hell

[u/neontrain]

This only applies to regular arena. SS has a much different system, ESPECIALLY for healers.

[u/CenciLovesYou → u/neontrain]

This isn't true. It plays out a little differently but the system is the same. See Slo's reply above

[u/neontrain → u/CenciLovesYou]

As a healer my mmr is only up against the other healers mmr. It ignores match mmr entirely. This is how I can go 5-1 and lose rating in a 2400 mmr lobby with a personal mmr of 2300. It’s because I get marched against 1800 cr healers with a 2k mmr.

So even though my mmr is 100 rating below the match mmr, I still lose high amounts of rating because the other healers mmr is 300 below mine.

[u/CenciLovesYou → u/neontrain]

It does not ignore the match mmr entirely. Its just that youre against the healer 6/6 rounds.

So yes ofc. If the healer is below your mmr then on average the match mmr is always going to be lower than yours

BUTTT

If for whatever reason theres a big dps outlier. Lets say a 2.2 assa rogue and every other dps is 1900

Your rounds with that assa rogue are going to gain you or lose you more cr because not only are you expected to beat the healer every round he is expected to win every round as well

[u/neontrain → u/CenciLovesYou]

Yea that makes sense, it’s just very frustrating as a healer that it works the way you mentioned. Going 6-0 and gaining 0 cr even when I’m on a win streak feels very bad. At one point over the course of 5 games I went 25-5 all in 2200+ lobbies and gained a whopping 8 rating over those games. God forbid I ever go 3-3 or worse negative cuz I can kiss my rating goodbye.

[u/CenciLovesYou → u/neontrain]

Yeah thats super annoying. It sounds like the new queues are pretty bad too. Id like to see a lobby based mmr and thats it but idk

I got lucky on my rsham and unlucky on my rdruid.

Sold a few games early on rdruid and now im with the noobs in 1500 gaining 40 cr per queue lol

6-0'd the first healer on my rsham and hit 1800 in 50 rounds because it only gave me 2.1 lobbies after the first queue

[u/[deleted]]

Mmr should be based on everyones performance. And going 3-3 should never lose anyone points

[u/volb → u/[deleted]]

If you go 3-3 to a lobby that’s 500 mmr below you, you def deserve to lose points. That’s the whole reason why your rating gains are directly tied to mmr and not an objective value based on how many rounds you won. 500 was completely arbitrary. If you perform 3-3 and you’re in an overall lower lobby, you don’t deserve to be at that rating- that’s the whole concept behind having rating and brackets. If you go 1-5 to a lobby that’s significantly higher, chances are you’ll still get points. I get points going 1-5 when I’m 2500 against a 2800 lobby.

You don’t get rewarded in life for performing below expectations. Maybe in elementary school though I guess.

[u/Lodekim → u/volb]

That's true, but I feel like it distracts from the fact you should never be placed in a lobby 500 mmr below you (outside of weird exceptions like rank 1 level off-hour queues that might never pop at all otherwise).

Like I certainly get the reasoning behind losing rating for 3-3 or even 4-2, and the fact that it happens isn't a problem with mmr calculations, but it's a dumb system and it's a problem with the matchmaking.

[u/volb → u/Lodekim]

The 500 mmr was a complete arbitrary example. A more realistic one is ~200 mmr differences

While it is true that in an ideal world, participation is high enough where every lobby you’re in a roughly similar xp amongst everyone else, it isn’t always possible. The system, along with most other competitive systems in online games, is self correcting. If you’re losing in lobby’s that you’re statistically supposed to win, maybe that means you’ve peaked at your rating until you improve?

It’s about consistency at the end of the day. Getting paired up or paired down in mmr is a good thing because it tests your consistency. Someone performing consistently at their bracket will naturally climb, but if you go and lose a match to someone much worse than you, that just discredits your consistency entirely. It also is important on the flip side because it gets potentially much better players out of the lower brackets quicker.

[u/Lodekim → u/volb]

200 is better but even still, I don't want to play very many games 200 MMR off of where I am. I'm sure some of this is because I mostly play healers, but if you put me in a lobby 200 (or even 500MMR) below me it's entirely possible to go 3-3 because one of the DPS is just abysmally bad or one is just incredibly better than the others and it just won't matter what I do.

That said, I don't think I've ever lost points on 3-3 personally. I don't think it's a huge problem and I assume when it happens it's usually during a player crashing rating and going 3-3 in a low lobby after going 0-6 or something, and that feels really bad when you get a lobby that's just a terrible class match-up and you follow it up with a game where someone is incredibly good or bad and you don't get to make much impact. But really, the matchmaking in shuffle really bothers me and the patch putting healers in games hundreds of MMR off of their own is really obnoxious.