Solo Shuffle Update - 6 January

From Blizzard

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!

7 Jan 2023