Forgive me for not being too familiar with how this works, but arent' there systems where the K-factor scales according to which rating bracket you're in?

Although I think it was confirmed that in 1500 vs 1500 the factor is 32, so it would be weird if K actually went up instead of down for higher ranked teams (a loss of 32 points would put K at 64?)

We've gained as much as 21 points in the 5s bracket, would that be a k-value of 21 or 42?

This happens daily to our team. We got 8 straight empty Blades Edge matches before. We gained 0 points, and had no games that counted. I'm pretty sure there are teams dodging that arena.

Actually I apologize.. Looking back at the screen shot, it was actually 27 points. But point still remains.

Obviously I mean to say that if you disconnect, and log back in before the game starts, you can still enter the match.

Also; I said nothing about accepting queues, I just mean once you accept and somebody disconnects between load screens (which happens very, very often).

I probably should be talking here, since I'm mixing 2 things up.

K-value is the maximum positive value a player can gain from a match (and the negation is the maximum he can lose). So if the K is fixed at 32, you gaining 21 points is within bounds for a 70 ish difference between your rankings before the match. So if your rankings were so different that you were expected to win fights against him 100% of the time, yet you lost, he'd gain full K (32) and you'd lose full K (-32).

Me doubling the value in a previous post was because for equally ranked teams, you're expected to draw - yet someone generally won, so the point difference is 0.5 x 32 = 16. The K is still at 32.

So to answer your question, if you gain 21 points to a team that had the same ranking as you, then K would have to be 42. However it's more likely that the team you beat just outranked you by ~70 points.

edit: we need to reform the team to reference K in the name somehow

Someone on my team said that in those one-side empty games, the "winners" gain nothing but the "losing" (not showing) team still loses the set number of points. I haven't seen this first hand, anyone know if this is true? We've definitely seen the blank arenas that say +16 or something for 4 out of our 5 people yet we gain nothing.

Blade's edge is my favourite arena, those poles are amazing for surviving if you play it right. Besides, I find it a lot easier to run out of LoS on Nagrand.

We stay on vent and if someone gets the disconnect bug we all drop from the game before it starts. Our rating and win-loss record isn't affected.

Speaking of LoS in Nagrand, have you been having games where both sides spend the first minute or so of the fight hiding behind pillars scoping out the other team? One time while we were deciding what to do to who, the other side even ran back to their zone in for some reason to summon healthstones, was kinda funny.

Heh, yea we've had some staredowns in the past. I personally like the 30s of circling around the pole while staying out of LoS the best though.

I feel your pain.

Me and my 2v2 mate were just going to play a few games to get enough games for the weekly calculation.
Too bad this was slightly off primetime, which resulted in the system matching us against very low rated teams. Ofc we got to fight a pyro mage which managed to crit my priest for 5k, thus we lost 24 rating.

Next time we fought them my priest disconnects, bam, another 20 rating down the drain.

There must be something they can do about disconnects -_-

There's some way to know what team you're against before the doors open?

You can extend your combat log range and see their names when they gain new buffs.

Wow. I hadn't thought of that.

I think I'll name my pet Beef or Ming, and make sure she gets buffed.

Not all 5v0 games are people dodging, though. I don't doubt that a lot of dodging does go on, but I think there is also a pretty weird matching bug where it matches the 2 teams, but spawns each team in their own instances. One day we were queueing up and we kept running into another horde team from our server, and it was readily apparent our queues were popping at the same time and we were getting matched against each other. But time and time again we would have a 5v0 game, and they would also have 5v0, I'm more inclined to think that bug is the primary cause of this happening and not people dodging a match.

We've been playing matches where 2 of our teams get the same game but both get put in different 5v0 arenas. I think its a bug.

Maybe if your shitty guild knew how to prioritize loot you wouldn't have had to wait so long.

Well, you need the shitty teams to want to play, too ranking is relative, so if only really good players feel it is even worth trying.. Really good players will wind up with an average rating of 1500.. And no awards either. Not intended, no?

Observations from my own battlegroup. 5v5 has draconian competion . Started a team in a panic on litteraly the last day of the first week and lost something like 14-6 despite being in mostly heroic mode gear and the best pvp'ers I could find in my friendlist that werent teamed already. Second week went much better as we clawed our way out of our rating hole and we do expect to keep rising a fair bit now that we have a clue what kind of gear to get, and tactics to use.

Funnily enough I also started a 3v3 team this week due to not having enough online to spin up the 5v5 team and.. Well.. Quality of opposition was rather noticably weaker, at a rather higher ranking, than in the 5v5 bracket. Hunter, Holy paladin, Feral druid, and let me just say that having opponents so focused on chasing down either the pallidin or the hunter that they completely ignore the cat druid makes for some very easy wins. Mangle-> shred shred-> finisher. 2v3 game now.

Allow players to re-connect after they disconnect? Obviously, only PRIOR to the arena match starting.

Seriously, going into a game 2v3 without a healer, and losing 28rating is just stupid as hell. Considering you get 4-6rating per team you beat.

The whole disconnecting - reconnecting - loading ui/zoning cycle defenitly takes me +2-3 minutes, by which the game is usually already over.

Just reducing the combat log range and not letting 'unfair' games start seems the best solution. (other then actually fixing the bug)

In the latest Test build, the Gladiator's Spellblade arena cost is now 2625 (was 3160).

Now all the 1H weapons and off-hand items are 1125 points.

Does that actually work or (that is, have you tried this first hand?) because I think the Loading distance cap is serverside and for arenas it's set just so you can't see what's behind their doors