Hi everyone! My name is Andrey and today we'd like to talk
about the results of the first and second Beta seasons of Ranked Battles.
For starters, we'd like to say that it's not right to evaluate
the Betas separately, because they're a part of one big experiment
that we've carried out. We've tested different hypotheses in different seasons.
What was good and what was bad.
In the first season—a large number of people were able to reach the top,
to receive cool rewards for getting into the first, second, and third divisions.
In the second season—tension, complexity, and competitiveness.
In my opinion, it's exactly what we wanted to achieve.
Now, about the bad things. The first season was way too easy.
You could achieve Rank 5 just by having a little patience.
In the second seasons, it was too hard, too ruthless,
in terms of winning conditions.
Players' opinions were divided on one issue and agreed on another.
All players say that it became significantly harder,
compared to the first Beta season.
What players do not agree on is the system for obtaining chevrons.
Some say that it became better and like the idea
that we don't give chevrons to the losing team.
Others however think that losing players should also receive chevrons,
because it would encourage them to improve their skills.
On the other hand, as a player, I was really upset,
probably like many other people out there.
In this season, I couldn't get higher than Rank 3 no matter how hard I tried,
that's why I have mixed feelings. The polarity of opinions is really strong.
Now, if we're serious about it, I'm satisfied, of course.
In essence, we've got an audience comparable to the first season,
regardless of the fact that we probably went too far with difficulty this time.
We've paid attention to the number of ranks
and the number of chevrons between them.
We've thought about ways to optimize the chevrons system,
so that it wouldn't encourage players to stand at the red line
and, at the same time, give an incentive to players
who demonstrate good skills in the losing team.
First, we may experiment with the number of ranks—
it's possible that we'll increase it in order to make
the increase in difficulty for players more gradual.
Second, we may introduce some kind of "irrevocables."
It won't necessarily be an irrevocable rank,
like Rank 1 or Rank 5 during our Beta seasons,
but we need to introduce some kind of protection
that will guarantee that a player who reaches some stage in the season
won't lose it and won't have to do it all over again.
We need to give our players this confidence.
The current ranking system didn't allow us to separate players by their skills.
That's why we're working on a more sophisticated system
that will give us the ability to distribute players more evenly and smoothly
according to their skills. This will allow our players to compete
against those who are equally skilled or are a little bit stronger.
In my opinion, this is exactly the change that we needed.
We'll preserve the difficulty and competitiveness,
but we'll make Ranked Battles more accessible to those
who are in the process of mastering the game and aspiring to become top players.
There are several things on our agenda.
First of all, it's the ratio between the season duration and its intensity.
In the first season, we played four stages, each one week long;
in the second season, we tried to decrease the duration—
three stages, each one week long.
No, I think, we'll probably switch to two two-week stages.
In my opinion, the total duration should be increased
relative to the second Beta season, but the battle intensity within each stage
and time and effort required should be decreased.
At the moment, we're receiving a lot of information about the experience system
and the maps, on which players fight in Ranked Battles.
Accordingly, we'll review the list of maps for this mode
and, possibly, we'll optimize it especially for Ranked Battles.
Of course, we're working on the system for experience crediting;
we're studying this issue and we're thinking about how to improve it
to make it as transparent as possible for the next season.
If we look further in the future, Ranked Battles will remain a seasonal mode—
a kind of season-based activity that allows players to test their skills.
We don't want people to constantly be under the Ranked Battles pressure.
We don't think it's right to launch them as a permanent activity.
We want different activities— Ranked Battles, marathons,
events, specials, etc.— to complement each other,
that's why we're sticking to probably three or four seasons a year.
We don't plan to start the next season before the New Year.
We need some time to rework the mode.
We see, hear, and read everything, watch streams, and blush sometimes.
We know that the second season was hard for you,
we know that the seasons were different,
but we are extremely grateful for your feedback,
for your incredible participation in both seasons of Ranked Battles.
You've made a huge contribution to the development of this fascinating game mode.
We're listening to you guys.
If you didn't have time to leave your feedback yet, you can still do it,
your response is crucial to us!
Stay tuned for more news, we'll make this game mode better!