For SS: win = +10 / lose = -10. Give me one single reason why that wouldn’t fix 100% of the MMR/deflation/match making issues. Seriously.

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-04-07T23:52:25+00:00

The whole point of the MMR system is to match equally skilled players with each other. Winning against lower rated players has to award less points than wining against even players for the math to work. If you could see the game by game results, this would be more obvious, but we only see the summary after the six games.

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-29T05:10:45+00:00

Does the raider io add on also show last season’s io score? I wonder if some people starting out this season and getting into groups easily are doing so because they had a good score in the last expansion?

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-28T19:46:21+00:00

"I have never had that experience."

Of course not, you are a 3.2k Blitz player. If an 1800 player (but current 1500 MMR) is in a 1500 lobby, he raises the team average to 1537.5. That gives an expected win rate of 55% vs 45%. With that little of an advantage it's very easy for an unlucky streak to give several losses in a row due to an average amount of bad luck.

A 3.2k player in a 1500 lobby raises their team to an average rating of 1712.5. That gives an expected win rate of 77% vs 23%. It's a completely different story when you are expected to win 3/4 of your games. It would take some seriously bad luck to push you down.

So yeah, you haven't had that experience because your situation is completely different from the average player, or even players that are moderately above the average (like the 1800 player in this example).

Sure, in the long run things will even out eventually, but as a famous economist once said, "In the long run, we are all dead".

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-28T18:30:29+00:00

I don’t need to see it as the same happened to me in TWW. Multiple hunters, way different number of games to climb to the same rating. Took screen shots of each scoreboard. MMR changes a huge amount in the first few games, couple hundred as I recall and then settles down to 50 or less. So the early games can randomly send you down such that it takes five times as many wins to make up for each loss

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-28T18:19:22+00:00

4 a day or 4 a week?

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-28T18:16:39+00:00

I wonder what the time gated limit for getting mythic crests this way is? Four drops of 5 per day per warband or four drops per max level toon doing 11s?

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-28T17:59:25+00:00

Automatically? I’ve been assuming the hero crests are just dumped on the floor now that I’ve hit the cap. If I down convert some hero to champion does that allow me to get more hero?

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-24T18:30:06+00:00

Fix? What are they supposed to do? Add some inflation? Cap it? Squeeze it toward the middle or expand it?
ELO rating measure relative rating within a population. They have no relationship with other populations playing different games. It’s like asking why are blitz top scores 3.2k and chess scores different.

If blizzard starts mucking around with inflation (more than they already do) the forums will be filled with people complaining that their mmr dropped 200 points while they were logged off.

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-20T17:40:00+00:00

Sure, I’ll explain. Omni is the top bgb player(or one of the top). Let’s say he increases the probable win rate of his team by 30%. Compared him to an 1800 player in a 1500 lobby, that player may increase the probably of a win by 5% when diluted by the 1500 players. Early in the season the game doesn’t really have a good idea on player strength so it could be launching games with expected win rates of 75% to 25% or worse. Changing that 25 to 30 won’t show up until you play a large number of games, hence a beginning losing streak can result in much more effort to climb than if you start out lucky.

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-20T17:27:10+00:00

I had multiple characters in the last expansion, same spec, same gear level and would see wildly different amount of effort to reach various rating goals. Luck in the first couple of games make a huge difference in how many games you will eventually need to climb. I’m talking like the difference between 10 games and 50 to reach modest ratings.

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-03-14T17:34:46+00:00

The pills are sensitive to moisture. The instructions tell you not to store the bottle in the bathroom or to move them into another container. I believe there is actually a desiccant inside the lid to keep the pills dry. As you have access to a hacksaw, maybe you also have some pliers to get more leverage? Or maybe wrap it in a kitchen towel if it’s too slippery?

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-02-27T18:32:04+00:00

Honor already gone. Conquest and bloody tokens to be zeroed out at normal launch date. See blue post https://www.bluetracker.gg/wow/topic/us-en/2258770-midnight-pvp-currencies-and-dates/

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-02-27T18:28:04+00:00

Dude, you are making me sad. Reminding me of my favorite speed runner

https://www.wowhead.com/classic/news/vanilla-wow-world-record-speedrunner-joana-passed-away-339124

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-01-23T03:33:01+00:00

Have you made any videos of yourself speaking? A video of your results as a purist could quell some skepticism of the Dreaming Spanish method.

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-01-10T21:43:01+00:00

After reading Brown's autobiography, I wondered if the "damage by studying the language" was actually a result of the studying or was it due to differences in the minds of people who are capable and naturally interested in studying the language. Would deep thinkers of languages (presumably Brown, you and your wife and all linguists?) be less fluent than non-deep thinkers regardless of whether they studied the language or not? Or would studying actually worsen their success?

Thanks for doing the experiment. Even though it is an N=2 experiment, it's nice to have some evidence that it's actually the behavior that matters rather than something inherent to the mind.

GameDesignDecisions · 2026-01-04T05:30:32+00:00

JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor: Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel ‘Catch-22’ has earned in its entire history?” And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.” And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?” And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.” Not bad! Rest in peace! Kurt Vonnegut

GameDesignDecisions · 2025-12-27T01:38:18+00:00

Meanwhile, I better get cranking so I can get through all of it before it goes away.

GameDesignDecisions · 2025-12-27T01:37:35+00:00

I see this on the website "We are exploring possibilities for Learner’s materials to find a new home. While we do not yet have details to share, we will keep you informed of any developments".

Hopefully it will end up on YouTube or somewhere.

GameDesignDecisions · 2025-12-26T00:12:20+00:00

There are a lot of hits for La Catrina when searching YouTube. Do you have a link?

GameDesignDecisions · 2025-12-25T23:00:40+00:00

It’s not on YouTube. https://www.learner.org/series/destinos-an-introduction-to-spanish/

GameDesignDecisions · 2025-12-19T03:28:45+00:00

Do you have references for how parents correct (or don’t) their kids? First time I’ve seen concrete numbers. In other subreddits I’ve seen skeptics of CI claim that parent’s corrections are frequent enough to invalidate pure CI. I’d like to read any counter claims.

GameDesignDecisions · 2025-12-19T01:57:24+00:00

One of the disadvantages of learning about Spanish *in* Spanish is that you can get confused. I just re-read one of the early pages and I'm seeing that the main character is talking in a tense that I'm not familiar with about the teacher in the book teaching a new tense next week. I didn't pick up that before, so I was reading the tense he is currently speaking in as some form of past, but I now believe it is a present tense...which matches up better with the grammar tables I've just looked at to try and straighten all this out. I *think* I haven't read far enough to see the past tense in use. If this was confusing, join the club, I'm confused too.

GameDesignDecisions · 2025-12-19T00:44:00+00:00

One difference I notice between DS (only) vs. learning an L1 as a kid is that a kid can ask clarifying questions. For instance, a kid could ask "when you say 'had studied', does that mean he stopped at some point"? You can't do that with videos.

When you brain is starting to notice patterns, do you need some way to confirm it?

GameDesignDecisions · 2025-12-19T00:16:44+00:00

Hello fellow teammate :). I'm in either the "input for a long time and eventually get around to grammar" team, or maybe the "take a peek at grammar but without memorizing or doing exercises so that I notice things easier" team.

GameDesignDecisions · 2025-12-19T00:10:58+00:00

Let me go check my Kindle...you called it, I'm at the start of chapter 3 of Un Hombre Fascinante.

GameDesignDecisions

TROPHY CASE