Sharding Questions

Leugenesmiff

Could someone tell me if I'm understanding this correctly? I'd thought brackets filled up on based on when players joined before hearing of sharding (if spell check doesn't stop changing sharding to sharing I'm going to scream, anyway...) So I'm guessing then multiple brackets are filling up at once with players being herded into particular ones based on play. Is that right? If so, what's it based on, MMR? If not, then what? Is it in both PVE and PvP and are you shared aarrghhh SHARDED toward the same group in both (I'm guessing no on that or tanking wouldn't work.)

If anyone can help on any of these that'd be great. Thanks

FierceKiwi

Leugenesmiff wrote:

Could someone tell me if I'm understanding this correctly? I'd thought brackets filled up on based on when players joined before hearing of sharding (if spell check doesn't stop changing sharding to sharing I'm going to scream, anyway...) So I'm guessing then multiple brackets are filling up at once with players being herded into particular ones based on play. Is that right? If so, what's it based on, MMR? If not, then what? Is it in both PVE and PvP and are you shared aarrghhh SHARDED toward the same group in both (I'm guessing no on that or tanking wouldn't work.)

If anyone can help on any of these that'd be great. Thanks

I'd be kinda shocked if 'sharding' hasn't always existed the new wrinkle is the so called 'gentle nudges' that load top-teir veteran players into the same brackets. What that's based off of is all pure speculation on the communities part (I've seen MMR, days played, recent PvP/PvE scores all suggested but only the devs would know for sure (and I wouldn't be surprised if it were some combination of all that and more)). I've only seen the devs admit to the nudging happening in PvP but the community has posted various evidence of it maybe happening in PvE too.

tl;dr Only the devs know for sure what's going on but there are plenty of theories to go off of so pick your favorite.

Unknown

My guess is they divide players into subclasses. For the sake of argument, let's say A B C D E, where A is the highest, E is the lowest. What bracket you're may depend on your roster, past results, how much money you spent on the game?, etc. Let's also assume that these brackets are 20% each.

So in a bracket of 1000 people, there would be 200 A's, 200 B's, 200 C's, 200 D's, 200 E's. So when a bracket fills, it's sees what subclass you're in, and puts you into the current bracket if possible. If for some reason there are already too many of your class in that bracket, it puts you into the next available bracket.

"Death" brackets occur when too many of the top A's join into the same bracket (eg, sub-sub-classes?). This probably happens more due to similar play style among top players.

Honestly, I think the brackets are a little more nuanced than this, with more focus on the top tiers than the bottom tiers, and perhaps a separate subclasses for big spenders.

Sharding is meant to solve unfair groupings, and meant to distribute rewards fairly based on effort, but it doesn't work out all the time. Honestly, at the top it's competitive so someone will always complain.