points penalty for not zoning into arena matches

Heads up - I know some of you guys are like me and mostly play wow for PVE and arena for banking points, if you queue for arena and DONT join you now lose 16 points flat no matter what. I've collected ~2k points (total) just by q'ing up and not entering for the past few weeks, but this week had to enter the arenas after I noticed every game I was losing 16 points. After a few times of this I actually entered, got my ass beat as expected (I have a prot pally, ffb mage, PVE spec'd shamans with 0 resil) but only lost 0-2 rating points, so I think Blizzard is now heavily discouraging "throwing games" in 3.08.

This happened before 3.0.8 too. Noticed it when I tried to queue dodge. ^_^

It was done to stop win trading and certain setups dodging certain arenas.

Like blades edge doesnt give any benefit to a paldin/warlock since the pet has to run up and down the ramp while a druid/warrior had awsome benefits since the druid could get away from hunter/warlock pets quite easy.

I think this is a myth. Never seen it happen.
Most likely this myth was started by people who never understood the Elo rating model.


It is however possible that they implemented something like this for the new system, but it would surprise me. It's just making stuff really complicated to not use the standard algorithm for making changes to the rating.

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Originally Posted by 'magwo',index.php?page=Thread&postID=170574#post17 0574

I think this is a myth. Never seen it happen.
Most likely this myth was started by people who never understood the Elo rating model.


It is however possible that they implemented something like this for the new system, but it would surprise me. It's just making stuff really complicated to not use the standard algorithm for making changes to the rating.

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This should have been in since season 1.

Why is that? I don't really see a problem. Why is it bad to count a forfeit as an automatic loss?

Pre 3.0 (ie TBC) not zoning didn't do anything to your score, it was a game that "never happened". aka queue-dodging and win trading (wait until both teams pop game at same time)

Sometime in season 4 (or patch 3.0) they made it so not zoning in counts as an automatic loss, and you lose the appropriate number of points as if you had played and lost.

Since patch 3.08 (THIS WEEK) now not zoning in means you lose 16 points, NO MATTER WHAT. Even if zoning in and losing means you would lose only 1-2 points, you will lose 16 points now instead if you do not enter. This is not my imagination, I played the same team 10 times yesterday and didn't zone in for the first five games and lost 16 points each time, and only lose 1-2 points the last 5 games. They were on a diff realm and I made an alt and whispered them, and they confirmed that the first 5 games they went into an empty arena.

So this is just a heads up, if you know you aren't going to win (undergeared, etc) just zone in anyways and try, you may lose a lot less points than if you don't even go in. The points win/loss is no longer symmetrical either, the other team may win 15 and you may lose 5, or vica versa depending on the team players "invisible" (hidden) ratings.

I highly doubt that. For as long as I can remember, you would lose rating by not joining the arena. Not joining has always counted as a loss, AFAIK.

puppychow how did you know who to whisper for the first 5 games where you didn't zone in?

he made an educated guess that it was the same team he lost to and whispered them after the fact?

I also strongly suggest everyone not to skip their arena. Tonight I came in with my 5 shammies and instead of shamefully losing everything except 1-2 games, I won 8-2! Thank RNG, I got mostly Ring of Valor matches, which are almost guaranteed win for such burst teams as mine.

Rating range has been extended by 240 in the upper end, which is probably why people are winning a lot lately.