Fighting Pit

Fighting Pit's default look

Fighting Pit is a Village building where the player can compete with other players using their party.

Upgrades

Fighting Pit starts at Tier 0.

Image	Name	Description	Gold cost
	Fighting Pit - Tier 0 (Non-visible)	An empty plot of land.	0
	Fighting Pit - Tier 1	Battle other players.	100

Functionality

Fighting Pit scene on PC, Patch 22.6.0.134558

• The player can choose a party (at the left scene on PC devices), then press "Play" to confirm and start matchmaking. The player can also click or tap on Mercenary Collection button to visit Tavern and come back to Fighting Pit.
• The player can observe the chosen party's list of mercenaries they put before confirming.
• The player can click or tap on the silver chest icon (, above "Wins" text) to see the daily rewards status.
• The player can click or tap on the colored-chest icon with a Speed badge (above "Rating" text, containing number which is the player's external rating) to see the monthly instant rewards structure of Mercenaries' Ranked system.

Matchmaking

As of October 12, 2021, matchmaking is decided by two main factors: the player's rating, and the party, including each mercenary' level, abilities' tier, and equipments' tier.

Rating

Each player has two rating numbers: internal rating and external rating.

• External rating is the number they can see at the colored-chest icon, where a number is placed above "Rating" word.
• External rating resets at the start of each month (season).
• External rating is used for showcasing in PlayHearthstone's leaderboard, and for checking their monthly instant reward's threshold.
• Internal rating is the number the player cannot see.
• Internal rating does not reset at start of each month.
• Internal rating is set after the player has played a number of initial placement games, and then it slowly adjusts over time as they play.
• Internal rating is mainly used for matchmaking. The discrepancy between a player's internal rating and their opponent’s is an important factor in predicting their win probability against their opponent before each match. The win probability is then compared to the actual result to calculate ratings changes.

Since November 9, 2021, rating has become the most-weighted factor for players with very high rating. Since November 19, 2021, matchmaking rules have been loosened for very high-end players to reduce the queueing time.

Party

• The levels of the individual mercenaries in a party play a big role in both rating updates after a match and matchmaking before the match begins.
  • The system has a preference for the player to face against someone with the same level mercenaries as them (especially when ratings and other factors are the same). If they are somehow paired against an opponent with a higher-level party, they will lose rating lower than usual if losing, or they will gain more rating higher than usual if winning.
• The formula takes account of the maximum level, average level, variation, and skewness of the Mercenaries in the party to generate a “proxy” for how strong that particular party of mercenaries is, which is called “level score.”
  • After each game, the player's level score is considered, along with their relative internal ratings and other factors, to provide a “rating compensation value” that dictates how much rating the player gains or loses for that game.
• Tiers of each ability and equipment are taken into consideration with a formula similar to the one taking mercenary levels into consideration, with the only difference being different parameters and much less weighed than other factors.
  • An unequipped mercenary will be considered as "tier 0 equipment" when the formula calculates the equipment score.
• Mercenaries/Roles of mercenaries in the player's party contributes much less significant impact than other factors. In simple terms, the system will try to prevent extreme matchmaking cases as often as possible (such as 6 Mercenaries/Casters versus 6 Mercenaries/Fighters).

A.I. opponent

There is a chance a player can battle an A.I. opponent, whose name will be displayed as "Your Opponent", as long as the matchmaking meets these requirements:

• Queueing (Finding) takes longer than 1 minute.
• Both internal rating and external rating are below a certain threshold (7000 for external rating).

The AI difficulty will be adjusted based on internal rating and the party the player brings.

• If the player brings a party with a really wide range of levels, the A.I.'s party will mirror the player's party’s level (instead of picking some sort of average level).

Gameplay

A Fighting Pit game example in Patch 22.6.0.134558

Fighting Pit gameplay has additional rules compared to the basic gameplay:

• Both players can see the number of roles of each party has as mercenaries.
• Both players can put the mercenaries into battlefield, but they cannot see the opposite doing the same, until both players press the "Ready" button.
• Both players cannot see what the opposite is doing, where they are hovering or choosing the abilities.
• Since November 19, 2021, a Fighting Pit game has only 30 turns. If this limit reaches, both players receive a tie (despite the scene stating as "Lost!").
• Since October 28, 2021, a win counts toward the daily reward chest only if the player has destroyed at least one enemy mercenary. (It used to require 3 between October 26 and October 28.)

Daily rewards

Checking daily reward status, Patch 22.6.0.134558

Every player receives a daily counter which indicates how many Fighting Pit games they need to win to receive a daily chest (). The daily counter starts at 1 and increases by 1 every time the player receives one chest, until it reaches 5 where it stop increasing, but still allows the player to claim as many as they want. At server reset time, this counter will be reset to 1.

As of Patch 22.6.0.134558, each daily chest contains 5 coin drops, with each including a random number of 15~20 coins of a random Mercenary.

Since October 28, 2021, a win counts toward the daily reward chest only if the player has destroyed at least one enemy mercenary.

Monthly instant rewards

Checking monthly instant rewards, Patch 22.6.0.134558

Receiving a monthly instant reward chest

Fighting Pit introduces a monthly instant reward system which rewards the player as soon as their external rating point reaches a threshold. At the start of a new month at server reset time, their external rating will be reset, along with the current threshold they were in last month.

• These thresholds can be only claimed once a month, the player's external rating cannot be reduced below a threshold they just reached.
• The random factors will be decided immediately once the rewards are given to the player.

As of Patch 22.6.0.134558, there are currently a total of 9 thresholds.

Threshold	Type	Rewards
1000	Bronze	25 coins for 3 random mercenaries
2000	Bronze	25 coins for 4 random mercenaries
3000	Silver	25 coins for 5 random mercenaries
4000	Silver	50 coins for 5 random mercenaries
5000	Gold	50 coins for 5 random mercenaries 1 Mercenaries Pack
6000	Gold	50 coins for 6 random mercenaries 1 Mercenaries Pack
7500	Platinum	50 coins for 7 random mercenaries 1 Mercenaries Pack
10000	Diamond	50 coins for 8 random mercenaries 2 Mercenaries Packs
12000	Special	50 coins for 10 random mercenaries 5 Mercenaries Packs

History

• In early access, each coin drop in daily reward chest contained 25-45 coins of a random mercenary.
• In early access, the monthly instant rewards were different, while the thresholds were kept the same after Mercenaries was released.

Threshold	Type	Rewards
1000	Bronze	Coins for 1 random mercenary
2000	Bronze	Coins for 2 random mercenaries
3000	Silver	Coins for 3 random mercenaries
4000	Silver	Coins for 4 random mercenaries
5000	Gold	Coins for 5 random mercenaries
6000	Gold	Coins for 6 random mercenaries
7500	Platinum	Coins for 7 random mercenaries
10000	Diamond	Coins for 10 random mercenaries 1 Mercenaries Pack
12000	Special	Coins for 10 random mercenaries 1 Mercenaries Pack 1 random Mercenary card

• Before October 26, 2021, a win was easily counted for the daily reward chest if the opponent just conceded right after the game started. This caused exploits in the Fighting Pit rewards system that players were abusing through wintrading.
  • Between October 26 and 28, Blizzard had implemented a requirement, forcing the win only counted for the chest only if the player had destroyed at least 3 enemy mercenaries.