Blizzard is violating its own rules

General Discussion
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Account 1 - 10.000 games played, from 78% w/r to 50%.
Ranked - from 75% w/r to 52%.

Account 2 - 1.000 games played, from 75% w/r to 45% in a row, now at 51%.
Ranked - from 77% to 50%.

Under normal conditions a good player should be above 60, 65% w/r and a bad player should be below 40, 35%. Conservative numbers.

Now let’s add these factors: A) New players, B) Trolls, C) Game ruiners, D) Rage quiters, E) Bad draft, etc.

Bad draft provided by the matchmaking on QM have the same results as a noob picking wrong heroes in HL, the result will be the same.

Every ten games I play only one is a competitive/normal game, all the other’s are a complete stomp, not fun for those who win, not fun for those who lose.

Blizzard always talk about “players must have fun and enjoy”, not happening in this game. If anyone believe this is a opinion and I’m wrong, I invite you to play in the S.A server, any pro would probably give up after a month, it’s hell.

If I’m not rewarded for my skills but instead I’m punished, one way or the other (winning or losing) there’s something wrong.

I used to be upset, trying to explaing people what to do in the chat, all I got was one account banned for abusive chat, yea, 3 noobs in a party reported me multiple times.

Eventually I’ll quit again, the game is fantastic and I love the characters but the matchmaking only serves to make people toxic and frustrated. “Should be Fun”.

Conclusion, if there are 4 noobs looking for a match 2 should be in each team, not all the 4 on the same, this would be fair, but no… I’m placed to play with those 4. As soon I notice they aren’t smurfs I go to the base and stay afk, sometimes I quit, I have no shame to write this. I had enough and my patience is long gone.

I bet my shoes there are hundreds of thousands of players looking to come back and play again, maybe new ones as well, but until something change with this matchmaking, nothing will happen.

I spent money in both accounts and I don’t regret, but I feel scammed. EA games and Blizzard will never ever again see a single cent from me.

I just wanted to have fun, nothing else. It’s not rocket science!

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One of the major factors of this game’s downfall is MM.

They have not really fixed the core issues from the start and Blizzard LOVES to put in bandaid fixes, they do this to ALL their games.

Players outraged about 5 stacks vs solo players… Blizzard hid the icons if there was a stack. This isn’t fixing the problem at all.

The player base is way too small now to have ‘quality’ matches. There are now 2 tanks and random roles in MM. 2 games in a row, I had 2 tanks and the other team got 2 bruisers in QM… why not give us 1 bruiser and them our other tank? Cause QM hidden MMR that’s why.

Also the fact that a low skilled player can team up with a high skilled player is a thing.

The other day I got a 5 stack with all 77%+ WR and one had 88% WR!! Versing a bunch of solo players (my team) with WR ranging from like 48-52%. Tell me how is that fair? Cause MM last resort is time… when nothing matches, time becomes a factor and matches anyone with everyone.

This lead to players leaving… if this game had better MM, no doubt this game would have flourished.

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I can’t agree more. A few days ago I was reading about “buddy system”, not sure if it’s in or not but the outcome tell’s me yes.

My team: Murky, Azmodan, Nazeebo, Tracer and Maiev (vs) Illidan, Nova, Falstad and other two good dps. Result: a complete stomp, match ended in 10 minutes.

If we can tell who will win before the game start, it’s because there’s something really really wrong.

I noticed in the last days more and more people are quiting or going afk, at this pace people will leave the game for good.

It seems the only way to have fun in HOTS, it’s not playing the game…

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I think right now the MMR is totally random in QM or maybe too tolerant (like matching ppl that can be 600-800 “points” apart).
For your categories :
A) can still be good players (but yes before a certain number of game maybe you should be match differently)
B) C) should be reported so the “probably automated” system bans them (but sometimes it feels like players are giving up on this and don’t report)
D) should already be punished by the penalty games
E) it happens, they can still do something (this is the moba where comeback really exists), or directly fall into B) C) D), but especially in QM maybe some heroes balance could reduce the gap of “bad draft”

Also for QM, I don’t even understand why they still don’t implement :

  • Forced mirrored roles match (this requires to remove support and rework them in other categories + force varian to prepick/lock his lvl 4 talent)
  • Forbid premades to stack any role

Will this cause longer queue ? Yes but not that much … (adding a few seconds to a minute isn’t a problem)

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I agree. I’m not looking for a quick match, all I want is a fair match!

Nobody is looking for a quick stomp, we just want to have fun.

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Buddy system is basically the game matching high mmr players together with low mmr players on both teams to balance the game out. So from the name of it you as the highest mmr player are expected to carry your little brother through the game who just started playing.

Its a very badly designet system cause smurfs can easy abuse it.

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Pick one

Playing against equal opponents keeps you at 50%, any difference is because you are systematically matched against unequal ones.

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matches aren’t going to be “Fair” because people can choose to play less than the expected weight of their mmr. Once they think they know who is going to win, they’re not going to play. The example doesn’t even give enough details for anyone else to reach the same conclusion you presented, but you’re convinced you ‘know’ based on factors you aren’t conveying.

Are you unhappy you won a stomp, or unhappy you lost to a stomp because it was “good dps”? It’s a bad bias that is contributing to the bad time you are having.

If you want ‘fun’ games or “fair” games, you’re not going to get it on a low populated server where players are reported, as a region, for being uncooperative, bigoted, and uninterested in changing. Blizzard ‘gave up’ on SA years ago, merged servers, and doesn’t have the sort of people to try to figure that out because they’re in a cost-cutting phase after getting bought out.

While I can’t speak for every region, a sizable portion of ‘good’ players don’t slog through crappy modes because that’s where the dregs of the playerbase go. Matching is just a convenience that sorts numbers; it doesn’t perform miracles. You might have a better time trying to find discord or reddit groups that bypass qm in favor of organizing their own games instead of wasting away looking for “rules” they think are getting broken.

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Who’s playing against “equal opponents”? People in my team doesn’t even get xp, never go to a camp, I alone can’t do everything.

You should ready it properly before writing any comments.

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This would point towards a fault in the match maker as it would be making unfair matches consistently for the players. For a person to have more than 50% win rate it must mean they are being matched incorrectly against weaker opponents. If a good match making system sees this, it will increase the difficulty of the opponents the person faces in future matches to try and bring the win rate down towards 50%.

When the match maker is working correctly, a player’s win rate will go towards 50% as the number of matches played goes towards infinity. Which matches the example you gave showing the match maker is working correctly.

The only exception to this is at the extremes. People at the highest part of Grand Master might achieve higher than 50% win rate because the match maker cannot find enough similar skilled players to match them against, instead having to choose less ideal matches against lower grand master or just master players which allow them to get a higher than 50% win rate due to the unbalanced match. Like wise people at the very bottom of Bronze might achieve a much less than 50% win rate because they purposely lose/throw all the time and the game ultimately cannot force people to try and win. These extremes do not affect most players.

Win rate in QM does not really matter. Quick Match is, as the name says, about being quick. If you want to care about win rate, skill and the like do not play QM, and play ranked instead. If you want to mess around, possibly play heroes you do not usually play or main, then QM is the mode to use.

So you play worse than a beginner, by not even playing, and wonder why the match making system is matching you with them? Think of it from the match makers perspective, one moment this player is doing stuff and winning games, the next they are AFK in town not doing anything and losing. How is it meant to be able to match you vaguely correctly if your skill varies by so much on a game to game basis?

I know the match maker mostly cares about wins/losses and not actual in-game performance. But still, it is easy to see how such extreme variability in performance is going to be hard to build a match maker around.

Such players want new content. The match maker is not the issue, the issue is that there have been no new hero releases for years now.

They cannot fix this because there just are not enough players to make more fair matches. As it is they had to do compromises like merging Solo and Team ranked into a single mode.

5 stacks are also not really an issue outside of QM where they might have a comp advantage, if they are even trying. Most 5 stacks are a bunch of people, often randoms, in a party for the bonus experience rather than to be a coordinated team.

It often does not matter. Bruisers and tanks overlap so much now that they can often be interchanged. For example Muradin is a tank, but can do bruiser like damage and burst down squishy heroes solo.

For QM? Yes. For Ranked? Not really. If you want fair matches play ranked as the match maker is a lot less loose there and does care more about parties. It is not unheard of for people in ranked to wait many minutes or even hours to find a match in some low population regions at low activity times. QM is about being quick and tries to get a match in a minute or less.

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The other negative with the “buddy system” is that the huge gaps in players MMR can often cause more conflict between players, due to that huge skill gap. In an ideal situation, the highest MMR player, would be able to coach and help the lower skilled players improve, which was supposed to be the idea behind this system.

The problem here, is often players aren’t aware this system even exists, with many assuming all players on both teams are of a similar MMR. There is also usually too little time in a regular QM for someone to “mentor” less skilled players, and frankly, they shouldn’t have to. This also leads to arguments, I’ve seen Master/Diamond players told they are “stupid” when offering sound advice, by players who are Bronze 5.

In part, I think the buddy system resulted in more “abusive chat” reports flying and encouraged players to simply mute their chat when playing solo. Without that comunication, no mentor or buddy system can function, the result is the huge gaps in individual player MMR often lead to an uneven match experience for all involved.

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Please think again. The more you win the faster your MMR goes up, the faster you will face players at your skill lvl and the faster you will get closer to 50% WR. A bad player stays at 50% at bronze 5. A ‘good’ player will also be around 50%, but at diamond +… Its not the same :o

And trolls and leavers are in every team, not just on yours. You may just not notice when facing a troll or an AI on the other team. You willjust attribute the easy game to your own perceived strength. (Or do you seriously think that some blizzard guy is having fun trolling just you and putting all the trolls into your team?)

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Fortunately (?) I don’t see it, so can’t comment. But.
Maybe a captain badge or something could help in games. Inspired by the same in WoW (usually tank or healer) and GW2 (literal mastery icon).

Usually we figure out who is worth following, and when we don’t, well, four undeserving people lost and one casualty - a win for the system. (Like yesterday I was trying to lure my team to an open core with 30 seconds remaining from a teamwipe, my team scattered, they respawned, we lost. Of course I died 1v5 under their core, but my team deserved it.)

I don’t know, maybe being more laidback about the whole thing helps. Whenever I stress about results or play the western cultural “I am who matters, follow your god, plebs” card, of course it’s less fun.

That said I’m often inspired by good plays. Funny enough it’s as often from a D2 as from a B5, although the latter tends to be micro (Genji, Tracer, …).

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This was true once, but QM is often forced to create rainbow matches with heavy MMR averaging, due to a small player base to pull from.

Ranking up to play with others of your own skill, level is no longer even a true statement in regard to, well, Ranked matches. In SL, I am Plat, but due to people grouping, I can play against/with Silver and Gold players, or worse, play against Diamond players, who are far more skilled than I am.

When they allowed players to group in SL two ranks apart, the concept of “ranking up to play with others of your skill level” went mostly out the window. When SL first launched, it was rare I had these mixed kind of lobbies, but as Hots has languished over the years, I’m matched with players of higher and lower ranks about every third match.

Having said all that, just to be clear, matchmaking isn’t as terrible as some state, and it’s only expected that MM compromises need to be made in a game that receives only occasional development.

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Ranked already has a captain at some sort cause its always the highest mmr player on your team who bans.

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IMO hard to get an accurate MM with Smurfs TBH

I agree with that this also :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s kind of a snowball effect; a abusable design but could potentially work… get abused… now it gets worse :frowning:

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Yes, my bad I was somehow assuming that we were talking about ranked mode…

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Yeah, you can’t ever spend money on a game like this, you’re supporting their dishonest business practices if you do. Your observations are correct about how matchfailing is always attempting to funnel everything towards their desired result. Bzzzd among many others have been socially engineered into serving money at all costs…which always results in failure in the end. Most people can’t quite figure this out and despise when other people start noticing.

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I have no idea what set of rules Blizzard is violating here but I assume it’s some form of undocumented headcanon. But whatever…

This is MM working as intended, better if anything, as you get fairly in less number of games (1000 as opposed to 10,000).

Under normal conditions both players should eventually end up at 50% WR but in different MMR brackets corresponding their skill level.

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No mate that’s not what’s happening, the more I win more noobs I’ll face in my team. I’m talking about people who doesn’t know about Z feature to fast travel, they don’t get exp, they don’t do camps, they have no idea how to play.

The same thing is true for HL, to be honest it’s worse because they don’t even know what hero to pick. Please remember I’m talking about S.A region not US, things here are getting worse every day, people who never played S.A have no idea what I’m talking about.