See the thing is, that first, you’re jumping into conclusions.
Second, even if there are some “forced” games, it clearly can’t keep it close to 50% by far.
And last but not least, it looks more like ppl being able to carry and have an impact in the game 
I honestly don’t remember at this point as it was a while ago that I saw this person, but it was enough games that it left an impression. I want to say this guy had at least 50 ranked games played at the time.
While he was taunting us, he made it a point to say that his hobby was building up accounts to play ranked, getting seeded at a high level, and, basically, forcing his team to lose. And what with how smurfs work, I can imagine this being possible.
To be fair, sure, I am speculating a bit-- I obviously can’t see every game he played-- but going by his word, his actions, and the result that I did see, then I think it is a fair conclusion.
Well, see, the moment you have to admit that there are forced games-- at all-- then that’s really the whole argument. Outlaying factors that can override the results are just that; anomalies.
Smurfs, for example, would be such an anomaly.
I never admitted that there are forced games.
I just played with the thought to prove with your own beliefs that you’re wrong about it.
Since even if you’d be right, it would be so ineffective and unreliable that it’s highly illogical to think such forces exist in the shadows.
Why would Blizz try to control outcomes if they can’t do it in 90% of games.
I don’t believe suggesting that there is room for doubt proves anything-- especially when the argument itself is already suggesting doubt in the current system.
I dunno about “90%,” and I would write out a lengthy explanation here, but I don’t think you want to read a short essay on a subject you already have a strong opinion on. lol
It might be easier if you read up gambling addiction, and then consider the comparisons with HotS… That’s really the heart of the “why” they can get away with it.
Problem with matchmaker is it cant calculate human behavior.
If this game had no afk no feeders and no trolls your game experience would be a paradise.
Matchmaker just finds pepple near your mmr and toss them together. But lets say 2 of those behave like a troll or are weak minded quitters then you can blame MM as much you want but in the end it should be those trolls on the team you should thanks for your lose not MM.
They did… in mass
Bob is at every single level of play, he is just the bottom 1-10% of players in any rank. Bob only exists because the MMR system cannot differentiate good and bad players, only who wins.
80% winrate on smurf and 50% on main actually, Smurf is D4, main is P5.
No, I can see my team being clueless or the enemy being clueless at times, like players that simply do not belong in my games. That’s the issue
Does not matter since they still have the level advantage as their enemies are suicide feeding them instead of soaking and preventing the pushes. Of course for reasonably skilled people one can easily turn the game 180 in these cases, but that is the problem, low skilled players do not know how to and just dig themselves a deeper hole.
Ranks flow between each other and games can have a mixture of several ranks, so being the bottom of a certain rank is irrelevant
So if youve got an 80% win rate on your smurf you’re completely disproving that a 50% win rate is forced…
mic drop
2 Likes
Except what seems to be happening is instead of matching you with and against better players as your win rate goes up, it just seems like the enemy gets better but your team gets worse. This is what the 50% is. Uneven games. Games that would require you to play ~10x better than you should have to for your rank just to be on par with the enemy team. Not because you are bad, but because your team is worse than you are and worse than the enemy. It feels like the game wants you to carry bad players to “prove” you deserve to go up in rank where you will hopefully be playing with and against players of similar skill.
EXACTLY! Imagine trying to lose and you can’t because the MMR system wants you to win so bad it stacks the game in your team’s favor to the point of you not even playing is not going to change the outcome. If that is not forced win, idk what is…
But it still tries. It’s not perfect, but it does try…
It’s not intentional, it’s just the way the system is designed. It’s like a side-effect of using wins and losses to rank in a 5v5 game where not all skill is even. You will naturally end up having bad players that climb and good players that fall. The Forced 50% comes when you have this imbalance and you can clearly see that your team is gonna lose before draft even begins by looking at their winrates.
Problem is I kinda cheated, I had a 4-5 stack for every game, other smurfs who are actually really good players. Forced 50% is for solo queue only. I also play solo on the smurf at diamond and have about a 50% winrate since I got boosted. It proves 2 things: 1. I can play at that level and win 50% (Forced? or my skill) 2. My main is hard stuck in G1/P5 even though I have proven that I can win in Diamond 4 over 100 games as solo. As a 5 stack Win rate was close to 100%.
So the real question is. Do I belong in Plat or Diamond? If I belong in plat, then the forced 50% is what is keeping my diamond account there and if I am Diamond, my plat account is stuck there because of the Forced 50% as well because I should naturally win more than I lose if my skill is higher than my rank.
Additionally, “skill” is actually only a portion of ability.
What hero you play, strategy chosen, team composition, random elements (maps for example) and specific “shot calls” all influence your MMR.
Its all the same group. Whilst you were winning that 80%, some people were losing and not reaching their 50%. If everyone is forced to get 50%, there can’t possibly be anyone getting 80% win rate because that creates an imbalance.
The skill level between these ranks probably isn’t obvious enough, so on both you play around similar and you stay there. Over time you don’t play well enough to climb either or bad enough to drop either, just overall fairly consistent around there. If you had one stuck at bronze and one stuck at diamond that would be different, yet also very unusual.
Granted there is the issue of leavers and feeders, which will slow the progress either way. They’re not forced to be on one side or the other to keep you there, but just that there’s overall an equal chance that you’ll have a leaver or feeder on your side, and one on theirs, so even if you were in bronze and belonged in diamond, you won’t get 100% win rate due to this, but neither would you be forced at 50%, you just need to win the games without any leavers or feeders
I guess that’s why you didn’t read what the devs said about the “50% forced winrate” or just chose to ignore/disbelieve it.
I guess it’s easier to expect others are as stubborn as you are and refuse to argue cuz why would it work on them if it doesn’t work on you? 
Yes, cuz it’s you who should be better in theory, evening the odds.
It’s not the MM’s fault that you couldn’t perform that high and fell back.
Usually ppl are pretty bad at measuring their own and others’ skills, so I think that’s the case here too with your “10x better” exaggeration/guess.[quote=“ReggiDytriN-1163, post:69, topic:41214”]
It feels like the game wants you to carry bad players to “prove” you deserve to go up in rank where you will hopefully be playing with and against players of similar skill.
[/quote]
What’s happening is that your mmr is higher, so you are probably the higher end of the average your team makes and if your mmr is higher than it should be, this can feel and look like as if you’d be “carrying terribads against all-goodies”.
Oh look what I found for those who don’t believe that it could be feasible and desirable to manipulate matchmaking on a micro level:
https: //kotaku. com/activision-patents-matchmaking-that-encourages-players-1819630937
Activision has already taken an interest in manipulating matchmaking years ago. The patent description (US9789406B2) is pretty interesting to read. Though people reporting on it focus on the microtransactions part it seems to be a general method of manipulating matches to achieve a variety of outcomes like pairing friends together, minimizing latency in a match, matching together players who are likely to choose a good team comp together, etc. Some choice quotes:
For example, if the player purchased a particular weapon, the microtransaction engine may match the player in a gameplay session in which the particular weapon is highly effective, giving the player an impression that the particular weapon was a good purchase. This may encourage the player to make future purchases to achieve similar gameplay results.
The system may identify optimal groups based on matchmaking related information such as, without limitation, game profile, player profile (e.g., explicit preferences, purchases made, player styles, etc.), prior match scores, prior quality scores, and/or other information.
According to an aspect of the invention, scoring engine 122 may tune the one or more coefficients based on changing circumstances, game history, and/or other analytical data. For example, If a given player has performed poorly during previous game sessions (as determined from historical gameplay information), scoring engine 122 may adjust one or more coefficients for the player such that gameplay becomes easier for the player. For example, if a player has been getting killed at a rate higher than the player’s historical rate, scoring engine 122 may dynamically tune a coefficient associated with a match variable related to skill level to match him with easier opponents, higher-skilled collaborative team members, game sessions that are more suited to the player’s gameplay style (e.g., a map that favors snipers), and/or other coefficients that can affect the outcome of a match score.
Now, I doubt these manipulations would be implemented in SL as the mode seems to have rather low population to the point where you can see the same people in your games even in low ranks. Seems that at this point the matchmaking is more about matching anything that’s available rather than trying to optimize for some other factors. But QM is fast and you rarely see the same people twice in a row. Presumably, part of the advantage of this method is that you could create more satisfying matches by dynamically computing a match score with the help of analytics rather than relying on a slow-changing variable like MMR. So it’s definitely something that would be worth using when you’re have match times under a minute but want to minimize player frustration.
1 Like
Congrats, you’re years late to something people already milled over to death long ago.
In your little ‘discovery’ not only did you likely not read the fullest of the matter (and the complications particular to that) but you probably haven’t read any responses to, or rather, against the particulars of realizing that patent.
Rather than take the opportunity to try to be better informed about something, you want to celebrate a weak case of confirmation bias, and don’t even have the sense to notice how far behind you are in that ‘discovery’ by bothering to notice existing topics here that already linked it – and other complimentary materials – regarding said ‘discovery’.
Part of the issue of the “so obvious” rants is they’re perpetuated by those that aren’t well-informed, don’t have an interest otherwise, and can simply excuse most effort on their end by finding a scapegoat. All of those particulars were evident with your first post, and rather than engage with anything more demanding on yourself than confirmation bias, you’ve know doubled-down on it and completed the full circle stereotype.
3 Likes
If not for your reference to the patent, I would have struggled to recognize your post as a response to mine. Probably, because it’s completely devoid of any content save for long winded insults that I still am not sure are directed at me or at someone you confused me with.
If you mean the thread where AZ Jackson replied, I did read that thread, and if you noticed, I even replied to it almost immediately after him-- assuming I remember right.
Karabars, no one has EVER convinced anyone of anything by “winning” an internet argument… If you actually want to change someone’s mind, on the internet, you have to persuade them.
I did not suggest you look into the comparisons with HotS’ model and gambling addiction because I was dismissing you-- I wrote as such because it’s the answer to your question of why the game is structured the way it is.
This is one of the things I hate about HotS; The game wants you to overcome your own allies who feed, leave matches or never arrive to objectives, instead of overcoming good opponents.
If you can choose your own allies every game (play in 5 premade party), it is very easy to go on a long winstreak (70-80%) in diamond as a plat player vs real diamonds.
If you get complete randoms, you are lucky to break even with 50-55%.
I did notice the exact same thing; I did not que with people much above my rank, just near my rank. I knew them to be decent players who never rage, leave or feed. And the party went on a 70+% win rate spree every single time.
But if I go solo and play in the exact same rank, my short term win ratio can even go under 50% purely because so many people rage-quit, leave the game or stop playing. On my team. Not because the enemy team played better.
4 Likes
It should be “obvious” that is is direct at you; it’s replied at you, references language used in the OP, and makes an observations pertaining to common reply patterns repeated in these sort of topics (ya know, the ones that don’t look into existing ones to see what is already said)
If people were more aware of these type of topic (instead of ignoring stuff) it would be “obvious” to the particulars, but since replies that don’t fall into one’s rut of confirmation bias don’t suit said bias, it really questions how well any one really observes something as “obvious” instead of just wishing it is because that’s how bias works. \0/
What you post is in response to an imagined audience, rather than to an existing one. That conduct is consistent with those that ignore relevant material all in favor of trying to prop up the one thing they already want to be the case. How you engage with material, and respond to it here, is pretty much ‘classic’ conspiracy 101 and doesn’t consider simpler, more reasonable, explanations can, or do exist.
Anyone can do a search for “Activision Patent” on the boards here (or other games :D) and find topics that reference to it; it’s not some magic secret that only you found years later (oh my gosh, we have a GOOGLE DETECTIVE HERE!); ) but your basic gist looks to revel in not knowing about stuff because you already have the “obvious answer” without thinking it through. Despite the span of time from then to now, you’re not bringing anything new, or thought through the implications of such a thing actually existing, or having noted any reference to player feedback and concern if it were applied.
IF that thing were applied, there would be “obvious” consequences that haven’t happened.
If you can’t tell that my reply is obviously to [you] (ie, more than just one), then that confirms the lacking engagement one has with what is actually “obvious” in stuff around [you]. So what is ‘obvious’ by your perspective isn’t so much ‘proof’ of your claim as one would actually think.
If we look up posters that bring up the ‘patent’ a good chunk of them are default-avatar complainers (case and point) with others being posters that burned out with “blizzard conspiracy” complaint spirals that pretty much tried to reason every outlet they could into rationalizing how stuff is all out to get them.
If one doesn’t already agree with that, then [they] come off as a conspiracy nut, or troll poster, that didn’t think through their own sentences before writing them.
And that’s pretty much the OP of this topic in a nutshell; “winrate” drabble are posters with low engagement to research and discussions that refute their position, but since they claim observations to their bias are “obvious” instances of proof, they stop engaging with anything that doesn’t agree with them.
The lacking sense of observation, generalized processing of actual descent (instead of imagined replies and strawmen) and lacking comprehension of the consequences of their claim actually bring “true” (eg, a wiki article pointing out the use of this patent akin to WoW’s section on the Warden spyware) generally convey that the people that revel in these sort of claims only revel in “obvious” confirmation to the bias because that’s all they see.
1 Like
We are humans, not computers, and it’s impossible for us to play with 100% consistency.
2 Likes
I have had very much the same experience.
In one instance, I met a very good Malfurion player who was trying to climb out of gold. After having had some bad luck with team mates independently, we started winning together, and just kept going. We played together for almost 6 hours straight and only lost 2 games in that time.
Even if its only one other player you trust, having that one other player removes the possibility of that player slot being taken by a potatoe/leaver/feeder.
1 Like