213 Match Analysis: Matchmaker Bias, Surprise Findings, Etc

[ZeroGravitas-2272]

@Malfry-1416

I see, so we’re talking no standard interval or trigger for you to jump into QP.

To be absolutely sure I’ve not misled your understanding here: I threw only 18 QP support games, in total, ever. Not some before each session; after that, I only warmed up in QP on tank, DPS and Mystery Heroes.

@Malfry-1416

I understand why you put in the disclaimer for people to not really try it out but it is a key component of your hypothesis. =\

Yeah, it’s bad enough that I might essentially be putting out misinformation (if people run too far with what I’m saying). I don’t want a lot of throwing on my conscience, too.

And QP stats related bias is still only one potential cause (or contributor) to possible comp matchmaker bias. But sure, it’s the only one I know how to test in a somewhat controlled fashion.

I think Cuthbert alludes to a second option, here (or I’m projecting my thoughts):

@Cuthbert-11649

The most cynical and well-informed players give up on victory to game the system.

I.e. if having good stats works against you, as a strong player with the matchmaker counter-balancing you… Then it would be best to throw as hard as possible in unwinnable matches, to reduce your average stats.

I don’t like that at all; I always play to win. And double-guessing the outcome, early enough for this strategy to help, is going to be distracting and prone to becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Too many players seem to do this by default, anyway. For psychological reasons, I’d guess (wanting to be in control of events, even when they are not).

Anyway, talking of the devil…

@Malfry-1416

I refuse to believe anything that cuthbert puts on the forum. It’s conspiracy nonsense and proven incorrect.

Yeah. I think his polemic against MMR is closest on the business and political/philosophical side. But selective on the technical side, in touching on some possible truth of experience, but glossing over the limits of these. In order to pitch a more rousing call to arms.

Part of my reply to his thread:

@ZeroGravitas-2272

So, Cuthbert, I feel that you’re talking a lot of sense, above. But only within a limited field of effect, like ~500 SR, maybe, does this counter-productive stiction prevent climbing. From my experience. And also from watching many a GM streamer blow through the low ranks, be it on their own alts, or bought accounts starting all the way down in bronze.

Also, I might have to side with Kaawumba (and the devs), that an SR reset probably wouldn’t achieve all that much, for the amount of chaos involved.

I think 50/50 odds matches make sense most of the time. Especially in the context of smurfs who deliberately hang around in lower ranks. Unless you magically remove that kind of behaviour, you kind of need to counter-balance them, so that anyone else at all will get a chance to influence the matches that they are trolling.

@Malfry-1416

nothing does it better than actually getting better at the game.

Right. That’ll always work. Even in a paradigm where one is getting counter-balanced in matchmaking. If you play better than yourself. And that’s going to happen naturally, for (new) players, as they learn the game.

… Provided that the matchmaker’s player metrics are somewhat slower to adjust than the rate of your improvement. Or the degree of counter-balancing is capped.

But for those of us who know as much about how to play well (in theory) as is reasonable to know, who are mostly limited by physical ability to process the information in real time and execute on it… There’s maybe more chance of being stuck, a little way short of one’s ability.
⠀
⠀
⠀

@Vurg-1970

Map troubles also seem to be a really good piece of information, so I would go try and figure out why that map worked poorly for me, and watch more videos on proper strategies for those maps.

Good call here. I’ve added a win percentage per map graph to my main sheet, and wow, heh: https://imgur.com/4yBWlc5

The maps I hate most, I have low win rates on (I wonder which came first). I felt like I was getting Hanamura and Volskya all the time too. Horrible chokes to break, 2CP at it’s best. It seems to be across all my roles, so no one hero strat to go try out.

In these matches, it usually feels like a lack of team co-ordination problem. And a lack of initiative. Compared to enemy team rolling together more.

Route 66 and Junkertown, too, (but the latter with relatively low play counts) - both I dislike as their first points are very open, sniper friendly maps (not that I have to worry about enemy snipers hitting me in low gold/silver, it’s just different, to most other maps).
⠀
⠀
⠀

@IfYouHogIHam-1104

I’ve gone 4-1 and gone down nearly 100 SR from where I started.

Oof! Was that within the last half dozen seasons? There used to be a lot more weirdness like that years past… No disconnects/leaver penalty, on your end, of course?

Oh, and thank you for replying, so that I can now too. Gotta group all my responses into a minimum of posts though, apparently…