So as Jeff previously stated in an interview.
MMR is essentially +3 to -3. So taking that, all 9 accounts across multiple ranks and devices. X Box, PS4 and PC. 3000+ hours and tons and tons of testing and record keeping.
I think I figured out ello hell! Maybe I’m off but I doubt it. Here’s what I’ve come up with through all my research and testing.
Let’s use a 2.5 k game as an example.
If you’re playing at 2.5 k and have an MMR of +3. The system is going to try and find another +3 in the same SR range to put on the enemy team. The problem is, I have a feeling the system can’t always find that. So in essence it handicaps your team, not in SR but MMR.
Team one has two +3 MMR players two 0 MMR player meaning they are balanced with their current SR. But let’s say the other team is given all balanced players where there is no + or - to their MMR so they’re playing based off visible SR since the system thinks they are at the correct place.
So to compensate, your team is given two -2 or -3 MMR players. These players have that due to playing below average and therefore the system wants to drop them and rightfully so in many cases.
This means the +3 player has to carry that much harder because more often than not the MMR of the player causes an imbalance unless the system can match that player.
I don’t think this is intentional and is a product of the system. Maybe I’m wrong, but again. I have done a ton of research and testing. So to anyone that’s wonder how your rank works. The +3 -3 to MMR is the key to balanced games.
Any other thoughts on how the system works under the hood, anything I’ve missed lol.
Yup. We already know this to be the case. They shouldnt be handicapping games like this. It should be a random distribution of players having near the same MMR.
Basically you have your visible SR. But behind that you have another number you can’t see. That’s the MMR or matchmaker rating.
Depending on how you play that hidden number goes from -3 to +3 within the rank you’re in. If you play above average, your MMR goes up and maxes at +3. More SR per win and the game thinks you have more carry potential.
Play below average and the MMR drops to a possibility of -3. This means the game thinks you need to be at a lower SR and will maybe not actively force losses. But you’ll have to play much harder to win because the system doesn’t think you belong at your rank.
I know what is MMR i know a lot about it and matchmaker and how system works but i never saw or hear anything about -3 to +3 MMR. Where did you see this?
I’m with you on that. If I’m right this is a bad system. I mean obviously there are major matchmaking issues even now. So really I don’t think I’m far off on how I think this all works.
And really this in nothing to do with SR. It’s all under the hood stuff from all ranks
I think you’re misunderstanding what the +/-3 value actually is. It’s a Standard Deviation from 0, which is about where 2500 SR is (this value can technically change over time, but it trends towards 2500). It in essence comes from the standard Gaussian function (Bell curve or normal curve) and how 99.7% of data points fall within 3 standard deviations of the mean.
While SR is shown as a bimodal normal distribution (prior to decay being removed, it likely would be a proper normal curve now) MMR is a proper normal curve. People at -3 are 3 standard deviations from the mean in the negative direction (in essence they’re the worst of the worst players) while the opposite is true for +3. The MMR is what you queue at, and it isn’t matched to balance out to zero or whatever you were saying, it’s balanced to find the closest to team average.
This average could be +2.42, in which it would generally likely find 3 players below team mean and 3 players above to balance out (however with role queue we see a clear skew from mean, but still a team vs team balance in mmr).
Your mmr is actualy very close to your sr, unless you are smurfing, leaving games or new player who was placed way too high.
The reason why some games can feel unbalanced is when your team has smurf. Lets say you are in silver 1700 sr. The smurfs is 1700 sr too. System think he belongs higher so he will try find soneone higher on enemy team. Or simply balance enemy team in a way where their average mmr match your team average mmr.
But because system doesnt really know if smurf is from plat or from masters game will not be balanced. Its simply impossible to know for the system. Thats why some games might feel unbalanced with people using alt accounts.
I don’t think it’s always an imbalance. But if the system simply can’t balance the team due to lack of players at the correct SR/MMR it has to balance it somehow.
So it puts players with more carry potential with players that are slightly below average to balance the teams out. I mean I may be wrong, but just through 1000s of hours in game it seems like that’s the case more often than not.
I was more or less breaking it down (MMR) to it’s most basic idea so it made more sense to more people.
They would have to use SR. If MMR is basically -3 +3. There would be no way to differentiate a GM +3 from a bronze +3. Maybe it’s only a part of the overall. But it would have to use that number (SR) in some way.
SR is just a nice looking symbol to make the numbers cleaner. Most games do this: CSGO with it’s ranking system, for example, uses something similar - derived from the Glicko 2 model.
MMR is what you’re actually ranked based on, and it’s determined by complex statistics to constantly compare you to present player performance and personal past performance (this is where anchor and volatility comes from, default anchor with no competitive playtime is 2350).
A normal curve, or bell curve, is a simple curved graph in which the plurality (largest percentage but not the majority) lie at 0 standard deviations, or the average (mean). The shape of the curve has two tails in both the positive (+3) and negative (-3) directions, in which there would be an even distribution of players on both sides of the average.
The first standard deviation contains 68% of all players (in Overwatch this is roughly 2000-3000 SR, not exact), the second standard deviation contains a further 27% (divided across two sides) up to a total of now 95% of all players (up to somewhere around Masters, and high Bronze on the opposite end), and the final standard deviation contains 4.7% (divided across two sides) up to 99.7% of all players (Grandmasters and most of Bronze). The final 0.3% past the third standard deviation is the upper limits of T500, and <500 players.
So if someone’s MMR is +2.5 then they’d be around 3300ish, not exact.
There is no such thing as a Bronze +3, the value of MMR +3 indicates the higher value tail of the distribution, meaning it can only be players in Grandmasters. Bronze is indicated by -3. You can never have a Bronze +3 or a Grandmaster -3.
