50% "handicap" misconception

It is not true that “all systems are never truly fair.” Systems can be well designed, and they can be badly designed. They can be transparent and fair, or they can be opaque and exploitative. You are dismissing a complex issue with simplistic thinking.

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Sigh, yes dismiss a counterpoint by calling it simplistic thinking. It’s borderline insulting.
Like if you want to counterpoint show me an example of 100% fair matchmaking system?

As for the rest, I don’t really know what you talking about. Systems can also be tranparent and exploitive and they can be and opaque but fair don’t really get your point?

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I have given an example. In Team Fortress 2, players choose their own teams. The match can either be randomized or handicapped, depending on what the server administrators and players choose. That is a completely fair and transparent system. Overwatch’s Matchmaker is neither of those things.

The most exploitative systems are not transparent. The most fair systems are not opaque. If you don’t see these patterns, I can’t help you.

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The matchmaker attempting to create even 50% odds for both teams is precisely the reason why there are so many win and lose streaks. Matches are decided based on MMR, and MMR changes slowly.

If your MMR is low, you get better teammates as compensation which will put you on a win streak until it finally readjusts. Then you start losing again because the game expects you to carry more and starts giving you worse teammates even though your SR is higher. That is evidence of a broken system because game difficulty is more based more on your recent performance and stats rather than your SR.

The handicapping system will not keep a GM player stuck in plat, but it can easily keep you around 500 SR above or below where you should be for a longer duration than it should. For example, it may often seem like games in gold are even harder to win than they were previously when you were in plat which should never be the case without throwers, smurfs, leavers, etc.

Other flaws with the comp system include things like grouping with wide SR ranges, and assuming that all roles are equal. In a plat game, having 1 diamond dps and 1 diamond support will almost never make up for having 2 gold tanks. But that’s a balanced game according to the matchmaker.

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They stopped caring because the game rigs. SBMM is a big no-no. It’s in every ATVI pvp game now. It’s oppressive, no one likes it, and it makes people stop trying because,…well, it’s rigged af. There are numerous conversations on this - one only has to google/yt “what is sbmm” and you get nothing but “why sbmm is bad for competition”.

And we haven’t even scratched the surface on the levels of rigging this game has/uses. They can rig at just about every level (in-match via aim/ult pop-off and close teamfight mechanics, handicapped matchmaking, throttled ladder mobility, etc).

People are entitled to have unadulterated matchmaking (mmr/ksr violates this) and consistent in-game parameters (dda violates this). Rigging rubs people the wrong way - it only helps casuals stay interested, and forces hardcore players to sweat, peak, and carry. It’s unfun in the long run, and every dev worth a grain is dialing it back for the next AAA release cycle.

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That is not a 100% fair system. It is prone to human error.
Also, TF2 has many problems with its matchmaking for casual players like being a match against bots/with bots is an issue and cheaters are an issue.
You know what ironic tho steam recently add a matchmaking system like OW.

So the unfairness you see in OW could be the same unfairness that is in all matchmaking systems. You expand on this drawing baseless conclusion like if a system is opaque it is more likely to be unfair and blow up other issues like normal handicapping which happens again in all matchmaking.

So yes you can’t help…
You can’t help get mad enough to push your opinion on people

Unless you prove it.
Provide a real solution and isn’t already available in OW.

You villainize MME when you have no idea how much impact it has on OW comp games. You use what could and is at the time, normal handicapping to try and prove that its MMR system doing something other than any other matchmaking system would. You also try to back up your points with bias like opaque systems are unfair.

I’m sorry if I don’t agree with an opinion that is baseless and has no evidence to back it up. On the note of the evidence, you consider increased wait times as proof of your accusations, like if your a high skilled player your wait time is longer… err maybe those wait times are longer because it’s got a smaller pool of players to make a balanced match and it’s trying to reduce handicapping a player by making them wait longer. I’m not saying it is but it’s on you to disprove that if you want to consider it evidence.

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Bump

Correct. Although there are patents that arrest ladder mobility via throttled rewards (biasing SR direction) and additional rigging beyond 50/50 matches. You might say those patents try and keep your winrate above/below some extremes. Are they in OW? Who knows…

But we do know the MM forces (rigs) towards 50/50 outcome expectation. It nefariously crunches the numbers, and cherry picks teams so every match is close. Your progression is an adaptive sequence of matches with rigged difficulty. Even if it’s rigged for 50/50, it’s still rigged. Note that forcing 50/50 matches buries your skill signal almost maximally, and minimizes your affectance. It’s designing matches to take away the scale and scope of your impact.

This necessarily implies algorithmic handicapping, which is anti-competitive. That means an invidual chasing a correct rank label gets un-natural backpressure, false effort/reward payouts, loses time, energy, effort, and possibly dollars.

It really needs to go and they really need to make an official statement on what if any IP is in use and why.

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I just find it weird after like 7-9 wins you get almost impossible to win games. I don’t even consider it 50/50 but there’s something in their matchmaker that does pair a person playing well with people or a person(s) extremely under performing especially if your teammate gets 1 bomb in 14+min, a lucio gets 1 beat, your zarya holds their grav forever because they want that 4 man grav so they’d rather wait then just try and make a play off it with their teammates… I watch almost every comp replay i do and even critique myself on my accounts and man… it’s sketchy some times what you end up getting on your team and trust me i know i’m nothing special but I assume i’m decent when i buy new accounts and can go on 44+ win streaks and get placed in high diamond on almost every new account but this account has been around since s3 maybe it’s i haven’t put enough time into its comp i think its sitting on 50-70 hours but mannnnnn lol… errr the SR should really reset especially for people who have alts and can only do placements + a little on them for whatever reason. would help fix smurfing more too it would be super chaotic at every reset but i think thats good for the game and encourages the player to play more and more and see it either improve or go lower quicker and seeing as it refreshes it helps with older accounts or just alts.

sorry wall of text :frowning:

also if someone says oh it’s cause you lost!! no i actually love losing and learning from a lose especially close one’s to improve but seeing someone basically shoot into a wall for 90% of the match while the rest of the team is trying their hardest is abit sus and kinda painful especially on alt’s when your older account is from when you first started and is highly inaccurate cause u can’t spend as much time on it. i don’t see it being fun for the person on the alt or the people who have to play against them it’s like accidental smurfing lmao.

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I think the more relevant point is that MMR causes it. It enables it, if it’s primary function is making matches with 50% odds of winning for either team. Yes, it’s a very fair system - it strives to create fair matches.

The problem is that it does so at the expense of each player.

It’s like running a race with kindergarteners, except you have to wear weighted shoes so that the race is “fair”.

The very function of creating matches based on “fairness” is already flawed, as the effort to create such a match results in heavily skewed individual player characteristics.

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There is no need to „balancing“ matches with MMR. We already have the SR system. Why should a match not be balanced with the SR system alone? :slight_smile:
If I queue on an account on 3000 SR I want to play WITH and AGAINST all players around that SR. Not with and against mathematically chosen people based on hidden mmr xD

If you queue for a 3000 SR match and all 12 players in the lobby are around this SR isnt this enough to have a fair LADDER MATCH? xD

We both know what the hidden mmr is used for my friend :slight_smile:

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“Rigged” =/= anticompetitive. Your definition of rigged is a game where both sides have an equal chance of winning. A matchmaker where it does not factor an equal chance of winning for both sides is ironically more anticompetitive than a matchmaker that does.

It is extremely common for your game sense/mechanics to get worse the more you play, because you are just getting tired, or your mentality is slowly dropping. If you have a winstreak and you lose 1 and you notice yourself getting tilted, it’s time to stop playing. That is the hardest thing to do for climbing

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oh i know, this account climbed from silver to plat hopefully diamond eventually by just doing placements at this point… it has most of my event skins only reason i keep it updated still. I have two other accounts at this point and both are high diamond and still not really stuck i understand about getting tilted and stuff i don’t even get in voice or anything it has nothing to do with that it’s when im watching my vod’s that i notice this stuff like a mcree getting maybe 3 kills and 14+ deaths or some even weirder stuff and I love OTP’s at this point at least most are guaranteed to know the basics of a hero lol like some people try to over switch and have no idea how to play those other hero’s and it’s just questionable. I really believe HERO SR should be a thing :slight_smile: would solve so many problems.

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You don’t get forced losses when you do well. You get forced losses when you do poorly and got carried to wins you didn’t deserve or underperformed expectations in a game you were statistically designed to win (50/50 isn’t always available).

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but that should be impossible because of PERFECT MMR balancing, right? it places me EXACTLY against equally skilled opponents everytime? right?

An even chance of winning means forcing an uneven distribution of skills.

/thread

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I don’t think anyone ever said that. The devs said as close to 50/50 as possible.

That might be 45/55, 52/48, etc. It’s a balance between queue times and available players in queue. I’ll take a 2 min queue and something other than 50/50 over 10 mins and 50/50. But even then there are tons of other factors. A perfect 50/50 game with two off tank players might mean they get rolled.

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you gave your consent when you agreed to Blizzard’s terms. it does not matter whether you read them or not, you clicked “I accept” therefore you consented, end of story.

so nice try! i hear theres a tin foil hat meeting soon…perhaps you should RSVP

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But if she doesn’t want tea, even though she did say she wants some tea, you still can’t force her to have tea.

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Thank you for clarifying.

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