That is wrong by the very definition of the terms you are using. Handicapping is not random. Algorithmic analysis and mathematical functions based on skill-related statistics are not random. There are games that truly assign random teams for players, or force them to join teams while blinding them to the roster.
Definition of handicapping is an applied disadvantage it being random has no bearing on the definition.
If a new player is randomly matched with a highly skilled players that is a handicap. Random or not. it’s a randomly applied handicap and therefore handicapping.
A real world example is wind in golf. A player may have to play a harder game when the wind is stronger and it is considered a handicap.
You saying it’s not the definition is by all means incorrect.
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So you would be complaining about 1V1 games too because “the system handicaps teams”. IMO the solution to your problem is not playing online PvP games. Online PvP is full of inherent imperfections even if we ignore commercial interests.
You seem to know everything (“there can be no good reason”) and everyone who doesn’t agree with you is “simply appealing to Activision/Blizzard’s authority” so there’s nothing to discuss here. If you think that handling SR differently would solve your problems when skill rating is just one of the many things that make a matchmaking system imperfect then it’s a waste of time to engage in any kind of discussion with you.
Even if Blizzard wanted to share the details of the complicated data that describes the skills of a player it would be impossible to do so in a way that is digestible by the average user. Why would it be better to use an oversimplified user-friendly SR value instead of the detailed data? The only positive thing about it is that it’s public but it’s unlikely to be very useful for their engineers.
Even if they shared everything in full detail: it could be interpreted only by those with an understanding of specific branches of math/statistics. Their model is only an approximation of reality and that would open the gates to exploits. Sharing details usually means mixing engineering and “politics” especially at large companies - from that point changing/improving the implementation becomes difficult or impossible.
It would be entertaining to see a matchmaker designed by you failing in various ways (technically and commercially) but fortunately that day will probably never come.
It’s similar to ping.
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What are you talking about? A 1V1 game is not a team game, and it would not be handicapped by the same mechanism as Overwatch’s Matchmaker and its reference to Match Making Rating. We are talking about Overwatch, which effects handicapping by balancing player skill evenly across teams of multiple players. A 1V1 game would have to rely on other forms of handicapping, giving players concrete advantages/disadvantages such as buffers on health, damage, differences in objective, etc.
Excuse my presumption. Then I will simply say that I cannot imagine a good reason to use hidden performance metrics instead of rank as the basis for matchmaking, and that I have not heard one in 5 years of discussing the topic.
I am not talking about handling SR differently, I am talking about using SR as the basis for matchmaking. Why do you think that SR “makes the matchmaking system imperfect?”
You’re making some assumptions here which may be wrong. Others have postulated that the application may in fact use a simplified value for Match Making Rating which would be just as digestible as SR for users, even if that number is derived from myriad statistics of great complexity and interrelatedness such as gauges of team synergy. I suspect the real reason Blizzard hides this data is not its user-unfriendliness, but rather the fact that it pulls a curtain over their carefully crafted illusion of “fair matches” with guaranteed 40%-60% odds.
Now you really are making an appeal to authority which I disagree with. Do you think the bible should not have been translated from Latin, so that it could only be read from a pulpit? Data is truth, and the truth should be known to everyone.
You’re right, sharing the data of Match Making Rating would open it up for exploitation. That is what gamers do, we search for weaknesses and try to exploit them. It is not wrong of us to do this, necessarily.
But I don’t think that is even what most of us would do, if we could see Match Making Rating and fully understand how Overwatch’s Matchmaker operates. I think we would turn away in disgust from what is obviously a rigged game. And we would ban algorithmic handicapping as a business practice for game holding companies, if only we could get their damn wool off our eyes.
Practically anyone with the slightest concept of game theory, including children, could devise a better Matchmaker than Activison/Blizzard has given us in Overwatch. I already have, and you could do it yourself if you weren’t so blithely accepting of their self-serving lies, and glaring omissions of information to players.
Well let me remind you probably 100 times people have explained to you that these systems reduce the impact of smurfs and people that exploite matchmaking like smurfs, throwers and boosters. I know I’ve explained it in detail to you.
It is another case you ignore feedback if it doesn’t agree with your point of view.
Also still waiting on you to create a counter point from before now I clarified you got the definition wrong.
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I appreciate that you are taking me up on the semantics, this is really important to the discussion. The key part of the definition is the “applied” part.
In server browser-based games like Team Fortress 2, highly skilled players will often split themselves between teams voluntarily, so that the match is not one-sided. In that case the players apply their own handicap, and it is each player’s prerogative to do so. In the case of Overwatch’s Competitive Play, the handicap is applied automatically by the Matchmaker, as it refers to each players Match Making Rating and arranges teams accordingly.
Team Fortress 2 players know each other from playing together on the same servers, and from a scoreboard which features full stats on each player. The handicapping of the match necessarily and completely depends on players’ knowledge of their skill relative to their peers. Overwatch players are always complete strangers to each other and never know any of their teammates’ and opponents’ performance stats (kills/deaths/assists), because the system is making the decision for them and segregating skilled/unskilled players based on the hidden performance stats.
But the biggest difference between Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch though, is that Team Fortress 2 does not purport to rank players based on their skill. Players would not voluntarily accept a disadvantage if they were being judged on their record of win/loss and performance.
If matchmaking in Overwatch was SR-based and truly random, it would not constitute handicapping and would be analogous to the wind on a golf course. However, Overwatch’s matchmaking is not SR-based, it is MMR-based and not random at all.
just watch the gameplay
there is a part where he uses his hammer on a dva bomb and walks around it so much that his team dies to it as he was no longer protecting them from how much he moved around lol so they were trying to back off around the corner instead but it was too late for them
Algorithmic Handcapping being “removed” won’t help this person in particular and they even claim during the video that he is destined for higher ranks
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That doesn’t happen in the video. You’re a liar!
yes it does… around 11:05 lol
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If they are ever going to remove Alogrithmic Handicapping if it’s that much of an issue it should be for ranks diamond+
Otherwise we’ll get matches so uneven to the point where people are dropping down in rank unfairly and that is not okay. Because the amount of different skill levels in gold/platinum is huge.
This is why things like Algorithmic Handicapping are needed instead of “RNG” then it’d be like “well this team has a 80% chance of beating this team who has a 20% chance”
you want that? no u don’t lol
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Only the Reaper and the Ana died. And the Ana was quite salty about it
Only the Ana and the Reaper died, not the whole team. The Ana was quite a good and experienced player. I’ll admit her death was my fault because I turned my shield a little too far counter-clockwise to protect her (not that she was even visible). The Reaper’s death was 100% his fault, and he happened to be a player with practically no experience anyway. Plus, the Reaper and the Ana were standing in totally different places.
I never said whole team I just said team
members of your team then
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You said “the team,” implying that it was the whole team. I see your lying is pathological. Can you stop?
no I would have said whole team if it was your whole team, but I see your point
LOL what? why are you always like this someone calls you out or disagrees and suddenly they are the worst person and a “pathelogical liar”
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Stop gaslighting me and treating me like an enemy. I’m trying to do something for Overwatch players like yourself.
this does not a single thing for me, plus if you were an “ally” you wouldn’t be sitting here calling me a “pathological liar” because you feel because I said “your team” instead of “your whole team” that I mean your “whole team”
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If you really didn’t mean to misconstrue the events of my match and you really weren’t trying to cover your tracks, then I’ll apologize for calling you a pathological liar.
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I genuinely wasn’t and thanks for apologising, I also apologise for overreacting.
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Cool. Anyway, whether I’m a good Rheinhardt player is not the discussion. Do you think it’s right for ranked, competitive play to be algorithmically handicapped?
Yes I do in lower ranks as I stated before due to the high amount of skill differences in ranks such as gold and platinum
otherwise there would be a tons of 1 sided games cause of the skill differences
in higher ranks diamond+ I don’t see an issue with it being removed
I genuinely feel if it was removed for lower ranks we’d see competitive games acting more like quickplay games and that would be horrifying.
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