But it does this. I have another account that has consistently stayed high silver and gold… nothing great, exactly where I should’ve been… it is much newer. This account has dipped into bronze on multiple roles, while I have been able to climb this season into silver… It’s still unreliable. Am I Silver/Bronze? or am I silver gold… why would I be on opposite ends of the borders? I don’t play any different on the two accounts. And I do realize that it isn’t that big of difference, but they do play a lot different. Is it because I played more DPS on that account? and way more Support on this one? WHY do I have a better average kill rate on that one… compared to this one when I started and was complete feeding trash?
I currently have 4 different account, two are exactly where I am on this account, one is maintaining high gold placements only, and one that is on the boarder of diamond (brand new level 28 currently), if I was to play the two higher ranked account for a significant amount of time, they would surely fall to where I am now due to my skill level, nothing to do with the matchmaker, I truly believe it’s all based on a certain mindset playing on different accounts.
1 Like
I’d argue that the matchmaking is working here but the problem is how they have displayed SR to us. The idea of a gold or silver player, it gives you an identity so you gain attachment to it. Problem is, the backend doesn’t really care for the concept of gold/silver/bronze.
Another issue is that you may be considering that maybe there is a correct accurate number for your skill rating. This however is just not the case in reality, players don’t play consistently in every match so really everyone has a skill range.
For some players this range can be very wide and those players tend to see larger swings in rating.
Because players don’t actually have a specific skill rating, there are a few things done to help them get to approximately the right area. If you don’t play for some time then the MMR change will be slightly bigger (in either direction), this is the same for new accounts to help them match quicker.
There is also for players under Diamond another system called Performance based SR. In this you get additional adjustments based on how you performed that game compared to others of your rank, on that hero, on that map under that victory condition. This is turned off over Diamond and everything is based entirely off W/L to avoid people metagaming the system.
Don’t get me wrong, the MMR can be wrong for some time by chance however over extended playing it trends toward the right location. If you goto bronze and are not a bronze player then after playing a reasonable amount of games you should climb.
The further in skill you are from where the system currently thinks you are, the faster the change.
It’s totally reasonable for someone to have a 500SR skill range, I think if you get into a skill range of around 1000SR then you would be in a very small minority but it’s still valid.
You are considering things such as your average kill rate,etc - However these stats are basically not part of the equation to work out your SR. Because of Performance based SR you get a minor boost /hit (~5 SR) from your performance in a game but the real value is winning/losing.
If you get double the kills but lose the point/game then you’re still taking a bigger hit to your MMR than getting half the kills but winning the objective/game.
3 Likes
your explanation still boils down to why are we still using at least four different metrics to count one ladder. And it could be more for all we know. If wins are all that matter, great. That’s all that matters. Performance can’t account for strategy. If MMR is used to balance out the game, then why give SR a number at all. Just say gold silver plat master etc. Or don’t use MMR and give the SR total control of the match maker. Only put golds with golds Silvers with Silvers. no need for an average. .
I’m glad to have a discussion with people who are at least willing to give a reason that they think it’s ok… as long as they are willining to hear why I don’t. We probably won’t change each others minds… but it’s worth a shot.
And Sue why would you “surely” fall. You’re being placed with the people who placed there as well. if it would surely fall, then placements are worthless… or you got better because you know what teammates to follow into battle… and how to help them and the team win. If the ladder was running correctly, IMO , if you’re not doing anything drastically different, you should place in the exact area that you’re main is. I don’t think you would “surely” fall. I think there might be a chance, but it seems to me from my limited interactions on this site… that you study the game and how to be better at it. (maybe I’m assuming) so why wouldn’t you be a diamond.
2 Likes
So really MMR is in total control, it’s the real number that’s actually used and is hidden because ultimately Blizzard decided to do that.
It’s also very difficult to read because it’s a long decimal value (imagine being told your rating is -1.3454539 and it just went up by 0.00003014) easier to convert it to a less accurate but user friendly format to read.
I suspect the main reason we have split SR/MMR is literally just so they can punish players without affecting the match making. They want you to have a punishment for leaving a match that is not finished so they take away some of your SR. (Some players respond well to this and never leave as a result)
It also served as a way to decay rating for players above Diamond (this was removed when rolequeue was added) - You had to play every week or your SR would go down but your MMR would remain the same.
SR is basically just a flexible way to intentionally distort your rating without breaking the actual important value (MMR)
When you understand their relationship you realise that SR is basically your MMR for almost every scenario unless you regularly rage quit or have a lot of leaver games (but its still not that far off).
I don’t know if you were around in season 1 but it used to go from 1-100 and you’d get part of a rank and there was no such thing as bronze/silver/gold/etc. Players complained that they didn’t understand the system so they made the numbers between 1-5000 and then added in the brackets so that players could feel like they belonged to a bracket and have a bit of identity about their rank.
All the things about SR are just making it a bit easier for the average player to not need to understand how it works but still roughly know where they are in relation to their friends.
3 Likes
I was around. And I understand the concept of why MMR exists. I don’t think there is some nefarious reason behind it… I think it works as intended, but I think there is a poorly implemented system. you know what I mean? And because in the rank this account currently is in, I get way more throwers… derankers etc. Than in the gold one, so this account is MUCH harder to pull back to where it should be.
PBSR is a great concept but it goes along with the “rigging” idea (I don’t like that word) but if you over perform, and still lose… you lost 5 less points… but you still lost. It’s slower falling instead of tanking. So you go on a bad losing streak… and you end up lower than you started.
With that said, I don’t think it was bad when the game started. I think when they put things on top of the existing match maker… they broke it. And I will continue to argue for a ground up approach to matchmaking for OW2. That I would hope starts all players at the bottom to rise to their correct MMRS. and placements that mean something every season… or at least seasonal SR and MMR resets for COMP only.
1 Like
Smurfs and throwers are the problem.
Smurfs play around a fair estimation of their MMR. They buy new accounts or keep softthrowing to maintain their “low” skilled account.
So MMR can’t recognize a really good player, if he knows how to stay below the radar.
These people come to gold and ruin matches continously, because they are heavily underrated by the matchmaker.
1 Like
These are aspects that are actually outside of the remit of most SBMM systems, I don’t believe Overwatch is an exception to this.
You really have to get through a lot of games without these disruptions for it to be accurate. Ultimately all you can do is report and move on, add to avoid is also a decent idea. If you play enough games without this happening then the system is self correcting and you’ll eventually end up in the right range.
They have definitely made changes that have been to tighten up the MM since launch, I don’t think they broke it though. It’s still objectively working at its primary function of assessing player skill.
I do however think that they have made some unannounced changes with loosening the skill variance. (ie how big the skill gap between the best and worst player in a team)
Now this doesn’t break the match maker but it can make it work way slower for some people, requiring more games to get to a reasonable accuracy.
There is actually good reason to believe they would have done this as they split the playerbase into more queues - There is clearly a priority to get players into games in a somewhat reasonable time.
If the player base is lower right now as a lot of players wait for OW2 and those that remain are split among more queues than any time before, then it’s entirely likely that the MM will be more flexible with skill variance and more matches closer to the 40/60 limit.
So if you feel match quality has decreased since earlier in OW’s life, you are likely correct. It doesn’t mean it’s not working though, just slower.
MMR/SR is also a somewhat relative value rather than an absolute value so someone in the same rank as before maybe more skilled than that rank a few years back as more players flood the ranks under them.
MMR and most elo derivatives start in the centre rather than the bottom as its much faster to get people to the right place that way. Less of the experienced players demolishing the learning players. (this does mean that it probably feels like you see more throwers if you are under 2500 SR, as new players need to likely get under your rank to be where they belong - should be roughly equal on both sides so it’s not a problem for the MM but can make the match suck for you when you randomly get them)
Honestly that’s why you really don’t want an MMR reset, the game would just be a mess for a week or two with constant one sided matches where one team literally has no chance (there was actually a bug that reset MMR one season - until restored from a backup, you can probably still look up vods. was pretty brutal and hilarious for the like half day it lasted)
3 Likes
I secretly loved that bug. And yes. after an MMR reset things would be a mess. I also forgot to say. LONGER Seasons.
I know people on this forum get mad when I compare to regular sports… but I do it anyway, You don’t start teams at .500 in any competition. I understand the concept, but then you get people who ride the wave. NO competitive thing does that. You start at the bottom and rise. Some will rise quicker than others. You put level 25’s (real, smurf, and actual bots) in to comp where the average is supposed to play. AS well as higher levels ( although they do this slightly better by putting theim in Plat) A progression of a lifetime of being a competitor in terms of population is a downward slope, not a bell curve. The bell curve is the talent stats.
Thanks for the discussion, I think I’m done for the day. when the message board warns me… I listen that I’m probably talking too much.
1 Like
But performance depends on the teammates you have, and the competition you are facing. If you play well and the MMR system places other skilled players on opposing teams to handicap you, then you don’t generate the same stats as you would under impartial matchmaking. PBSR doesn’t compensate you for handicapping. Ultimately, you can only lose SR when you lose a match. You can only gain SR by winning matches, and algorithmic handicapping affects skilled players’ chances to win.
MMR does not oscillate between hard-game/easy-game depending on whether you won or lost the previous match. It’s persistent and fluid; informed by your entire career, with a special focus on your most recent matches. MMR also takes your total experience into account. Someone who plays effortfully and skillfully all of the time is handicapped against their favor all of the time, especially if they are experienced.
2 Likes
It’s a vicious circle. Players have been complaining about the matchmaker since the beginning. Almost every Blizzard game has a very strange way of matching players with the same “skill”. Blizzard is even notorious for this and games like WoW PVP, HOTS and Co. partly failed because of it.
If players get the feeling of “unnatural” matches or series of unwinnable and uncontrollable matches, chances are they will look for a better source of entertainment.
We’re not talking about a hobby we do regularly in a club or with friends, in an environment we can adapt to.
Every single match in Overwatch (and other Blizzard games) is 99% a game of chance and you depend on the goodwill of your fellow players. If even one teammate has sinister intentions or simply dramatically underperforms, the particular match is usually over and you waste 15-20 minutes of your life.
Many “healthy” people understand (consciously or unconsciously) that it is counterproductive to stay in such an environment longer than necessary. That’s why most casual gamers, as well as serious competitive gamers, left relatively quickly when they realized that extremely much of the gameplay was out of their hands.
Fewer players lead to much larger skill differences, which in turn accelerate churn.
Why have people like me stayed so far? Because Overwatch is actually a very good and varied game in terms of mechanics and gameplay. Nevertheless, I also fall into the category of players who have perhaps held out longer than would have been good for their psyche.
Edit: 10-15% of the players are so good according to objective criteria that they can move in all areas of the ladder without any problems. For this minority it is easy to make smart speeches about talent and skill, especially when they themselves start teasing weaker players with smurf accounts out of boredom.
Perfectly fine, but then you also have to accept that the playerbase ist getting smaller and smaller and the match quality decreases due to SR gaps.
2 Likes
I’m proof that the system has separate MMRs per role.
I’m a consistent Masters player for DPS, I’ve peaked Diamond multiple time on tank but I’m definitely a consistent high platinum tank at best. My support play is “just” Gold/MAYBE low platinum when I put everything into it.
When I join games on support, I can play Baptiste/Ana/Zen and win any 1v1 I engage in because I’m “just better” at DPS, but when it comes to actually supporting/sustaining my team, I’m a babe lost in the woods.
When I join games on support, I’m 100% put into gold/platinum matches because my support play REALLY IS just average. I can get gold heals on Bapt/Ana, but it’s not about having the most heals, it’s about having the most impactful support for your team.
——
Additionally, the proof is, when I smurf on DPS, the first 3 or 4 games on DPS will be progressively more difficult but eventually the MM System recognizes that I don’t belong in Silver/Gold/Platinum and I always gain significantly more SR than I lose
-
Generally between 28-40 SR for a win (rank dependent)
-
As low as 10 to 25 SR for a loss (again, rank dependent)
4 Likes
Can someone explain me what Algorithmic Handycapping is without me needing to read all of this? xd
1 Like
The thing is that you usually knock a team out and then they stop participating for those to work. In Overwatch Comp you don’t want to kick people out just because you’ve found better players.
It sounds like what you’re looking for is closer to what Open division offers:
Yeah definitely can feel like that. It’s a hard issue to solve and I don’t envy the devs having to try find the right balance of systems to reduce how often it happens.
But this happens reliably to every player. If the system is correct about your skill then you’ll be correctly stuck at your rank and if it’s incorrect then the result will be reliably not what it’s expecting and you will move through ranks.
You literally just need to be better than the system thinks you are and you will climb. Everyone is playing the same system, the vast majority of players in the high ranks didn’t get there by chance, they consistently performed above the expectations the system had on them.
MMR doesn’t know or care about your experience. If you stay at the same rank for a while then it will get “confidence” that it’s got you at the right rank. Under this situation you are less likely to climb and fall with lucky streaks.
It’s not putting pro players on the enemy team to handicap the match to 50%, it’s putting someone about your rank on there to fight you - If you are actually more skilled than your rank then you’ll just win more than it expects.
If you’re interested in proving your worth against highly skilled players without MMR interacting with you, then I also recommend joining the open division tournaments.
The way Competitive matchmaking works in Overwatch may not be perfect but it is fit for purpose.
3 Likes
It is a term that this user has made up to describe how the matchmaker will attempt to provide you with teams of roughly the same skill level.
He is postulating that the act of having opponents and allies approximately your skill level is a handicap and that MMR is conspiring to suppress the ranks of skilled players (it is demonstrably not).
3 Likes
Personally I recommend you watch his video…. He makes a moderately competent argument.
——
“My” explanation of his “rigged match making” nonsense is effectively:
In competitive Overwatch you have two values which are used to represent Player Skill.
SR = Skill Rating: A standalone value that represents your place on the competitive ladder between <500 and 5000 SR (in your case you possess an SR of 4072 for support).
MMR = Match Making Rating: a comprised value of data which the Match Maker uses to generate balanced competitive games between 12 players in a lobby.
Examples:
- elims/10 mins
- deaths/10 mins
- heals/10 mins
- Accuracy
- Scoped Acc
- etc.
Match Maker: software utility used,in Overwatch the game, to formulate competitive matches.
——
Pretty much your statistics page per hero you main are compiled into a function in the software and it compares you against other players (within a specified tolerance) and tries to formulate a competitive match where either team has a 50% chance of winning the game.
——
The argument that the OP and others are making (as I understand it) is, if you perform better than the players in your current game, the match maker gives you worse and worse teammates in an effort to effectively anchor you to an SR level.
To me, their argument, boils down to “my teammates are bad, I’m a god player and I deserve to be GM because I played the game for 4 years.”
Feel free to elaborate on anything I may have overlooked
3 Likes
This right here is why so many low elo players complain about the system as it is, as you’ve seen (through smurfing even though I know you don’t personally enjoy it), the skill gap between players in Silver/Gold/Platinum is massive from one player to the next, using myself as an example, I can drop 50+ elims and 25k damage in a 18 minute game (you’ve seen the screenshots), just to be crushed the next game.
Now I don’t think this is due to an MMR imbalance, more due to wildly varying skills of people in these ranks from game to game, as we’re very inconsistent, but due to this inconsistency many people believe it’s the system holding them back, when in reality, it’s the players themselves, and not the system, since they aren’t ready to move up the ladder.
Some people tend to forget the game gets harder as you win matches, due to MMR/SR going up and you play against better players, apparently this is handicapping.
4 Likes
If you are the best player in the match, the matchmaking will team you with the 5 worst players to “balance”. You have to babysit them. #2,#3 and #4 best players will be on the enemy team.
1 Like
No, the Matchmaker treats every player differently. Some of us are known to be skilled for our rank, others are known to be unskilled. Skilled and unskilled players are systematically segregated from each other in a bipolar and numerically lopsided pattern to create “balanced” matches.
That’s not true. Experience is one of the many factors that the Matchmaker uses to build your profile (MMR) for matchmaking.
Exactly. This might sound like a worst-case scenario, but it is common as dirt.
2 Likes
“matchmaker places other skilled players in a game based on sr”
why am i being handicapped?
could it be that there MIGHT be someone(s) who have greater skills than me in this game?
“nah bruh, i should rank 1 dps across all regions because i FEEL like i deserve it”
could it be that when playing a TEAM based game that the ENTIRE team wins or loses?
“nah bruh, i should be able to go on 10 win game streaks and even when my team loses i should gain more sr because ive been “handicapped” by a matchmake which im trying to sue for violation of my ODIN given rights”
could it be that if i spent time working on my game sense and mechanical skills i might actually improve and rise up the ladder?
“nah bruh, i shouldnt have to put time into anything to get better”
1 Like