I ended up reading almost this entire thread because I dislike the Overwatch mmr system as I appear to understand it. Despite that, you seem incredibly confident based on the feeling of thoroughness with which you have applied your resentment to this problem, but this entire thread is basically a game design cringe compilation and your underetanding of even the concept of how mmr works broadly or why seems totally incoherent at best and vastly confused due to a lack of familiarity with scholarly discussion on the topic of matchmaking algorithm design.
I suggest starting a similar thread on a game design forum so you’re actually talking to experts instead of confused and ignorant users that overstate their understanding of the math and design of video game systems. You’ll suddenly feel a lot less smug once a bunch of far smarter people tear you apart (unless you completely lack any competency and end up a dunning kruger in that debate which I think is likely).
I suspect your choice of audience was initially a smart move given the topic and your knowledge of how mmr works in this game and other games or systems. However, the utility of polling forum users like this is near zero to a game designer. If you actually want to talk about good design, go talk to experts if you think you can hang (you can’t, but you might learn). The sheer number of wrong statements I’ve read from you and others in this thread that are --infamous fallacies in game design-- that all design experts know to look out for makes the idea of wanting to exhaustively correct you or the others here seem untenable and unproductive.
Your takeaway here should be “stop acting like a poll of players is anything oven remotely similar to or as good as the consensus of designers that actually know what’s going on”. If you want to further this discussion substantively, you need to have math or system programming or discrete logic chops that you have yet to demostrate. Since you aren’t that kind of talent, the next best thing is to propose your theory to people that do have those talents. This forum is not where those people hang out.
(I make systems like this professionally and you show a near zero understanding of engineering or design, nevertheless what problems mmr is designed to solve or how it is supposed to do that. I would probably have an easier time teaching my mom how it works because she’s less overconfident than you are).
I’d like to hear what you think you know about the Match Making Rating system. Do you understand that it informs the handicapping of matches? Do you think it’s right for ranked, competitive play to be handicapped?
You claim to be an expert who knows better than me on this subject, but you haven’t even said anything of substance or relevance to this discussion. Your comments so far have been nothing but strident insults and self aggrandizement. Do you actually have a counter argument? I’m amazed that you would create a forum account to write a post that means basically nothing. I’ll thank you to stop wasting both of our time.
I can tell your asking this question sarcastically, but let’s consider it in good faith, because it highlights the fact that ranking is consequential. We are all segregated from each other, up and down the ladder. Rank is both our reputation and our right to compete with other players of our caliber. I think it’s a crime for Activision/Blizzard to handicap our matches when such consequences are on the line.
Rather than questioning my motivation, consider my argument. Do you think that ranked, competitive play should be algorithmically handicapped? Do you think the best players in every match have a responsibility to carry the worst players?
Scenario: Usain Bolt runs a 100M dash against highschool kids. To make it “fair,” they force Usain Bolt to start 30M back. The race starts and Usain Bolt barely crosses the finish line in front of everyone.
I can see why some would think this is a fair match because the race was close, but that’s deceiving. Actually the race was completely unfair to Usain Bolt, and technically he was punished for being faster than everyone else by forcing him to start 30 M back.
A 100M dash is to see who runs the 100M dash the fastest with all things being equal for each competitor except for their own skills. Overwatch handicaps players who are better in order to make a fake fair match.
The matchmaker should drop 12 people into a match that have the same SR (not MMR) at random and let the cards fall where they may. The ladder will work itself out.
Thank you for this.
And still there are many people trying to tell you that this has nothing to do with „rigging“.
I absolutely have no Idea what their definition of rigging is then.
But that’s the thing. Nobody is saying you’re bad at the game when they say this. They are saying when you reach your peak, you start getting teammates who are not equal to you. Compounded in the lower ranks by PBSR. Most of us who say that this is a problem… are not in a rank where only wins matter. If i’m the best player on a team in silver, I shouldn’t be stacked with 2 bronze, while the others get two golds to make up for it, which it often feels like. Maybe I’m wrong. All we’re saying is drop the PBSR, or add it to all ranks. Fine. and only make the matchmaking pick silvers to play with me. MMR is for the birds, The algorithm that chooses it is bad, and most of us agree with it even if you don’t believe ‘rigged’ is the right word. The terms are what people dislike in this thread, despite most people believing that the MM is not great. I am fine being in silver, gold, and that’s all I need. I just want the games to actually feel fair. They do not now. Searching to balance the games we play via team average is bad. If you’re unplaced you only play with unplaced. If you’re bronze… you only play with bronze, etc. You shouldn’t see another rank until you get close to breaking into that rank.
I understand how it works. I am arguing that it shouldn’t work like that. how you improved is not as important to me, as the games being fun. I should not ever play against someone a higher rank than me, with someone on my team who is lower rank, nor should I be the lowest rank on my team ruining it for everybody else. And vice versa, because I do have confirmation bias, I notice this when I lose, and less when I win, but it happens equally to everyone. I hope you get top 500. DO IT. I have no desire to grind my life into a game. I have a desire to have fun while playing… and since in the competitive arena, I can’t play with my friends, which I understand too (who placed higher than me despite us winning and losing the same amount of games, in the team game) Just place me against people in my rank then. No 1000 difference. SR alone.
Edit: When the game naturally does this, is when the games are the most fun win or lose.
Or worse, being inserted in losing matches at the start just to satisfy an opponent, encouraging him to stay in the game, to do a favor to the company you paid for the game and which instead of providing you a service exploits you as an unpaid servant?
Your argument has been considered and it is quite invalid and contradictory so yes, we need to look at your motivation to make sense of it. The question remains. Who is the special someone you can’t seem to play with anymore?
It seems to me a kind of naivete that people assume that the current iteration of the matchmaker, warts and all, isn’t also the most profitable one.
To all the doubters out there: which of the following is more likely:
That Blizzard’s primary motivation is profit, and therefore it built a matchmaking system optimized for profit over all other considerations.
ORRRRRRRR
They have some higher, more principled motivation (than profit), and as a result, the current system primarily reflects that principled motivation.
For decades, the tobacco industry happily and knowingly sold products to people that ended their lives prematurely, destroyed their families, saddled them with cancer, and made the last years of their lives a living hell. But somehow people cannot bring themselves to consider that Blizzard would put its own self-interests above the interests of its playerbase, (which could not be more trivial in comparison to the tobacco example).
I mean after all, the games industry has never been known for their greed or self-interest at the expense of players right?
Why did you write a wall of repetitious, blathering text that amounts to an appeal to authority fallacy? “I don’t know enough to refute your argument, but trust me, there’s some really smart people out there who can!” There, I just summed up your entire bloated monologue with one sentence and in a fraction of the time.
That actually depends on your definition which is often the tricky part with anything that is legal matters.
Technically you could say that they do in fact use cosmetics for the Matchmaker. After all they offer you loot boxes if you play certain roles in matchmaking. It is actually relevant to matchmaking because this promotes a healthier matchmaking role distribution.
We literally keep queueing into the matchmaker to get loot boxes during holidays, these are all for cosmetic reasons. This works in favor of their player retention rates favor.
The concerning part is the manner which blizzard retains it players with lootboxes is by keeping them continually playing and grinding to get what they want at a very slow pace continually denying them a direct route to getting what they want under the threat of having to wait an entire year which has layers of psychological manipulation. If MMR handicapping is true then the same philosophy applies to keep the player grinding to get what they want at a very slow pace. Since they already have been shown to be comfortable with the tactic for lootboxes it wouldn’t be beyond a blizzard to do such a thing
how is giving a player a reward for playing the game a concerning part of the game?
has nothing to do with actual gameplay, purely cosmetic.
players that want the cosmetic will play the game for the cosmetic.
you want everyone to simply play the game because they enjoy playing the game ‘kumbaya’ won’t happen.
Lets look at World of Warcraft. People kill bosses for loot.
End of story.