True, but then again even though we see the loot system as a normal gaming thing. A randomized loot system is a form of player retention, because there is no way to get what you want directly you simply have to rely on random chance. The normal loot boxes aren’t that big of a deal, it’s a small psychological matter, the holiday loot boxes become more of a big deal because they actually impose a time limit on you and will lock you away from the purchase of the skin until a whole year, this one is more apparent psychological manipulation. There’s no reason to lock the skin for a whole year but they do it specifically to get you to play more and add more pressure to buy boxes which in turn don’t actually guarantee you’ll get the item you want.
For Blizzard The big picture is not competitive mode, it’s money. And when you look at it in that perspective then that’s when it actually becomes more worrying. Because we know that loot boxes aren’t technically a fair way to get what you want, it is specifically tailored to get you to play more so you can potentially spend more. Blizzards concern (being a corporate business entity) will always be money. We already know that they want a high retention rate because they want to make these matches as even as possible so as to keep the largest player base consistently playing, because the larger player base you keep playing, and the more people that will be around to buy their micro-transactions.
People who play competitive are concerned with rank primarily, Blizzards concern is how can they profit from it. MMR handicapping would utilize the same philosophy they already utilize in a scheme which they seem to favor. So if they’re keeping you around with MMR handicapping as you constantly try to prove the rank that you know you deserve but made difficult for you to reach, and thus by keeping us from getting what we want for longer periods of time, then they are effectively keeping you around so you could later buy their cosmetics. This would be a case of cosmetics being used for matchmaking purposes, not as the means, but as the end (mmr would be the means in this case).
This ^ is the glaring conflict of interest that has been staring us in the face. I wish more players would realize their interests in Overwatch are not the same as the game holding company. Publishers like Activision Corp. don’t know anything about Esports administration. They don’t consider the ethics of their operations or the societal impact of their products. All they know is quarterly profits, and all they care about is fleecing gamers.
Your posts have been very well written and insightful, HolloH. Thanks for contributing!
This is an important point. And this squabbling back and forth about the mechanics of the matchmaker, at every turn, needs to be re-focused on the broader context: Blizzard and their likely objectives. If there are patterns across multiple facets of the game, then it makes more sense to look at the matchmaker in the context of that broader general monetization strategy.
Thought experiment: if literally no one could climb out of bronze, but it happened to be the most profitable strategy, would Blizzard do it?
To me the central question here is: would their underlying motivations influence their implementation of the matchmaker? I think this is a question worth asking people on the other side of this issue.
The disturbing part is that currently where I’m at I cannot get past a certain points but I do not feel like my it’s because my opponents are actually better and are out playing me but rather whenever I get close to surpassing that points I start having very bad teammates which could be a coincidence or I’d like to believe it’s just a mental thing but it happens so often that it’s a bit ridiculous. The thing is one can never say for certain because the information is never going to be released.
In contrast I had a friend who ended up being diamond/plat who I met when he was high gold I used to paired up with him and got and ranked up with him all the way until our average Sr got to about mid plat. At around mid-plat Sr ranges it started becoming difficult for us to actually win. Unlike the wall that I’m hitting now this one actually felt like I was being out played at times and like if there was an actual skill difference I needed to overcome. Interestingly enough high gold to low plat was ridiculously easy we were on a huge win streak. Unfortunately he plays Apex now lol. Also just to be clear this is a person I had met while playing the game not a personal friend or anything.
Right now it feels like waiting for the stars to align so that I could finally get past this point.
There are two other oddities that I have noticed as well
Every time I get a streak of let’s say three games will lose three games if I win seven games in a row I will lose seven games ina a row with minor discrepancies maybe like one game one won in between those and it looks less artificial this way. So I went on a coin flip app to see if these weird streak patterns show up when flipping up coin and they did not the results from the coin flip were far more erratic and less perfectly and never such mirrored result and the games I’m getting which are supposedly set up to be 50/50 chance. Again all I can do is say that the results are suspicious.
The last suspicious part is it during my Sr measurements I noticed there’s a certain point it I wasn’t able to pass yet continually get close to 1870is SR I get close to point over and over again so many times yet every time I get to that last game that would define me getting that amount or a bit over it would be a loss. Now one would assume that that is because that’s my skill ceiling, but if my skill ceiling is so accurate the time and time again that exact point is the point in which I will fail then why isn’t my skill floor equally as accurate because the levels I can drop to are very sporadic however the level I can climb to doesn’t fluctuate.
My friends and I have noticed this countless times, particularly if you’re just absolutely stomping teams. This pattern is something I’ve witnessed so many times that I’m way beyond looking for any type of confirmation from the forums. It’s not necessary. It’s happening, I observe it, it’s a fact. Pointless to bring this up on forums where people will bend over backwards to convince you that what you’re experiencing is actually not happening. I mean if you enjoy gaslighting, go for it. Otherwise, be confident in your own ability to recognize obvious recurring patterns.
Right. The odds of winning 7 in a row and then (mostly) losing 7 in a row are relatively low. Then factor in the random occurrence of these streaks every time you win multiple games in a row and it becomes clear to anyone with a shred of sense that these are not random events.
The fact that GM’s may or may not experience this doesn’t falsify it, since this behavior may only happen within certain parameters.
It’s fine to debate people on the matchmaker for the sake of argumentation, but don’t feel like your observations need to be validated by others – after all, you have no idea what their motives for discussing the topic are.
Once you realize what Overwatch is and how it functions you’ve got two choices in terms of your approach to the game:
Become zen about it and improve for the sake of improvement, a traveler’s journey on the path to mastery (one which happens to be in the context of Overwatch), at which point you will do the crazy amount of aim training, studying, streamer observation, reviewing replays etc. required – just a complete and unwavering commitment to the game and reaching your highest level.
or
treat it as a casual hobby and a semi-enjoyable way to pass the time. You’re there to have fun and you’re unconcerned about climbing or improvement.
If you’re stuck somewhere in the middle of these two approaches, you’re going to get the worst of both worlds: you’re going to have a bad time and you’re not going to really improve at any reasonable rate, if at all. A year from now, you’ll be at the same rank, getting the same questionable level of enjoyment and satisfaction from the game.
I knew they had hidden mmr system since season 2 or 3 when matchmaking system suddenly decide that my rank should be near 500 i believe (not ~3.3k where all all my seasons was ending) by placing in my team for like 3 or 4 WEEKS 9 of 10 games constantly 3 or 4 teammates that literally had brain damage and before they had brain damage they seems falls on 100meters stairs bumping their head each stair few times… thats the “lightest” explain i can write to describe what kind of trash was going on the complete most of my games… but noone believes me when i said this game 100% has hidden mmr -_-
The algo is trash. It was written by someone whos only competitive experience was building levels for Starcraft and never worked on a MOBA or FPS before, so why trust it.
The running competition is a very good parallel, I’d suggest making the race into a relay race where Usain Bolt is given teammates such that the whole team should have a total time near to all the other teams. The races would be ‘close’ and ‘fair’ in the sense that individual runners do have a chance to overcome the average performance of the team to increase the probability of winning. This is a peculiar definition of ‘fair’ as in it produces a race where the probabilities of either team winning have been ‘balanced’ between the teams, but if you look at the effect on a single runner, it would be extremely difficult to declare this was ‘fair’ to Usain Bolt or whomever hold the current world record.
Make no mistake, this is has been designed into the matchmaking system intentionally so there is no flaw or bug at work. The question is whether this manipulation of team composition belongs in a competitive environment.
It is a valid point to ask why not simply pick teammates at random within a specific range (Bronze, Silver, etc.) to create teams? The stated reason is because it would lead to more one-sided games with the unstated assumption that that would be a bad thing. If we has why it would be bad, we run into the discussion about one-sided games being less ‘fun’ but it is just as likely that the unstated reason is that players won’t play as much if they get stomped too often, which might be true but is a more palatable way of saying it hurts ‘engagement’ and leads to less playtime which is a stat that is so important it is reported in Activision Blizzard’s quarterly reports.
Simply put, the Matchmaker is creating teams for the purpose of keeping players playing and so happens to create matches that are ‘close’ which gives players the sensation of ‘fair’ even though the team composition was adjusted by the game to make that outcome more likely.
The issue reported is not “I can’t climb”, but “I can’t enjoy my matches”.
I would be perfectly ok for being in a elo lower than mine if all matches were fair and funny. I’ve only matches or too easy or too hard , and this happens cause the handicapped matchmaking
I don’t know why is showing that, probably refers only to last season of competitive (and would have sense cause I made only 1 match with rein recently, trying a controller). I play only competitive since the launch. If you make a rough count the number of quickplay are not enough to fill my portrait level.
edit: yeah verified, look on other players profile like abdullah or audalyon. They have just a bunch of hours on competitive; so refers to only last season.
Attacking personally is not fair, not cool, and against CoC.
And again, Heyzeus and Abdullah, like in other times put likes; like “lieutenants with bully leader” (scientifically lieutenants and bully leader are terms used in psychology for bullying phenomena).
This is what the moderation allows in the forum, very cool.
Uh yeah, it is off topic. You may not be familiar with the ad hominem fallacy, but you’re committing it here. He may have never played comp before in his life – that has no bearing on the validity of his statements.
He is literally commenting on his experience with matchmaker under the topic title “… is Wrong for Competitive Play”. Clicking his name shows he has played one 10 minute competitive match and 172 hours of Quickplay. I comment to play more comp matches…
You’re not getting it. I’ve already explained that you’re committing an ad hominem fallacy.
You either still don’t know what that is, or you don’t care. Either way, that doesn’t change the issue. Again, whatever this person says is either sound or it isn’t. If two people make the same true claim, and one of them has played 1000 hours of comp, and the other has played 0, the statement of the person with zero hours of comp play is no less correct. It’s either sound or it isn’t. So factually time played – literally – has no validity on the claim’s soundness. Therefore you assess the soundness of the statement itself, not the person making it.
I can’t make it any clearer and than this, nor will I attempt to. If you still don’t get it, that’s your issue.