I just can’t take competing seriously when I know the current matchmaker goes for 50/50 with the hidden MMR as the deciding factor.
I honestly don’t care about game quality. I just want to compete.
How will Overwatch League do in the long run when the foundation of the competitve aspect of the game is based on this silly carebear system where “everyone is a winner”?
SR Vs SR please. It’s just so sad every time the high MMR carry is either a low impact hero main or forced into tank/supp because some knobhead felt like “hey, maybe I try DPS this game?”.
I am in favor of making MMR visible … But you are confused about what MMR is and how it works.
MMR (match-making-rating) is a (hidden) number that goes up when you win, and down when you lose. How much it goes up and down is a complicated formula, based on many factors, but the essential truth of wins are good and losses are bad is certain (4).
That MMR is then used to match people with and against people of similar MMR, in an attempt to create a 50% match (32). Here is the key part:
If a player’s MMR is wrong and too low, then the odds to win will be greater than 50%, and the player will win more games than he loses, which will cause his MMR to rise over many games played. He will then be placed with stronger and stronger opponents (and stronger and stronger allies) until his MMR is correct, and his win percentage approaches 50% (with some random oscillation around 50%) (7).
Once a player finds himself trapped in a rating range, the only way to break out is to improve as a player and play enough games to overcome any random factors.
What is SR then? SR is a visible and friendlier approximation of MMR (23). It has no more meaning with respect to matchmaking than tier icons. However, except for top players who have decayed, MMR and SR are closely linked, so inspecting SR typically gives a reasonable estimate of a player’s MMR (23).
(4) Overwatch Forums “In Overwatch, whether your MMR goes up or down is contingent on winning or losing. But there are a number of factors that determine how much that rating goes up or down.” – Jeff Kaplan
(7) Overwatch Forums
(23) Overwatch Forums
(32) Overwatch Forums
This is the bottom line: If SR is an accurate reflection of skill then MMR is unnecessary. The “need” for MMR proves SR is not an actual “skill rating”.
If the MMR was visible and the formula available I think it would expose exactly how fixed matches are. What is the official reason for its secrecy? People might actually adjust play to rank up? People might actually know how to rank up? I mean heaven forbid players have that information available. What would happen to the world? It would be chaos. And why not pair matches by SR? Is it because skill varies vastly between players of equal SR? No way! Everyone is exactly the SR they are supposed to be right?
SR decays for inactive players. So if people were matched by SR, then inactive GMs would have to stomp diamonds when they return, which would cause poor match quality. As it is, decayed GMs are matched by MMR, which does not decay, so they play against other GMs when they return.
Then mmr should only be applied for people in much higher tiers where decay is applicable?
Why is mmr needed for dudes in bronze-plat? Returning plat players are still gonna be plat.
The source of the issue is the corruption of the ladder due to boosters. You need decay so that low tier players can’t buy a boost to GM and sit on it. So they just decay to diamond and sit on that instead? Just seems fishy and corrupt to me.
I think a solo que competitive mode with NO mmr is needed. It would solve boosters. Except for boosters who actually pay the guy to play their account, in which case that stuff can be monitored and punished with a big fat permanent ban on the account.
So the presence of SR decay makes MMR necessary not that skill varies drastically among players with the same SR? Or the only reason for that variance is decay?
My preferred solution is that SR should be abolished, MMR made visible, and inactivity handled with tier decay (top 500 -> GM -> M -> D), not rank decay. But yes, the system could be improved.
Decay isn’t really about boosters. It is about not allowing essentially honest, but lazy people to have high ranks and barely play the game. That is considered unfair by most.
No rating or decay system can fix boosters and throwers. All rating systems assume that players are essentially honest. The only way to deal with boosters and throwers is with the ban hammer.
This idea that there is a wide range of MMRs at a given SR is a myth. The only time that they diverge significantly is decay, and that only happens in diamond+.
So MMR and SR are interchangeable and MMR is necessary for competitive balance why? Back to decay? And round and round we go. If there is no significant difference in a players MMR and SR than SR could simply be used for pairing matches. The presence of MMR to provide balanced matches negates the idea that SR is an accurate indicator of skill. The two positions are mutually exclusive.
I think it is fine the way it is. I think maybe MMR should use a smaller data pool to allow for greater variance in balance and SR mobility but that is a hunch since I don’t have access to the formula. My real point is that either SR is not an accurate measurement of player skill and MMR is necessary for balance or SR is accurate and MMR is an unnecessary handicap. The idea that both SR is accurate and MMR is necessary for a balanced match just doesn’t hold water.
Yeah. It doesn’t hold water. It’s also not how the game works. There is no “handicapping”. Matching is made by MMR alone. SR is a visible and friendlier approximation of MMR. It has no more meaning with respect to matchmaking than tier icons.
If you want mmr reset, then CFFA should be a dream come true!
But people still complained. The ranks are supposedly widely varied. Thats what would happen if you removed MMR.
All those blue post are absolutely horrible concepts for a competitive game and neither are transparent on how its designed and the way its worked. They are so vague on the actual MMR system itself, and the fact they put a force carry factor is abysmal. There so many people out there who made guides in how to trick the system. By 3 to 6 stacking, end of season throwing, and one trick climbing. Etc etc. I rather we have everything visible at this point on how its worked and how you can move up on the system without cheating it. Clean reset or rework be nice at this point of the game. Such a silly thing to have no reset and keep placement season after season if it doesn do anything anymore.
The “myth” is fact. Best example I can think of is the Unit Lost coaching episode where a silver Genji bought a new account and placed plat on it. He wondered why he kept on losing games. Stylosa basically told him, within 15 seconds of the video starting, “Sorry mate, you’re a silver skill player.”
So that’s a player placed in plat whose SR is at least 500 above their MMR (Or the MMR he deserves to have).
As to my own experiences today. Played in a 3 stack with a plat that had lost down to low gold. He was very good. But we got the most utterly garbage team mates. Thrower Widow; thrower dps Ana and 2 utterly awful tanks that just fed all game and should be in bronze. My plat team mate was wondering if he was supposed to be carrying these players (Hint, he didn’t).
And this is why there’s so much toxicity in the game. You truly have no idea if the player at your SR deserves to be there, or is going to play like a bronze and just 1v6 and repeatedly feed all game. The fact that these players are placed higher than bronze is a disgrace to the placement system. The fact that they manage to stay in higher tiers is testament to the skill of whichever more skilled players have to carry them.
Make up your mind. Are the posts to vague to be understood, or did they put in a “force carry factor”?
If the system is broken, as you believe, then a reset won’t fix anything. It will just have a period of upheaval before everyone is placed wrongly again.
