Can we try an experiment for a season?

Competitive Discussion
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I want to see the following done for a season just to see what the results would be. If it is bad, we can just go back.

  • Remove MMR from match making.
  • Create teams with random players close to the same SR.
  • SR gain or loss is a fixed number, for all ranks (not just Diamond and above).
  • Players cannot be more than 250 SR apart in a group.
  • Odd man groups of 3 and 5 can not queue. Must be solo, duo, 4, or 6. This is to help solos from being put in matches with stacks.
  • Try to put solo players in games without stacks. If not possible, prefer duos over 4 stacks.
  • Add a “prefer mic” option when queuing, and when selected it tries to match other people up with “prefer mic” enabled. When “prefer mic” is on, it forces everyone to be in team chat, even in a group. You can still mute individuals.
  • Add a new report option for toxic voice chat. If enough reports stack up, you lose the option to select “prefer mic” for a bit.

For those that do not know, MMR is a hidden rating system based on your personal performance. It can be vastly different from your SR because the SR is tied to wins/losses whereas MMR is not. If you are being carried, your MMR is low, but your SR still goes up when you win (although it awards less). You can get a winning streak of being carried, and get easy games as a result. If you are performing well and going a bit of carrying, your MMR is high, so it will eventually match you up against other players who have high MMR in your rank and expect you to win. If you don’t, you lose more SR as a result.

(MMR has a tendency of amplifying the smurf problem as well. If smurfs were 10% of the population, you’d have a 1/10 chance of running into one with Rng. But in reality, it becomes 1/3 if you perform well since the system tried to match people with similar MMR)

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when you only have 2 friends

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The Overwatch community seems to have a strong negative opinion about MMR. Just browsing the forums occasionally, I often see discussions about how MMR fixes matches or promotes smurfing.

MMR is not an issue for the average player, infact I’m willing to argue it’s beneficial. It insures that smurfs climb into their actual ranks faster, and that boosted players fall back to their actual ranks faster. MMR helps make sure that the people in a rank actually belong there and if someone gets there who doesn’t belong, they leave as fast as the game can detect. Of course, the system isn’t perfect, it can’t tell with 100% certanty that someone is smurfing or boosted, but it is good enough for the average player to not get caught in it’s shenanigans.

The rest of your points are just anti-player changes. The slight benefits of a 250 SR difference per group and removing 3/5 stacking is outweighed by the downsides of reduced player agency over who they play with. Also, splitting queue’s just for the sake of voice chat is ridiculous, especially under the presumption that people could queue for mic and just not talk.

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you guys have friends?

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MMR is not the issue for non competitive play. Its the reason that qp games work well together. I think its the average of players. I dont think a silver dps is equivalent as a player as a silver tank obviously as you get closer to the very top… And very bottom it works, but if the biggest part of the bell curve is silver to plat… I dont necessarily think the skills of each class overlap.

I kind of think this idea might right the ship though.

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No matter what, people will complain about the matchmaker, however, the system you proposed would be light years better than what we have now. Specifically around bullet two : Create teams with random players close to the same SR

This will avoid Cuthberts handicapping garbage that has been ruining competitive for 4 years now. Handicapping is fine for quickplay, it is the source of almost all the toxicity in competitive. If you’ve ever looked at your teammates and wonder how the in the hell you are placed in the same match, it’s handicapping.

We can only hope that the new director of overwatch isn’t a clone of what we had before, hopefully he will come in and make huge changes that are desperately needed, starting with the matchmaker and following up with getting rid of the rampant trigger bots that plague higher tiers so we can see who the real players are.

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You forgot role average match making vs team average.

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RIP. Sorry, I know it sucks, but odd man teams are hard to balance and are a terrible experience for the solo queue player. 1/5 and 1/2/3 teams are the worst. If groups numbers are forced to be even, you ensure teams of 1/1/1/1/1/1, 2/2/2, 2/4, and occasionally, 1/1/2/2.

This is false. This is an argument of “it should do this on paper”. In practice, smurfs “soft throw” and “play slow” and miss shots intentionally to mimic a lower ranked player. It is incredibly easy for smurfs to intentionally dereank and keep their accounts low. Their smurf will have a lower MMR than their main account, but a higher MMR than a person within that rank. This is because MMR adjusts rapidly, whereas all they have to do to lose SR is throw the game. All it takes is not getting a few “easy” eliminations and the last team fight is lost.

Actual smurfs have proven this and demonstrated it.

Which again is an “on paper” argument. True, it works well enough for someone to be within 1 rank of their true rank. They can be 1 rank lower or boosted 1 rank higher. But that in itself is a wild fluctuation that shouldn’t happen, but it does because people are actively sabotaging the system. If smurfs did not exist MMR would work. They do, so they turn this “perfect on paper system” on its head.

It “works” “well enough”, but it creates game play that is not fun nor helpful. Instead of playing people who are actually within the rank and having games that are close, engaging, and fun, you get games that are wildly on either side of the spectrum - really good fun and engaging games, and games with no engagement, toxic, or feed over and over again on a hero that is getting hard countered.

“Well enough” can mean “within 1 rank of accuracy”. Which is shenanigans. From silver or gold, for example, you go from players with no awareness and barely any mechanics to players who can aim and somewhat communicate, but still feed. Gold to plat a marginal improvement on that. Imagine getting silver like players in a plat game. This happens because the MMR system is flawed and broken.

They are anti-casual. Competitive is not for casuals. Anyone who takes the mode seriously wants more balanced games. Anyone who doesn’t is a casual and should be playing other modes. And if those modes don’t meet their expectations, they either need to be more competitive, or the non-competitive modes need to be improved.

How is it ridiculous? It’s competitive. People are meant to communicate. It’s a team game. They don’t talk, so what? They have ears don’t they? Are they incapable of hearing calls and muting people who are using coms for anything but calls? It’s called “prefer mic” for a reason. If they don’t want to talk, they can not check the option. And it’s not a split queue - it’s “prefer”.

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What’s the push to remove three stacks? In what circumstance is the three stack bad where the four stack couldn’t also be? Especially since another three stack perfectly fits it to make sure there’s no solo players

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Duo’s are more common, whereas 3 are less common. So you end up with a 2 stack and 3 stack and a solo queue player. That 3 stack more often than not won’t join voice coms. Also, almost every 3 stack I’ve come across is mixed rank - I’ve seen a Plat, Gold, and silver in the same rank. It wildly imbalances the match.

I almost never see the game balance the game with 2x 3 stacks on a team because “both teams have to match” rule. So you actually need 4x 3 stacks within the same MMR. The game isn’t going to do 2x 3 stacks and 3x 2 stacks for example. It will usually do a 2 stack, 3 stack, and solo player on each side.

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Sure they aren’t as common, but we shouldn’t be taking away peoples ability to play with those that they enjoy playing with, even if it results in longer match times. Those longer match times are only going to affect the three stack, assuming those players want to play together. And with your 250 SR spread, different ranks wouldn’t matter. We could just make it so that three stacks end up in three stack only games, and then it would only affect those wanting to play like that.

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Or just use LFG to find a fourth? The solo queue player doesn’t want your 3 stack in their games. You shouldn’t force them to. And unfortunately as much as you say “3 stacks only” the match maker will still degrade the match if it takes too long and pull in that solo player. —- Better to find a willing participant in LFG than an unwilling one.

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I would not mind having this personally, but all of those things will not actually change the way you play in general.

It will not make you any better of a player. It will not grant you any better of a gamesense or mechanical skills.

With the way the System is now, with throwers, Smurfs, cheaters or not, you as an individual still play the same.

People call their teammates “potatoes”, but little do they know that those people YOU (not you specifically, but you in general) call potatoes also call you a potatoe for different reasons. People tend to be so arrogant when it comes to their teammates, like they are somehow better than them, yet they are all in the same rank.

I am not saying that one cannot be better than the other in the same rank and vice versa, but those people got to your rank the same way you did, apart from some actual boosted accounts.

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Of course I’ll play the same. Game reviews and coaching is how I improve my game play.

But with how MMR works and how it handicaps games, I get several games in a row after my MMR goes up from improvement that make me want to throw my mouse at the wall. Games are so blatantly out of balance that I don’t want to review them.

I’ve had losing games that were close that I didn’t feel bad about, and they were a good source to look at. Games where you have a smurfing or cheater stack that come up after a climb because of MMR only make we want to rage.

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I understand that, but that was not my point.

My point is that people who ask for MMR reset or whatever are those who think that they will get to the next rank just by resetting ranks. People who blame their teammates for their current rank or blame the System for them losing.

I’ve lost games that should have been won by default where most recently, like 2 hr ago or smth our Tracer killed 3 ppl with pulse bomb and we still could not cap somehow. I saw it on killcam, since I was respawning and I did not swith to Lucio (since I always do in tight situations or overtime) because I literally thought that we had it.

Our Tracer kills 3 people and I am the only one respawning while everyone else was on point and we did not get it.

My point was that just because someone resets MMR or whatever it will not make you a better player. Just because you win because someone else was worse than you does not make you a better player.

What distinguishes you and the others is how well you do against players who are actually better than you.

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I’m not asking for an MMR reset. I’m asking for MMR to go away entirely and to make matches based on SR. An MMR reset would literally land us exactly where we are now.

MMR system only works when it is close to SR. All an MMR system does it serves as a way of gate keeping. It artificially makes matches harder by giving you “harder opponents” that have less SR that are smurfing.

If matches were purely based on SR and random, the chances of hitting a smurf would be equal to the percentage of smurfs currently playing in you rank. Right now, that chance skyrockets the moment you start doing well.

It’s not about “I deserve a different rank” or whatever. It’s about the system intentionally creating a bad gaming experience. An experience that doesn’t make you want to learn, but to “keep grinding”.

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I understand your concept if you are talking about the pure quality of matches.

Many people do not understand the difference between pure quality of matches and everything else.

I personally do not care about MMR or what portrait one has when I enter a match. Whether it is a low lvl player or a millionth level player. I focus on whom we have on our team and what the enemy is running. I cannot remember the last time I personally clicked on someone’s profile in game. I do not care. It does not influence my own personal gameplay.

People are soooo quick to blame the Smurfs on the outcome of their match. It gives them a perfectly “reasonable” scapegoat for why they did not perform as well as they should.

I am not saying that everyone can or should be on their 100% every time they Q up for a game, but at least be objective enough to recognize your own shortcomings. You have it in matches even where are there no smurfs that you can blame for the loss of a game.

People are way too arrogant, thinking that their mere existence in this game is so big and so important that somehow they end up on the “System’s radar” and have their matches rigged on purpose because they happen to win the 2 previous games.

No one ever asks themselves why a certain game was won? Most games in low elos are won because the other team was worse than you not because you happen to think that you popped off. I am not saying that it is impossible to pop off or that you are the worst player in the world and you get carried every single game you play. That is most definitely not my point and I will apologize in advance if you happen to think so.

Low elo is a mess. Everyone plays their own game down there and everyone thinks that they are carrying hence “I have gold medals and you are just bad” kind of comments.

Most of the wins are due to the same things people complain about here. Throwers, toxic people, etc. but you just do not notice it when they are not on your team.

When you win no one cares whether or not you have made a mistake during your gameplay, because you won, but if you are losing everyone notices every bad thing that the other one is doing even if you personally did not do it and you will get called out for it.

Low ranks are the most hypocritical and egoistic rank there is. All is fine when we are “rolling” the other team, but once it happens to you, OMG fix the matchmaking and suddenly everyone on your team is a potato and you are the golden star on your team that just so happened to be placed with the potatoes because the System hates you.

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I’m up for trying anything that’s not what we have now. It’s terrible.

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I’m purely talking about the quality of matches. And MMR is “an attempt to have quality matches on paper” that fails to take into account bad actors to the point that random players within a given SR (without SR) would be, on average, higher quality.

Random SR matches won’t produce the best matches all the time, but it won’t produce intentionally handicapped matches either. More like a few good, and a few bad. More distributed.

Match maker is so bad, I had PUGS with people from Bronze to GM randomly allocated to each team without any thought to balancing produce more enjoyable games, even when it was hilariously unbalanced.

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It is strange noticing how when you talk about stuff like this and point out how the MMR or whatever does not make you aim any better or makes you any better of a player, the people responding to that post simply ignore that fact and go on with their point as how the System is still handicapping them and they are being placed in matches with “potatoes”.

I have not seen a single person who claims to be wronged by the System actually reflect on their own gameplay.

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