Interesting theory.
Should try explaining that to all the people who aren’t hardstuck.
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The casino thing doesn’t make sense either. In casinos, people play against the casino itself. In PvP video games, people play against other people, hence PvP. It’s not possible to make everyone happy, hell it’s not possible to make the majority of the people happy, when you have a system that straight up ranks people. That’s why it’s called “Competitive”. You’re competing, and by definition, competitive is harsh.
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It’s insinuated, but not stated, and doesn’t really change much in practical situations. They could equally easily make a match in a given(and gradually expanding) SR range, and balance according to MMR if it’s global. The difference is only that you’re looking at smaller numbers(which doesn’t really matter to a computer).
I’ve read the entire thing and made these comments to Kaawumba himself, and basically all he had to say was that it can’t be proven so it’s bull. Most of the people championing the game’s fairness are unwilling to confront a rational explanation for how matchmaking could produce the results it does whilst being unfair, and most of the people complaining it is unfair are not fit to make such an argument, resulting in a whole lot of one sided topics.
I am not saying this is how the matchmaking is, simply that it is an explanation that is not disproven anywhere that I’ve personally seen and makes sense from a programming and player retainment standpoint.
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That doesn’t jive at all to what multiple devs said about MMR being the sole factor in matchmaking, explicitly stating that SR isn’t used at all. I know there are users (Cuthbert in particular) that like to push the narrative that everyone has an SR and that MMR is used to differentiate between “bad” and “good” players at the same SR, but that’s just not the case.
I think people are completely misunderstanding what the results of a ranked gamemode are supposed to be.
We need to remember this issue in Competitive play (which applies to ALL games with a ranked ladder): it’s not feasible for everyone to rank up, the point of ranked is to compare players with other players. I know that people like to throw around the idea that Blizzard is making people chase SR, but the reality of ranked gamemodes is the name itself: it’s ranked. People take ranks from others. By definition, a ranked Competitive gamemode is cruel.
The only way to make everyone “happy” in a ranked mode is to inject bots into games so that it creates the illusion that everyone can rank up to the highest ranks. Then it’s no longer actually a ranked gamemode.
Now, there are a lot of people that disregard Kaawumba’s topics and at the same time, completely agreeing with Cuthbert’s topics (which are nothing more than a willful twisting of one dev’s words to create a false narrative). Please don’t tell me you’re one of them.
At the same time, your only evidence for this is a thin quote that said matchmaking is done with only MMR. But, that doesn’t mean the range of players being matched cannot be selected from SR. This is a question that’s been floating around for literally years, and despite the general tone of people suggesting it, there are valid reasons for such a system to exist.
It would not be very hard for Blizzard to outright deny it, but instead they stick to cryptic comments such as ‘sr closely follows mmr’ and ‘your mmr is almost always close to your sr’. They drop little tidbits, and give sound bytes, but after 20 seasons they still will not tell us in clear and undeniable terms that there is absolutely no handicapping going on.
There is no doubt that you are able to climb if you are better than your rank. Accounts are not hardstuck due to their MMR. But, the amount of games it takes and the skill discrepancies between any given rank are absolutely ridiculous(moreso near the middle where new accounts start). I am more than happy to believe that some degree of handicapping is used to lower the pace of mobility and increase fairness of matches. It has numerous benefits as far as player addiction and retention, and it’s well within current technology to implement. They even have patents describing this type of system.
The unfortunate fact is, revealing MMR would not help. Collecting data in the capacity a real player can do would not help. The amount of white noise makes it utterly impossible to prove or disprove this theory through experimentation, and humans are horrible at observing patterns without bias. All we have to go on is our own experiences and a few very flimsy quotes from Blizzard. Until they go on record, clearly and succinctly, to state that nothing of this nature is occuring… these questions will persist and nothing Kaawumba has to say will be of much help to an educated skeptic.
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This. We need actual developer comments and more info about mmr. They may as well publish the algs or reveal the mmr number for players. Humans detest hidden evaluation metrics - in the sense of actively ruining test scores, going more toxic, and outright forfeiting if they know they are being observed without fair transparency. It goes against gamification and self-improvement.
I’m somewhat of an expert in classification systems and ELO/trueskill is a bit of a joke to anyone in that field. TBH any naive Bayes approach is especially dogtrash because VC shattering (anyone who knows AI/ML will understand).
Honestly, change starts with firing/hiring the right people. I.e. proper ladder engineers.
It’s a handicapping system that makes matches more difficult for certain players on purpose based on how they perform. If it sees a player who’s MMR belongs higher. It will pair them against another player who belongs higher.
Basically shoving you against a Smurf. Now a tank Smurf will obviously be the easiest to notice. A tank that is better than the tanks around him. Will just make it look easy.
A dps will do much of the same except if his tanks are weaker than said tank Smurf on a significant fashion he will be useless. Since tanks get 80 percent or more of a teams healing resources. The Smurf tank will have the easier time winning.
Now you have a support Smurf vs a dps Smurf or a tank Smurf. A really good zen or Lucio Smurf that shut down enemy ultimates will carry games the hardest. They will make away the enemies win condition and put the match in their favor.
Generally you can recognize a Smurf or a player who is attempting to be boosted by the matchmaker.
When you find yourself focusing on SR a bit much…
This might re-frame your mind:
Freeing yourself from SR slavery
Cheers!
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That’s where you are wrong. Bliz is absolutely playing against us. They want our wallets open and our brains shut.
Nah dude. Not how the game works. Take a break after losing 2 or 3 games in a row and STOP blaming everything but yourself when your lose.
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More people complain that support this, the only difference is that their are a few people who are pro-MMR that just attack every thread and keep at it til people just give up realizing it’s like talking to a brick wall. Numbers are proving it. Overwatch is dying.
I reference Kaawumba strictly because there are a lot of people who outright deny Kaawumba while outright agreeing with Cuthbert.
Technically, no one is correct unless Blizzard were to outright post the source code of the matchmaker, but not a single company has done that.
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Literally had a match with two sets of smurfs on both sides. They left before it was over, but for the entire match it was just chaos. No one enjoyed it, everyone got salty and toxic. It was a lesson for me that Blizzard isn’t going to make this game better. They are going to keep allowing crap like this so they can keep getting people to buy alternate accounts. I am leaving again and I hope I have the good judgement not to come back, because this game is just becoming a literal piece of trash.
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If you deserve to be on rank X you will reach it /stay on it afterall. You probably got a lucky wins and game decided to try you out and you were not able to carry.
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sorry but this bad bad “gatekeeper from blizzard” is doing its job. you prolly are in ur rank u deserve and had some lucky games to push up to 2.9k and then u suddenly got real diamond lobbies and u lost . its not gatekeeping if its doing its job correct. go play like 300games a season and then come back and stop crying about SR. If you play to gain SR youre simply doing something really really wrong and u need time to understand that
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This is the problem. A season is 2 months long. If you play DPS or support, you’re averaging at least 5 minute queues. 1 in 5 games gets cancelled on start in the lower ranks. Average game is around 20 mins.
360 * 5/60 = 30 hours queueing
300 * 20/60 = 100 hours playing
130 hours in 2 months is over 2 hours a day, every day, of competitive play and queueing to get to where you belong. Let’s not forget that you should probably warm up before each session if you’re taking your SR seriously, that’s another 15 minutes per day. Oh, and if you play multiple roles, do you need to play 300 games in each role? Suddenly you’re at 6 hours a day, that’s a full time job. Note that this isn’t to become a pro, reach GM, or whatever… simply to give the matchmaker enough time to place you where you belong.
Nobody intelligent is doubting that 300 games a season will get you to your real SR, but it’s entirely possible that it could be done in 50 games a season if not for handicapping.
sry that is the most stupid thing ive ever seen on the forum. if ur looking for excuses atleast make good ones. if u wanna grind u have to put in the hours to get there if not yeah have fun writing those excuse essays .
jesus back in the days we played 1k hours a season just to improve on our skills. also u dont need 15mins of warmup. que comp and go into custome aim lobby while ur waiting instead of wasting time b4 u que
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I’m glad to hear that you have no job, no family, and nothing in your life besides overwatch. People who cannot play 1000 hours a season still deserve to have fair and balanced games.
I’m almost 30, I don’t need to be plat or diamond or masters or whatever arbitrary bar you decide is ‘good enough’. I just want fair games in the range I belong in, and that isn’t what I’ve been seeing. One game will have brand new players on my side, the next will have brand new players on the opponent’s side. One will have smurfs on my side, the next will have smurfs on the other side. Easily half of my games have a player that belongs over 1000 SR away in one direction or the other, not to mention the occasions where players who are actually near 1000 SR away get shoehorned in. It’s an absolute mess, whether or not gatekeeping exists.
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I did what I enjoyed the most and that was playing OW and improving myself instead of being on the forums and blaming everyone but themselves :DD u can still play 1k games and have a job and family .
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I’ve spent an hour or two total on the forums, and I am not blaming anyone for my SR. I’m criticizing a system that does not appear to be fair, and outlining why it doesn’t appear to be fair and how it could make sense in the context of software design(which is my profession). I don’t care about my SR, I care about getting quality games.
This is obviously not spoken by someone who has a job and family. 1000 games in 2 months is 16-17 games a day, upwards of 5 hours. If you have to commute, work 8 hours, commute home, have dinner, spend time with your family, and get a good night’s sleep… you don’t have that much time left in the day. Never mind if you have any other hobbies.
It is not reasonable to expect anyone to play that many hours simply to be ranked appropriately.
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