That’s funny, he mentions nothing of thumbs on scale and matchmaking creating strange outcomes here. In fact, he says he’d prefer it to be more random and “lottery-esque”.
I don’t know about the intervening 4 years, but at the time I gave Cuth far more respect than anyone and more than I think he gave me.
You’ll have to go way back in the thread to see it, though.
Hmmm, the entirety of the post you reference here IS one long complaint about “thumbs on the scale.” I’m not sure if we’re using that term differently, but here’s a workable definition:
“A method of deception or manipulation that creates an unfair advantage for the swindler, likened to a merchant holding a thumb on the scale when weighing goods for sale, therefore increasing the weight and price.”
I have not seen Cuthbert be rude or disrespectful to anyone who wasn’t rude or disrespectful first. And to be sure the guy faces all manner of bad faith, ad hominem attacks. Can’t speak to his lack of respect for you, but that’s a bit surprising based on how I’ve seen him interact with others.
I’m going to say with maybe the exception of Taleswapper and Basil, most of what I see is people completely misunderstanding, misrepresenting, or flat out pivoting away from criticisms of the matchmaker (most commonly to something like “you’re voicing these concerns because you’re bad at the game and you’re looking for something or someone to blame”). It becomes exhausting to explain over and over that people are going off on a tangent when they bring up the lack of skill needed to climb in a discussion about matchmaking methodology.
You’re misinterpreting my words regarding respect. I never said he was disrespectful to me, just that I was more respectful to him (at least until recently). And I meant intellectually respectful, neither of us were calling each other names. Even when I call him a cult leader, that’s a compliment with a warning, but certainly not an insult.
Also, Cuth says nowhere that anyone is facing an unfair advantage. In fact, he repeatedly states that "MMR picks up on every discernible difference between players " to give each team a equal chance of winning, i.e. 50% odds.
He doesn’t like this. As far as I can tell, he thinks this prevents players from “breaking out” and getting SR that they really deserved, even in a loss. Which, I mean, it DOES DO. But that’s why you play more than one game.
He appears to think that not having balanced, or “handicapped” matches (which are equivalent terms, if you read his post) is actually better, that more fingers should be put on scales.
Now, I don’t know why he thinks this way, but it seems pretty clear.
It’s also pretty clear that most people that think they agree with him really don’t. He wants it harsher, not better feeling. But he’s not afraid to rally people who really should get better and don’t actually have legitimate complaints to his cause.
Those that do (or did) have legitimate complaints were drowned out by this “forced 50%” nonsense.
You’re on my side, Kaawumba’s side, taleswappers side, etc. if you want legitimate changes to be made to the MM. But we’ve had to fight the illegitimate ones off too much.
I guess in this context, I’m not accustomed to interpreting respect in terms of quantity. So that when one gives another “far more respect” than they’ve gotten, it usually describes some form of disrespect. Thanks for clarifying.
Don’t agree with this. The main argument underpinning algorithmic handicapping in general highlights both unfair advantages and disadvantages, such that better players are intentionally saddled with burdensome teammates while worse players get wins they don’t deserve, and all for the sake of a “curated experience” that would play out differently if not for all the heavy handed behind-the-scenes manipulations. Outside of gaming, where the manipulation of matchmaking to this disagree is otherwise impossible or considered anti-competitive, you don’t see “competition” playing out this way. So yes, I don’t know that he said explicitly that there’s unfair dis/advantages in the exact text your referencing, but it’s clear that that’s the thrust of the general arguments against the existing matchmaking. The 50% odds ARE the problem.
There are a ton of issues with having games curated this way, not the least of which, is Blizzard positioning themselves in the center of it all determining who should probably win and who should probably lose. You can say it optimizes for player retention, churn management, engagement metrics, etc, but not competitive integrity. There is no fairer system than a lottery system within a range of SR. Taleswapper did convince me that total randomness is not the play (and is rather chaotic), and so I suppose I take more of a hybrid approach wherein “curated” matches are used to establish initial player ranges or tolerances, but then the 50% constriction is seriously relaxed or removed from there on out.
The reason why Cuthbert cannot be objectively wrong on this, despite all the chants of “dude, just stop, you’re wrong” is because it’s akin to people saying your favorite color is wrong. If Cuthbert prefers a system with no predetermined odds, how can anyone say he’s wrong? Players who want a 50% system – by definition – don’t want the kind of system Cuthbert and others are advocating for. He’s not wrong, and they aren’t wrong, they’re just two different approaches with different goals. Some people like having 50% odds and care less about competitive integrity, and some people don’t want 50% odds and want maximum competitive integrity. These back and forth arguments are almost comical in their insistence that PREFERENCES can be wrong.
You’re question begging here, and asserting what you’re trying to prove. There’s also some misstatements of various positions. And clearly if some view a “50% system” as an unwanted and inferior feature, it makes no sense to call such complaints illegitimate: that confuses your opinion (“I like this system more”) with an objective fact (“this system is factually better for all people no matter their competitive preferences”).
Given your earlier emphasis on respect, it seems hypocritical that you would label the ideas and concerns of those who disagree with you as nonsense.
To arrive at this conclusion, you’re either misusing “legitimate” and “illegitimate” or you’re misusing logic.
Unadulterated, unhidden, non-invasive ladder mobility is THE prerequisite to fairness and competitive integrity. The moment you tailor anything - you take away from the competition, increase the grind, and fake the esport.
It’s not about tight/loose parameters - it’s about being data-free (non-invasive) and parameter-free just like it is in non SBMM ladder systems. You win or lose against random samples of your rank or you don’t.
as soon as you “accelerate” where someone should be you run into several risks. Most “accelerate” means rigging or offering bonus rewards. You can tell people it’s placements and rig during that phase as part of testing scheme, but anything beyond that is bad for ladder integrity. If you start offering too many bonus rewards, then you are ruining the metric onto which you are mapping. It becomes deconstructive. SRD (random around small SR range) is still the best system overall, because it preserves what it’s trying to achieve without compromise and while being robust to noise/corruption.
known math laws for this.
Look, I don’t really care if you agree with Cuthbert or not, but I basically copy/pasted that from his post so if you disagree with him, just admit it.
Las Vegas says he wrong, because odds can be predetermined for everything. Besides, do you not realize that 50% chance to win is exactly the same as saying fair chances, even chances, no predeterminable outcome, etc? Sure, it’s a wonky way of saying it that has led to a ton of confusion and consternation, but to say otherwise is to say that you want the matchmaker to create games where one side is favored on purpose, that a “finger should be on the scale”. I mean, sure, if you believe that, fine, but I’m hearing people say one thing and advocate for another here. You may not be wrong, but you’re inconsistent.
If people who claimed this actually admitted that there would be people with 1% win rates and people with 99% win rates, I’d be more inclined to listen. I’d be especially inclined to listen if they seemed to realize that those with less than 70% win rates would probably just quit. Of course, since not everyone can get a 70% win rate, this can’t go on forever. And if someone actually had the balls and foresight to claim that they want a vidya game to be so broadly competitive that everyone hated to play it and it will die, well, I’d give mad respect to that person.
The reason we handicap the games is to give everyone a good experience. You don’t see kids playing tennis matches against pros. That’s not fun for anyone, though it would, technically, be competitive. And it happens everywhere, just looks different, but handicapping in this sense is no different than having pro leagues and little leagues.
It’s not the 50% I take issue with. It’s the “forced”.
As you can see in the link, it really depends on what they mean. It’s hard to hear “forced” and take someone seriously. No one is forcing a 50% win rate, well, except the person refusing to get better. Some people don’t have ideas I respect. I’ll call someone out when I see it, though usually I don’t waste my time.
Look, I don’t know if things changed in the last 4 years, but you’re clearly misunderstanding the 50% thing. A “curated” experience for player retention likely wouldn’t create a non-predeterminable outcome. If they wanted to increase player retention, they’d change that 50% higher and lower as they needed.
I don’t know what’s so hard to understand for people that they think finding 11 other players of seemingly equal skill as you is somehow nefarious or bad? Whether it’s based on SR or MMR, it’s theoretically the same outcome, you realize this, right?
I NEVER SAID “forced 50% winrate.” I do not say it anywhere in the original post. Do not pretend to quote me.
You’re using quotation marks wrong; the kind of thing you are supposed to learn by 5th grade.
I know, again…it’s just so cringe going around in circles unable to educate the masses.
Forced 50% winrate misconception → is_gamer=true
so many get this wrong and then think their climb is evidence against it.
First off it’s not how the 50-50 lobby rigging works, and secondly their climb wouldn’t be evidence of much (surivorship bias) anyway.
is_gamer=true should stick to balance opinions and let the bigbois worry about in-game systems.
You didn’t say it in this thread.
I’ve never said it in any thread. If you think I did you’re wrong. Or maybe you’re lying.
Yawn. It was literally in the list of recommended threads at the bottom of the page 
Any source for this? Seems like you’re just out to get the OP for any reason and can’t even back your claims. That’s a prejudice so let’s go ahead and quote/screenshot your baseless hate against the person and not the argument.
I have seen OP (you) try and correct people. I have done this as well. Whenever someone says “forced 50% winrate doesn’t exist” I have to jump in and try to raise their knowledge but it’s often a lost cause.
Forced 50% in match outcome expectation is not the same as forced 50% winrate.
is_gamer=true
Where exactly did he say “FORCED 50% WINRATE.”?
Exactly. The context of that post was clearly about forcing 50-50 match odds, which is what the mmr rigging does.
50% winrate is a byproduct of several other factors. There are EOMM (engagement-optimized) patents that try to play with your actual winrate % for some quick gratification and then force you off with loss/churn, but it’s hard to show they apply to overwatch beyond the blatant screenshots.
…nowhere in this post do I say “winrate.” The post by another user named malachi after mine says “winrate.” Are you referring to Malachi’s post?
Now I’m even more confused. Are you referring to the list of “Suggested Topics?” Those are controlled by the website, they are not part of my post.
The post of mine that you linked does not say “winrate.” The original post of the thread does not say “winrate.” I have never said “winrate.”
Forced 50% match odds is a thing caused by MMR, that is what I refer to as “algorithmic handicapping.” Forced 50% “winrate” is not a thing, that is a miscnception about how handicapping works.
Seriously, can you please explain to me the use of “force” and “rigging” on a system that creates fair matches of undeterminable odds? Or do you not think the “50% odds” is the same as “fair” and “undeterminable”?
Because of stochastics.
You’re forcing the odds, outcomes, expectations, variation, margins - all those higher order uncertain things you’re trying to force them and rig/tamper the lobby selection around all the data+classification you have (mmr) instead of the basic scoring metric (sr) of fairplay sport.
Instead of saying “this is you and some peers, ranked and awared by SR, selected randomly. play to win gl hf.” They’re maximally rigging the outcome.
A lobby tailored for 50-50 chance is one that flattens everyone’s expression, agency, affectance. A natural lobby formation sometimes has 80-20 odds and no performance data is collected because the claim of any legitimate ladder is that SR measures, ranks and pays out by skill without any discriminatory or handicapped progression.
But wouldn’t peers, ranked and awared by SR, selected randomly, also be 50% odds? Assuming that SR was meaningful and accurate, of course?
I just don’t get the difference? Like, if you can create the 50% odds matches, dont’ you already have everyone ranked correctly?
If matches are random around a small SR range then you will percolate to your (proper, deserved, final) rank and achieve a longrun 50% winrate performance once there. This assumes you don’t improve and your skill is relatively stable within that rank. By percolate I mean a random walk against the backdrop of noise (smurfs and rank mismatch effects) biased by your signal (delta over current rank to final deserved rank). The sharper that snr (gradient) the faster you’ll get to your rank (where you would see longrun smooth 50% wr but of course be subjected to local streaks and stomps).
There is zero reason to have an MMR system except for false/fake competition - inclusion for skill-based minorities. The promise of fake pixels you didn’t actually earn really sells and word-of-mouth drives even more sales. But in the end it’s still a rigged sham and this company will pay for it.