Did ANYONE archive Overwatch's BATTLENET Forum?

Battlenet was the original user forum of Overwatch, running from the game’s launch in 2015 to sometime in the late 2010’s. I allege that on the Battlenet forum in 2016 Scott Mercer, Lead Designer of Overwtch, made the following statement about the SR/MMR system:

"When the matchmaker creates a match, it determines the % chance for each team to win based on the match it made. The VAST majority of matches are usually near to 50% (especially if you’re a player closer to median skill rating and you’re not in a group). When we do put you in a match that we know isn’t a 50/50, we adjust your SR gain or loss based on your calculated change of winning.

"We model the synergistic effects of players being together in a group. Based upon the data we see in groups, we predict the win % for each team. We try to match similar sized groups together.

"The amount of MMR (and SR) you go up or down isn’t simply a matter of whether you won or lost, and what was your predicted chance of winning. There’s a couple of other things at work. One is the matchmaker’s confidence in what your MMR should be. Play a lot of games, it gets more certain. Don’t play Overwatch for a while, it gets less certain. You go on a large win or loss streak, it gets less certain. The more certain the matchmaker is about your MMR, the less your MMR will change in either direction based on a win or loss.

"We also do evaluate how well you played the heroes you used in a match. The comparison is based on historical data of people playing a specific hero (not medals, not pure damage done), and we’ve done a lot of work to this system based on the community’s feedback.

“While it’s a minor factor compared to wins/losses (The best way to increase your SR is still to play together and win as a team!), doing so does help us determine your skill more accurately and faster.”

For 5 years, I have campaigned against algorithmic handicapping in ranked online competition on the basis of these words from Mercer and what they imply. I am asking for the Overwatch community’s help in verifying the fact of Mercer’s statement. My critics have attacked me for being unable to link to Mercer’s statement or substantiate it in any way, and they’re right. Players deserve to know the truth, so please help me prove it.

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I would be curious to know this as well.

Do you mean the old forums? They were nuked but WyomingMyst compiled a post with everything the devs said on there

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Don’t have to say it. Patents tell a better story anyway.

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Neither of you understand what patents are for. Oh man, the riot you guys would start if you saw valves and riots patents :woozy_face:

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ive been saying this for a long time, just because something is patented, does not being it is being implemented.

at the same time, ive never left the atmosphere, so the earth must be flat i guess?

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Yes the old Battlenet forums. This post from WyomingMyst only contains links to the new forums (this one, the Blizzard forum). It also contains external links to YouTube videos and Reddit articles. This is all valuable documentation but it’s not what I’m after. The archive will not be in the form of live links, because their host server has been taken down (“nuked,” as you say). I’m looking for an archive of the entire Battlenet website.

Does anyone have an archive of the old forum, the Battlenet forum?

Surely someone stored it before it was ‘nuked.’

If I have schizophrenia, that doesn’t mean everything I say is wrong or that I am a liar necessarily. Don’t let your small-minded prejudice get the best of you. It is unfair and unkind to stigmatize mental illness and the people who have it. I won’t even say if I am a mentally ill person, I’m an ally so we stand together.

That said, Scott Mercer, Lead Designer of Overwatch, made every comment that I allege in my post about algorithmic handicapping and SR/MMR/PBSR. He said these things in a 2016 forum post on the Battlenet forums.

I challenge him to deny it.

I call on my fellow player to help me prove it.

Edit: I have expanded on the original post, to be more explicit.

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I wish I could find that post where one of the devs mentions that roadhog being able to hook someone and then turn them 180 degrees is a bug. I’d really wish they would fix that.

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No, that’s why WyomingMyst made his own post compiling the responses. The info you get from his post is the same as you’d get if you visited the site before it was nuked…

The links are broken but the info they refer to is correct. You just have to scroll through his post rather than click through a website

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waybackmachine maybe other than that yeah i was trying to get ahold of old posts as well back then that were made.

I saw him make this post, it’s real, you don’t need the original just quote it

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People who are in denial will always make up stuff to support their faulty reasoning. Flat Earther’s say that the Earth is flat because there are no full pictures of the Earth that aren’t digitized, it’s the same thing. These guys will say it doesn’t work like the above because you don’t have a link to a quote that he definitely did say.

Besides that, they’re wrong, it’s all over the internet so just keep quoting and let them keep denying it.

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Thank you for keeping track of some of the posts. Much of the incriminating stuff has conveniently disappeared.

Statements will undoubtedly constitute evidence in the upcoming legal proceedings.

Knowingly rigging the game, punishing players with a deceiptful/scam contest, fake/rigged competition, misrepresentation, negligence of live-ladder service despite the claim of OWL and path2pro esports, discriminating some players over others (whitelist/blacklist), unethical and unlawful use of discretion, etc.

The list goes on. The discovery phase is going to be quite juicy and finding out what the algs actually did/do will be industry-disrupting.

Even get them on gaslighting and psychological damages if any of the devs ever posted on these forums in an unofficial capacity. Imagine using a burner accnt while working there to convince the community it’s not rigged.

And yes it’s fair to say scott mercer needs to apologize and resign.

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Yes it’s important for us not to be gaslit, and remember what we have seen with our own eyes. But I don’t think it’s right that my quotation of Scott Mercer is the only online record of his words. To this day, the description that Mercer provided in 2016 is the most authoritative and complete description of Match Making Rating that we have. Nowhere on the current Blizzard forum is MMR even mentioned by developers. If it were not for players’ own threads on the subject, we might not even know that MMR exists. It should not be so easy to expunge from the record.

I appreciate your take and agree 100%. However we are in a bad position when game holding companies have such total control of the conversation.

Are you talking about proceeding against Activsion/Blizzard or Microsoft?

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Orrrrrrr get this. Just get better. Ive gotten better and climbed. You can too.

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I don’t want to argue here. I seriously want to understand your point of view of this, because I see you taking this stance frequently on this issue in different threads.

Do you understand that he is not using the word “rigging,” as you paraphrase to sum up his position, but is actually using the term “algorithmic handicapping?” And if you understand the definition of “algorithmic handicapping” as he’s defining it, I honestly don’t understand how you can essentially say: “that’s not happening.”

Now, you can argue that it’s good for the game or a necessary evil or some such thing, but I’m vexed as to how you can say it doesn’t exist, according to his definition of what is, (pre-made toward some pre-determined odds rather than random selection within a range) which is OBJECTIVELY, FACTUALLY true and definitely happening.

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this lawsuit isnt going to happen. however, dont forget to send your monthly retainer payment to your poor lawyers!

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You’re completely missing the point, which is kind of amazing because it’s being made painfully obvious. What you’re talking about is not relevant to this topic. Maybe consider what’s actually being said rather than regurgitating non-sequiturs?

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I’m not missing the point, Im offering a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Algorithmic handicapping is not the reason why you guys are hardstuck.

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Where does OP mention being hard stuck anywhere in his original post? And you’re obviously wrong to assume that everyone who has an opinion on this topic is hard stuck.

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