Your post doesn’t address the point I was making.
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You might need to cite your source on this one if only because the limit is 5000.
I haven’t found anything that suggests any player has ever surpassed 5k.
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I honestly don’t have a source handy. It was a long time ago. The reason for the stack limits was this behavior, so this would have been before the current stack limits.
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I thought your point was that tools used to make matches at or near a predicted 50% win rate increased grindiness (That is, they would increase the time taken to rank up). Have I misunderstood you? If so, could you clarify?
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I’m aware…
The New York Excelsior (in like season 9 or 10 
) was notorious for this.
Stack limits came around the time I started playing in season 13 or 14.
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I quit playing for reasons unrelated to the game, but stayed away because of the shady practices of the company regarding sexual harassment and cowing to authoritarians.
Since I’ve been posting here in the last week, all I’ve done is try to convince people to stop arguing against your conspiracy theories. We all believe in some conspiratorial thinking, I really don’t care if a person refuses to understand the intricacies of a skill ranking system that’s not a bracket or W/L ratio.
In the last 4 years, I’ve seen this thinking in far, far more important realms than a near-dead video game. I used to have an interest in keeping people from getting tilted and giving up, so that MY games would go better, but I no longer have that interest. If taleswapper does, I’ll let him do it, but I advise against it. OW and GMAT aren’t on the same level of importance and he’s not dealing with the same caliber of people.
I am interested in Cuthbert. He’s an interesting character that has some idea that is far more complex than what many of his detractors OR ACOLYTES think. You may think you agree with him, but I doubt you do.
I really would like to know what he actually thinks, what the actual problem is. Even though the term “handicapping” leads to confusion because it sounds like “disability”, he’s not really using the word wrong nor is his apparent conception of how the system works wrong. He knows how it works, it seems, for the most part, but still thinks it’s bad and I’ve never understood why.
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It doesn’t at all. The context is pretty clear.
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To you, yes. But I do think a significant amount of people see his wording and think that Blizzard is “disabling” them in some way to “force” a 50% win rate.
Which isn’t what he’s saying at all, of course. He’s saying that players are sorted by skill into teams where both side have an equal chance to win…which is true.
But that’s not what people read when they read “handicapped”. Rarely, if ever, do I see people say “Weird way of putting it, Cuth, but ok. Now explain again why this is bad and what changes should be made?”
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It’s funny that a tool I developed that simulates matchmaking uses almost identical reasoning in its design. However, much as the post struggles to explain with words, some things are better represented with numbers and graphs.
I didn’t use any of this source information by the way. I simply developed the process the way that made the most sense (based on what is seen, and players’ explained experiences) and the resulting matchmaker model I made does an excellent job showing how matches can be both fair and (ultimately) unfair using their prescribed logic.
You can find my Matchmaker Tool here 🙂
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XtVVYyEx0__EwdrGJ0WGbZr_rUI3Up94Wacu-Fi2kRc
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Fair.
Uhh… My experience in interacting with him (which is much more than I care to admit) is the opposite. He doesn’t see “equal chance to win.”
But that’s just my conversations with him over the past 2 years.
Weird?
More like incorrect and intentionally arousing. For as much as I don’t care for the lies and nonsense he peddles, he’s great at leading the blind, lost and misguided. I feel like we’ve seen this a handful of times in history.
- #unfortunate
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Honestly, my main interest in this topic is precisely because OW is a lower stakes opportunity to practice the same sorts of critical thinking that are so very, very important in others spheres (and, in particular, because these conversations were so similar to conversations I have every day with my students). One of the things one does if one wants to promote critical thinking and useful habits of thought is to take the opportunities to practice these skills in low pressure and/or low stakes environments.
People generally conceive of intelligence as an innate trait- something that is intrinsic to one’s being, that one either possesses or does not. But I think it is far more useful (and accurate) to conceive of intelligence as a set of habits. If one practices poor habits of thought in one area, one will be more likely to practice those habits of thought in other areas. Conversely, if one practices useful habits of thought in one area, one will be more likely to practice those habits of thought in other areas. Overwatch, then, and the conversations surrounding how the matchmaker functions and how the players are ranked on the competitive ladder, is a useful opportunity to exercise one’s critical thinking skills in an environment that does not have major consequences for doing so poorly, but which, nevertheless, does impact the way the participants process other complex situations that are far more impactful.
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I was being deliberately over-cautious. Intentionally arousing is more than fair. He’s a natural at being a cult leader, so I’m not sure how intentional it is, but that’s really not a point worth arguing over.
Incorrect, well, in my conversations 4 years ago I determined that the part he’s getting wrong isn’t where most people think it is, i.e. “handicapping”. But he also agrees with anyone who agrees with him, so I can chalk up our different experiences to any number of things.
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Decision Making
Consistent (intentional) Positioning
Aim training.
The time that I had coached Silver/Gold/Platinum scrim teams, these were pretty much the 3 things I tried to drive home into them.
Some people learn faster than others (though I admit I’m FAR from the best at teaching/coaching).
Watching people make the same mistake game after game map after map (it differs a little but the principle is consistent).
I can appreciate that.
Also a fair statement
Tips hat 
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I would applaud and encourage you if it weren’t for the fact that Blizzard actually is a shady company. I’m fairly certain that the MM is just a licensed Microsoft TrueSkill and I definitely think that, of all the shadiness, this isn’t part of it, but you’re swimming upstream here.
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I like to say “Ice skating Uphill”
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Can agree with this statement in principle.
To suggest it is happening in OW specifically is laughable at best.
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Here’s the thing. I don’t actually think you’re shilling for a billion dollar company, but it’s something I say to shine a light on how unproductive and dishonest it is to strawman someone else’s argument that way: “Well clearly this person believes such and such because they’re an idiot” or “they’re just a hard stuck loser looking for excuses to cover up their own incompetence/laziness.” Obviously not a productive (or rational) approach to a disagreement. If anything, a person should assume the other person has good (or at least good faith) reasons for believing what they believe, even if their underlying reasons are ultimately wrong.
I don’t believe Cuthbert has “acolytes” any more than those on the other side do. He’s probably done the most of anyone to articulate his views on this “controversy,” so it makes to reference his arguments rather than re-formulating them from scratch constantly. Don’t know that it’s reached cult status just yet. 
As to why you don’t know why he thinks the system is wrong/bad/unfair, I’m not sure I get that given the volume of writing he’s done on this. In a nutshell, he thinks it’s bad because it’s Blizzard putting their thumbs on the scale, and creating outcomes that would not have occurred if not for the matchmaker. That it DOES create outcomes different from a lottery-esque grouping of players is not up for debate: that’s a fact. What IS up for debate, however, is whether the current system is better than the alternatives.
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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.
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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.
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