Maybe… The thing is, having to support both those who want a “sort of competitive experience” and those want a “hardcore competitive experience” in one gamemode inherently puts both in a tough spot lol.
It’s hard to pinpoint how much of the current ladder is a result of one choice vs another, but you’ve got to admit, it’s strange that there’s no step between “people casually grinding out games in the afternoon” and “overwatch league pros after their scrim blocks end”. It’s why masters+ NA east became a huge meme and NA west became the hot place to queue when all of the pros were in cali before homestands.
But I get what (I think) you mean. I’ve heard from buddies who played TF2 that this exact horror story happened with their game. Valve left the official competitive mode unsupported and all of the hardcore players left to third party matchmaking, rendering the official competitive modes trash… So now it’s basically play casual or go to a third party matchmaker. If you played this game back when “offseason” was a thing, it was pretty much described to me as permanent offseason.
I have to wonder if that’s the only outcome though. Can’t help but feel there’s room for more than just the selection of buckets we’ve got which are effectively arcade → quickplay → competitive → scrims…
if Blizz actively manages “official” matchmaking, I don’t see why we can’t find ourselves down a path where the buckets are more along the lines of casual modes → “sort of competitive” official ranked → “curated competitive” thirdparty ranked → pro (likely the last two would blend towards the top end)
when you say “a system” here i’m assuming you’re referring to ‘the professor’ and the tinfoil gang, not the allowance of faceit/esea/some other curated 3p alongside official comp?
I think part of this discussion being so problematic and frustrating is that, for those of us on the “forced 50% chance isn’t a problem” side, it’s because you DO get both game modes in one.
What I will admit that you’re not getting is the feeling of climbing up a ladder. Starting at 0 and working your way up to 50% win RATE and stopping has the dual problem of stepping on heads AND making your “progress” fairly easy.
Starting at 50% win chance (and win rate if accurate) allows you to progress (but it’s harder) but doesn’t allow you to step on heads (without throw/smurf cycle).
I don’t think a lot of problems with the matchmaker are rightly applied to the matchmaker. That’s a fairly common theme, if you pay attention. Not that PBSR should be there, at the correct cut off if it should be there, and big/small enough of an effect, but none of this is really going to make your teammates not occasionally suck. The MM can’t tell if someone is drunk, or tired, or tilted.
I think the biggest misconception is actually that you SHOULD increase your SR. Even Blizzard couldn’t figure out how they wanted to handle this and I think they did a very poor job of it. Starting with a false depression, telling people that increasing was standard, etc.
When in reality you’d quickly settle into an SR that fit you and you’re stuck there without a lot of work and effort.
It’s especially common for complaints about player intent being thrown at the matchmaker… It wouldn’t surprise me to see a thread with “I just had a pharah vs smurf widow. Then after that I had to play against a cheater, and the next game I had two leavers. Fix your matchmaker blizzard!”
Hoping maybe the clan/guild system that is rumored/maybe leaked for OW2 will help attract likeminded players into groups, in the same vain that LFG helped some people. Lowering the playercount for a team to 5 will also make it more accessible for people to form premade groups, since there’s less players to coordinate.
You’ll see this combined with the “forced 50%” concept “Blizzard forced a 50% by giving me a leaver”. And in my experience, the people in competitive land don’t do a great job of separating out those in conspiracy land.
I started a discord to create groups. It worked better for coaching and VOD reviews, I figured we’d need a MUCH larger group to get a team of 6, so 5 would be better and having it in game would also be better.
Oh, not to be that guy, but it’s “vein” btw. Like, “in the same copper vein”, is the source of that idiom. Don’t worry, I’d tell you if you had a booger up your nose too because I’m here to help.
No. You made this statement: “Also, Cuth says nowhere that anyone is facing an unfair advantage.” That’s what I was disagreeing with.
I’m not confident that you understand my position.
No. 50% odds are not competitive, and they’re not fair: they benefit players along different parts of the bell curve differently, and do so in a way that they would not if no such matchmaking existed. Do you really think a player in the 90th percentile and 10th percentile both have a 50% chance of winning a match?
I’m not so sure this is clear, otherwise why would people push back against the idea that the matchmaker artificially creates wins and losses?
I don’t think it’s odd, I think it’s what people have come to expect in most if not all competitive environments, except gaming, where players have gotten accustomed to having outcomes manipulated this way.
I could just as easily say if you want your own set of changes instituted (which you alluded to earlier), go start an OW club and set your own scoring and brackets. Such suggestions really serve no use in context of this conversation.
There would be sensible SR constraints within SR ranges. Not advocating for pros playing bronzes.
Because you’re not accounting for the fact that not all players entering each match will have a natural 50% chance of winning that match. This is fine for players near the fattest part of the bell curve, and awful for the best and worst players in that match – it insures that skill stratification is fuzzy.
Non-sequitur. What I do personally has nothing to do with the conversation or my arguments.
Yes, seriously. Fair and proper/good/etc are not the same. If I punch everyone, I’m being fair. But I shouldn’t be punching them at all.
We disagree on the idea of fun at the cost of competitive integrity and reducing grind. We also disagree on fun meaning that each match is intended for you to carry to win (this means having to go sweaty try hard all the time versus benefiting from your skill delta and winning because you’re more skilled rather than winning because you’re sweatily outplaying opposition handpicked to counter you each and every match).
By the time players have gotten to their natural skill zenith, enough information has already been gathered about them. Reducing the 1000SR spread in matchmaking would also go a long way to reduce fuzzy matchmaking.
As for the “due to the systems in place is technically feasible” comment, you’ll have to provide some evidence for that statement.
This is a bad example since it focuses on fairness and ignores other crucial aspects of competition in a non-SBMM system. If a person has worked hard enough to be in the 90th percentile of any population, in a lottery-esque system, they can expect that the odds of an opposing player being A) better than they are or B) about as good to be fairly low. In the system you’re advocating for, this player should have an opponent roughly as good as they are in every match. You’re claiming that there would be no difference in win-rate in either scenario?
You mean, like actual competitive integrity, actual competition? Yeah, that’s what I want. If I’m in the 90th percentile, I should hate a system that actively scales the opposition’s skill “for fun.” If you’re playing poker and you’re one of the better players at the table, do you want the house to say “Stop! Wait a second, hold on” and to then seat another guy at your table who’s as skilled as you are? No? So then why do you want it in your games?
No. You’re confused. Read what I said carefully.
False, if one player’s skill is trending up while the other’s trending down, they could be at the same SR, and there is not a 50% chance for each of them. There are other scenarios where this would be false as well. And AGAIN, why would a higher percentile player want their win odds reduced to 50% via matchmaking if they’d otherwise be statistically higher?
I’d challenge you to point to anything I’ve said that’s convoluted or fails to state what I want. I think you’re maybe forgetting points that have been or getting confused.
And no, I don’t “trust” Blizzard with a convoluted blackbox of a matchmaking system. Why would I? Do I have any reason to believe they wouldn’t incorporate engagement based matchmaking (EBMM) if it was workable? In fact, you yourself have already stated that some aspect of matchmaking (variable X) neglects competitive integrity for the sake of Blizzard’s self-interest. None of us have any idea how egregious variable X is, but it could very account for most of the bellyaching around here. A lottery system does away with all such doubts and systems and relies on chance and skill itself. You argue that people would hate not being carried/protected by Blizzard. I posit that that this would have the opposite effect, freeing people from believing that their win streaks are going to be followed by loss streaks, or as soon as they start doing better, their competition artificially improves. You argue that people consider this fun. Not from what I’ve seen. From my own experience, people absolutely despise these aspects of the climbing process.
I don’t care who agrees with me. I care about discussing the issue and debating ideas. And I do choose my words carefully. If you have some evidence that I don’t you’re welcome to share it; until then assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Calling them conspiracy theories is empty rhetoric and sophistry. And if you’re going to use that term you need to explain why you’d classify something as a conspiracy theory vs. an incorrectly held belief.
Here’s the definition of a conspiracy theory:
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable. The term has a negative connotation, implying that the appeal to a conspiracy is based on prejudice or insufficient evidence.
Doesn’t really apply here does it? And if it does, please demonstrate how; as well as how your point of view fails to also be a conspiracy theory by the same standards.
No I’m not, and I never said that. I don’t know what factors are involved or how big a role they play and neither do you.
Do you really think that a player in the 90th percentile and 10th percentile are being placed into a “forced 50%” match?
I am also confident that I don’t understand your position, given that you’re asking what seem like very silly questions.
I actually agree. But, it seems you realize a lot of what I’ve been saying, even though you’ve been arguing against it…I think? I don’t know. Too many threads and I don’t really think you’re following me and maybe I’m not following you.
That’s not meant as an example. I’m trying to get across a concept. One that you seem to be having A LOT, LOT, LOT of difficulty with.
Did you miss the part where I already defined them as being equally skilled?
Generally you would sit at the quarters or dollar table, but effectively yes, that’s what people want and in fact do. Bronzers aren’t going to go against pros. You said it yourself, but here you are, advocating the opposite.
I guess you’re probably making the point that it’s Blizzard, not the player, that is choosing the league, but the only way to prevent pros from playing bronzers is for an outside authority to make sure it doesn’t happen. I mean, they still do, but at least you can’t join the bronzers league to be the best player there. Bad actors gonna act bad.
Um…yes. It most certainly applies here. Blizzard being the sinister group, the fact that people just aren’t playing well being the other explanation that is more probable than the idea that the matchmaker is giving you bad players to even out your win rate. I mean, it’s kinda textbook.
I should clarify that I don’t necessarily think that YOU have this conspiracy theory, but most of the “forced 50%” threads are textbook conspiracy theories that fit your given definition.
Looks like you did, bud.
I’m done. Your gish gallop is exhausting and going nowhere.
It’s actually crazy what people do obsessively for years other than actually get to the root cause and work on getting better as a player. It’s just not healthy and well beyond really being about ‘fairness’.
I could tell you started getting frustrated and thought you might fold so I read the bottom of your reply first and skipped the rest. Anyhow, there’s no “gish gallop” here, just rebuttals to your arguments. Laters.
You seem to think that’s some kind of win, but you had no intention of understanding what I had to say or making an attempt at trying to teach me something.
Having someone give up on you isn’t a win. You don’t win a debate unless you convince other people.
I’m pretty confident that all but the most desperate for false comfort will look at that exchange will see exactly what happened there, even if you’re incapable of seeing it yourself.
Which I don’t think you are. You’ll think about it until you figure it out. I got my answer out of you.
I was respectful and explained several positions, both mine and others. I listened and I responded. My tone didn’t change – no insults, no aggression. Productive conversations are not about wining or losing, and they’re not even about convincing the other person (which is extraordinarily rare anyway). They’re opportunities to sharpen thinking and communication. In that sense I think it was fine regardless of outcome. No winners or losers here. No agreement necessary.
I hate to disappoint, but I doubt anyone cares either way. Like I said, it was an opportunity to think and communicate for the participants; at the end of the day, the topic itself is trivial.
I see two people discussing their positions, and at the end of day, falling back on their preferences. By a huge margin, there is no more common outcome.
About handicap… if you play good and everyone in match playing good — its okay. If you play extremly good, game give you bad teammate, enemy playing normally — its not okay
Almost true, yes PBSR which is intended to accelerate/deacceleratte SR gain below Diamond is neglected and so the correlating stats influencing that are meaningless, but still win rate (losing and winning a game), numbers of game played and their deltas at which these change are still considered as stats which affect your MMR all the way from Diamond to top tier still.
I can’t see anyone who isn’t hardstuck commenting this. And you are partially right. Anyone who has the “obviously wrong” opinion on matchmaking is hard stuck .
it’s like me trying to explain how the earth isn’t flat when there are sources on the internet that claim the earth is flat. rigged matchmaking this. algorithmic handicapping that (same thing btw LMAO). why dont you just put that energy into getting better? Ive never seen anyone get so delusional about matchmaking until the forums.
Maybe the devs should just make it clear and put “Removed algorithmic handicapping” in the patch notes without changing anything so that you guys can stop looking for 2016 forum archives of Kaplan and Mercer mentioning matchmaking.
And I can’t see anyone who believes it’s a non-issue inserting themselves into thread after thread to argue against something they believe is non-existent. And yet here you are. I guess we’re both wrong.
What is this opinion that you refer to which is obviously wrong?
No. It’s actually not like that at all.
Why are you repeatedly inserting yourself into other people’s delusions? Don’t YOU have better things to do?
I hope it didn’t take you long to come up with this one.
Part of the problem is that, despite the crazy language they use, the actual mechanisms are non-controversial.
When they say “rigged”, they mean that the matchmaker uses some criteria to put people in a match, that it’s not completely random.
When they say “algorithmic handicapping”, they mean that the matchmaker finds people of similar, but not exact skill, and places them in matches so that not all the players with the highest MMR are on only one team. That the MM does this so that you don’t have a game where the outcome could be predicted prior to the match, otherwise known as having a 50-50 chance, otherwise known as a 50% expected outcome, otherwise known as “balanced”. Just like you’d know if a little league team would lose to a pro team and the odds for the pro team winning would be >50%, they unironically claim that they want a non-50% expected outcome. They know what this means. They want a predictable match.
I don’t know why they don’t use more clear language, but it’s probably important that we try to show that changing this system would make the issues they care about worse, not better. Not that I know how to do that, since while I can see what they mean when they use these extravagant and emotionally charged words, I really have no idea what problem they have with a matchmaker that makes matches that don’t suck.
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