Did ANYONE archive Overwatch's BATTLENET Forum?

General Discussion
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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. What I need is nothing less than the entire Battlenet archive. If you have it, contact me!

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Are you talking about the overwatch forums before the 2018 or are you exactly talking about something else?

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Yes, exactly what I am talking about

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Wyoming has been trying to archive it, not sure if the project has been halted.
He has some of it archived, i’m going to search it rn.

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Check WyomingMyst’s archive post (should be pinned at top of General forum). He may have archived the quote you are looking for.

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Thank you, but the post from WyomingMyst you are referring to (Overwatch Dev Post Archives & Overwatch 2 Facts & Beta Info) 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 they say). I’m looking for an archive of the entire Battlenet website.

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Yes i understand that.

This isn’t really what i’m talking about, i remember Wyoming trying to convert the outdated website data from the wayback machine into something funtional.
This would of course not mean that the entire site would be archived, though he has made progress on some posts.

Still trying to find it, not sure where i can find it so easily though.

Found it:

https://mystgraphics.com/overwatchforumarchive/

Not sure if this is what you wanted, though i think this is the closest that comes to the older forums.
It’s not a lot since well…
I’m just going to quote him:

It doesn’t directly work, but I can look up the raw HTML of those posts if the thread exists on their database. I am right now working to copy all relevant posts into a website for easy access… but this is taking a VERY long time to complete.

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The old forum archive is now complete.

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Oh awesome, thank you for looking into this with me.

That is great news!

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Is it?

Well it’s been a while since i heard of it, didn’t want to assume it was done.
Damn, a job well done i must say!

(Though I couldn’t really find it anywhere in your official posts, had to use google to actually find it lol. Maybe not that accessible?)

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Yep, and the main forum directory has the links to my site for all old forum posts.

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Thank you for doing this, I respect your scholarship. Is it available for viewing or download?

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All posts new posts, old posts, reddit, and more are sorted here:

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Ah i see, it’s just included with the other posts, i thought you would’ve put at the start aswell.
You have “old forums” hyperlinked though it just goes back to these forums, assuming this guide was made when it still existed?
Not trying to look at your work in a bad way, might be good to link that to the archive though.

(Btw some people are getting phishing mails for the OW2 beta, maybe good to make an official post regarding for awareness)

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These are good descriptions for how well designed competitive ranking algorithms work. If you believe there is any evidence of something nefarious within these descriptions it is only because you have low familiarity with the subject matter and a pre-existing belief that the underlying systems are malicious.

Anyone with a decent background in understanding competitive ranking algorithms would not see any evidence of poor design or ill intent in these statements.

This brings us back to the surgery analogy. What you are doing is the equivalent of overhearing a doctor discuss surgery and coming to the conclusion that surgery is harmful (because the patient is cut open) and embarking upon a crusade to end the harmful practice of surgery and to rile up as many people against modern medicine as possible.

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Blizzard CS is sending out appropriate warnings through their support channels and Twitter. I will pass the word on to Andy and Jodie though.

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Is there a full archive of Battelnet forum posts that is downloadable, searchable, or viewable?

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Do you just need search, or do you actually need the whole forum? Wyomingmists site covers all the dev posts.

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Yes I need the whole forum.

WyomingMyst’s post doesn’t contain any developer posts from the Battlenet forum, only Blizzard forum links and external pages like Reddit and Youtube. The quotation from the original post is one of the Battlenet developer posts I’m looking for.