I was watching Seagull’s interview with Jeff Kaplan and found what Jeff had to say about MMR very interesting. Particularly the part about MMR being between -3 and +3 for most players.
I could be reading way too much in to this but it sounds like MMR is just your position relative to the mean in standard deviations (for a normal curve, which the SR distribution is very close to). From other things the devs have written and said in interviews it seems MMR also has some description of confidence or uncertainty. So someone’s MMR might look like +1.00σ ±0.05σ (that corresponds to an SR of ~3100).
Is that really how people want to have their skill displayed? Is a range of approximately -3 to +3 a fine enough scale? You’d need a lot of decimal places to be show if you moved up or down. And given SR follows MMR pretty closely, is there anything wrong with essentially just rescaling -3 to +3 to 0 to 5000?
This of course is ignoring SR decay, but that’s getting scrapped, at least temporarily, anyway.
I actually wouldn’t mind being shown my position on the normal curve in terms of standard deviations, either. But I’m a scientist and use those maths skills all the time so still remember from school what it actually means. I’m sure there’s a large portion of the player base who don’t know or don’t remember how to interpret such a thing correctly. It’s much easier for Blizzard to say you get a number between zero and 5000 than explain MMR over and over.
I agree about the leaderboard, too. I’d be about 12,302,456th but it’d still be cool to know, lol.
I’m assuming you’re not an engineer in the aerospace industry. So you probably don’t know exactly what’s behind keeping a passenger jet in the air. And I bet you still fly.
No, MMR doesn’t move, either. Can’t be bothered looking up the reference but it was either a blue post or a dev update video.
Hmmm, I can’t find it. But in How Competitive Skill Rating Works - Season 17 it says that draws have an unknown affect on MMR. So maybe I was misremembering it. Given MMR has some dependency not only on win/loss but also individual performance it would make sense for it to be adjusted after a draw, but less than after a win or loss.
Perhaps that’s another reason why it’s good to have SR. It wouldn’t feel good losing points for a draw. Also it would go against Blizzard’s mantra of only winning matters.
It may do but not necessarily. Overwatch’s system is based on the Elo system but is heavily modified. There’s no real reason why they should behave the same.
The most lopsided match the matchmaker can create is 60/40. If you tie that game, you must assume the win/loss portion of you MMR will move.
Also, tell us how much PBSR you gained.
if your real MMR is 2.3847abxz, there must be a way for them to translate that for the layman. And not by way of some “mysterious” SR number. If it’s too complicated there will be many videos and blogposts explaining how to convert it.
I don’t know for sure, but I have a strong feeling MMR could be made public.
Yes it would be weird having 2 numbers for your rating, but this is what I propose.
have a rating and a grade
2100 B+, 3237 A+, 4102 C-
the first is your rating and the second is the confidence.
and they should show the bell curve and a giant list. Because MMR is relative, your MMR could move erratically if half of the Overwatch population went on vacation at the same time
One thing I think they should really display, whether MMR is public or not is win chance percentage. But who’s gonna try if they see a 40% win chance percentage? You might ask. And to that I answer, who cares.
Yes, I’d like MMR to be visible. It could be rescaled to bigger numbers to make it more digestible. The problem with MMR as it now stands is that is almost, but not quite, equal to SR. But we all know that MMR is the real number, so we are always seeing a shadow of the number, rather than the actual number, and it makes it harder to understand what is going on.
In addition, if we knew MMR exactly, a significant number of conspiracy theories would be even more impossible.
Agreed, Elo is designed for 1v1 and Overwatch is definitely not that. Trueskill is designed for team fights, but it would have to be heavily modified as well because kills per death isn’t the deciding factor in Overwatch.
The +3 to -3 might provide some evidence for those people who were suggesting that handicapping exists. Maybe if you’re a +3 you’re the one expected to carry your team and if you’re a -3 it means you’re about to get carried for a bunch of games. That would explain the long win and lose streaks that seem happen so often.
Yes my friends, MMR should be visible for all to see especially with new system. This new system is to be trying to do things better so why not start with the right foot forward. I have been talking with my people and I am not believing they will show it but it has been discuss.
I am supporting this new system and have been having better moods since its new release it just feels good man. I am truly believing that they did things right, we will see.