I’m just more putting it forward as a competing theory. I’m pretty much agnostic on all of it. I’m not making any claims one way or the other. I’m pretty particular about not making any declarations (most of the time) because I honestly don’t know. Don’t think I made any claims about it being artificially difficult, but there’s evidence that there is and there’s evidence that there isn’t too. I think all of these conversations have to be viewed more as “there’s strong” or “there’s weak evidence” for this or that rather than “this IS the case.” I fully accept that you or RHA or Tales are totally right on this and I’m totally wrong, but we have never, and probably never will get a definitive silver bullet from Blizzard. People might disagree with me and that’s fine, and we are probably weighting various bits of evidence differently.
Hmmm, “marginally better” works nicely in a system where skill distribution is good and even, and poorly where it isn’t. I’m not a game theory expert, but randomness probably hurts better players more than it does weaker ones.
I think if this was established there wouldn’t be a “great debate.” 
The other side of the argument says that there’s a “gravity” at around a 50% winrate. Such that when you try to break away from it, randomness or or intent or both pull you back down. If you’re a better player, there’s a much better chance that you’ll encounter random players who are worse than better. Also, factor in that tanks, which are in demand are shipped all over the place creating large variances in skill. You and I already established that as the player pool reduces, randomness goes up. As stacks queue up, randomness goes up (consider how it’s mathematically more difficult to match 12 people of equal skill in OW, versus two in chess). Also apathetic players who’ve allowed themselves to drop into lower ranks through a lack of consistent effort also inject randomness. Alts and smurfs = more randomness. Queue time limits = more randomness. There’s so much randomness in Overwatch that it’s tough to say when players are fairly placed, or how often they play in good fair matches, the result of which provides accurate information about the players who won and lost. If a single player throws, everyone else on the team loses. And I’m pretty sure the better you are, the higher the odds you have of being placed with a worse player (more randomness). So if a good player loses multiples times in a row and has bad stats because of randomness I think it creates more fuzziness. The closer a player is to mean, the more a 50% chance of winning is a non-issue, and the more standard deviations away from the mean, the more 50/50 matchmaking otherwise alters that player’s trajectory.
Engagement based matchmaking (EBMM) prioritizes, well, engagement over Skill (it doesn’t ignore it). This means the way players respond to wins and losses (churn) affects their placement in subsequent matches. I think your theory holds if EBMM isn’t a thing in OW. I’ll be blatantly unscientific here, but I have noticed in my sessions, that my first match when powering up the game (when I actually still played) was much more often than not a win. Now, if that has something to do with something besides my skill, that’s EBMM. There are proven benefits to EBMM (which is why it’s a thing). Does it exist in OW? I’d say probably. Why? Because it’s profitable, and it’s how I’d expect a company to operate if it prioritized engagement over competitive integrity.
Agree, and still have zero desire to play/purchase the game. It’s too similar to what I’m utterly burnt out on at this point. OW feels like the feeling you get when you’ve eaten leftovers 4 days in a row. And OW2 is just too similar to what we’ve had. I don’t equate more running around the map for off angle pokes to be a “different” experience, but it’s sad that developers do.
It’s basically integrating deathmatch into comp, but if you’re sick of comp and sick of deathmatch from crazy amounts of sameness over the last 6 years, I don’t know how you get excited for OW2. I’m glad for those that are, but if you’re sick of OW, you’re probably going to quickly be sick of OW2 as well.
Given how long players have waited for this, given how long they’ve done the same blasted things over and over. I personally would’ve taken OW2 in a different direction and made the experience way less derivative.
I’ve only agreed with XQC once and never will again probably, and that’s when he looked at the gameplay for a bit, put up his hand in confusion and said “It’s-a the same-a game-a.”
I’ll be curious to get yours and others take on the game, particularly with you being a high level player. I mostly want to see what the carry potential is like. And how make the game less welcoming and “protective” fairs in light of the profit motive. The harder the game, the less people tend to stick around.
You can literally search for every instance of “engagement.” And yes I do know you are a fair and honest actor in these discussions, though I do see you get tilted every now and then but don’t we all from time to time?
