Always good to have information first.
Great post. I am reading through it now. But it’s true that people should do their own research and form their own opinions.
I don’t know if I agree with this. Debate is always healthy provided the opposing sides of it don’t personally attack each other.
I think a lot of us have already done that. I know we had a discussion like this before but how do you objectively measure win conditions?
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I really don’t know what more I can do. I watch back my reply all the time. I do what the pros and coaches said to do. Nothing seems to work to win me more games. The only thing that works is stacking with other people but people always leave even if we win.
Yes it’s true that you can waste a lot of time in text written exchanges but I think provided you can just limit the amount you put into a post then you won’t end up wasting too much time. That’s why I try to keep my replies short and sweet.
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Well thats cool. I dont really take either side though i do generally make comments to challenge the whether or not it exists, because realistically no one but the devs knows. Then there also the recorded win/loss streaks that i did at a whim which made me suspect that there should be something more.
Consider that the devs said that matches are set up to try to get 50/50% win probability so that matches are fair and fun, but if that were true, how could there ever be SR ceilngs,floors and plateus? It would literally be impossible. When i did an analysis on win streaks and losses the they ended up being very “mirrored” (7 wins followed by 7 losses, 4 wins 1 loss then 1 win 4 losses, etc). So i have a theory that since the 50/50 makes progression either random or impossible that there must be some other factor to how ranks are determined, and judging by the mirrored result’s i got my theory is that the game is constantly “stress testing” you by trying to contradict your progress to see if you can still win despite being given disadvantages and if you can then those wins are the one you “deserve” in terms of SR progression.
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No. I think BenBest is probably the best. Cloudy probably second best in EU.
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Ok, so there is room for improvement, since you’re not on his level yet. Does he make callouts?
If you can identify anything he can do that you can’t, you’ve gotta make a plan to bridge the gap.
The reason I want you (and now everyone) to study SBMM/MMR is so you can A) get rigging out of your head and B) realize that you’re not being unfairly held back, because this frees you to try harder and search for new things that will make you a better player. If you think you’re being held back, somewhere in the back of your mind, you’ll believe you don’t need to improve since its your teammates causing your losses. And now I see how weird it feels to be saying the same things I heard so often, like I’ve drank the Koolaid, but it’s not that. It’s just a paradigm shifting change of outlook.
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There are some things I will simply not be capable of doing at his level because of genetic differences. He does make callouts.
I’ve already tried so many things.
I don’t agree with your last point because I used to be one of the guys who thought that the matchmaker was fine. I accepted responsibility for my rank and so on and I thought the guys who said the game was rigged were crazy. I spent a huge amount of time trying to improve without any idea in my mind that the game was rigged at all.
But eventually I just couldn’t stop ignoring what I experienced so plainly in front of me.
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So you believe that OWL players, etc are genetically different than the average person, and you being an average person can’t attain that? Or is it something else?
Do you make callouts/lead the team like he might? Seems to me, making everyone on the team better with your comms is probably the most bang for the buck you’re going to get quickly, improvement wise.
But here’s the thing, Hulk, the players who are better than you ARE winning more than you. That’s just a fact. And the other fact is, if those players were in your same matches under the same conditions they WOULD win more.
If you don’t know what to do to improve, then you’re probably looking at an intense research/planning project to get you there or coaching.
The best arguments I had for why the game was rigged were shot down one by one, after doing the research. And I felt that I had fairly good reasons for believing what I believed, but I didn’t.
The fact that you can’t climb means there’s something missing in your play. Because you don’t know what it is, you can’t blame the matchmaker: that’s called the argument from ignorance. I’m not CALLING you ignorant. But it’s the same fallacy made by the religious: “I cannot imagine what else could possibly have created a universe this vast and complex, so it must’ve been God.” The fallacy essentially goes: I don’t know why thing X occurs, so therefore Y.
Let’s say you won 10 hours of free coaching with an OWL coach, do you really believe they couldn’t give you tips and advice and things to think about and practice regimens that would substantially improve your results? The answer is “yes” they could. And yes, they know more than you, so the issue objectively has to be one of a lack of knowledge and understanding on your part.
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Yeah I have tried that.
I’ve gotten advice and it made me better but still no results. Reflected in. Skill rating
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Well now it’s about going a level deeper and learning more about strategy and mechanics. That’s the only answer.
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Already done that as well.
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So if you’ve done everything you can conceivably do to climb, why do you believe that you deserve to be higher?
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Because I’ve improved. I’m a better player now than I was two months ago. Better now than I was at 3.6. I am more impactful in my games.
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Ok so logically there’s only a few possible explanations:
A) players above you are improving at a faster rate than you are
B) your improvements aren’t profound enough to get you the results you want
C) players below you are improving at a faster rate than you are
D) more owl/top 500/GMs are taking an interest in the game and coming back
E) the matchmaker is singling you out and has flagged you somehow
I no longer believe E) is a possibility or that there are good arguments for it. And let’s assume it is flawed, it’s flawed for everyone, so it still comes down to skill.
If you think about what several wins in a row means, it’s this: playing against better players at a higher SR than you’re used to, and players with a higher MMR than you’re used to. Unless you outperform even THOSE players, you’re not going to beat them. Consider how in the Superbowl, the guys a team meets in the finals could be CONSIDERABLY better than they beat in the conference finals. What’s happening is that you may be underestimating how much better players who are 5-10 wins ahead of you are, or if your MMR is changing due to a number of good performances, you may be playing better than usual. Remember even guys in the NBA or NHL don’t have hot streaks, and then go on to permanently play that well for the rest of the game or the series or their careers. Human beings are prone to all sorts of inaccuracies about their performances, or they freeze up and play worse when the pressure is on, or their level just naturally tapers, or maybe they even get lucky and get some good players on their team and some worse opponents, so that 2 or 3 or 4 of those wins during those streaks had little to do with their actual performance. Some combination of these factors are adequate to explain loss streaks.
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Doesn’t activision own patents to matchmaking based around stimulating microtransactions?
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In the end, people will believe whatever gives them comfort.
Though, as I’ve stated in another post:
- Research is often the search for facts that support one’s prejudice(s); and the ignoring, and/or even hiding, of facts that do the opposite.
I definitely agree that Tales taught “me” a lot in regards to what “I” thought I knew about the match maker, because, between Overwatch and Valorant, I was pretty certain I knew what I was talking about (and from a software perspective it makes a lot of sense). But Tales explanations (combined with a little research into things like TrueSkill) only make it more and more clear how match making truly works.
One way or another… Never disrespected your opinions. Its when you made it personal that I was less inclined to offer you mutual respect.
GG Homie!!
P.S. Still think you should come game with us sometimes!!
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Debating matchmaking is one thing, what about the thoughts on the quality of the matches?
What about the information within the game?
Can we, should we spoon feed more or less info to make the matches better?
Win streaks / loss streaks as a result of match quality? And as predicted as gdc 2016?
Can they change the color of the health bar as it gets lower and or not have a slightly different color underneath the missing health?
Can the dev team address any of THESE issues?
If the dev team can mitigate any of these, then it’s worth bringing the awareness to them.
Mind you - bring awareness turns into a debate by the Russian troll farm… or blizzard fan boys who think devs can do no wrong or that everything is perfect 
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Lack of playerbase for the matchmaker to form balanced teams.
Doesn’t matter either way. Everyone has the same amount of informational input.
It won’t make the matches better. Also, what does better even mean in this context?
Possibly. They will always exist tho since streaks are not exclusively a result of a low playerbase but also things like performance and mental, but i am assuming the chance of streaks will naturally decrease with a growing playerbase with Ow2.
You have to get a feel for your health, if you have to look at your hp you are bottlenecking yourself in crucial moments.
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Lol maybe it’s me! No matter what I type it can never be related to more work for the devs. They made a perfect game!!
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I appreciate people who can openly declare that they have changed their views, Bright. I very much enjoyed our exchanges, and I hope we will still get the chance to engage in some more in the future even though you have changed your mind on some points.
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