Blizzard has openly stated that they are aware that people don’t really enjoy very close games. Their game director back then said that and I believe they are right.
It works for most players.
Where have they said this? They have recently talked a lot about stomps and want to reduce them.
They were talking about stomps 4-5 years ago. Jeff Kaplan said that back then.
If all your games were very close, this would drastically increase the frustration factor.
To me, it just doesn’t look like they’re trying, and that would be a good reason.
I dont know anyone who prefers getting stomped to close games. And neither seemingly does anyone in this forum, you included.
So I wonder where the people are, who enjoy getting stomped.
https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23969913/
https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23938059/matchmaking-update-season-three-retrospective-and-future-plans/
Continued research and community collaboration
Our data has also revealed an additional area for improvement. Specifically, stomps that occur in matches that should be balanced.
I think the change to the respawn system that was in QP now for a bit, is one measure they test for potentially reduce the stompiness of games.
It kind of is the nature of OW2 at times.
They like quick matches. They prefer to lose quickly rather than slowly, they also like to win quickly.
I agree that these people are probably not on the forums. These forums are only a small part of the player base, absolutely not representative.
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Who are these people? How do you know?
And how do you know they are such a majority of the playerbase that blizzard should build this convoluted system to cater to them specifically that the rest absolutely hate?
Do you have any link to this? It sounds pretty dumb, and it fits my conspiracy theory.
It’s classic Blizzard deferring blame onto the player.
We’ve been collecting data and lopsided matches tend to happen at the same rate, regardless of match quality.
They think they are saying “It just happens”, but what is really being said is that their matchmaking system is having match outcomes no better than ten random people being stuck together. Kind of important to note, because it validates what a LOT of very vocal people on these forums have been saying for years.
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Friends, People I play with regularly, and the game director at the time said that in one of his streams. I can also relate to it to some extent.
Not all of us have the mindset to play a game at a competitive level after work or a hard day. Blizzard is also aware of this.
Maybe, maybe not, but its a big difference to the system built intentionally to set up some people to lose matches at times.
I’m sure we all can agree that the matchmaker could be doing a better job, though.
And theres one aspect of why things like this can happen.
The matchmaker cannot know what mindset people have when they log into the game.
If you’re playing when youre tired and the others are not, your mmr is still the same regardless, but it’s outside of the matchmakers control completely how you’re going to actually perform.
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I don’t know that it’s the case in Overwatch 2. I don’t have the time I used to to play all the time and get all the data, but there is a precedence for believing in “forced losses”.
Used to be in Overwatch 1, the win/loss rates were REAL spooky - particularly in QP. Myself, along with many other players I’ve chatted with have accounts with well over 1k QP games that were SHOCKLYINGLY close to 50% win rate over and over.
That’s the trick with a matchmaker, though. You need to “force” something, but it’s what and how you do it so as to not annoy players.
Personally, I would prefer lobbies and clan systems instead of trusting an invisible algorithm that we can never have any insight into.
The matchmaker seems way too terrible to force anything.
Whether qp or competitive I have always felt it is going to be random what team I have as well as what team I am facing.
It has always been a coin flip and luck of the draw.
Matches were more consistent (at least for me) during 2016-2018. But when we had that mass exodus of tank players I feel the matchmaker wasn’t able to recover from that big a drop.
I’ve never believed any of my Ls were forced on me. The other team was better, cheating, I have leavers, have throwers, or the rare instance of a close match came down to made a mistake and red team capitalized.
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Let’s not forget that they have been working on this matchmaker for more than 2 years.
You should read all the stuff Scott Mercer and other developers have said on the old forums about the matchmaker. What details they really have and all that.
They know exactly what happens and why it happens.
They have all the data and choose not to talk about it or optimize it.
Or they don’t know what’s really happening and they just used marketing speak/strategies back then to push competitive aspects of this game.
Personally I think they don’t want to take the risk of letting people lose five times in a row in very close games. This is because the probability that these players will look for a new game is above average if this happens a couple of times.
My winrate has gone up since ow2 was released, but it didnt really feel like it.
OW2 has been somewhat more “streaky” in my experience, in that regard i can understand the feeling of something being forced. But it doesnt mean it actually is.
QP especially should be taken with a grain of salt, due to many reasons imo. From non restricted grouping to people flexing more often to heroes/roles they dont play as much etc.
This!
In dota2 I had a ~75 game lose streak, but my overall winrate is around ~45% for that game.
Its easy to remember the negatives things then positive
I do think so as well. I was completely surprised seeing my WR gone up by a few % over time (i play too much so it takes a ton of games to move at all lol).
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The old forums are completely lost afaik. I wish they were available.
I recommend for you to follow @srslypaladin on twitter if you havent, he is a server engineer working on the matchmaking and has tweeted a lot about what they are doing.
To me its been a breath of fresh air for someone be so active about it there.
edit: and heres a poll he did asking around about the stompiness in games (comp , silver-gold) , for example: https://twitter.com/SrslyPaladin/status/1713972002833449091
At this point, almost all stompy matches look completely balanced to the matchmaker going into the match.
Theres all sorts of interesting stuff there if you’re into it.
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I will follow him if he claims in his official profile that he does not represent his employer and that all his posts are his own. 
Server Engineer
on the
team. Matchmaking fanatic. My views are entirely my own.