It’s not a random coin flip. There are just too many variables to take into account which makes comparing it to a coin flip to simplify worthwhile.
Take for example a sporting event. 2 same teams play each other. Same players. Same coaches. Same rules. Yet one game one team dominates. The next game the other team does. Happens all the time.
Surely it is both?
We won too many games so our mmr is disproportionately high. Matchmaker thinks it’s making the games fair by putting other very high mmr players on the other team.
Either way, competitive feels horrible to play on these streaks and it’s really hard to enjoy the game and learn from the games.
I think you mostly understand what is going on, but you are describing it very badly. Terms like “forced” and “handicapped” are triggering for me and most of the non-conspiracy theorists on the forums. Most of the people that use these terms are less reasonable than you (they believe that Blizzard is evil, that they can’t climb because of the system, etc.)
We need to differentiate predicted win probability from actual win probability. The game always tries to set predicted win probability to 50%, and in most cases it does a good job of this. However, if a person is incorrectly ranked, the actual win probability can be quite a bit different than 50%. And a person can become incorrectly ranked through a lucky streak.
Actual win probability changes slowly with rank because there are so many random factors in each individual match. Unfortunately, it follows from this that frequent and long streaks will occur, and a player’s rank will oscillate widely. Essentially, a player will tend to bounce between the range of where he is nearly guaranteed to win and where he is nearly guaranteed to lose. The range varies from player to player, but +/- 250 SR/MMR is common and +/- 500 is possible. This problem can be analyzed in depth, mathematically (Overwatch Forums).
This analysis makes it apparent where the issue is: random factors. Reduce random factors and streak length will go down, and rank variability will decrease.
Things you can do to reduce random factors:
What Blizzard can do:
Yeah absolutely there’s no big conspiracy keeping me out of GM other than me being trash ha ha - what you described there very well is more or less how i understood it to work but was typing quickly on my phone.
We do use LFG as I prefer being able to talk to people and get a comp, much better experience and am completely aware that matchmaker has no control over my group. But as we win more, there is a massive correlation between how many 5 stacks + “GENJIPLZSWITCH” level 25 solo queue players we see on the other team.
It’s the oscillation you talk about that I have issue with. I hate knowing that you have to lose 10+ games before you start getting winnable matches again. And the thing is - we were comfortably winning matches at 3000sr two days ago!!! Now we can’t cap first point at 2900. Surely this is because of our MMR, not SR.
It’s good to see other players talking about the MMR (handicapping) system. Thanks OP.
Yes. Realize that SR is not used in matchmaking, only MMR is. SR has no more meaning than the tier icons as far as matchmaking goes. See How Competitive Skill Rating Works (Season 13) → “Matchmaking”, “Skill Rating”, and “But I just read this post from a developer, and it said that matchmaking is based on SR, not MMR” for details.
In fairness, I read that one side of an American coin is actually heavier than the other, giving the other side a very slight advantage of hitting.
Just an interesting fact.
Three more losses. Hopeless
That is interesting!
Just never solo due again
You seem very accepting and understanding of the influences that might make this happen.
I’ll just add that if you flip a coin a hundred times, you will find streaks as well and it’s weird if you don’t.
Also mmr is a factor that only the dev team understands. Perhaps you were putting up good stats and so the match maker put you on lesser teams and asked you to carry a bit? I guess something like that would be similar to forcing a loosening streak.
Mentioned this earlier but I never solo queue I always use LFG
Someone who doesn’t play for long periods and only wants to come back to play casually in a ranked competitive system without having to improve their skills does not deserve to win though, through the 50/50 system you’re talking about.
I just uninstalled because of this, I’ve been on a loss streak for 3 days now after climbing out of gold to 2860, I lost 450 sr in 3 days after a month of climbing. I have had so many unwinnable games due to smurfs and terrible teammates, and some where we just got beaten or outplayed, but there is a distinct difference between those. Here is the other problem, some of the games that you probably should win, if we follow the 50/50 model, you don’t because you get a player that everyone else at your level has avoided for good reason. On top of SR stacking against players, and smurfs, people who intentionally throw or 1 trick heroes they can’t actually play well adds a whole other level of bs you have to wade through. I’m gonna be done with this game for a while, probably until OWL season 2 starts.
50/50 is only the ideal consequence of you being where you are supposed to be. When you’re not where you are supposed to be in SR you wont have a 50/50 you’ll lose more than you win because you are not at the skill level to win some of those games. What you should be doing instead of blaming smurfs/troll/bad teams, is take a look at yourself and figure out what you can improve on to win more games.
Oh gosh darn it youre right i never thought of that golly gee, youre the first one who’s ever pointed that out! No duh i have stuff to improve on, but how is it that for the past 12 seasons i have been in mid-high plat and touched diamond 3 times, which indicates thats where my 50/50 should be according to you, and now I’m on a 450 loss streak and in mid gold?
If you read my earlier post I did say I am 100% deserving of my rank and know I have plenty to improve on.
My exact point is that it is very difficult to do exactly that when lots of your games are runs of 10+ stomps either way, as there is very little you can do to influence the game and as a consequence not much to take away from it either.
Not to mention that the 10 wins and 8 losses in streaks actually loses you SR overall because you always lose more than you win game to game, if you win 1 lose 1 your sr will be lower than when you started even though you should have just evened out.
Its possible that you’re just not doing as well anymore, if you consider the fact that everyone else is improving it may not be that you’re playing any worse but the majority of other players are playing better.
This only happens in 2 circumstances. If you’re in master and GM where the system is actively trying to push people down harder, requiring a higher winrate to stay at that rank. Or if you are at an SR that the matchmaking system doesn’t think you should be at most likely because of a large win streak.
I can 100% appreciate this criticism, and i think its something almost all players are experiencing. The only thing anyone can do is improve to win the 1 in 3 or 1 in 5 games that aren’t a stomp.
A large win streak that spanned 12 seasons?