Group penalty is oppressive

GRIFFIN-12536 · October 25, 2021, 8:42pm

A friend and I like to play OW together a lot (almost exclusively 4v4). However, almost nightly the same thing will happen over and over. We duo and lose almost every single game. We decide to split up and both of us win almost every single game (except when it makes us enemies). This happens so consistently that it can’t be in my head. There is just no way I am wrong about this being a thing. I watch the replays of these games and it’s clear my friend and I don’t belong in these games. I might as well be aimboting compared to the player pool we’re in but it just doesn’t matter. Every game is a loss and there is no point in playing with friends.

I make my fair share of miss-plays, bad positioning and ego pushes, but there’s really no point in improving if the matchmaker is going to make sure I lose anyways. Why is this a thing anywhere other than competitive??? I pretty much just hate this game now and I don’t know why I play it. What is the reasoning behind this penalty?

Wingston-11610 · October 25, 2021, 8:52pm

Sounds like you and your duo are below-average

Kaedi-11739 · October 25, 2021, 8:53pm

Its not a exactly a penalty, but the matchmaker tries to keep groups of equal sizes together to ensure a fair play experience for all players. I personally don’t agree with the rule but this is what Scott Mercer has said in the past about it.

Groups and Matchmaking in Overwatch

There are many other reasons for the SR gained or lost after a game to differ in magnitude that have nothing to do with grouping:

What was the quality of the enemy team and your predicted win chance? You gain more on a win if your predicted win chance was <50%. You gain less on a win if your predicted win chance was >50%.

Are you playing consistently? New accounts or accounts that have been inactive will see larger magnitude changes both upwards and downwards. This settles back to normal as you play additional games.

Did your 3000+ SR recently decay due to inactivity? If this happened, you’ll gain more SR on a win until you get back to your “undecayed” SR.

Are you a Platinum-tier player or below? If you performed particularly well or worse than what is considered a typical performance during a match, then there’s a small SR modification to reflect that.

Is your current SR really high? Your SR increases less on a win than it decreases on a loss as your SR approaches the systemic limit of 5000.

Now let’s talk about groups and matchmaking a bit. Interestingly enough, there’s actually more grouping going on than you might think! For the next set of data, we’re going to look at all competitive games from February 1st up to May 28th of this year.

Only 16% of all games purely consisted of solo players.

The most common match composition is 2,1,1,1,1 vs. 2,1,1,1,1, which represents 28% of the all matches.

If you are in a full team of solo players, 73% of those matches were against another team of solo players and another 24% were against a 2,1,1,1,1 team composition. Only 3% of the enemy teams were groups of three or more players.

If you’re in a duo, 74% of your matches are against other 2,1,1,1,1 teams, 14% against 1,1,1,1,1,1 teams, and 8% against 3,1,1,1 teams. Only 4% of the enemy teams you faced had groups of four players or more.

If you’re in a full six player group, 92% of your matches are against the combination of other six player groups; 5,1 teams; 4,2 teams; 3,3 teams; and 2,2,2 teams.

The matchmaker was designed to try and create games with equivalent-sized groups, especially for solo players, and these statistics show that it’s doing a pretty decent job. We believe that games with equivalent groups create the fairest possible experience, and fair games create the best chance of players having a fun experience. When the matchmaker does compromise, it’s usually during off-hours when there aren’t as many available players, as well as at the lowest and highest extremes of SR.

Bratgirls-2698 · October 25, 2021, 8:54pm

Why no friendlies competition added as a game mode?

GRIFFIN-12536 · October 25, 2021, 9:08pm

Thanks for the reply. Tbh, our issues might have a lot to do with 4v4 in general being a smaller player pool. It would certainly mean a lot to me if the devs are at least concerned enough to keep an eye on player experience when grouping.

I’m reading through that post and it certainly sounds like Scott has all the answers and there’s nothing wrong, but wouldn’t the system restrict the matchmakers ability to make the best match? No need to actually answer, I’m just thinkin ma thoughts.

Dasaries-11327 · October 26, 2021, 2:58am

The match making system itself needs to be changed ENTIRELY. Which I am a MAJOR advocate first, for separating out the Solo Q and Teamsters (Friends stacks, buddy stacks).

The primary reason for failures of 3s and 4s isn’t really the match maker per se. But The solo Q players are often NEGLECTED by support, for bias of assisting their friends! When it comes to players 5 and 6 in a stack of 4. Solo players are “flying alone”. So teams will support their friends and NEGLECT the PUG. Since they aren’t in their friends group.

If it is MY team, I am going to more than likely just BAIL on anything bigger than a single 2. Because they aren’t going to bother caring enough to heal me. I get 3s and 4s that will do nothing for me on my team and on a 5. I will immediately DUMP the match regardless. They aren’t going to care if I am being healed or not. AT ALL. Then they will complain that I am doing bad. despite their friends-healers aren’t doing a single thing.

It is, what it is. Thats really what it comes down to. Is stacks neglecting and abusing their team mates.