Groups and Matchmaking in Overwatch

I will test it tonight when I get home, I have an alternate account specifically for testing which I can use to find out.

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Alternatively, I invite Joe. I invite Bob. Joe has Bob Avoided. Thank you.

Thank you for acknowledging them. I hope you continue fixing more of them in future patches, because right now they are the main reason Sombra is not performing so well in the game.

The best thing about LFG is none of your teammates will play unbalanced or broken heroes. And you will also have time to debate such issues before a match.

These types of dev communication are really great, they help clear up misinformation and stop the guessing.

Iā€™d love the devs to make similar posts about how well the new endorsement system runs when it goes live, how well the report system has been functioning, what the actual popularity level of arcade modes are, how well custom games are going, how balanced some of the maps are, how the balanced heros are based on blizz data rather than 3rd party sites, etc.

Just a lot of little topics that I feel the community would love to hear more about.

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I personally thought that if you were in a group, it tweaked your SR gain/loss based on the GROUP/AVERAGE SR rating. Scott says that if youā€™re in a six-stack with ~2800 players, itā€™s the same calculated SR gain and loss as if you went solo:

Quote given for his wording if needed.
But, instead of just 6 players at exactly 2800 SR, what if youā€™re- and this is purely hypothetical on my part, although it may be an occuring thing- in a group with some friends who are at varying SR and tiers, maybeā€¦ low Gold to low Diamond, and youā€™re Platinum? I already know that it will probably find a match based on the group rating, but the SR given on a win is a different story.

Will it use the group/average SR rating to give out SR?
If they average out at Platinum, the Gold players get a little more for being able to play consistently against players ~700-800 SR above them- assuming this averages out at ~2800- while the Diamond players just get a little less or a fairly normal amount, considering theyā€™re just above Platinum, and not too far from that 2800 considering theyā€™re low Diamond? You yourself would get a normal amount, considering it averages out at your tier, right?
This is what I believed for a time, but with this post, Iā€™m starting to question the system and how it works a bit more, especially with the ā€œpredicted win rateā€ coming into play.

Will it go by rank majority in the group?
Say, if there are more Diamond players than Golds in said hypothetical group, will the SR rewards be tweaked in favor of the Gold players, and against(?) the Diamond players to be fair?
If there were more Diamond players, I can see the Gold players getting more SR considering theyā€™re playing at a considerably higher tier and their predicted winrate, along with their MMR would be fairly low. The Diamond players and their SR gain, Iā€™m not too sure aboutā€¦ a little more? :woman_shrugging:
Vice versa however, it would be the Gold players getting just a little more and the Diamond players getting less SR, considering they would be playing at a lower rank with a higher MMR than expected at Platinumā€¦
You yourself would, again, get a normal amount of SR gain, considering it still would average out around Platinum along with your MMR, low or high not being too relevant when it concerns you. A Diamond or Gold player would be affected more if they were playing at 2500 or 2900 respectively.
The group rating also shows the rank icon for the highest person while the actual SR rating could be far under what the icon is meant to represent, so that only serves to confuse me more. :sweat_smile:

This probably seems really specific, but this applies to all of the ranks that are subject to the 1000 SR range requirement. Silver players with Platinums, Bronze players with Golds, either can fit. I just used Diamond because I consider it just around mid-tier, while also being part of the upper tiers somewhat. I also heavily based this around winning a competitive game, although this quesiton can apply to a loss as well.

Where does MMR come into this?
Thereā€™s also the fact that Scott says youā€™ll gain/lose SR in that 2800 six-stack the same way as a solo queue, but in solo queue, youā€™re matched with people based on MMR, and very loosely on SR, from what I remember seeing and experiencing.
I personally have gotten full Master games while being the only Diamond in them, at 3300, normal hours of the day, no ridiculous queue times to raise my priority for a game in the matchmaking system. From what Scott is saying, I should be matched with players very close to my rank, but thatā€™s not the case.
(To be clear, I have reached Master so Iā€™m more likely to get these kinds of matches now, but these instances were before I had ever gotten to it for the first time.)
Is it the predicted winrate system trying to maintain 50% thatā€™s throwing me, or other players, against significantly higher/lower players? He did say that it would try and stay close to a 50% predicted winrate, and while the percentages he gave are very close to that, he did imply that a game can be at 40% or above predicted winrate, at a max of 60%. While he does make it clear that you will get more SR on a win with lower predicted winrate, the loss is still 60% probable. With the 60% predicted winrate, you get less SR on a win, where losing is 40% probable.
Thatā€™s all fine and dandyā€¦

ā€¦But, why doesnā€™t the predicted winrate system wait a little longer to find a fairer match? Is it the queue system at fault for raising you in priority the longer youā€™re in queue, or is it just finding the first match it can within the 40-60% predicted winrate restriction?
Also when he says 2800, does he also mean that theyā€™re extremely close in MMR? Because if so, then it would make a lot more sense for them to get the same SR gain/loss whether it be in a six-stack or with six-solo queuers. Iā€™m making the assumption that predicted winrate, after he gave a short explanation of how it worksā€¦

ā€¦affects your SR just as much as your MMR does when matched up against higher ranked/lower ranked opponents. Higher MMR+Predicted winrate against the enemy, lower SR Gain, and vice versa, right?

Iā€™m personally just a little lost on this, probably just missing something obvious, but it would be nice to have some clarification on it. I tried to explain my confusions about it, and Iā€™ve gotten a little more insight onto what goes on to start a competitive match, and what is taken into account for its end- and the rewards given- thanks to this post. Iā€™m glad that Scott took the time to type out this point to give us a little more insight into the mode and how LFG affects it.

Looking forward to the patch!

TL;DR: For all my silver stars (nearly gold frame, too) Iā€™m actually confused by competitive because of all the hidden stuff going on in the background, although a liiiiiiiitle more has been cleared up for me here. Thank you for communicating with us Scott, and sorry that I absolutely canā€™t figure out this system for the life of me;;

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Are you ever going to discuss the problem in matchmaking role wise?
Getting 4 or even more support mains or whatever role mains is NOT balanced at all especially if the enemy team has a balanced team comp (for example 2 supp/2 dps/2 tank players) lol.
It literally is sometimes so frustrating to play when you instantly know that youre not going to win a match.
Surely you dont always lose but theres a 90% change of loss if you get 2 or more onetricks who onetrick the same character and dont flex at all.
And no its not a onetricking problem at this point.

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Now tell us how you are fixing Symmetras primary that got destroyed in the haphazard exploit fix now requiring around 300% more accuracy than original ptr weapon and doing hardly any damage to armor. Or her secondary which you canā€™t use as an explosive projectile because the splash damage is always around 50% or less than what itā€™s supposed to do. Or her completely underwhelming ult especially given she is supposed to be getting a dps rework. Or her tele which takes way too long to use after deployed, you canā€™t use it to rescue teammates like you guys said it was supposed to be used for. Or lack of extra shield health or passive ability now that you took away all her survivability.

Wow a feature that should have been in the game since comp was released is finally in the game. Incredible. Maybe one day it will be out of beta and finally be a full game.

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The ranting about the win prediction really made me thinking if the forced 50% winrate is true. If the game can calculate your chances for wins, what stops it from throwing you vs stronger teams just to maintain 50% winrate for you and the others?

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Snickers I am not going to quote your entire post but to help clarify, the matchmaker will try to find a balanced pairing where the average team SR is as close as possible to the other team, but when it comes time to calculate your SR adjustment based on whether you win or lose, it will be based on ONLY your own personal skill rating versus the average team SR of your opponents and that adjustment does not take into account for the skill ratings of your teammates.

This is the reason why they have introduced the Looking for Group system. This will allow players who prefer to play a role can queue into groups looking to fulfill those roles and not risk going in as a solo queue into a bad match filled with other player who play the same roles.

There is an older post of Scott Mercerā€™s that explains this:

In short, if you are facing against stronger opponents if you are winning, that means you are climbing the ranks and the battles should be getting harder.

But that is not always the case. There is very often one sided matches and the sr gain/lose is almost the same (at least for me).

In the link I provided in that post Scott Mercer has made it very clear that even with a 50%/50% win prediction, matches in Overwatch can feel one sidedā€¦

As an aside to all of thisā€¦

ā€œFairā€ matches doesnā€™t always mean that every Ilios match goes 3-2 and 100-99 on the final point, or each team gets the payload to the end in overtime on Dorado, etc. Sometimes when two evenly matches teams play, the result can be one-sided. It just means that at that single moment in time the enemy team played better. Itā€™s not always the matchmakerā€™s, yourā€™s, or your teamā€™s(!!!) fault that you got stomped.

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What about when your opponents arenā€™t feeling any harder to deal with personally, but you donā€™t feel youā€™re getting the same support or backing from your team?

Iā€™ve played right through from 1700 to 2450, and itā€™s only toward that very top end of my ranking matches felt objectively harder - and often then because there were individuals on the enemy team of significantly higher rank (2800+) grouped in with weaker players.

I still maintain that 1000Sr differential is far, far too generous to allow in premades. That the devs agree for higher ranks is maddening while they leave us regular players to suffer.

You donā€™t have to quote my entire post, Iā€™m just confused/concerned and being descriptive about my concerns so theyā€™re valid concerns. Donā€™t worry about it;; :sweat_smile:
Iā€™ve also edited it a bunch more, so if you want to look at that, go ahead.

So what you are saying is say your team is fairly average across the board the the opponents have a group stack in it where there is a hard carry player of a significantly higher SR? Realistically, I donā€™t think I can judge if that is a problem on across the average play experience. I personally have had many battles where I beat the hard carry, and many battles where I would lose to a hard carry.

Oh really now? :thinking: However, do people think this will be enough for her?

If you play symmetra or not. If you do you get half the sr and get put with the people who have gotten the most reports.

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It happens regularly around 2300-2400, not surprisingly because this is where most players sit, and so where thereā€™s a wider skill gap across a narrower band. Itā€™s also just before Diamonds are cut off, so the strongest ā€˜hard carryā€™ players can be most effective.

This is the rank I typically play around the most. (Right now I am a little low, but I have been too busy with things outside of Overwatch to spend any real time playing Overwatch Competitive). But yeah this is literally the apex of the Competitive skill distribution. So this sounds normal from what you describe.