Groups and Matchmaking in Overwatch

General Discussion
147

I totally agree with you on the part where you say I should expect to have a 50% wr overall on a certain sr, but in that case, lets take my plat acc as my “deserved sr”

If I play on a plat lv, then I should be getting a 50%wr overall, which is understandable, however, shouldnt it chnge if I go lower and play in bronze, silver and gold? now goint to my gold acc, I should be able to have a higher wr because “I dont belong there” therefore, even tho the system virtually doesnt now know I can consistently play higher up, I should be able to easily win more than 1 out of 2 matches dont you think?

And regarding what you’ve said about the SR being merely a number, so at the end of the day that just proves my point that SR means nothing and there is no reason to have it if it would not affect the results whatsoever, because if that is the case, you might as well be ilver but get q’d with a thrower from masters and still be able to win, right?

148

To trigger the voicelines “Come to me for healing” from a support character, you must target your reticle at an injured teammate and press the “I need healing” voiceline key or button. The game modes too fast for that nonsense in my opinion.

Well, I once fell to Bronze in Season 3 (mainly due to tilt and rage) and after learning my lessons I focused my gameplay and quickly rebounded to Platinum in Season 4. I do fluctuate from mid-gold to low-platinum in my general history. I feel I could climb too if I wanted to but that would require more play time than what I am currently investing at this time.

149

I understand, and I really want to climb, I even bought another acc hoping I could do so, which I did.

But what I’m relly trying to say here is that, if feels to me like, instead of being the opposing team who prevents you from ranking up, is the system itself saying “you have won enough, you are not allowed to win anymore”

150

And its funny how you reply that to others after telling me SR is merely a number that does not determine your gameplay or skill LUL

151

So its true that as you win more and your win rates get better you will get worse teammates, or rather, teammates with lower winrates. Ridiculous. You say we’ll climb with time… I’ve climbed roughly an average of 2-300sr and it only took me a little over a year. 1 hole year…wasted.

When someone climbs from a low winrate to a higher one how is it fair to pair them with weaker teammates? Why do you force the burden of winning on 1 or 2 individuals until their sr drops. Why not group people with similar winrates together and put them against the same? What exactly am I missing here?

152

So do I understand this correctly:
First your match maker tries to find balanced groups, that would give nearly the 50% win rate for both teams. This is calculated by trying to have same amount of grouping players on each team. And the SR of grouping teams.

After it has determined this is a “fair match” it will start the match.
When it comes to your SR gains. Matchmaking will forget that grouping win procent and only look both teams compined SR. Giving you either little extra for winning if the enemy team SR is higher.

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153

I think the real issue here is on good games you end up with other players like yourself who should probably be higher. On bad games you end up with players who should be lower. It’s RNG that puts you with other players within that rank, and with only 1 tier difference you won’t be able to carry them. If you were masters you probably could, but not between gold and plat.

The LFG system should help with that. It will help you to quickly find a team that are like minded and skilled. And if you continue playing with them, you get better overall. And you can filter out / kick trolls. That’s why I’m excited for LFG.

154

Haven’t Blizzard said in the past that a list of bugs would be more helpful than just saying “fix this please”

155

1.25 when? The LFG feature can’t come soon enough.

As for the claim that playing solo vs a group has no effect on win chance, that I disagree with. The thing is, vast majority of groups are between people of higher SR variance. Rarely do you see groups that have exact same SR. Usually a group is between a very low SR (compared to you) and a very high SR. Often times this is because they are real life friends and just happen to have different SR (very few of my RL friends have similar SR as I do for example), or a person asked for group in social media and a more experienced player offered to help. End result however is that enemy team has a person with considerably higher SR than you, and the matchmaking seems to average this out as if its no big deal. For the most part, it IS a big deal.

In quickplay I have seen my team of golds being paired against a team with 4300 player because apparently, things average out. It was not fun in the slightest. In comp the differences aren’t as massive but same thing still happens to lesser extent.

You seem to be looking at your stats and thinking “Oh the team SR is similar, this should be an even match”, and not understand how much a carrying force one person can be.

156

I agree that this should be a voiceline of its own, without needing to target a person. Imagine a mercy spinning like a top trying to avoid getting headshotted by a widow, ask that mercy to target a player to get the voiceline? LMAO.

Also this game is WAY overdue for a “Help me!” or “Back me up!” voiceline. This to signify that a player ran into a group of enemies and needs backup, or a healer just got dived on. Currently nothing like this exists.

157

It’s not the worst for solo healers, it’s bad for everyone, especially solo tanks imo(!!!) because they are the role that rely on their team the most (D.Va and Roadhog being somewhat of an exception)…hell, I think solo healers have the best and easiest way to climb the competitive ladder since the addition of Brigitte and Moira, having an absurdly low risk-but high reward for playing them…Mercy also has it somewhat easy because of her good kit which works on every map…and Lucio…well…you could literally just stand near your team with healing on, do nothing else, and you’d be of some use…Ana and Zen are a completely different story doe.

158

And what about the penalties in SR you get when one player disconnects and you lose a match because it’s 5v6 for more than 5min or until the end of the match? Will you adress those issues?

159

Hi Scott,

Thank you for making such a detailed post, it ironed out most of the doubts many of us had. However, I still have a query about something, I know the Overwatch Devs are busy but any response on this will be very much appreciated.

It is mentioned in your post that the LFG feature will find groups for players basing on SR and Connection Stability. I am from India and I play on the Americas region, the game usually puts me on the Singapore Server which is PSE1 and that is where I get the best latency. So when I go and look for a group the groups I’ll find will be within the PSE1 server right? Because if I play on any other server on the Americas region other than PSE1 (Singapore) I get a very bad latency of about 200 ms. On PSE1 I get about 80 ms which is definitely playable.

Also, if I’m the one creating the group using LFG, the other people who will be able to view and join my group will be from PSE1 as well? Because I wouldn’t want myself or my teammates to be placed on the wrong server and get a high latency when in a Competitive match or even Quickplay.

Thank you,
Theonlyme

160

Props to Blizzard! I really appreciate detailed information and analysis like this.

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162

It happens because the Matchmaker looks at the SR of people instead of levels. Say if a pro makes a smurf, the pro will be playing exceptionally well compared to the actual new people who are new to Overwatch. Placing the pro smurf against new players is unfair therefore, the matchmaker looks at the skill level and places you against people of similar skill level instead of experience level.

163

There is one thing i don’t like in this system. No matter how you improve as a group , your chance to win will be close to 50%. It may be technicaly “fair” but it’s also extremelly frustrating. Losing 1 every 2 games is huge, and is not what i expect when i create a team. If we become better as a team, we ll be matched with better opponent and we will still lose 1 game on 2.

In OW, there is no such thing as being the “best” of a category. You know like in real sports when you are put into a division and if you re better, then you have something like 80 or 90% winrate. So you have a goal, you can train and being rewarded with victories and ultimately win the division and gain the right to go to an harder one.

I have no solution on how to achieve this in OW, i just express my feelings about the fact that playing in groups does not give you more chance to win and that’s kind of strange.

164

True, tanks have a tougher time. I’m not a tank main myself but I totally understand what you’re talking about. Also, yes even I feel that Brigitte is the most low risk high reward hero in the entire game. She has self heal, she has 2 CC abilities on very low cooldowns and she has a personal barrier. She’s more tanky in nature and i feel she should be moved to the tank category because although she does heal her team, the healing output is very little compared to other healers.

165

Well, as your personal SR rises, so does the Group/Team SR and in turn you are matched with people with SR that is close to your new and increased SR. It’s only fair because if you have improved at this game as a group it also means you have improved as an individual (at least in most cases, unless someone is always being carried by their group) and if you are matched with people with lower skill rating and skill level, it is unfair for them. So I feel this system is doing it’s job of trying to match you against people who can match your skill and give you a competition. We cannot really compare this to an actual sport because in an actual sport the number of players are maybe in the 100s or 1000s and you can always be the best but when there is millions of people playing (upeards of 40 million players) I’m not sure if being the Best is a possibility at every skill level. The best are usually the top 500s.

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166

There is one fix for this. Which is, if a person DCs from a match then that person should be penalized as he already is with a deduction of 50 SR or so for that, maybe increase to 100 SR. But the team of that person should NOT loose any SR for the loss because it was due to someone leaving. However, the winning team should still get their SR that they get for a win.

Idk if this is a good idea in terms of practicality, but at least on the books it sounds pretty good. Any thoughts?

167

Thanks for the information provided, Scott.

I would like to comment on some things, you did not cover, but that still affect solo and group players alike.

Why are we still having performance based SR on lower ranks and how is that factored into all this? If i have an above 50% win chance, am the highest SR player on my squad and try to flex to counter picks against the enemy team over the course of a match, i will usually be punished in SR gains and losses depending on the outcome of the match. This usually stems from being unable to use as many ultimates as when staying with a certain hero the entirety of the match.
I get that performance SR is in place to quickly get smurfs to their appropriate levels and out of lower rank games. Well, it isn’t working, is it? I play most games on PS4 and there are smurfs everywhere. Many of which are specifically made by people to “farm” lower ranks for fun (people boasting about this on noumerous FB groups etc, Streamers having GM to Bronze and back again as a nights entertainment). So once your performance SR boosted them out of the inappropriate regions of skill rating, they will start throwing matches, to get back down again. Ruining games for people on the way up and then on the way down again.
I am not saying, you can prevent this by any means, people will be people. What i am asking for is, that you make the experience for players playing the game as intended less frustrating in their own SR gains and losses. It doesn’t matter, if you are in a group or not, if you are flexing to a tank, because nobody else can or wants to play one, why is that player punished in gains and losses? If you have a Winston for example, the enemy team has a good Reaper and you swap off the Winston after the first two engagements, your “bad” Winston performance (no ult kills, no knockbacks etc) is already on record and will hold you back, even if you win after swapping to a better suited tank for your team. Even if that Winston performance is not counted, you have an ult charge disadvantage. Likely resulting in lower SR than otherwise possible with, let’s say with a team SR.

Let the lower ranks also play for the win and not for the best possible way to get a great personal performance. There is no i in team. Doesn’t matter, if the team is bronze or GM.

Further on the topic of performance SR, more questions:
Do you really think, you are comparing apples to apples, as you once said? Are you then factoring in all possibilities of group combos and maps and such. An example: a player chooses Ana, has a Reinhardt on the team. It is Volskaya and you also have a Mercy and a Sombra. There is a Soldier as DPS and a Dva as offtank. So there is a nano target, an EMP to make nano assist even more likely etc. Now an Ana at the same SR on the same map has a tank duo with Hog and Dva, there is a Tracer and a Widow as DPS and a Moira as second support. No barrier, no defensive Ult, no real nano target, harder targets to heal with your gun etc. How is that apples to apples? If you can now debunk my theories of this being compared and instead telling me, you would only be compared to an Ana with the same team combo, i will take back anything i said or reverse any doubts i have. Until then, i shall keep wearing my tinfoil hat!
In case you are actually comparing these two Anas, i don’t want any apples from you, they might in fact be a potato and a banana.

Get rid of the perfomance system, please! It just servers too little a purpose to stay in place and is too flawed and not transparent at all.

Will you ever add transperency to the SR system? You could give great incentives to teams also, instead of rewarding selfish play (i am hinting at the performance SR again).
Example: You could have a flat base amount per win or loss added or deducted.
Let’s go with 25 points for this example.
Then you can factor in things like “underdog” status as your team was lower on average SR. +1 SR. Then we can add in some team based factors, which might affect, how people play. A team kill could give a bonus point, it is a special event and means, your players synergized very well – +1 SR per team kill. Was the map a straight shutout? Fullhold on A, 2-0 on attack? Great +1 SR. Or did you get a reverse sweep? Down 1 after round 1 control, but got your team together and pulled through? +1 SR.
So the end screen could look like this:
Win … +28 SR
(+25 base, +1 team kill, +1 fullhold, +1 underdog win)
or
Loss… -26 SR
(-25 base, -2 favourite loss, +1 team kill)

Of course there could be other additions to that, but you get my drift. It promotes a totally different mentality and that system can’t be “played”.

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