Why does it exist? Why can’t we see it? Let me clarify for everyone. I’m NOT talking about the number. I do not care about the number. I want to know how Blizzard is determining that number. I do not think they should have it hidden. The only reason I can think of for why they hide it is because they have something to hide, i.e. patented rigged matchmaking system. Just want your thoughts. Some of you are in denial about the rigged system. I don’t know why. It was quite obvious to a lot of us that the game was rigged. Then, years later, proof was provided. I think you’re extremely naive if you believe Jeff when he says they don’t use it for this game. Nonsense. They literally hide the criteria they use to rank you from the entire community. Why the secrecy?
It’s not a readable number, so unless you want to compare your 0.2639262926489103639263920626292 to your mates hidden MMR there’s no real point in seeing it
Disclosure this isn’t the exact format of it, but it’s something fairly similar from what I understand
I’m not talking about the number. I don’t care about the number. I’m talking about the criteria they use to determine that number. Why is it hidden? Why can’t we see it? I have a pretty damn good idea of why. I’m just curious what the rest of the community knows/thinks about the issue.
Not bad!
Mine is “af4343-242452748-afe454d-47cf67”, much better! 
Say you’re a 2500 player, you get a lucky winstreak and climb in Sr to let’s say 3500, but you didn’t perform any better than you usually do you literally somehow got a god stack every game and the enemy was hard throwing, your SR has to go up to make you feel good about yourself, that’s not an issue with MMR, so MMR is usually a more accurate measurement of your skill level and is used to calculate how much sr you gain/ lose to push you closer to your real skill level (you’d lose a lot if you lose your 3500 game and you were still a 2750 MMR player)
Okay. Not answering the question. Thanks for trying though.
Addiction. MMR doesn’t move much, because it’s sure of your rank. If you win ten games and it barely moves, you won’t feed the gambling addiction that SR gives.
There are a couple of reasons, but the main one is that it’s not designed to be attractive. SR as a proxy allows them to scale and modify the numbers before showing the user a number, in an effort to provide a sense of progression, a penalty for leaving a match, etc.
Raw MMR just goes up a little when you win and down a little when you lose, depending on comparisons with other players. Its behavior is very predictable and often stagnant.
Here is the detailed response from Game Director Jeff Kaplan:
Source: Old Overwatch Forum Archives
Note that when Jeff Kaplan refers to “Decay” he referred to the old rule of losing SR for not frequently playing the game. This no longer happens, however the game has since changed so that Placement Matches at the start of a season always max out at 3900, but the MMR for those players could be a lot higher and the SR will show larger gains and smaller losses for a player who is realigning their SR to their Hidden MMR.
None of this answers my question. How are they determining your MMR?
It’s supposedly copyrighted and kept behind closed doors for others to not steal. It’s like Facebook telling you their algorithm to show who it wants to show first or ads for you to buy. Copycats would just use it for their own projects. I’d love to know too but that’s business.
They can’t tell you because you’ll be able to manipulate the system. Can’t have you doing that now
Its a proprietary secret. That is the real answer but probably not what you want to hear
I play a lot of pvp games and none of them make the algorithm public that I know of
Most likely they don’t want the process to be published because if they did it would help their competition when they’re designing matchmaking systems. Giving us this info is pretty much a pre-requisite for us to understand the MMR value that the system uses
However yes it should be public. Whatever the value is that is matchmaking us should be visible 100%
Don’t care about the number itself. I care about how they are determining it. Seems to me that the patented matchmaking system they own is what they are using for this game and they don’t want the negative PR because they know it’s rigged.
No, that’s the thing. If they patented it it would be public information and there would be no reason for them to keep it a secret where as right now they don’t have to patent it since nobody can copy it since it’s not public. Anyone who works on it can’t use it either since they will sign NDAs about it. Telling others how the matchmaking works and what variables it considers and in what way would be like leaking a secret recipe. It benefits them in no considerable way. Easing some concerned players is not a considerable benefit for them.
But in case you ever find out how it actually works, I’d like to know aswell 
They literally have a patent for a matchmaking system that does exactly what many players here have claimed it does for years. You go on a win streak. Then, you suddenly find yourself in a game with the absolute worst players and you slowly lose all the SR you gained. The matchmaking system they patented does exactly that. Google it. When you go on a win streak, it finds players much worse than you because they claim it leads to “more balanced matches”, i.e. rigging the system to hold people back so they’ll continue playing. I don’t get it. I’d still play the game if the matchmaking system were honest. This dishonest and rigged system kinda just pisses me off.
It is hidden probably to prevent abuse but it doesn’t matter because it is not doing a very good job and it can still be exploited easily.
Your Elo Matchmaking Rating is primarily determined by the reflection of overall wins and losses in the history of that game mode. Now how much your Hidden MMR/SR goes up or down is determined by the following factors:
- Win or Lose- The strongest factor in each individual adjustment is the result of the match.
- When you win a match that positively impacts your MMR
- When you lose a match that negatively impacts your MMR
- Strength of schedule - Your personal hidden MMR is compared to the average MMR of the opposing team.
- If you have a stronger MMR rating than the opponent average and you win you will gain less MMR than average
- If you have a stronger MMR rating than the opponent average and you lose you will lose more MMR than average
- If you have a weaker MMR rating than the opponent average and you win you will gain more MMR than average
- If you have a weaker MMR rating than the opponent average and you lose you will lose less MMR than average
- Frequency of Play/New Player - If you are a new player (or new account) or if you don’t play very frequently, your MMR will be less certain and may see dramatic increases or decreases until you are playing frequently enough for the game to be certain of your current MMR rating.
- For example, if you are a new player, you will see dramatic swings of 100 or more SR for your starting few games outside of placement matches, and will continue to have larger than normal swings until around 50 games are played relatively consistently.
- It can take several weeks of inactivity to destabilize the certainty of an MMR rating, but will quickly recover when you start playing again.
- Ladder Bubble/Squish - Your MMR rating will have dramatic adjustments if you are at the very top (Grandmasters) or very bottom (<500 Bronze) of the skill rating ladder.
- If you approach the higher levels of skill rating (4200 or higher est.), you will need to win more games on average versus lose in order to maintain your current MMR rating.
- You gain more MMR for wins if you are below 500 skill rating typically, however, this is not very trackable as your skill rating is deliberately blinded if you are below 500 SR (to deter throwing games).
- Personal Performance for Platinum and lower - If you are Platinum rank or lower, there is a minor influence to how well you perform on your chosen heroes in that match.
- This performance is not compared to your teammates! Instead it is compared to the heroes you play versus the overall community using the same heroes you did.
- The exact measurements of performance are not entirely known, but it is speculated this is a combination of eliminations, final blows, hero damage dealt, healing applied, accuracy, and total deaths.
- In-game medals are NOT an accurate measurement of personal performance. Medals compare basic stats to that of your teammates and since each of you play different roles and heroes, you will not be able to properly gauge how much contribution you are providing to the match from looking at Medals.
Need more information? Check this guide out:
The patient from ATVI that you refer to is not in use in Overwatch’s matchmaking systems, this has been debunked many times.
Jeff Kaplan and Scott Mercer has addressed the perception of forced 50/50 win rates here:
Source: Old Overwatch Forum Archives
Source: Old Overwatch Forum Archives
Source: Old Overwatch Forum Archives