Just another guy complaining about overwatch and the nature of PvP gaming in here so just move along if you don’t want to waste your time, but I still think it’s a problem.
From the past week, I’ve developed some kind of a ritual on how good my games are for the day: 1) Play 2-3 games, 2) See how much matchmaking and the holy court of RNG likes me today. I take this as optimistic and hopeful as I possibly freaking can, and after the past seven days, I’ve been overwhelmingly let down on five of them.
To clarify a bit, I am not one of those people that likes a game where our team stomps the enemy team, I just feel bad and dissatisfied on how unfair the game is. Although despite this, I’ve only had those kinds of games on the good days, about fifteen games in(I haven’t gotten one during the “judging” phase).
However, today I got the dumbest games yet.
I’m in silver. The game tells me that and climbing is nonexistent and more luck based than skill based so I’m silver. Today I got matched (arcade) with a Diamond in the first game and a Plat in the second, and they single-handedly carried the enemy team (aka stomping our team to the point of spawncamp) in both games. No one on my team in either games were above gold. That is broken.
I really want to understand the matchmaking system, not to trash on it, but just to have a reason I can tell myself. I don’t want to leave these games thinking “the system is so dumb,” I want to tell myself that it was just freak luck.
Edit: I edited out the bad words, for some reason I thought they didn’t enforce that here…
Don’t trust arcade for a fair match ever. I’m leaning off FFA at night since I have to Widow duel with GMs. And let me tell you, as a plat Widow, how frustrating it is.
Hopefully you’re having a better time with the actual game modes? QP and Comp?
Please note, you may want to edit your starting post. Use of covered expletives is not permitted per the forum Code-of-Conduct.
EDIT: I see you have updated your post, thank you,
I feel your frustration, but I do encourage you to try to use the looking-for-group tool if you are looking to have more consistent games.
There is a GREAT guide to the matchmaker here. But in short the hidden MMR of non-Competitive modes are not dictated by your Competitive skill rating. It is perfectly reasonable and expected to find players of a higher competitive rank in arcade modes.
To me, quickplay and arcade feel the same in terms of matchmaking, I just get days where the matchmaking will let me have good days and the other days I can go ten games that are all stacked against me, arcade or quickplay.
I haven’t played comp in near 5 weeks, so can’t tell you anything there.
The matchmaker is there to force you to carry if you want to climb. If you can’t carry other players at whatever level you’re in, you deserve to stay there. Yeah, one guy can throw a game, but if you had that one terrible guy on the same team as an OWL player, the OWL player would carry even though it’s basically 5v6, because the OWL guy will get multi-kills in every team fight to make up for his bad player.
Whenever someone throws on purpose in any ELO, the only reason the other teammates flip out and give up is because they know they’re all too bad to carry through a thrower. People who climbed to high GM have carried countless games with throwers and still won. That’s how you rank up in OW, nobody said it’s easy.
So how do Top 500s make it there? Do they have to carry Top 500s?
No but seriously, there’s still a point to where an OWL player cannot carry a team. You can see many videos out there that feature the games that “disprove” this, but you never see the games that they don’t succeed in carrying because no one wants to see them. And anyone can pop off, doesn’t matter what rank.
Edit: To simplify, I’m saying your point is ignorant to the many games that disprove your point because they aren’t EVER highlighted or seen.
I have two accounts. On the primary, I’ll play until I hit 3 losses in a row. That doesn’t happen most nights, but some rare nights it can happen to me right off the gate in my first 3 matches. If / when I hit the 3 loss streak, I switch to my other account on which I play much more selfishly when it comes to team comp (and sometimes that’s a good thing).
On the VERY rare occasions I also ding the 3 loss streak on account 2, I go to Quickplay and try to work out new stuff.
That does suck. Here’s another of my policies which I have no idea if it applies to other people.
I find that my first few games really do havoc on my nerves. After my first game of a night, especially, my breathing and heart rate are significantly increased. I know that this is bad for my gameplay, so I don’t queue up again immediately. I watch videos, hang out in the forums, just chill out until I am feeling normal again.
This is my usual pattern for the first 3-4 games or so. Each time I rest myself it takes a shorter time to return to normal biostasis. By this time, the stress of playing has really leveled out (the fact that I’ve had a few by now don’t hurt neither ) and I’m ready to settle in for some serious OW.
Guess what I’m doing right now? If you guessed that I am resting myself after my 3rd game of the evening (2W1L so far) and using that time to try to help someone out on the forums, you win 1 )
I also recommend using the LFG and taking your Friends list seriously. My tip for the LFG in a nutshell is, don’t ever use it to try to 6-stack with random people. Recipe for disaster with really no upside. Just try to grab 1, 2 or even 3 people to queue with, see how it goes, and maybe try to acquire some additional good talent if you spot it during your matches.
Honestly - unless you are queuing with friends and filling with LFG - just stick with quick play. Quick play and solo queue competitive are the same recipe but one has a lot more salt added.
The match maker does the best it can to build teams that it has determined to be about the same aggregated skill level. But when to toss 6 individuals together there is just too much of a random chance that it will go south, FAST.
Your frustration with the match maker is 100% understandable. I can relate. That is why I have not queued solo for competitive in a very long time now. I queue with friends and if needed fill with LFG. It does not mean that my win percentages have greatly increased - the gains are marginal but noticeable. What it had done is that I really enjoy most of the matches now.
A little further up the post, I’ve stated I haven’t play comp in over five weeks(not months). I don’t really play to win, but to have fun. I actually really enjoy long games that go on and on so close to either side winning only to lose. I love the thrill of it.
The games I’ve been getting though are complete stomp loses. I don’t have fun, and I feel like the system of MMR just turns off and I get placed with people who are clearly not my level. I stop playing because I don’t have any enjoyment.
Edit: I also want to say that I keep playing even if one out of the five games are good. It’s enough to get me to enjoy the game, but these good games just for some reason don’t happen on these weird off-days.
by now don’t hurt neither 
) and I’m ready to settle in for some serious OW.
)