I just got rolled in my first tank competitive match this season. I checked the replay and one of our DPS literally got ZERO kills the ENTIRE match. This person played Soldier and spent the entire time shooting ONLY at the enemy Rein and Sigma shields, completely ignored any flying or flanking heroes (seriously, even if they were in the sky right above with no heals and abilities on cooldown just wouldn’t turn to shoot them at all), used biotic field when nobody on the team needed it (even himself), shot his rockets into walls or the floor, I mean this player was just BAD. When the match was over this player said “Sorry I’m bad at video games lol” and left.
What I don’t understand is, how on EARTH does the game match me with a player like this? The whole match felt like a 5v6 and looking at the replay, for all practical purposes it was. I would think with a glut of people queuing for DPS it shouldn’t have trouble finding good players at my rank at all, instead it pairs me with someone who seems to have just started playing yesterday.
What you are trying to do is justify the qualitative aspects of that match to the quantitative factors of each players hidden MMR. Sometimes players, including you and me, do suck in any given match, which sadly is not a valid approach. I myself have had match with single digit eliminations, but others well over 50 (with my highest being 93 all time). In the end, a players matchmaking rating takes into account for their entire play history, not how they seem to be performing at that moment.
I know what you’re talking about but this wasn’t merely a bad run, looking at the replay it’s like the teammate hadn’t played long enough to really understand how the game works, like they thought they were genuinely adding value as Soldier by only shooting into shields, completely ignoring the flying enemies, not using their ult when there were no enemy shields, etc. I would almost think they were throwing but it didn’t seem intentional whatsoever, it just seemed like they didn’t know what they were doing at all.
Which is why I simply can’t understand how I could be matched with a teammate like that. I have over thousands of hours of playtime across all modes on different platforms and this player’s mistakes seemed like entirely rookie mistakes, or like somebody was letting their friend play on their account or something.
For the love of all that is holy please make it so we only have to play one round instead of two for those maps. I can only tolerate the teams this matchmaking gives me for so long.
Without having the ability to review that account, I cannot answer that question. Again a single match doesn’t exactly define a player’s true skill. The best thing to do is to move on and remember to focus on your own game as you are always going to be the only variable that you can control.
Curious if you might know the answer to some of these:
Does any other FPS start new players in a mid rank? The others that I’ve played start new players at the lowest rank.
What percentage of new players after 50-100 games stay in gold, drop to a lower rank, and climb to higher ranks?
If new players started in bronze, would this drastically raise the quality of games in gold? IMO most of the reputation gold rank has for being trash and laughably low skill is due to new players who are sprinkled in games and have no idea what they are doing.
It just felt like a bad way to start the season, is all. My other teammates were arguing with each other because it didn’t feel like anything was dying (the tank was hard carrying and started chewing out one of the DPS, and that DPS started chewing out the tank, but when I reviewed the replay the actual problem was the other DPS who was literally killing nothing through what seemed like a lack of knowledge on how to play).
You’re right that the only thing you can control is your own game, which is why I personally eschew the competitive modes to play arcade most of the time because I don’t like getting dragged back and forth by the arbitrary nature of the MM, there are matches where my teammates are really good and know exactly what they’re doing (solid gamesense, positioning, prioritization, peels, etc.) and others like this where it’s as though as if they’ve never really played before.
Can you provide examples? I have tried to do some research, but most other competitive ladders for most games are either progressive-based (like Hearthstone) or don’t have enough detail for me to make a proper assessment.
So wait, it’s not progressive? How does it work then? Are both good and bad players thrown into gold and then have to climb their way up among each other from there? That sounds weird, and how would they balance that when you’re playing against teams of players grouped up with their friends?
Geez, I wish they’d put this kind of information in the game itself so players could understand things like this. I remember playing the first time years ago and being so confused because there was literally no guide on how the game even works, I had to look online for explanations.
When I mean progressive, there are steps of progress as you climb up. In Hearthstone, you start at the bottom of every season and you have to win a net certain number of matches to reach each tier. Once you reach that tier you can’t drop any lower. Every returning season you get a “multiplier bonus” based on how well you performed last season to quickly get back into the tier you reached. At the very top is a “Legend” tier where there a Skill Rating system is then used. Overwatch originally planned to use a system like this, but when to the 1-100 SR system in season 1, and then the 1-5000 system in season 2 to provide a more “competitive” feel in every match. (That’s Jeff Kaplan’s quote, not mine. Leave you guys to debate that.)
The advantages of a progressive system is that there is a higher level of engagement among players as it feels like there is less grind. The disadvantages is that it can potentially be skill disproportionate, especially at the start of the season.
Overwatch is an ELO based skill rating system. You climb up when you win, but drop down when you lose and the tiers are not thresholds (except for earning the season end bonus competitive points).