I believe Overwatch's MMR system is designed as way of controlling the players upward mobility in ranks

I’ve already debunked this on another post and since I am unable to link to it I’ll post it here as well:

The argument that the wins and losses are forced is just circular logic.

If you reason it out it does not make sense.

If you assume that forced losing streaks and forced win streaks exist then uou have to assume that the system is holding you back or carrying you respectively. For this to work it would mean your skill is essentially irrelevant in this as no matter how good or bad you are playing the system manipulates your teammates and opponents skill. Your skill would not be allowed to manipulate the outcome in this system.
Therefore by this logic your win or loss is dependant on the skill of your team mates and the skill of the opponents. If their skill is relevant then therefore your skill in relation to the other players is relevant. You now have a logical paradox and the Occam’s razor solution would be that there is no manipulation of your wins/losses to begin with.

If the system is in fact manipulating your wins and losses this is unverifiable by just yourself. You only have the perspecive of 1 player out of 11. You would have to have had the perspecive of all 12 players to at least begin to attempt to verify this. You also are observing the results with a personal bias. You have a vested interest in winning and climbing which is your bias. This would need to be observed by an impartial party that has no vested interest in the match outcome. Then many different games with many different players spanning the gamut of SR ranges would have to be obseved and analyzed.

Given the above there would also need to be controls put into place. That would mean each player would have to have had the same amount of sleep, have eaten the same foods, be in the same state of mind, etc. This is because you would have to eliminate all outside variables that could skew the results of the system. Any outside variable no matter how small would cast doubt on the results because the question would remain, if it was the variable that changed the results or if it was the effect of the system.

Since in reality these variables are numerous in reality then empirical evidence is therefore not reliable enough to be conclusive. However since these variables are also impossible to remove (due to human nature) then this would also be unverifiable.

The variables themselves cause so much of a problem in verifying the theory that win/losses are manipulated that it then becomes unverifiable. However since these variables cause this problem they would also cause problems for the system to be able to effectively manipulate the players win/loss due to not being able to know how a player will actually perform in any given game. It would have issues being able to predetermine the choices a player will make during the match. Because of this, even if it used players average skill to manipulate the match outcome it is likely that outside variables would skew the results in either direction regardless.
So to conclude, when we look at the logic of this theory we encounter a paradox and we also know that outside variables have a large impact on the performance of the system. Since the theory is both not logically sound and it cannot be varified it is not likely to be true. We also encounter the human element as being a repeating theme that it is much more likely to be the true cause of the streaks that people experience. However you have the power to manipulate your own variables and not the variables of other players. Regardless of how the system works, manipulating your own variables in your favor would be how you increase your odds of winning.

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TLDR; It’s far simpler and smarter to implement a system that is fair than one that is rigged, so it’s significantly more likely that overwatch competitive matchmaking is fair.

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lol, thats just the blind leading the blind, dude

First off, I don’t think you debunked anything, you just threw together a counter to my conjecture with it’s opposite. That’s not debunking unless your counter is absolutely proven. Nonetheless.

Well obviously this is all conjecture, I never said it was a fact that matches are manipulated. I simply stated that I strongly believe they are. Again, I feel lower tiers are trapped by they system on purpose. I think it tags problem players (people who’ve left matches/reported often/etc) and puts climbing players with the problem players when said climbers are reaching a new season highs.

The argument that the wins and losses are forced

Never made the argument about wins. Just the massive losses after net gains. As in, it kicks in when you’re reaching a new high, or about to reach a new rank tier.

We won’t ever know unless they tell us exactly how it works, which of course they won’t do that.

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While I don’t think it’s forced/on purpose, there is very clearly something very wrong with how things work right now.

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As above…Your tinfoil hats have been debunked so many times, yet you still sit here believing blizzard is some evil entity holding you back.

Well I didn’t say I learn from them, I learn with them. Obviously if they aren’t learning then I move on, or vice versa. But, teaming up with a smurf will cripple me and leave me needing to be carried, only to go back down again.

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There is something seriously broken with the matchmaker. I have seen things in this matchmaker that I have never witnessed in any other game as far as win/loss streaks.

Win/loss streaks are a normal part of numbers, but the way these happen are not natural.

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Again I state that human behaviour is
The true driver. There is no way for the system to make you lose a bunch of games because it cannot determine the behaviour of the players it has placed you with.

There is absolutely no way the system can guarantee that it can drop you on purpose. There are too many variables involved with human behaviour. In fact it’s this very human behavior that is creating the drops you are experiencing.

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All it would have to do is look at the persons stats and bake that into the hidden MMR, wouldn’t be difficult at all really.

So much wrong information on this thread it hurts.

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Pleaae tell me how stats determine:

What decisions the player is about to make.

What character they pick.

Their current or future emotional mood and stability.

How tired the player is.

What type of players the player gets along with.

That the players parents are goi g to kick them off the computer during a game.

If the player had a bad day at work.

Players little brother got into their account or the player lets a friend play their account.

Players mouse acts up during the match.

Player just happens to be in the zone.

An account is being shared by two people.

Player just updated their hardware or is now on a different computer.

Player just isn’t yet warmed up.

Players muscles have gotten sore and they suddenly are not playing well.

Player just isn’t feeling it and makes more mistakes then usual.

The likelihood of the players in a match to get along.

Likelihood that the players will all pick a synergistic comp.

Likelihood that the enemy team knows how to beat the comp.

I could really go on but this is just an example of how many things the system would have to take into account in order to actually be able to manipulate your matches. However if you think about it these can all be reasons why your games seem so terrible.

There is no way they can make a true even match because there is no way the system can account for human behavior.

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I think basically the only issue is that MMR is considered along with SR. So many times I get Widows in gold who kill one after the other. Headshot after headshot. Why is such a good player, with high MMR (skill; also on console) stuck in gold? Because they are placed in fair matches, with people who are high skilled and also stuck in gold. So you get a platinum+ level match in gold, filled with high MMR players on both teams. This extends their time in gold, while they eventually climb up. Sometimes it can be so bad, they are stuck there for the majority of the season.

How do they get there in the first place? Bad luck with connection, having people with high MMR that happen to be throwing that match. It happens. There are enough people that do that, that you can get unlucky and it happens many times in a row. Not to mention people see Widow/Sombra/Symmetra/other hero rumored to be bad and play heroes they’re not good at just to spite that person; which is why i think I always see such good Widows in lower tiers.

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Main account high plat Smurf account low gold.

I played games on my gold account today my first three games had a leaver on.my team followed by a team of throwers. Yes, me playing tank with no heals and five dps I consider throwing a match. The other team had two two two and we got wrecked.

Played a forth game and this is where I gave up. I went 45 and six as soldier. Fifteen thousand damage. Got five quad kills or plus within the game. I was destroying the other team every step of the way the second I swapped to soldier to deal with pharah mercy combo. Had a forty five percent weapon accuracy my accuracy was the best it ever was and I was shooting and killing everyone not just tanks. This is console which is incredibly high for a non keyboard mouse user. No healer touched me all game for more then two seconds.

What the game does is sees I am over performing so gives me the worst teammates and says here carry them to climb. No one in voice chat besides me the entire game.

Small edit if you threw me in a high skill tier game like masters I would perform at their level and be fine. I mean me choosing to stay at high.plat low diamond because I dont care to climb past because dbfz and other games have my attention along with my friends, work, significant other.

It really is sad what gold players have to deal with in order to climb.

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lmao? people keep playing the game because its fun an enjoyable… and no people dont randomly quit the game once they get their “true” SR…

Op is right on all accounts. The hidden (If it’s accurate, why is it hidden?) MMR will trying to give you a 50/50 match. It will not force a loss or a win. BUT, if you are performing very well, it WILL put you with underperforming players, and expect you to carry.

You’re also right that it’s easier to lose 250 SR in one play session, than gain it back in a week. That in itself screams broken system.

The bottom line is this: The only way Blizzard makes money off OW or OWL, is if you play their game. To keep you playing, they manipulate the MMR system. They HAVE to for business reasons. It is not in their best interest for everyone to be high tier, no one would play afterward. Almost all online models for years have worked this way.

Overwatch is fun, the underlying MMR lie, is not.

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Yall have not read the thread that talks about how MMR works that Kaawumba put together have you?

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The system collects so many stats, and those stats are influenced by that big list of things you mentioned. It uses those stats to determine your MMR. Then, it compares your MMR to your SR to put together teams.

If your SR is higher than your MMR, it will team you with others like that. This is it’s test to see if your win streak was really due to your skill, or your teammate’s. So, in a way, it does put you into a game you aren’t expected to win.

The MMR vs. SR comparison is the reason you get streaks of good and bad teams. The system is trying to determine how much of your performance is your skill vs. just having a good team.

The matchmaker comes up with odds of winning based on the mountain of stats it collects. This is not unlike how sportsbook determines point spread and initial odds.

But you don’t know what it collects and there is no way to verify unless the devs explicitly give us that information.

You are litre rally grasping at straws trying to find reasons why you can’t climb but never look at your own performance.

I have heard nothing from you but excuses. You are pulling theories out of thin air to protect your own ego.

If you spent this much effort on actually practicing and improving your game play you would climb.

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The system is designed to make top 500 players seem like gods compared to everyone else too.