You can believe its confirmation bias, it is not. As you said, no point in arguing it.
I will say I don’t think it’s intentional; I think its as byproduct of the way they coded the system. Given the right factors, it seems to occur. It’s almost predictable once you have enough experience.
Keep playing the new account, that’s the only way for you to prove to yourself what your “true” rank is. It’s like Wyoming said. The matchmaker is very generous to new accounts which is why most of the place gold or plat.
So the problem with the analysis here is it always assumes players reporting this are still “new” meaning lets say less than 100 Comp Matches on a second or third account apart from the primary. I can tell you for a fact this is not so, I know many folks who have found after a time it becoming impossible to move their main, but have literally retired it, and now on alt accounts sit 1-2, sometimes 3 tiers higher proving their skill is higher that indicated on the first account (and its not just progression of skill, they are playing the same).
Why people cannot accept this aspect of the MMR system I will never know, the evidence is irrefutable after all this time.
Wrong. They work because anchor stats aren’t there to keep you at that sr permanently, and they weren’t designed that way. They were designed as reference points of your skill level. You can climb higher its not hard. If you have someone boosting you anchor stats aren’t going to do anything in holding you back. But the moment you go on a losing streak of 3 to 5 games in a row for whatever reason thats when the AI says “this person is losing a lot and doesn’t belong in this rank…I know where they belong!” so it starts pairing you with other people on losing streaks to get you back down to where it believes your skill level is; your anchor stats. This can also be stopped by catching your footing while the system is pushing you down and win a few games in a row, but in a game where blizzard does nothing to remove throwers, leavers and toxic kids from the game, that can be very difficult. This push down also becomes easier to prevent if you play with other people you know are good. I play solo though so I’ve experienced the worst of it.
My point isn’t that anchor stats completely ruin ranked and make it 100% unfair, but the ranked AI bot makes way too many assumptions about a persons skill level and has way to much control over ranked. It’s not an uncommon belief that overwatch has a terrible ranked system. Anyone with a history in competitive gaming knows overwatch has one of the worst ranked systems in existence. It’s an area I believe the more simple a ranked system is, the better. MMR, selective forced 50/50 matchmaking, AI deciding how good you are at the game is all garbage. Just throw random players into a game within an SR range.
Interesting, and I cannot offhand argue the logic. So the question is, is there any direct evidence of anchor stats? Just curious if Blizz has ever discussed something like them?
Don’t ask this kind of questions here op. I mean as tank I lost all my placements and was placed high plat once, as dps won all, low gold.
here mm, and skill sr placements is made with no logic at all, I don’t even waste time reading answers but i bet it alreayd came the ‘‘you have to play more games’’ thing.
There was a forum post by a dev back in like 2016 or 2017 that explained how the ranked system works. They didn’t reveal everything and they said that there’s some things they can’t reveal, but what was confirmed is the forced 50/50 matchmaking, mmr and an AI that is has an idea of your skill level based on how you play. Anchor stats was a theory of some of the things they “had to keep secret” after that post but there was good reason to believe it based on peoples experiences and some of the things revealed in that post. A lot of youtubers talked about it in the earlier days of overwatch, and a lot of people were fighting for a better ranked system but blizz just ignored everyone. I think they changed something once in like season 2 and they haven’t touched it since. This led to “YourOverwatch” coming out with a video around 2018 telling everyone blizzard is never going to change the ranked system and so they encouraged everyone to stop taking ranked seriously and just treat it like quick play with SR lol. After that I think a lot of people just moved onto other games and the ranked system stopped being discussed by the community.
My main hope for OW2 is that they make a lot of changes to the ranked system, but I worry they’re just gonna leave it like it is.
I was trying to locate that but they removed all the old posts about two years ago. That is the one where I know for a fact they said that account level was the “weakest” factor in MMR. It’s not irrelevant, but I think it can become over time a major problem on an old account to move it.
Definitely seem to recall that video, I am going to have to go find it again and watch.
There is a serious problem with that anchor stat “theory” though:
It doesn’t seem to apply to everyone.
A few month ago I upgraded from a 60 Hz to a 165 Hz monitor and climbed over 400 SR within a week.
Now even if I have a losing streak I always end up getting back up to my new true SR.
Also this isn’t a new account.
I am playing since Beta and have been literally hardstuck at my previous SR for nearly 10 seasons.
If you get better you will climb and you will stay at your new SR unless you get worse again.
Yeah they did take down those old forums that had the post. You might be able to find a reddit post that archived it or at least discussed it.
I think it applies to everyone, it just doesn’t effect everyone because a lot of people have other people they play the game with which significantly increases your chances of “catching your footing” when the game is trying to force you down by putting other losing streak players on your team. I don’t think anchor stats would necessarily be all that bad if blizzard actually banned toxic throwers/leavers but they don’t and they’re everywhere in overwatch. The anchor stats may have been designed for “You’re losing a lot so now you have to prove yourself able to carry at this SR or you go back to where the AI believes you should be” but with the toxic community running wild it became more of an impossible situation to get out of for solo players when the people it’s putting on your team are intentionally trying to lose.
I agree
I strongly disagree. I stayed in diamond as a tank main for 2 seasons, hit a losing streak due to throwers/leavers and I was paired with garbage all the way down to low silver. I then one tricked hammond back to diamond with an 80% win rate. Sorry I just do not believe my skill randomly plummeted 3 entire ranks and then randomly got good again. Interestingly enough this dramatic rank fluctuation only happened on my main account. The account that if anchor stats exist, would surely have the lowest anchor stats out of all my accounts, since it was my first one, my first pc fps, and I was trash when I started.
I understand it’s all theory but I think there’s good reason to believe it. If it’s not true, it’s at least very apparent for anyone with multiple accounts that there’s a lot of manipulating and selectiveness going on behind the scenes. Ranked overwatch is far from random, there’s obviously some AI selecting your team mates and forming opinions about you. I been playing this game a long time on a handful of accounts. I can switch accounts every other game at the same SR and one account I will get toxic ragers, throwers, leavers, people that hate everything and the other account will be awesome team mates great coms no toxicity.
250 sr is pretty much nothing in mid ranks. The difference between low gold and low plat is tiny and just a matter of fundamentals.
Ultimately you’ve just not played anywhere near enough games to draw any conclusions and depending on your hero it could take a very long time for the system to figure out your skill level.
No account is doomed to bronze. It’s a matter of being good enough and understanding that different ranks require differnt playstyles. It’s not about playing “correctly” but instead doing what works.
For example in bronze it’s often a waste of time healbotting your team because they’re bronze and wont do much to help. In that scenario it’s more effective to give them just enough heals to not be dead and then focus on killing their team as Bap/Ana from an off angle.
It most certain would - you are not top player in the game amIright?
This just says you unlocked potential that is all. In other words, you were handicapped.
Playing at your optimum is the point that SxyBoomer is making where they take hold. They also did not indicate they meant an account could not climb, they indicate the impact those particular stats have in weighting matches.
I guarantee you a lot of people who have camped in say Plat / Gold for a few years might likely never get out of Bronze now in any reasonable length of time. The games actually get easier once you climb into Gold.
If they try to play correctly you’re absolutely right. You get out of bronze by playing wildly out of position and quickly murdering a few members of the other team. That goes for every single role.
Just give it a time to drop down to bronze on 2nd account.
And that is why they would not get out, they can’t do it. I challenge everyone who is in Gold or higher, drop an account into about the 1000 SR range up and come tell me how easy it actually is. I have account/roles across from bronze in a couple cases into mid-Plat. I assure you, you will find around the 1200 SR point a very difficult game, far harder than what you see in Gold or Plat. Good luck with winning it solo by playing “wild” too. Again, its not 2017 anymore, you will be very surprised.
I am so confident, I would do this with you to prove how it is.
No, I got much better over the years compared when I thought I could heal with Lucios attack lol. So this is proven wrong instantly.
And Im back with an update, interesingtly im low platinum. Lower than my initial rank of course, but by 300 SR? ish. Not bronze. So yeah - something aint right with main accounts. No wonder everyone is playing on new accounts for that dopamine rush - and suddenly it all makes sense 
Those people who said I’d be back in Bronze, please, I’m not being condescending, please just expain this? 74 games after ranking platinum. Im nowhere near Bronze.
These posts scare me for the simple fact that schools clearly dont teach basic math anymore but social media is definitely cultivating that conspiratorial thinking. The matchmaker doesnt have nefarious intent, but it cannot account for the “human factor” in every scenario. It probably should let old data occasionally fall of though as that’s why you see such drastic shifts in posts like these. Low data smurfs are always going to be an issue for proper placement.
True. Everyone here is like " he IS a bronze, he will be bronze you watch" - Im not. I got close to going into Gold then had a few good games after so WHAT is happening? Obviously Im not bronze but my main account is tainted with something lol
You already dropped and it’s only been a week which is nothing. You could have only played a couple of games. Btw, open your profile so we can see how much you played and also keep playing games. If you can maintain than I’ll be the first one to admit I was wrong. Otherwise I don’t believe anything, especially with a closed profile.