If you have played 1000 games and are still worse than the average player

[Soup-12322]

blizzard took your quickplay and placements in your first season when determining your starting rank.

I’ve always heard that on a new account, you start your first placement match at 2500 and it adjusts accordingly as you continue.

I’ve never tested this, but it’s what I’ve always heard.

[RexOverwatch-1555]

Just have a try. Heroes of the Storm is free.

I’m not going to, I hate MOBAs even though I’ve never played them lol. I like RTS but hate Mobas. I wanna build a village lol

I heard HotS and Overwatch can’t be the same because you can switch heroes mid game in Overwatch…

[Kaawumba-1133]

soooo you threw quickplay 1-25 and then tried for placements? is that what you are saying?
your new account got placed where your main account roughly is. I don’t see the problem. The system knew you were a gold player, so it placed you in gold. Rofl

It was fine for me, as I belong in gold. For people like Tactician, who don’t belong in gold, it does poorly. New accounts are placed artificially close to high gold.

[Bioshyn-2761]

Then change the Career High stat to only start once you are level 50, not level 25. That would be kinda weird but kinda cool too.

not a bad idea, easier would probably be to make it like top500, have 50 comp games played until then you only get a “provisionally” rating that doesn’t factor into your career high

[RexOverwatch-1555]

Nice! Can’t qualify for Top500? Can’t qualify for an official Career High.

[substatica-2433]

Start everyone at 0 SR, stop dumping useless players into Gold. I think everyone would rather encounter good players on the opposing team than bad players on their own.

[RexOverwatch-1555]

I totally agree with you, but what about the problem of smurfs. GMs could just get new accounts and stomp all the way back up from zero.

[substatica-2433]

I totally agree with you, but what about the problem of smurfs. GMs could just get new accounts and stomp all the way back up from zero.

Personally I’m fine with that. They should rise up pretty quick, and like I said, I’d rather face a smurf or two on the opposing team than have a bunch of lvl 25 potatoes on mine. The alternative is the terrible players just keep making new accounts and getting dumped into Gold and ruining matches all the way down.

[RexOverwatch-1555]

They should rise up pretty quick,

would you still be in favor of your system if PBSR was totally scraped from all ranks?

[Maburo-1101]

Great explanation. Thanks for the effort!

[substatica-2433]

They should rise up pretty quick,

would you still be in favor of your system if PBSR was totally scraped from all ranks?

That’s a much more difficult question to answer because PBSR is there to offset the effort of the system to set up fair (50% win chance) matches. You can’t scrap PBSR without scrapping that handicapping. Though I am in favour of ditching MMR, PBSR, 50/50 and moving to a matchmaker that matches only on SR, and yes, starting everyone at 0 SR.

[RexOverwatch-1555]

You can’t scrap PBSR without scrapping that handicapping.

If all the world cup players had to play with blindfolds on, then playing soccer with a blindfold on is no longer a handicap. I can see you’ve been lured by the slick tongue of the one that shall not be named.

You do not understand what the term handicap means in the context of sport. I’ve very angry with you

[substatica-2433]

You can’t scrap PBSR without scrapping that handicapping.

If all the world cup players had to play with blindfolds on, then playing soccer with a blindfold on is no longer a handicap. I can see you’ve been lured by the slick tongue of the one that shall not be named.

You do not understand what the term handicap means in the context of sport. I’ve very angry with you

Let’s not get hung up on the terminology.

By handicapping, regardless of what anyone else explains it as or where, I am referring to the matchmaker’s effort to generate as close to a 50% win chance match for both teams by:

• Actively generating teams with a desired team total MMR (may be average or some other team-wide MMR calculation) by intentionally offsetting higher MMR players with lower MMR players
• Matching opposing teams based on this team total MMR rather than SR

By doing this it eliminates the advantage better players naturally give their team. The system then uses PBSR to give that advantage back in a different way, a less valuable, and less reliable way IMHO.

[RexOverwatch-1555]

Actively generating teams with a desired team total MMR (may be average or some other team-wide MMR calculation) by intentionally offsetting higher MMR players with lower MMR players

this seems sinister on the surface, but when you only have a pool of 1000 players (how many players do you think are in queue at anyone time during moderately peak hours?) You must sacrifice closeness of teammates’ SR to shorten queue times.

If you’re saying that unless a team closeness of SR is not held as the number one top priority, then a handicap exist. I’m not sure if I disagree with you, but certainly don’t agree with you. I’m not sold on your hypothesis.

We can get rid of MMR, but one thing that has to happen is your SR must visually decay if you don’t play for a while. MMR decays when you don’t play, the SR will catch up when you start playing again. So if you didn’t play for 14 days, when you logged back on your SR would be lower/higher? I think this is the majority of why MMR exists.

[substatica-2433]

this seems sinister on the surface, but when you only have a pool of 1000 players (how many players do you think are in queue at anyone time during moderately peak hours?) You must sacrifice closeness of teammates’ SR to shorten queue times.

I’d be okay to wait. Blizzard would determine, which they already do for MMR, the wait times versus the SR differential.

If you’re saying that unless a team closeness of SR is not held as the number one top priority, then a handicap exist. I’m not sure if I disagree with you, but certainly don’t agree with you. I’m not sold on your hypothesis.

As I see it, the major handicap is placing low MMR players on teams to offset high MMR players on the same team.

I’m not sure you mean team closeness as in the SR differential between two teams, which yes, I think the matchmaker should use as it’s overarching factor with some variance allowed to deal with long queue times.

If you mean SR closeness within a team, SR differential within a team is fine if it’s a result of a small player base or off times, etc. What I don’t agree with is the system intentionally offsetting high SR players by actively seeking and adding low SR players to their team.

We can get rid of MMR, but one thing that has to happen is your SR must visually decay if you don’t play for a while. MMR decays when you don’t play, the SR will catch up when you start playing again. So if you didn’t play for 14 days, when you logged back on your SR would be lower/higher? I think this is the majority of why MMR exists.

I’m not so sure of this, and definitely disagree with your last point. SR could decay, sure, if Blizzard wanted to offset players who are out of practice or aren’t up on the meta, but this meddling could be avoided as they’d simply lose SR when they played again (same as someone who starts playing an unfamiliar hero in comp).

And I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, the main reason MMR exists, for better or worse, is to allow Blizzard to engineer player progress behind closed doors.

The system I outlined (no MMR, no 50/50, no PBSR, match on SR only, start everyone at 0 SR) is dead simple, transparent and would work great – for dedicated players that are improving and anyone who wants honest feedback from the system.

Blizzard will never do this because it’s not the most optimal system when it comes to fostering engagement, it’s too efficient and stark. Bad, mediocre and stagnant players would stop playing, and that’s bad for business.

[imbroke-11521]

i started off at 600 sr, the slowly climbed to my sr over the time of around 7 seasons. It just takes tonnes of time. im at around 2100 rn.

[RexOverwatch-1555]

As I see it, the major handicap is placing low MMR players on teams to offset high MMR players on the same team.

so what you are saying here is that, if the computer found a 6v6 match that one team had a 40% chance of winning (the lowest percentage of blizz will allow), that if the computer then waits for a minute or two, and within that minute throws a low SR player onto the team that has the 60% chance, raising the underdog’s chance to 45%… this is what you call handicapping.

If we followed your guidance the vast majority of games would be a 60/40 chance, and those are face stomps, and no one likes face stomps.

So we either “handicap” the games OR every game is a face stomp. I’ll take the former.

[masterifrit2-1737]

I have 3 accounts and they are all within 150 SR of one another. I feel like I am placed where I belong.

[substatica-2433]

As I see it, the major handicap is placing low MMR players on teams to offset high MMR players on the same team.

so what you are saying here is that, if the computer found a 6v6 match that one team had a 40% chance of winning (the lowest percentage of blizz will allow), that if the computer then waits for a minute or two, and within that minute throws a low SR player onto the team that has the 60% chance, raising the underdog’s chance to 45%… this is what you call handicapping.

If we followed your guidance the vast majority of games would be a 60/40 chance, and those are face stomps, and no one likes face stomps.

So we either “handicap” the games OR every game is a face stomp. I’ll take the former.

The system doesn’t need to calculate chance-to-win at all, and it shouldn’t (or it shouldn’t take them into account). If it matched on one visible metric, everyone would be (within a queue friendly variance) pretty close in rank, and their skills would be a true representation, and random distribution (at least between the two teams), of the skill levels that exist at that rank.

[RexOverwatch-1555]

The system doesn’t need to calculate chance-to-win at all

ok, so in the wee hours of the morning, there are only 6 GMs in queue and 6 bronzes in queue. How does the computer decide who’s on who’s team? does it just randomly assign them?