At this point he’s arguing for the sake of arguing. I think your time is better spent elsewhere.
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But either way… if MMR is what matches you… it should be the number shown. and the whole thing should be performance based… because if you do well, you should go up… even if you lose.
Right?
The point people bring up is simple: if SR is sufficient for ranking and climbing why is there MMR? Why is the matchmaking kept separate from the ranking and climbing? Can you answer that please.
No… Its team game, not solo game.
Why do you keep asking same questions again? I already explained that to how why is there MMR and SR. Sr is not sufficient, its just visible representation of more complex calculation which is MMR.
I dont understand your question. What do you mean by that? You are matched based on your MMR which will affect ranking and climbing up or down.
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Then count wins and losses. Otherwise PBSR is pointless, isnt it?
Team game where we focus on stats means to me you can have great stats and still lose. Meaning the rank and the MMR dont jive.
I know people like to think that wouldnt happen… but it can.
Ok I think I get it. So the SR, the score you’re climbing and chasing after - has nothing to do with your actual skill.
Your actual skill is this hidden MMR thing, which they use to rig 50/50 matches, and you’re expected to climb and rank against that.
I agree with this. Why can’t we just be matched around SR. And if you win, you win?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s a team game, so your individual performance only really matters in whether or not you convert wins at your current SR. And if you really did more or less they can adjust your SR with pbsr for that match alone.
Eventually you will climb to a rank where other people do what it takes to win. I’ve read that megathread on MMR and sort of agree. Can’t find a real argument for existence of MMR except to rig, which would make the SR kind of meaningless and the whole laddering process pointless.
Not exactly, its still linked to MMR, if you win you gain SR, if you lose, you lose SR. Your skill can affect match both ways which will have direct impact on your SR. SR is chasing after MMR.thats why outperformers climb faster below 3000.
Kind of yeah, for example if you leave match, you lose 50 SR but MMR isnt affected at all.
50% is fair chance to win, not rigging. You are expected to climb vs enemy team not vs system. If you are good enough of course, you will climb over time.
You are matched around of your SR/MMR in majority of your games. Unless you group up with players with different ranks.
Your individual performance will decide if you climb or not. Also below 3000 it will have impact on how fast you can climb or drop down.
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Well you’re getting me more interested in this subject!
But they said they don’t use SR to affect MMR. Take a look!
So we’re playing and climbing for this SR “skill rating”, but it’s not used AT ALL to make matches and climb for/against. Instead, it uses this hidden MMR thing, and the matches seem to be rigged for 50/50 so things feel fair.
From what I understand, they want MMR to rig for fair games, games that are really close and can go either way, all the way up on your climb, regardless of SR. It looks like SR becomes this accumulated reward balance, a record of your winrate, never reset and per account.
Do I understand this correctly?
I didnt say they are. SR is trying to catch MMR so its not too far behind. For example once on alt i was extremely outperforming players in rank i was, so I was getting above 70 SR per win at one point of several wins with great stats. You can see same on some bronze to gm streams. SR wants to be close To your MMR.
I really dont like the “rigged” word. But yes, matchmaker is trying to create 50/50 match as best possible outcome.
They are trying to match same team MMRs. You can have people with different MMR in your match, but they are counted together and devided by 6 to get final team MMR to match enemy team MMR. Thats why you as for example mid silver dps might fight low gold dps. It might not feel fair for you but MMR difference is then on tanks for example when your team has gold tank and they have silver tank. It would be good to balanced MMR for roles also, but it would raise queue times significantly i guess.
Well, its visible nice representation of your accomplisnent in game with rank icon. But you should be always focused on being better player, not chase SR and rank icon 
Also SR tends to reset in placement games where it wants to get close to you MMR as possible after you do 5 placement games.
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I realize this, but your OP says “play well and the system will help you climb”. This can’t be true, because of how it works.
The system is using only non-SR (the matchmaker is not using SR, and the matches are rigged for 50/50 fairness. So how is it actually helping you climb? If SR “follows” MMR, then it’s not actually leading your climb, it’s lagging it.
PBSR is nice, but it sounds like you have to over-perform all this hidden stuff (mmr 50/50) to start gaining SR (and pbsr) and actually moving up.
That’s not helping you climb, that’s “reluctantly rewarding you with SR after beating the odds”. You’re pulling yourself up despite the system dragging you down by handicapping, and not taking an interest in your actual skill (using mmr to make matches not sr).
Ok so if that’s the case, why do we need MMR? Just do stuff and win or lose SR. You still haven’t explained why MMR is necessary for any kind of climb. It seems like you could just match people around SR and let them climb that way, because it’s a team game and what you do to win is different between matches. No need to hide the player’s actual skill and try to force matches around it, irregardless of SR.
But it is, if you overperform, your MMR goes up and SR will react to that and reward you with more SR. I will show it to you on my example from yesterday games i played. But not now i am on my way to work.
SR is not leading your climbing process. MMR is, SR is just reacting to it.
Well you dont exactly have to. You dont need higher SR gains to climb, average are enough. Pbsr is just bonus when you play very well consistently.
What do you mean by handicapping?
To place new account, to get rid of smurfs faster, to get rid of underperformers faster below 3000.
You could in theory remove MMR but in that case PBSR have to go also and placement would need to be reworked. Then every match would be only ±25 SR. But smurfs would stay in lower elos much longer with it.
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I have to defend Zax here.
SR chases the MMR - if you want to call it that way, yes, it’s “lagging” behind. And MMR also is not cut into stone. It shifts depending on your performance all the time. In theory, a Bronze and a Diamond player could have the same numbers in their matches (besides APM, of course), while playing completely different. 30 kills in Bronze mean something different than 30 kills in Diamond. But at the end, the raw numbers are the same.
No one would argue that the bronze player and the diamond player have the same MMR.
MMR is used to balance games. Some call it “rigged”. And yes, there seem to be some problems with it, at least from a user experience perspective. But no one knows if matches are intentionally “rigged” or if the matchmaker overcompensates and overvalues certain aspects.
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But do you see what hes getting at? No one is saying that Zax is wrong. In fact he is probably very right. But there are major flaws in the system that some of us see… And even if we arent right on all of those flaws…we are right on some of them.
Seasonal resets. Placements that matter. One metric to count across the board for the ladder. Start new players at the way the placed (with placements that matter)… or all of them in bronze.
Will that make comp perfect? No. It will open up new cans of worms that will make someone else unhappy. And then they’ll try and ‘fix’ it
Can you give me an example of a main stream competitive game that makes use of your desired/required implementations?
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nope, this is overwatch, and I don’t know any other team games that play the same. Comparing to others isn’t a worthwhile cause. They are all Apples to Oranges to Pears to Bananas.
But I will say this. I believe the devs are trying to emulate the path to pro from other physical sports. Metal ranks being for example Little League, JV, Varsity… College, Semi Pro-Minor League, and Almost Pro. before going to Contenders. And that’s why PBSR was implemented below Diamond. To see who is actually promising, but this is where that fails IMO, Teams will play together and with each other for years… and one superstar maybe able to turn some games, but if the rest of the team sucks… they get lost in the mix.
1 player scoring six runs in a game, will always lose if 9 players on the other hit one run. Making their skill … not noteworthy.
NOW change that 1 players team EVERY GAME. now it kind of doesn’t matter.
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Overwatch is classified as a hero shooter and there are at least 3 different games that play “similar” (paladins for example).
Not really, but I’m not going to spend my time trying to convince you otherwise as your experience in competitive FPS’s isn’t deep enough.
Overwatch got rid of their path to pro two or three years ago when they stopped supporting T3/T2 teams from multiple regions.
1 player who ALWAYS scores 6 runs per game will stand out. One player who scored 6 runs one game, none the next, one or two the next couple, is far from noteworthy.
Comparing real sports to E-Sports (much less Overwatch) is even more laughable than shrugging off the request to present other games (specifically FPS) which utilize SR/MMR systems.
Valorant and CSGO both do this.
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Valorant is a GREAT example of a competitive game (besides Overwatch) that uses an SR and an MMR system.
I do think I prefer how the tanks are broken up in Valorant a little better.
But their player base is also probably quintuple or more in size even at launch.
You can describe it from an engineering standpoint as mathematical correlation.
SR attempts to correlate with MMR.
If your MMR is higher than your SR, the system will try to push you up the ladder faster (via PBSR).
If your MMR is lower than your SR, then you’ll receive larger losses in SR per loss (via PBSR) trying to correct the imbalance.
When your SR and MMR are closely correlated, this is when you experience stagnation (Elo hell if you want a label for it 
). This basically means you have not given the system sufficient evidence that you belong higher or lower on the ladder.
Hence why some people will go on streaks of winning games and the next day go on streaks of losing.
Correct….
A bronze Hanzo player in a bronze game might put out 30 elims, 15,000 damage and 8 deaths.
Similarly….
A Diamond Hanzo player in a Diamond game might put out 30 elims, 15000 damage, and 8 deaths.
Why are these players different? Well because of the movement, positioning, pace of the game, consistency of other players in the lobby, decisions being made, accuracy, etc.
If you put that Diamond player in silver games and that bronze player in silver games, observe the difference in performance stats, and if that’s not enough proof of why MMR is necessary in a game such as Overwatch then 
Don’t know what to tell you.
Where I will agree is the PBSR system should be more aggressive at placing players more quickly. But I’m curious as to the long term effects of Overwatchs current community having broken the rules for so long.
This would require a lot of data to be provided and some Python programming 
I would sure the fudge hope not!! but considering the conversations we see here on the forums?!
Again…. I have an interesting thought on this that would require a bit of data science.
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ok. Thanks for your input. I don’t agree with anything you said.
I would also argue that Paladins, while similar doesn’t rely on teamwork as much. Valorant even less so, CSGO barely, although I’m more interested in that. There is no game out there now that has been marketed as much teamwork oriented that is an FPS.
SO while they are all fruit. it is apples, to oranges, to pears, to grapes and bananas. They do different things. And if you play any one of the same as overwatch, you’re playing them wrong… or you’re playing overwatch wrong.
Right but that means the system is an MMR one, not an SR one.
Exactly. The system is hidden, we don’t see it, and climbing is a reluctant byproduct of “playing well”. Something that could be accomplished entirely with SR alone.
pbsr gains can do everything mmr can do, except it’s visible and not rigged. I totally get why people think mmr is useless, because it is.
If I climb to eventual 50% winrate (not the same as 50/50 match rigging). If I climb to that point in terms of SR it would be fair to say my MMR equals my SR. At that point, why do I still have MMR? I didn’t need MMR anyway in the first place, but I certainly don’t need MMR once I’m converged. So why is it still using MMR to guide me into matches, and not SR? Isn’t it just to rig the odds?
If I’m 3300 support, just find me players around 3300 and make a match? It’s ok to plus or minus a few SR differences, and adjust those gaps with pbsr, and not care about any MMR.
Again, once converged, there is nothing to chase, lead, lag, or climb. The system isn’t helping climbers by using MMR at that point. It might help others though, to make the game “fair”. Which would mean handicapping and rigging like that thread says. Who needs MMR to make “fair” games? Or is it because SR isn’t fair?
You haven’t explained why MMR is necessary if “playing well and gaining SR” is the end all be all goal of laddering.
In an older interview before Jeff left, he commented saying SR is nothing more than a visual representation of your MMR, and is not used in matchmaking at all, it’s nothing more than a number between <500-5000.
I personally believe pbsr would be null without the MMR system, since the game is using data based on mmr to adjust pbsr gains/losses, I’m not saying it couldn’t work with strictly SR, but would be harder to keep data on.
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