Thisis not so. One theory is not supported by data while the other one is. “your gut feeling” isn’t eligible.
Nice post as allways Kaawumba.
It would certainly explain why gold is such a mess. I mean you get teammates that know it all and how to do it - then a set of headless chicken, feeding, ultra-n00bs. Triggering as frack and makes gold harder to climb in than plat for me…
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You also have to consider that in a complex game such a OW, “why” someone is average can vary widely. For instance, you can have great game sense but awful aim, or the reverse. Maybe you’re a high level player playing on a potato. Maybe (guilty here) you’re not very good at all but have the luxury of a good system. Maybe you’re just wildly inconsistent depending on time of day/fatigue level (also guilty).
Not that these don’t apply to everyone, but if you’re in bronze you’re bad at all of it and if you’re in GM you’re better at all of it.
At the median, you can have someone with mad 4head click skills but can’t play with their team on the same team as a great shot caller who couldn’t hit Roadhog at 10m. Each will think the other is the worst player alive when the truth is that they’re just bad in discordant ways.
That’s part of my theory as to why the middle ranks experience so much variation. I could be wrong though.
Well it still stands to reason that a new player won’t know what to do in a great many circumstances. Some are downright clueless.
I mean how can they know? 25levels isn’t enough.
Experienced player know to group up, not over extend and otherwise plan the game with their team.
And thus you get the chaos described above. Makes the experience painfull at times because you seldom get that awesome game.
Try playing at night sometimes. during weekdays. ie 2-5 am
Notice how the games are much more competitive then and you see more silver and gold portraits - even the occational plat. It’s a casual and noobfree time where everything is nice and the games are fun even if you lose - because you don’t lose because of some idiot mistake.
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Again, I didn’t present a theory. I used a counter-argument, which isn’t based off of my gut.
Again, the OP presented no data that actually confirms whether this is how rank is quantified. So at the end of the day, this is still his feeling . Now he may have based that feeling on data that he collected… But that doesn’t make it any more valid without confirmation from blizzard.
Again, how can any system accurately quantify a person’s performance, in ten placement matches alone, when you’re likely to have something unfairly skew your ability to perform to your capacity, like leavers, like throwers, and Smurfs? The answer is it can’t. That’s not an opinion, that statistical mathematics.
And statistical mathematics explains that the smaller the sample size, the more likely those statistics won’t be accurate, and the easier it is for variables, both large and small to impact the data and yield inaccurate findings. And having a small data set, and sample size, means that it is much easier to manipulate the numbers, or focus on the numbers that prove your theory.
It’s no different than a political poll, where they say “60% of Americans feel like this”.
And you have to wonder how did they reach that number how do they know that 60% of all Americans feel a certain way, is it because they asked all 325 million of us? No they asked 30 people, and 18 said they felt that way, and they just inflated to encompass everyone.
My point is that there is not enough data for anyone to be secure in thinking they understand how the placements, SR system, MMR system,and matchmaking work. And how those systems interact with one another what data they collect from one another and how that relates to a person’s rank.
And until blizzard sits down and does a five hour seminar and explains exactly how it all works I can’t sign on to anything that doesn’t follow logic , especially not when I’m able to poke holes in the theory without even trying.
So what you’re mistakenly calling my gut, or my feelings, is something based off of mathematical logic, which has nothing to do with how I feel about it. And mathematical logic dictates that you use the largest set of data you have. So why would the game gather 25 levels of data which is well over 100 matches, but totally disregard all of that and completely base your competitive rank on what amounts to the luck of the draw regarding if you can get a good teams during placements. Because as I said, if you have a couple of levers almost every one of your placement matches, which a lot of people do, then you are Not going to be able to perform to the best of your ability.
This data doesn’t mean anything regarding if he is indeed right or wrong, it’s just data that doesn’t really prove anything, seeing as how we don’t have access to the actual thing that matters which is our MMR, and if you’re going to try to prove anything regarding ranks regarding statistics and regarding how it’s quantified you would need access to everything not just partial access, and because he only has partial access to the data, his theory reflects that by being partially fleshed out.
But beyond that, there are things that he could have done to bolster his claims, but he failed to do so. Leaving his data insufficient, and his theory unbolstered, and with very big holes in it.
I’m not sure about this, back in s8 I went 10-0 on this account and placed 3509, but on game 9 I was in a 3700 average match and I kind of got farmed by a deranked 4.3k peak genji while I was playing Zen and even though I ended up winning that game I had supbar stats, then on my final match everyone on both teams was around 3.3 - 3.4 so apparently my MMR went down despite winning.
I won the last placement with around 6 k/d and placed 150sr higher than my last games average.
This is not a defence of the system.
He’s not saying that it’s accurate.
He’s not even saying he likes how they do it.
He’s merely saying that this happens to be how the initial placement rating works for a new account.
That’s all.
Just the SR you get after your 10th match in all of Competitive mode. Not 10th for the season…10th period.
We know they can’t “accurately quantify a person’s performance, in ten placement matches alone, when you’re likely to have something unfairly skew your ability to perform to your capacity, like leavers, like throwers, and Smurfs”…
We know, man. We know.
No one is making that claim, brother.
But they do give you a number after 10 placement matches. This post is about how that initial number comes to be…that’s all.
That’s all.
Welcome to trying to reason with this echo chamber. Ozone’s response to your posts pretty much sums it up. It is so far removed from your criticisms as to be a solemn clown honking his horn in the corner of a very big room.
All I can say is I hope they are never in a position of power or in education, as they don’t understand assessment or skewed assumptions at all.
I understand that, and the OP has specifically stated that he doesn’t like or agree with how they do it.
Just to explain why I personally know for a fact that his theory is not correct is not based off of how I feel or my opinion or theory, I’m basing it off of my experience with the game and my experience with placements.
When I did my most recent set of placement matches for my new account, I was away on a trip for work. The Wi-Fi at the hotel I was staying at was not that great, and as a result I ended up lagging out of 4 of the 10 placement matches.
3 of the matches had at least 2 or more people leave, And in the other three matches I was lagging so hard that I wasn’t able to do much of anything but I did manage to complete the matches.
And when all was said and done, I got placed in a high gold… which is more or less where I have placed on all five of my accounts regardless of how I performed in the placements themselves.
This means that the system is drawing data from someplace other than the placements as if it strictly gone by The placement matches by themselves, there is no way I could have ranked anywhere other than low bronze.
So what I’m saying is that his theory doesn’t hold water not based upon my feeling but based upon my experiences. Now I don’t know exactly how it’s quantified and that’s why I can’t do more than hypothesize in that regard… but I can say that they consider more than just those 10 matches.
.
The designers of Blizzard’s ranking system cludged together a system without really understanding the underlying problem or having a grasp of unintended consequences. This tends to happen when an engineer attempts to solve a problem that really needs a scientist. It was worse in the beginning, and they are slowly fixing things as they discover the unintended consequences the hard way.
This is backwards. Imagine that you are at 1500, and the average new player’s true rank is higher. They would show up in your matches somewhat often, and have a 5/11th (45%) chance of showing up on your team. They’d cause you to lose more than they’d cause you to win. As those players climb to their true rank, they have to step on the heads of everyone who belong there. (The opposite happens for people who are falling, they boost up people as they go down.)
But the worst thing isn’t that, it is a pretty minor effect overall, but all the matches that get broken by people who are vastly misplaced.
What would be best it to get people a more accurate measure from quick play to seed competitive.
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You know, you could have started with your data point.
Or given it when asked.
Or when you got accused of giving your feelings about things.
But only after you make it abundantly clear that you don’t understand what the OP is saying…
you come in and make it clear that you now have relevant data.
WTH man…?
I mean, it’s not data, necessarily, but your last post is valuable input…the others though? The ones telling us all things we already know like we don’t already know them is a bit…off-putting?
I don’t get these forums sometimes. It’s like everyone just wants to fight rather than have a discussion.
Do you have any actionable suggestions? I’m about to do placements on a new account.
Looking at opposing SR to estimate your SR is fairly fuzzy, so it is difficult to conclude much from one game.
Edit: Also, even though typically win/loss is more important than performance, there may be extreme examples where performance matters more. It’s hard to measure, though, because usually when a player’s performance is extraordinary he wins, and when his performance is catastrophic, he loses.
Right but the point is I’m not the one proposing a theory, nor am I providing any data. Also I never claimed to have anything figured out regarding how things are measured and how it’s quantified by the algorithms and systems and how that translates to your final rank. I just wasn’t convinced that the OP had it figured out either.
And even still, I can’t say that the OP didn’t make some valid points. For all I know it does primarily draw from your initial performance in your placement games TO A DEGREE, and may just use the other 25 levels to fill-in the gaps, in the event that your placement matches are played with levers and throat worse as they guaranteed will be. or vice versa. (That’s a contingency, something the OP didn’t have.
The point is is that it’s not my place to dis-prove something that I don’t know for certain is wrong or right or to what degree it’s correct or incorrect. I know that what the OP suggested didn’t seem complete.
And as you said no matter what I say, people are going to say “he did research” “he had data”, as if research and data supersedes experience.
my experience in placement is almost the universal experience for every single competitive overwatch player. Placements are plagued with throwers, levers, people who aren’t trying because they don’t think that placements matter… and so on.
And what I took issue with was something that I couldn’t prove is wrong, which is that your first placement match will be around the 2350 mark, and that the first match is completely random with absolutely no matchmaking involved, because that’s with the OP is suggesting, and that is primarily what I took issue with. As he has absolutely no data that confirms that, And that didn’t sound true to me.
It doesn’t sound true to me that any part of competitive does not include matchmaking, even your very first placement. But that is what he might be correct about, and that is what I can’t prove he’s wrong about, but it feels wrong.
Obviously, from my experience, I know for a fact that your ultimate and final rank isn’t totally dependent on your performance in placements, but that’s not really where I was focusing, again I don’t have a theory on exactly how it works… Maybe an idea or two, but nothing I’d get the house on… this is his theory, and I am saying his theory is under-researched, his data set is too small, and his theory has absolutely no contingencies for things like throwers and leavers in your placements and how that will negatively or positively impact your perceived performance.
That’s when everybody starts talking about feelings and using my gut, and I’m trying to explain that it’s not me using my gut it’s me using my brain to say from a logistics standpoint if you have systems in algorithms in place that work for every other single aspect of your game, it doesn’t make logistical sense not to have it active during placements, otherwise your first placement match and following placement matches could be incredibly unbalanced, leading to far more rank-chaos than there already is.
Did you write down your win / loss record (and the order of win / losses) for these placements, as well as starting ranks (the actual number)? If you wish to give contradictory data, you actually need to have … data.
And there may be something weird that happens when you leave. It’s an ongoing debate whether or not leaving affects your hidden MMR.
And in the original post, I state that people tend to place too close to high gold. Which is what happened to you. I’m still not totally convinced you’ve actually read the original post.
I never said or implied this. And it is not true. A new account is started at 2350, but it is matched with people that are already at 2350, legitimately. Really. Try to read and understand the original post.
That’s exactly what you implied.
Do you remember when I said it wouldn’t make sense for everyone to come in at the same entry level because you would have incredibly strong players going against incredibly weak players for their first placement match and how that might skew the remainder of the placement matches? And do you remember saying that the system would right itself over the following matches? Because that’s what you said.
Do you remember how I talked about how it wouldn’t make sense because you could have a GM level player carrying a gold level player into diamond just off of sheer Carrie strength?
And you didn’t say everyone places in gold, you said everyone starts in gold, and the next 10 matches will determine where you wind up.
Also as a
You’re taking this way too personal, I’m not coming at you bro… I respect the research you did, I’m just saying that while you may be on the right track you don’t have enough information to accurately make a theory. And until we all know how the MMR functions what it quantifies, what it doesn’t, what value it gives to what variables, and what priority it gives to those variables, and how that plays into your rank, any theory will be incomplete.
We don’t know how your MMR and SR affect or play off of one another or if they do it all, and when there is more that you don’t know than you do know hypothesizing Can get very messy, as there’s a lot you can’t account for because there’s things that you don’t know.
I’m saying that your data set is way too small to be considered legitimate, and your lack of contingencies or at least An explanation for how the systems compensate “in the event of…”, Means that by the very definition your theory is incomplete.
That would only be the case if there was some full rank reset. The vast, vast majority of people at 2350 at any one time have done their initial placements, many of them several seasons ago.
Some new account playing even on the first day of the new season wouldn’t be playing with 11 other totally fresh accounts at 2350. They’d be playing in a relatively normal 2350 game…with the exception that they may be over or under placed.
I have no idea how whether there are throwers, etc. affect what the OP is trying to say at all. No one is saying it’s fully accurate at the end of the first 10 games. Quite the opposite, really.
Hmmm.
If this anecdote is accurate, I wonder if it only counted the 3 matches where the entire team was able to complete? That would account for poor performance but a high gold result. Especially if they won 2 of the 3.
Maybe I’ll DC on all 10 of my placements to see where I end up? Please don’t ask me to do that!
What is This rant OMG!
Always wonder why it’s lower ranks who like to complain about everything. I never see a GM complain about anything.
Honestly don’t think anyone even read that. So please just play the game. We know you are better than your rank, so please let’s the rest of us just play the game. Damn
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