Losing Streak but Medal and Card Every Game

Competitive Discussion
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This holiday week, I dropped around 800 SR from Plat to Silver. Now, I’m not pro, I know where I fit as a casual player. High gold to mid plat, and no complaints there. Games are sometime frustrating and lopesided. But overall, there’s a fair distribution of rigged games, balanced games, and favorable games. Of course, the presence of that bell curve is ever so obvious.

After losing so many (~700SR), but getting medals and cards every game (30-40% heals, at times along with silver dmg, and of course gold elims… yada yada…), I became suspicious. So, I started to intentionally do badly, picking supports that I don’t play so well at - of course, the team still lose the game. BUT, miraculously, the next game, the teams are more balanced, and winning is no longer improbable. - I did do this a couple times to confirm my hypothesis (lol, losing anyways, might as well do something useful in the meanwhile).

It is disgusting how Blizzard ruins casual player’s experience, it’s no longer simply playing the vid. You have to play their stupid MM system to get to enjoy a couple of games where it’s just about video gaming.

My point? If you have good reasons to believe that you are playing near the 75th percentile (i.e. still within +/-25 of the median, so a normal, everyday person that plays vids casually after work and on holidays), but got consistently grouped with players that are near the 25th percentile, then, play awful for a couple games so the system will give you a more balanced team.

After all, most of us are not pros, cannot single carry (myself included). So, 6 people who somewhat knows what they’re doing (i.e. the median) is much better than a team with half knowing their stuff and half that’s just trolling/just bought the game this holiday/simply bad.

I have played just about every single Blizzard game since the first StarCraft. And it is sad to see the fading standards that started with their success on WoW. There’s no human elements, players are just numbers. It’s no longer about making enjoyable games, it’s about making addictive games by manipulating people’s psyche/ego.

I wish Blizzard would strive to do better for the people playing their game; et a sense of achievement from something other than the dollar.

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Good take. The matchmaking system makes solo q unplayable. Instead of getting matched with players that are of a similar skill to yourself, you find yourself getting matched with team-mates that have no concept of how this game works. Game sense, and teamwork are the most crucial elements to this game, but the game attempts to match on an individual level. If blizzard wanted to enforce a 50% winrate, try to make games of players with equal skill and game awareness. Tanks, in solo queue are not playable. No one will position around you, or even look to see what you are attempting to do as a specific tank. Thus leaving you as a tank as a giant target that just gets melted. Wonder why no-one wants to queue as tank?

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  1. medals are really not a good indicator of performance.
  2. blizzard does not care for the success of individual players within the ranked system (and why should it)

stop worrying about results. just play the game as you see fit and have fun. you’ll go up, you’ll go down… but most importantly you will be having fun, as you should do with video games.

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If I am a tank or dps, then 100% medals doesn’t speak for performance; example: a tank that blocks a ton but not to the dps’ benefit is useless (i.e. standing at choke with no one behind, shield spent, dies alone). A dps that get gold dmg but was just emptying into tank that’s got focused healed, rather than targeting the healers - is also pointless.

Generally speaking, as a healer, you don’t get high % in heals unless you can keep your team up for a good amount of the time. So that heal % is more of an indicator in the case of healers.

Also, the heal % is not always what I get cards for. It can be for defensive or offensive assist. The high heal % is simply what I’ve come to expect for myself, and an internal (for self) marker of performance.

My post IS about Blizzard’s not caring , so I take it you agree with me there. As to why they should care, I kind of figure caring is part of living. In Blizzard’s case, I guess making more money than necessary for comfortable living is more important.

In terms of worrying about results, I am not looking to push for diamond, or to go pro, just a balanced game so I may have fun. If the post was about results, I would be writing on being stuck (not stuck really, I’m simply not a better player) in gold/plat. That was the point of my post, video gaming to have fun. I do enough of the worrying about results at work.

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im not sure you have a large enough sample size to confirm the prediction but it’ll be interesting to test it myself. i think its just coincidence personally.

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My issue is with huge SR range across a team. Almost all of my matches last night had Diamonds in it when I’m in mid-Plat. (To be fair, it’s not like those Diamonds were good either)

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well, the game i queued into was coincidentally one with tanks that had no idea what they were doing, so i played accordingly badly and we got absolutely smashed. next game i had a competent team and i played accordingly again and we won. it’s kinda funny because, still, sample size of 1, but i didnt expect to get the same result this quickly

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I’m not conducting a study, so yes, n=1 (if you consider cnt per person rather than cnt per game) unfortunately.

Matchmaking is an algorithm, any error (i.e. your coincidence) is either intentional and/or systematic. If I am discussing something exploratory, then yes, coincidental outcome may result from variables that’s beyond one’s control. (i.e. lets say a mouse drinks lots of water cuz he likes the shiny spout).

Systematic errors can be fixed (i.e. Blizzard can improve on their binning). But, Blizzard’s doesn’t do that. It may simply be easier to them to maintain certain level of discontent, so to bait new purchases (new account for seasoned players, new accounts from newbies who place gold/plat out the gate… its shiny you know…). Or, Blizzard may just be incompetent. The first is more likely, as they are a business, just one with no moral/ethics.

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Yeah I do think 1000sr is too big a gap.

The difference between players at 2600 to those at 3600 is pretty big.

500 is more than enough. But then youd have longer ques.

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Blizzard has admitted to having a hidden MMR and have made tweaks to the SR based off of it in the past. Their goal is to keep you winning and losing 50% of the time, which has nothing to do with how good or bad you are. As far as a ladder goes, it’s one of the worst implementations you could ask for.

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So a Moira player? You don’t lose that may games by keeping your team up, but chasing kills? You could lose a lot of games doing that.

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+1 for you TS because i empathise with you albeit you are a more skilled player than i am.

After a hiatus of one month from the start of Season 19, i returned and lost 250 SR within 1 day, going for 4-14.

Seems like a lot of people are getting this.

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carry harder, daddy jeff wants you to smash your face against the wall as hard as possible to carry these anchors.

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It’s funny you presume I chase kills without evidence. So, just now, I played a couple games with my profile open to get you my Overbuff stat: If anything, I need to do more damage, which is near impossible over the last 40 games I lost. I am mostly a healer Moira, at time chasing Genji and Tracer off of the 2nd healer, at time targeting Pharah when she drops within my range… etc… you know, the logical actions to take. I only duel when I absolutely have to.

I did lose that many games while keeping my team up (to the best of my abilities, given that it’s hard to regen juice when there’s no opportunity to suck them from). Again, you can look at my profile to your heart’s content… Keeping in mind that I’ve lost around 40 games just recently… so the numbers are a bit embarrassing tbh.

I did not give you healing number but healing %; Granted, when I get the defensive/offensive assist card, I don’t have the actually value for healing %. However, in those instances, I know the raw healing number, which can be used, along with data from other games I play, to estimate % for the current game.

Again, I am not saying that I should be in anything higher than gold/plat. Only that there were simply too many what tf games in the last few days to make me question Blizzard’s MM system, so I did a little personal investigation.

The result of my testing suggests… well, what I wrote in the original post. I am not pointing the finger at any single player, we’re all just trying to de-stress… I hope. I am simply disgusted at Blizzard’s method at promoting buy-in.

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It’s even funnier that you presume that I presume. I merely stated a playstyle that would be detrimental to a team.
Down 700sr is an awful lot of unlucky, no fault of my own, all cards and medals games to lose.

Also comp on a weekend this close to the end of the season is guaranteed to be bad. Take a 3 stack.

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Ciri, I did not presume that you presumed. You wrote that “You”/elfaba do not lose that many games by keeping your team up (one heals one’s team to keep them up, which was what I wrote in my original post; I healed, I assist in defense and offense; the numbers are above average, I lost 40 in a row - with sporadic wins of course).

No guessing/presumption required on a point-blank statement. If I am to take it that you were making a general statement (i.e. not referring to me) on playstyle, then it would be a akin to saying it’s raining in California when the conversation is on weather in the state of New York.

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I think you’re reading too much into matchmaker. I think it’s just a chaotic random mess rather than a big conspiracy.

I lost 650 Sr in lots of hopeless games. I focused on survivability and improved in death match. Climbed from 1700 to 2000 with 80% win rate, including 22 to 0 and 15 to 0 kd in a couple of Lucio wins. I just focused on fragging out and killing things.

Before I hit plat in season 14, had a run of 10 super easy wins where my team mates were excellent and I just cruised along. As Sr of games increased, they got easier…

Healing % is nice, but doesn’t mean Jack. I’ve seen plenty of losing teams with healing card. Mine included.

Moira player posted on here with vod. 32k heals in a lost game. I could see her issue. Her dps were crap and unable to kill the enemy dps Junkrat carry. He was ulting every 40 seconds as he spammed her team, which she healed. But rip tyre better than coalescence…

She’d have been better switching to Zen or Bap and trying to kill the enemy Junkrat herself. That was the win condition which she failed to see.

Post a vod if you want help. I know that the system seems broken and stupid, but on the whole it’s pretty good at getting people to the right Sr.

I deserved to drop to 1700. I, just about, deserved to hit plat. I deserve my current Sr for various reasons.

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Well, that’s part of it. Here is the rest.

Could, you could. Not you did.
Did implies that you took that action.
Could implies that the action is a possibility, but not the only path.

You seem pretty focused and defensive on the chasing kills thing, so I’ll just leave that as a possibility.
It may very well be raining in Cali or even NY state or city, but that doesn’t mean I care to look at your profile or stats. The general tone of the 1st post and follow ups are enough for me.

Happy new year.

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I am so confused. Everything you shared about your personal experience proves the opposite of your thesis.

At a rank you don’t belong in = not fun.
At a rank you belong in = fun.

Did I miss something?

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Hi Gazzor,

I am not looking to move up the rank (well, it would be nice, but I guess it’s not really my goal in vids and so I haven’t thought of gold/plat as elo hell as many may say). I am reflecting on the incredibly strange MM pattern over the last few days.

I agree that I need to do more dmg; and yes, my dmg is primarily on Genji/Junk/Tracer - sorry I didn’t mention Junk before, but just toons that are squishy and have no armor, I’m on them when I am able to.

The reason I bring up healing % is because, well, I’m Moira main, and it is almost certainly the first thing people will jump on.

Regarding role switching, I switch to Bap or Lucio as a holy s…t backup I guess. However, more often than not, teammates are saved from Tire/Blade/Grav… etc, with no idea how to capitalize on that win on Ult economy (I am speaking on the events that went down this week, prior to this week, there are off-balanced games as well as balanced games, as I mention in my original post).

Again, I am not saying I’m a great player, there’s no aspiration there. Simply, that there’s something funky going on with the MM.

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