I play very rarely nowadays, and when I do it’s 3-4 games in one sitting. Stops me getting fatigued or tilted. They’re both big issues for me, that I need to overcome.
With regards to losing as bronze in diamond, one gm Mercy only had an 80% win rate surfing in bronze. Obviously Mercy is super low impact and shows the importance of fragging out to win.
When ml7 lost his first Mercy gold game, which he played 99% flawlessly, his main area to improve on was to get 3+ pistol kills every time he valked, in order to carry his team.
Thats nothing really extraordinary. I lose a lot more games on lower ranked alt when playing with friends than i am losing when i solo q. I dont exactly know the reason. I only have few ideas why is that. Its possible that you have much bigger chance to be against who dont belong in his elo too. I definitely see a lot of smurfs in groups than in solo play. There is another factor too. When i play with fruends i feel preassure to win, which eventualy can make me play worse. Or i play differently as my friends usualy dont try hard or dont take comp that serious as i would. Boosting someone is much harder than climbing on yourself. Not to mention that your friend maybe didnt play his main or he dudnt warm up? Something he would do in his true elo.
Yesterday i was climbing on my alt and i was in super try hard mindset and grouped up with randoms from game and from lfg just for fun and won every single game for example.
If you’re playing comp, you’re expected to try to win. If you’re constantly trying to win, you’re constantly trying to play better than the other team. If you’re not smurfing, playing better than the other team means improving to the extent that you gain rank. Not looking to be better than yesterday and not looking to go pro are ENTIRELY different things. If you aren’t looking to better yourself and improve to the extent that you help your teammates win games more often, don’t play competitive. That’s literally what competitive is for.
There are players that throw and players that are bad. Unlucky. Blizzard doesn’t put them on your team intentionally. You play against throwers and bad players as much as they’re on you’re team. You probably lose some games against them. That’s how it goes sometimes.
Literally false by definition. I don’t think you understand what percentile means. From game to game, percentile wise, you’re not going to have a 25th percentile and 75th percentile player in the same game.
As far as the game you linked, which category would you classify this game as? Fair, or rigged?
All righty, I am compelled to add my 2cents. First, I find it amusing to see people spouting things like “Medals don’t matter, you are just bad. etc.” This is simply a role most individuals fall into, because it allows them to continue believing that they will “improve”.
Here is the nail in the coffin - YES, we all have capacity to improve, however, normal distribution is just that, normal, meaning most mortals will fall under the normal category. The game algorithm is based on assuming normal distribution. Essentially this ends up benefiting players trending towards the lower end of normal distribution, they end up being carried. Folks towards the higher end of the normal distribution tend to get placed with weaker players in their distribution curve for the end number to be a middling average, as thus, those players are not playing at their actual skill level, but are forced to play below it. This will always happen, the only way to reduce the extend of this, is to narrow the range of skill allowed within a team. (1000SR gaps are massive, 500SR gaps would be much more palatable, however you would wait hours for a game).
Here is another observation about the MMR in Overwatch. The OW algorithm is an adaptation of the ELO system. This system was first developed to rank professional chess players. Not sure if anyone else knows this, but Chess is not exactly a team game. Also, the ELO rating system does not assign you a number based on your skill, it instead infers your skill based on past win/loss performance, seemingly semantic, this distinction is massive. How you actually played while winning/loosing has nothing at all to do with it. The main issue happens for solo Q players. The SR number that you are assigned does not mean that you as an individual are at that “Skill”. It simply means that when you are in teams at around that SR, you have a 50% chance of winning. This becomes frustrating because the allowed SR ranges in competitive games is quite large, and thus if you are near the top of the Normal Distribution curve of your SR (± 1000SR), you will get placed with absolute boat anchors as team-mates, more times than not, meaning that you have to hard carry. Realistically, you are a much better player than the rest of your team, and current SR brackets are not reflective of that skill gap. This is of course because Blizzard is not interested in having an algorithm that most suitably displays a skill scale, but rather the algorithm is designed to maximise the addictive playable nature of the game. The old carrot on a stick scenario. Do not forget that Blizzard isn’t a massive Billion Dollar Company because they care about fair, they only care about Profit. Again, this matters.
Where SR starts to work, and the old “Medals don’t matter, get gud n00b” lines start to matter is at the highest levels of the game. If you consistently play on a team comprised of the same six people, your SR will reflect the skill of your collective team, as compared to other teams. In this scenario, of course, it doesn’t matter who has gold kills. However, when you are in Solo q, the medals is the only direct comparison of your individual skill at the game as compared to other players on your/the enemy team. In other words, if I outheal the other healer, then yes, I have the gold medal and I am the better healer, no other way to describe those statistics.
When people within the normal distribution of the game spout off about medals don’t matter, you need to get better etc, they are simply ignoring the fact that the only way to get better is for the team to get better. And random one-off teams cannot ever get better, since there is no repeat performance. They are simply regurgitating sayings that the establishment has imbued in them. Because without a belief in “Hey, I can get better”, people would have to accept that they are simply average, and for some random reason, nobody is sober enough to understand that by definition, the probability of you being average is so high that it is all but a certainty.
Of course, the second you point out anything in anyone’s game play, people immediatly knee jerk with “NOPE< you’re wrong”. And that is the worst part. Most individuals pathetic weakness, not being able to handle criticism or a differing opinion.
Our world exists in the way it does, because people refuse to think for themselves, they pass off the fact that they are part of an average as individual skill - Pathetic Really.
Going from top down, Diamond/Master/GM players make up 14% of the pool, thereby representing ‘part’ of Q3 (upper quartile, the whisker). Gold/Plat players make up 57% of the pool (the box, interquartile, 25-75th percentile ). Bronze/Silver players makes up 29% of the pool (Q1, whisker bleeding into the box). We’ve all had games where we see Gold/Plat players on same team, sometimes with Silvers dropping in (whisker bleeding in the box).
I don’t think Blizzard has people sitting behind a desk, putting individual players one by one onto a team (i.e. not intentional on that level). However, the formula for MM (i.e. players are numbers, computing stats of previous gameplays for MM) consequently puts players of varied skill level on the same team - the defined range of this may be too broad? I’ve mentioned binning a couple times, but I don’t have their algorithm.
Me playing better does not mean (equal) improving to the extent that I gain rank. Example: in sports, there are leagues at different levels. I may play well enough for the league that I’m in (i.e. win some, lose some, but with teammates of similar skill range), but never good enough to be on higher tier, and that’s okay.
Let’s say you have evidence that ‘in OW’, that is ‘literally’ what competitive is for. How do you view all the people ranked below Diamond? Failures? People who don’t try?
How do you define better? If one is better today than yesterday, and continues to be better the next day and the next day, one will eventually make it to the top (i.e. pro).
Also, I did not say the two are the same. I said that I am not looking to move to the next level (i.e. Diamond) “or” go pro. I didn’t write “and”. I am simply looking to sit down this holiday and play a fun game where teams are balanced.
The game you linked looks like a relatively close game between players of similar skill which could have gone either way. Both rounds were winnable by either team; it just so happens your team lost both. Unlucky.
From a matchmaking perspective though, that game looks exactly what any reasonable matchmaker sets out to do: create a fair match between 2 teams of relatively even skill that can be won or lost by either depending on performance.
Just because you lost doesn’t make it imbalanced. If anything, that video is an advertisement for the matchmaker working exactly as intended.
The game I linked IS a relatively close game where both rounds were winnable by either team. If you are ‘averaging’ the skills (to be related to amount of input towards the common goal - winning the game) on each team, it is similar.
However, I never said Blizzard doesn’t try to MM for close games. In fact, that is exactly what I said that they do.
Two ‘teams’ of relatively even skill yes. But what exactly is the composition? (i.e. 4+4=8, 1+7 also equals 8 - please don’t flame me on this, I am not a 7, this is merely to demonstrate that many combinations can arrive at the same sum).
I’ve lost many games prior to my original post, but didn’t make a comment until now. Why I think it’s imbalanced:
I will first speak on the plays that can be view as unlucky (if you stretch the definition a bit). 1. At around 50 sec, our Genji died to Roadhog because he was in front of both tanks in that tiny doorway. 2) At around 58 sec, our Reaper died to Roadhog, unlucky or no awareness? 3) At around 1 min, enemy Rein is 1 hp, with our hog at near full, and our Rein at around 25% health but a healing orb is coming directly towards him. Our hog decided to self heal… huh, why???, our Rein decided to charge across the room for no gain - note that there’s only 3 of us on point at this time, and I was in no danger - and their Rein survived. That’s a lot of unlucky within 10 sec time frame - keep in mind that their Pharah and Mercy were behind us most of that 10 sec. And those two were pretty much the first enemies we see coming out of the gate. Unlucky? or players with no awareness?
Now, lets speak on plays that are what I referred to as players playing comp like it’s practice range or deathmatch (but with healers).
Our Reaper and Hog got their ult at around 2:40. Reaper looks like he wants to go behind to ult, but really is not a sneaky player, one shot killed, unlucky maybe, at least he died quick enough to have kept his ult, good. Next, our Rein decided to charge out of LoS in the midst of 6 enemies, which resulted in our Ana nano-boosting him for no gain. Now, where’s our hog between 2:40 and 4:00? Practicing his hooks, and waiting to ult. After our Rein and Ana died, knowing that our McCree is far away from point (trying to snipe Ashe prolly), and that our Reaper had been pacing back and forth on point, I went to try to stall point with them - no gain - the ult that our hog waited over 1 min to make potg killed no one, should’ve just saved myself by backing up to spawn, f-k teamplay no? By the way, our McCree decided to blow his ult at 3:20, two steps out of spawn.
Round two, before the ridiculous stack of ults we threw at them, our doom was waiting around, pacing back and forth on point, instead of disrupting their backline. When the four ults were thrown on them (Zar/Sig/Genji/Doom), we killed two while losing two. This was not unlucky, it was three players on our team competing WITHIN the team to try to get potg.
Above are some examples from one game. Our Rein/Zar, our Ana, they ARE playing comp, some mistakes were made, same goes for me. But, half our team were not playing comp, but rather practice range or deathmatch (I’ve looked at replays from other player’s perspective to see what’s going on, what am I missing. I’ve also looked at replays from the other team’s perspective to see if the same weirdo players are put on their team - the answer is more often than not, “No”).
Like I’ve written before, 1) I am not complaining about winning/losing, 2) I had encountered imbalance MM before. BUT, never to the extent (duration and amplitude) that I experienced this holiday. Some of the mistakes made by teams I’ve been put in are ones that are so outlandish, there’s no explanation besides:
I don’t know why you and I see the game I posted so differently. Maybe you’re focusing in on the percent tick rather than where the rest of my team are (i.e. half the team stares at walls a good chunk of time).
Those are merely the flaws the matchmaker has been having since season 1… That they won’t fix cause it makes you frustrate and get obsessed with your rank as a psychological metric within a game development team.
The MMR will always inflate faster than your SR and will decay faster as well… The better you do, the harder you try, your teams will exponentially get worse and the enemies will be competent… You will even get to the point where you have statistical throwers that for some reason aren’t banned while the enemy team will have smurfs with twice the average dmgx10 and 5+ elims per death… It’s always been like that. So much so that people throw games on purpose when they see a somewhat difficult circumstance just to play into the matchmaker’s dirty game.
I mean. Don’t get me wrong… The matchmaker would be functional assuming trolls and grievers would be severely punished and smurfing was controlled, to the point where smurfing is just ranking up an alt account and nothing else… Most smurfs purposefully keep their accounts in silver, gold and platinum to have easy games an account away. Those are accounts that are considered in a numerical aspect by the matchmaker, that happen to have fundamentally false information, thus making the games so awfully volatile…
This behaviour is indicative of bad supports. Breather instead of attacking because you aren’t being healed. The desperation charge when you are at 25% hp and no healing isn’t coming and shield is going down so you go for a yolo charge because you are going to die anyways and might as well try and pin someone with you.
Did you watch the vid? At the very least, I did write down that the hog is just about full health. A melee from either our Rein or our Hog would have ended their Rein, making it 5v3.
Also, I wrote (and the vid shows) that heal is half second away from our Rein’s face; this is an orb, so it would heal him on the way there and when it bounces off the wall (again, check the vid please). Rein charged away from heals that is coming towards him at eye level, so heal is very obviously coming (i.e. this is not an orb coming from behind).
Finally, I’ve said that these may be counted as unlucky mistakes. Well, the Rein charge anyways.
So your rein gets pinned into a wall going to critical HP and your reaction is to right click their rein, and then when your rein charges at critical health you fade away from him?
Please watch the vid. A yellow orb was thrown towards our two tanks 0.25-0.50 seconds after enemy Rein charged past my left. Their Mercy was on their Hog, their Moira was out of range of their Rein to heal (she threw her yellow orb couple seconds earlier, so it’s on CD), our Hog was on their Rein, so it make sense to focus that target down at that time).
For my fading to reposition: Their Hog had killed our Genji/Reaper/Ana, as such, he’s been the biggest threat. Where I was before repositioning is no longer safe, so, I moved to get into a place where I am less likely to get hooked by Hog while healing the tanks. I don’t need to be 2 inches to our Rein’s back to heal him, but since I threw an orb already, I need to avoid having an enemy shield between me and our Rein so my yellow mist will not be blocked (please watch the vid to see what I mean).
I feel this, I’ve gone from 2449 to 2207, only won 2 of the last 10 games. I lose no matter who I play or what I do, and it’s gotten very old. It doesn’t matter if I don’t do well, or if I’m 25-3 with 22k healing, I cannot win a game. Not to mention I have had 3 people who just leave/DC and the rest of the team follows, so free SR loss for me on those, and I’m honestly 10/10 sick of comp in this game. Not even a thank you or a card vote for top healing or immortality saves, nothing.
**make that 2183, now. 51 SR from plat, and now about to demote to silver because this matchmaking is literally hot garbage.
Funnily enough, even though Moira is considered opaf, I’m on 30% wins with her, and have stopped playing her.
I’m on 70%+ wins with Lucio and Zen. My stats with them are bad, but they provide other utility via discord, speed, hoops, etc.
Maybe that’s why I’m doing well with them? Maybe it’s cognitive bias as I remember both my dps swapping to hitsscan to counter Pharah (rarer than hens’ teeth) and not goofy team mate errors.
Another factor is adapting to what you got. When I crashed to 1700 my final tank game was Orisa on Anubis. At one point I won a 1v6 and killed 3 of the enemy team. My team ran past my barrier into the small room and enemy Reaper killed all 5…
After that game I realised that a lot of players at low elo just can’t be helped. So, onto Lucio, who I played as a wall riding Tracer with a heal aura. 80% win rate to gold.
I didn’t expect anything from my team mates. I just resolved to carry as hard as I could.
Tldr, don’t expect anything from anybody in silver. Gold is when basic competence emerges.
Try playing heroes that can win with bad stats. I’m doing great with my Lucio. Bopping enemy Reaper away all game doesn’t net much star wise, but greatly reduces the danger he presents.
Do you know why the Win Rate on overbuff is close to 50-60% and not 80-90%? Because the system will try to make you lose with a subpar team half of the time.
Don’t forget that you’re the only carry factor of the team. If you don’t carry correctly, you still end up with a lost.
Moira after the nerf lost a lot of her value. She can’t prevent deaths, and has no utilities. Beside healings, she doesn’t offer much.
I was crap with her before the nerf. I was using her as a healbot and I wasn’t doing enough damage with her to justify her lack of utility.
Also very team dependent. One lost game I healed 18k and enemy Moira healed 27k. I used replay to view the game through their eyes. Only major difference was her team stuck together and mine constantly went on mad flanks…