How does the competitive matchmaking system work? I have multiple years of counterstrike under my belt on both ESEA and Faceit so i have the mechanical part down and after a few years of playing overwatch back in beta and being on and off since, i know how good of a player I am yet constantly held back by teammates. This is a team based game after all so yes, to win you must have a team, yet all my matches tend to only have 1 or 2 players that actually understand how to play. However the other team tends to be players that are of equal skill of me. Does this system take lesser players and pair them with better players? if so this is absolutely stupid and needs to be changed. good players should not be held back by bad players, simple as that
Yes, it is one of the ways the matchmaker balances teams.
However, the enemy team has the same issue.
There’s lots of nuances and problems with the matchmaker, but yes one of the major issues is that it balances every game so that each side has a 50% chance of winning (there are also throwers queue and smurfs queue but I won’t go into that). So if you are playing well then you will be grouped with people who are not as good as you to offset your skill, OR the other team will have someone just as good as you placed on it to offset your skill. It’s not as bad as people describe, it’s not that ALL FIVE of your teammates will be awful, it’s more like two will be good (you and another), 2 will be just “ok” and then there will be two people who blatantly terrible. The other team will be facing the same issues, so yes, the teams are even, but they shouldn’t be - if I smurf on an account 600 SR where I should be I should not ever be facing “even” teams.
Have fun!
There is the possibility of the same issue but that doesn’t mean it will happen in the same way for both teams at the same time. Especially in the case of 6 stacks versus a solo queued player a 3 stack and 2 stack. yes the match is technically “balanced” from a numerical standpoint, but one team has a greater disadvantage and that is something that the matchmaker does not look at. Communication.
I just got out of a match where I was placed with 2 other solo queuers and a 3 stack and they refused to come into voice chat and coordinate. This is one of the most widespread problems especially because of the way the matchmaker functions. it does not take those advantages and disadvantages into account when matching a team.
We honestly don’t know how matchmaker works aside from some speculation. This is in part because matchmaker is influenced by your MMR, which is hidden.
What we can say for sure is what Blizzard has said. Which is that your MMR basically holds a lot of sway with your SR; that it tries to put you in a match that it believes you will have a 50% chance of winning; and if it thinks you are higher or lower than you currently are, it will increase/reduce your SR gains/losses.
Unless you are at the extremes of the skill system (low bronze or GM) you are equally likely to be the worst as the best player in any given match.
If you are better than the average player at you rank, you will win more than 50% of your games, and will climb over many games played.
See How Competitive Skill Rating Works (Season 14) for more details, especially the summary.
P.S. Most of the people who have posted in this thread are conspiracy theorists. Believing them will hold you back.