Let me make you an anology. Say you were to put a NBA basketball player in a game of 14 year old kids. He’d 99.99% win that match. Now the “matchmaker” will put him against some 14 year old and 16 year old. He wins that one too. Next one just against 16 year old. Now the “matchmaker” is thinking there is something wrong, because you shouldn’t be in these matches since you’re winning consistently. Now the “matchmaker” puts you against college kids the next 2-3 games and you still win. Next games after, it puts you against amateur league and you keep win way more than you lose. The “matchmaker” is very confused and will now decide you should be playing against NBA players. But you see, here comes the tricky part now. In these NBA games you’re not going to be winning that often. You’re going to start losing as often as you win. But then, you see this legendary guy that barely loses and carries games almost on his own. He’s like a top 3 NBA player, while you’re still a NBA player, but you can’t come close to his level.
See, this is ‘sorta’ the definition of MMR. And the fact matches are based on it, is the most balanced thing you can get. Matchmaker tests you every time to the point where eventually your visual rank will be calibrated correctly.
And don’t point out that NBA is a team game, because it obviously is; the point is an individual can make a huge difference. Don’t blame your teammates, even though at times they may be adding up to the reasons on why you’re losing – but you’re also the one to blame for not being good enough to win. Because even if a NBA player is going to play with 12 year old kids on his team against 16 year old, there is still a huge chance of the NBA player to win.
People always use some top 0.001% percentile as an example. Of course the MM will work just great in OW if you’re talking about someone who only ever gets headshots and never misses. Or conversely, someone who is so bad they might as well be afk as they can never hit anything. One erases half or all of the enemy team solo, the other makes it a 4v5 if the 5 had a free ult generator around. Extremes or outliers have never had much value in statistics, especially since we’re interested in the median experience.
Right now, or actually ever since OW1, the rank of the average gamer - note, someone not in the bottom 10% or the top 10% - will frequently fluctuate ±2 ranks either way while your own gameplay is unchanged. Especially on support. That is not what a working MM looks like.
The issue is that too many matches feel like the first scenario you’re describing (NBA player vs. 14 year olds), even for well seasoned players with many hours under their belt.
Surely the game knows after 30-some seasons that I have no chance against player(s) that are of much higher skill. So why am I playing against these people, while my own team mates feel like they’re about my skill level?
Then the next game I might be playing against players who play like they’ve spent their entire life up to now living in Amish country and have no idea what a computer is. Surely if this matchmaker was so great it would realize that said players have no chance against the likes of me and my teammates.
The issue is this, yes it finds the nba player opponent but the system reaches outside your rank. If we want preserve rank integrity, we can’t ignore it when making matches.
Also while this is going on what’s it doing with it selecting your teammates?
What I didn’t like about lobby avg mmr, is that your mmr affects the lobby / and team.
I have no clue what they did recently. Two accounts constantly losing… even when trying just seems what algorithm they implemented barely gives me a team that can win. And when they give me a fighting chance I walk away with a stomp win.
I have a genuine question. Rather than go straight to this terrible word “shill”, or calling someone a Blizz employee, why can’t you have a normal discussion?
The logic behind OP’s analogy is quite accurate in my opinion. Basketball is a team game, but one person can make a huge difference. Overwatch is a team game, and sometimes yes, one person can’t carry hard enough. Yet if you’re making a difference In the MAJORITY of your games then you can make your way up the ranks if that’s your goal. One loss is negligible if you win more than you lose.
The logic behind OP’s analogy is quite accurate in my opinion.
Yeah, the analogy is great and it would be great if that were the case. That would make a lot of sense for a ranking system. That’s not what we’ve got though; the implementation… just isn’t there. It’s wishful thinking and doesn’t accurately represent most people’s experience of the matchmaking atm.
I have not lost sight that blizzard is heavy on community management. It’s almost cia level mob inducing or mob controlling. Mob being general public.
If a game is great community management is ez - gg. When you got a broken system community management just makes you look crazy and oblivious.
Ow has great aspects but they really messed up. I guess ow1 mm was acceptable even tho I called for mmr mirror / role avg even then. 5v5 with one tank it was a must.
I’m anticipating the buzzword explanation of the latest algorithm change. When everyone went up - “rank inflation”.
I do remember the dev dude was talking about one bug they wanted to fix. Of course he said it only affects GMs but I guess I’m the side effect.
I liked the “we overcorrected the Mercy changes” recently. That’s a great one. Next time I screw up at work I’ll definitely be using that: No no, it’s not a massive error, I just overcorrected!
The MM is using collage player’s middle-school stats to decide where they should be ranked and forcing college players to play in the same game as middle-schoolers.
It was fairly accurate in OW1, but we both know the MM is complete garbage in OW2.
There’s no reason I should get a plat 3 stack playing at prime time or a d4 tank vs a gm2 one, or a p5 Lucio who dies 15 times in 13mins when they are 15 tiers below me. And on top of all the mismatched lobbys for the sake of fast q times there’s also the issue of the insane amount of complete AI 2.7k peak players I keep seeing that are now suddenly in high masters/low gm. Most games are decided by how many actual masters/gms you have vs these newly “improved” plats.
There are weird games though like I lose being the best player of my team and I don’t feel the matchmaking is helping me. Its a minority of my games but I’ve been there.
There’s also the opposite where I’m the worst player of the game and I feel bad cause clearly I’m being a deadweight for my mates and I wonder why am in such a game ; even if my team wins. Again, its kinda rare but it doesn’t feel good neither.