MMR and SR constraints

Competitive Discussion
48

I can see his point and I would agree that a random matchmaking could be really good, since it would even out with time. However the goal of the matchmaker, from the perspective of a gamer, is to try and provide 50:50 matches as much as possible.

We must remember that the number of games played is different for each player. There are players that just do the placements, some players just play around 15-20 games and then we have the players that play 300+ games per season. Having this factor, the random matches would get really chaotic. So the better way would be to try and get these 50:50 matches with a good designed matchmaking as you were talking about.

49

There is no SR constraint on the matchmaker to form a team. It will put a gold player in a GM match if it has to… It has happened.

50

That is not true, Sr and visible SR could be disconnected. To be brought back together as matches continues.

You can TOTALLY have what looks like decay, and not actually change SR.

In fact, MMR basically means that is happened regardless.

51

I think a big problem in the whole MMR/SR conversation is that people treat SR as the main number and MMR as some rigging tool to mess with them. In reality MMR is the main number while SR is just a number that feels better to look at. Jeff said something in the past that was close to your MMR might not change after a win but that would be very discouraging for players so SR gives players that reward while in reality their MMR never went up.

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52

Yeah true, SR is just to reward players. MMR does not necessarily have to change as long as it reflects your current impact.

They didn’t save your undecayed SR as far as I know. If you didn’t manage to get back to that SR within X games, you could end up getting the normal adjustments even if you are not back to the SR you were before the decay happened. So it happened that you could lose SR. As @Tomi mentioned, in Overwatch SR is just a visual reward for players.

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53

It was -3 to slightly more than 3.

It was the interview with Seagull, reference 6 in Kaawumba’s last thread.

SR is not, had never been, nor could reasonably be used in matchmaking.

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54

Yeah I realized +7 makes no sense. Thanks for putting the reference in here!

55

Looks like you tried to write your own system. Have you seen trueskill .org?

All the documentation is there, the only thing we don’t really know much about is the PBSR.

But, be careful. It’s been hard to discuss these things because when people say SR they mean MMR and when they say MMR they mean “an omniscient AI that knows exactly how good you truly are”.

You may think I’m being hyperbolic. I could only hope I’m being hard trolled.

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56

I’m pure theory, yes.

If you could force people to play the game, even with near 0% win rate, then the ranking system would work.

What happens in practice is that you cut off the top and bottom groups, the former because they’re bored of no challenge and the later because they’re bored of getting stomped.

A lot of this anti-MMR sentiment comes from people who grew up in that system and think that it was good enough for them. In their advocacy, they treat having Bronze and GM together as a good thing, a thing to strive for, as they deem it “true competition”.

Of course, there is more than one way to skin a competitive cat, but they don’t want to hear alternatives. I’m not quite sure why, though. I really don’t quite see the motivation and some of these people are obviously to smart to truly just not get it.

Still, they just say “MMR bad” and endlessly repeat that removing MMR would be a panacea to get rid of smurfs, throwers, and “bad players”, whatever that means.

Of course, it works get rid of smurfs, technically, but the actual problem would remain since the very notion of smurfing assumes MMR is a good thing, as smurfing is intentionally breaking MMR.

They fail to mention that removing MMR would make the problem worse, at least until enough people quit that only one skill level was still playing.

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57

They don’t. Link with proof in a couple of posts above this one. Proof is video of developer saying so in an interview, not just a random YouTuber spouting off. It’s legit.

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58

Dude…. Aren’t you the one who always cried about Blizz needing to make the MM open source to allow capable (unintelligent) people like yourself to pick it apart?

Here’s your chance to work with RobotWiz and show us all the excellence you urinate in the college courses you teach, or whatever.

For real though, if you collaborate with Robot on this project I’ll read it start to finish in genuine hopes of learning things I for sure don’t know.

I challenge you to develop the ideal system

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59

It looks like you’ve been around awhile. What’s your most generous interpretation of the complaints, and how would you characterize/distinguish them?

I ask this as someone who has tried to generously interpret the complaints and characterize them, so I’m just looking into some insight that maybe I haven’t noticed.

60

Well, I’ll answer a different but related thing.
There is a deep problem in PvP games, and it relates to psychology.

It can be summed up by saying 70% of drivers feel as if they are above average.

This is not disparaging people, it is just a thing, and the same thing goes into many areas.

“A person feels as if a game is fair, if they win 70% of the time.”

But we can generalize this more… and it looks something like this…

What is fair, and what feels fair are different things

A lot of the issues which overwatch faces is basically this, and there isn’t a perfect answer, so people won’t ever feel as if overwatch IS fair.

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61

Lol. I mean, you pretty much summed up the most generous conclusion I’ve identified.

The alternatives are more insulting, being in the 70% is just human.

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62

ok, so, Blizzard can’t do discount brain surgery on the players to fix this.

So, they do something else clever.

They make it so everyone is playing a different sub game. Since you can’t be directly compared to other players in the match, you end up playing say…

The support subgame. Which is where you run around and tilt the battlefield, do healing, apply battlefield tilting powers.

And you can feel as if you do well at this, and you will around 70% of the time, because that is what being human is. This is cool because it lets Blizzard give people that 70% vibe while not having to provide a 70% win rate (which they can’t, outside of PvE)

So, if you are playing well 70% of the time, and only winning 50% of the time, then by god, it must be your team mates which caused this.

Who put these muppets in your team, you did well, 70% of the time above average in fact…? oh it must be the matchmaker.

Again, not saying anything bad about the players, their brains say 70%, so LOGICALLY something else is going wrong - it has to be their team right?

So either they get salty at their team, which is bad, or they hate on the matchmaker (which is more healthy to be honest).

Add in that what feels like normal runs of win / loses don’t match what a standard distribution of wins / loses (brains are not designed for this), and the matchmaker doesn’t stand a chance.

But that is ok, it doesn’t care.

PvE is a different beast. They can tune PvE to match the players expectations. The Bots don’t care if they lose 70% of the time.

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63

This doesn’t really make any sense. Nobody is able to maintain a 70% winrate. GM players definitely do have to maintain a higher winrate than average to stay afloat at their rank, but even then, mid to high 50s is enough. Once you are at your true rank, whether that’s bronze, gold, or master, your winrate will stable out to 50%.

This also assumes players need to have some profound impact in matches to have fun. That doesn’t really make sense either. If you are in the rank you belong in, you should be playing fine enough to have an impact, even if that impact isn’t enough to carry you out of your rank.

I don’t even know what this means. Is dps a subgame where you shoot and kill people? Is taking space as a tank a subgame? Every role has impactful abilities that do more than just damage. That’s just how the game is designed. Supports have much of their impact converted to utility, not direct damage, but that doesn’t mean they lose any impact. In fact, support was arguably the most impactful role for much of ow1.

There’s just so many holes in this conclusion of the game. It’s ridiculous to assume that the game was designed in a particular way to ‘fool’ people into thinking they are doing more than they actually are. It’s not like the developers were running numbers to make sure people feel impact X amount of the time even though they are only winning Y amount.

Not trying to hijack this thread from ozone but this concept just sounds like nonsense. It gives far too much credit to people who refuse to acknowledge or admit their own faults.

64

No they can not, but the only way they will feel as if the game is truely fair is if they did.

Go back and have a look at the conversation.

No, not at all. ok, lets start this again.

There is a deep problem in PvP games, and it relates to psychology.
It can be summed up by saying 70% of drivers feel as if they are above average.

This is not saying they are, but that they feel as if they are.

This shows up in experimental psychology all the time. One of the test in there is “A person feels as if a game is fair, if they win 70% of the time.”

This isn’t saying they are. But, they will feel a game is fair if they do. The matchmaker obviously can’t give them this (in PvP)

So…

What is fair, and what feels fair are different things

You have miss understood what I was saying.

Nope it is not, and I think you need to understand game design more. Go watch cursed problems in game design.

I’ll put in a link.

This is a classic cursed problem.

You can’t really solve these problems, but you can transform them somewhat, and this is what the sub games by role does.

And it isn’t just overwatch which does this, it is a classic pattern.

So the question I was answering was…

The interpretation is, it is a cursed problem, and this is what Blizzard tries to do to get around it.

The cursed problem is…

  • a game feels fair in a player wins 70% of the time
  • PvP means the players will only win 50% of the time
  • Blizzard wants overwatch PvP to feel fair.

You can’t have all three obviously.

Ozone got it, just right away. But I was answering their question directly, so that helps.

65

I mean, I did ask for his most generous interpretation.

He responded that people can’t acknowledge their own faults.

I’m not convinced his theory regarding a clever trick (i.e. subgames) by Blizzard is true, but it’s unverifiable so I just left it.

There was a reddit comment that I saw that sure sounded, and I absolutely cannot verify this, but it sure sounded exactly like one of the devs of their personal account.

Basically, just let them blame the matchmaker. It’s better than blaming any other target.

Now, i don’t agree with that sentiment, I’m just thinking that Blizzards clever trick is to just let the crazies do crazy.

66

I mean, that leads to the same place, they blame the matchmaker :slight_smile:

But yeah, there is totally an element of “they got the crazies” in it.

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67

Alright let’s simplify it. I think the whole 70% thing is inherently flawed because players don’t need to win that much to feel fulfilled. It’s not only assuming that players are playing strictly to win, but that if they don’t win they can never be fulfilled. One tricks are good examples of where this isn’t true. It’s obviously less optimal to never switch, but they care more about playing their character than swapping.

Where we definitely agree, and where I believe we initially misunderstood each other, is where every player needs to be able to feel that they are impactful. For some reason you frame it as a ‘subgame’, but I just see as much more literal impact.

Hitting a large immortality field is not direct damage or kills, but it is very high impact. The game doesn’t have to trick you into thinking you did something good, you just straight up did it. No matter how bad your team is, immortality field can always get value. I suppose that can technically trick the player, but I just don’t see it that way.

I actually don’t think it is. If you look at ranked ladders in general, the only thing they promise you is a more competitive environment than unranked, and to be able to play with those around your skill level. It would be great if every player could have that 70% winrate and feel like a god, but nowhere does anyone guarantee this for you.

This is how every competitive game works. That’s why I believe being able to feel impactful in your games is just good game design, not some fix.

This is basically just my problem. I don’t think this is at all true. Overwatch is far too late to the party to have to come up with a unique solution to ranked ladders, that’s just how they are and there’s no fixing it.