Why is the SR-scale good enough to label people’s skill with? In fact it’s so good, they haven’t had to reset or renormalize it…in 4.5 years? It’s been the end-all-be-all. People compete for and around SR, not MMR.
But somehow, classifying people around SR is not good enough to ship matches? “It’s just a number” and they need a totally different and hidden system?
That’s not a ladder. That’s a rigged broken sham. It’s unfair to players. Stop defending it. It has no place in gaming.
Hidden MMR is used to rigg towards 50/50 matches. This works against SR, because forcing at the (local, match-based) level necessarily voids the natural integrity at the (global, ladder-based) level.
So before we talk ethics, the structure itself is just broken and wrong. You don’t get a working ladder if you’re intervening on natural match formation. Interpretable or not. There is no free lunch.
In a fairplay (i.e. correct) ladder, matches need to be formed using the same metric as the payout. Anything else is dishonest and inhumane.
As far as ethics go: hidden MMR is so egregiously deceiving, it should be mentioned right on the box before you buy the game “Warning: Contents Rigged and Skill Hidden”. And this should be done by an official source with authoritative capacity. Gamers need to know what their product actually is. Rigged, with fake skill labels.
The criteria people are actually competing around is SR. So that’s what they should be using to ship matches. Otherwise, you don’t have a true ladder. It’s hidden, rigged, and unethical. And now you’re saying SR isn’t even a measure of skill. It’s “just a number”. What a scam.
Or we could just play the game like normal people,and not try to control how a corporation runs it, since it is their property, and players agree to it when they click “I agree” in the ToS?
If this was true, and ranks (aka skill labels) are fake, why are you stuck in the bottom 500 Bronze, while other players who actually improve their skills are actively climbing? But I’m sure you have a few calories to save.
By no means am I saying the match maker is perfect, because it isn’t, I will however say it’s working as intended, but unfortunately high/low ranking players continuously create new account, and are placed in ranks they don’t belong, the fatal flaw to this system is the human interaction.
Also, if you play the game, you obviously agreed to the ToS, thus you allowing them to continue running the game as is, just be happy we get weekly updates for balance.
Alright, so if you don’t like how the game is run, why keep playing it? If you disagree with how it’s being run, from balance patches to the matchmaker, to players, maybe you should apply for a job at Blizzard/Activision so your input might actually get noticed?
Also, it’s been a long time since someone called me a kid, I take it as a compliment, being in my mid 30’s with a teenage son and a couple pre-teen daughters.
But this isn’t a country, it’s a world wide organization, based in multiple countries around the world. And my logic may not make sense to you, but others do agree with my viewpoints.