MMR protects OW Content creator's rank and profits

General Discussion
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I understand that amazing OW players can be great content creators and make a solid income out of it.

HOWEVER, you only deserve that status if you can MAINTAIN your rank. You only deserve to be called a Top rank player if you can MAINTAIN it just like any other championship competition.

Scared you’ll get dethroned from your rank by MANY other players and then lose all of your monetary income from content creation? Yeah, I’m sure you are.

That’s why MMR exists.

MMR is a lie. MMR is keeping you guys all up there for your own monetary reasons. MMR is protecting your own profits by making sure you stay high up in your ranks. MMR is designed to keep players putting in ENDLESS hours just to see some kind of SMALL bump in SR when these players can easily dethrone you with their hard earned skills.

MMR is the tool for you “elitist” players used to shield and protect your profits and your only response to players that complain about it is, “Get Good”? Give me a break. That is such horse sh.

Blizzard, stop being such a SELL OUT and stop this MMR lie and bring back REAL competition to this AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL game you’ve created.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/mmr-50-win-rate-design-is-a-lie-blizz-youre-a-sell-out/647138

EDIT: After reading responses and replies, I have consolidated all of these thoughts into a new post found here:

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Bro, you are absolutely 100-percent right… MMR needs to go…

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I’m really confused… isn’t mmr only used for non-competitive modes…? Because the competitive modes go off your sr…

If comp was based off mmr, then if I finish 4k in comp, then lose like, 100 qp games somehow, wouldn’t it by default place me lower in comp next season regardless if I won my placement comp games?

But… that doesn’t happen… so I dont think comp goes off mmr…

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Man this is one long winded conspiracy. Out of curiosity as most of them have done unranked to GM runs multiple times, how does the fact that they do it so easily and generally win 90% of their games until Masters fit?

I am always curious to see how the mind of a conspiracy theorist works and the theory of rigged games of OW certainly falls under that.

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I don’t know if I agree with the reasoning, but I will say that MMR appears to have been unequivocally a failed experiment in every system that attempts it.

If we assume the best and think they really are simply trying to get even matches, to basically ensure you don’t get stomped 100% of the time, it still doesn’t work. There’s too many exceptions and it becomes Frankenstein’s monster no matter how you design it - ultimately some % of players will be undeservedly abused by the algorithm.

When I design a system I tend to go by the 80/20 rule and if something isn’t working out 20% of the time I’m not going to try to solve it as no system is perfect - but instead of just letting it fail, we send it to HUMANS who will resolve those 20%. However, Blizzard (and others) are content with that 20% (or whatever %) just getting screwed as it saves them money short term.

To some extent I don’t blame them as that %, even if it’s <20%, is a HUGE amount of people. ‘Open’ competitive is simply an unmanageable task and an algorithm can’t solve it. Games need to focus on building out more support for individual closed (but ACCESSIBLE) competitive systems, which has the natural side effect of keeping the game fresh as they tend to give unique experiences. Closed competitive systems tend to be hosted by a specific group that are responsible with dealing with exceptions.

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It’s never been about being the best, it’s always been about the money.

Can’t be disillusioned, if you never believed in the first place.

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Technically the comp modes use MMR but unless you have a fresh account or are leaving a bunch of games (or back when decay existed your SR had decayed), than your SR is basically the same as your MMR so you are effectively right.

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You should look no further than your own mind. You have the theory that games aren’t rigged. PROVE IT!!!

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As a rule the onus is on the person who made the original claim to prove it true, not for me to prove it false because the mind of the conspiracy theorist would ignore the simple fact that any attempt to “rig” the game and force a 50-50 win rate would simply be unneeded complexity when a working matchmaking system will do that without trying to “rig” the game by simply finding 11 other people of equal skill.

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But you are proving nothing. There is technically no data to back up any theory. It’s all a mystery to everyone including the development team.

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Look no further than what MMR is designed. How is keeping your win rate at 50% competitive? It isn’t. There is a another motive.

If MMR didn’t exist and competitive matchmaking was simply matched by SR and NOT HOW MANY WINS/LOSSES YOU’VE HAD, which is how it used to be in most comp FPS games, a lot of players complained that it was too hard to climb the ranks because they were getting dominated. Well duh, they’re getting dominated BY REAL COMPETITION and not this fake MMR that is designed to handicap your “competitive” matches.

If MMR didn’t exist and it was difficult for players to climb then the axiom of, “Get Good” is warranted and makes sense. It’s pure competition.

Example: you go to a poker table and don’t know if the person is a pro or not, but you still compete. If you get dominated, c’est la vie—it’s life. In ANY competitive sport, you can face a team that is totally stacked and get dominated—that’s life, it’s called competition. Think of the prime Michael Jordan days with the Chicago Bulls. In all of these instances, even IF you get completely dismantled/dominated/destroyed by the opposing team, there was HIGH respect. Why? Because it was still PURE COMPETITION.

If you complained that it was “too hard” because they were just “too good”, in real competitive sports, you’d be laughed at and called a bunch of wussy names and be told to simply, “Get Good”.

Grow up.

Competition is meant for the best and for those continually striving to become the best.

REAL and GENUINE COMPETITION has ZERO ROOM for “participation awards” to make you FEEL good about yourself, which is exactly what MMR is.

MMR is as fake as “participation awards” are to make a person think that they’re excelling/progressing. They aren’t.

MMR is more harmful to the human mind and the development of your own performance psychology.

That’s my preface to this theory of content creators. But I’m on my phone and will respond when I’m back home.

Blizzard, bring back REAL competition and stop being a sellout.

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What protects people’s rank is being able to park a “competitive” account after 25 games.

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i thought alex jones conspiracies where juicy. hmm maybe overwatch ones are out there too

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As you are well aware, when you do your 5 placement matches, the system will take into consideration your past historical data/statistics and place you accordingly. These ‘unranked to GM’ videos are garbage as they’re using accounts with historical data that is already high enough. I’m not saying that these players are not good; they absolutely are. However, have them get a BRAND NEW ACCOUNT with ZERO history and see how high they climb in this MMR fake competitive match scheme; they’ll get stuck just like the rest of us and then they’ll lose their monetary reasons to keep playing.

People will only watch YT videos of high ranked players for a reason: to learn and get better as well as it is entertaining to watch because they are, again, high ranked. HOWEVER, it is a complete LIE IF THESE PLAYERS CANNOT DEFEND THEIR RANK/STATUS by REAL COMPETITION.

Just like any championship in REAL COMPETITIONS, top fighters/athletes must defend their current standing or face getting dethroned by someone who is actually better than them. Without this CRITICAL FUNDAMENTAL piece, competition no longer becomes competition.

The only way to prove it is to REMOVE MMR and allow true and real competition to take place and then see what REALLY happens.

Overwatch content creators in high ranks must defend themselves and their ranks; otherwise, this conspiracy theory is no longer a conspiracy, but an extreme, highly likely, plausibility.

The ball is in their court when it comes to this. EVERYONE has gone through the b.s. that is MMR in this fake competitive world and has PROVEN our end. It’s time THEY prove their end.

Scared? Too afraid to actually do it because then if you actually DO DERANK, you’ll lose your money making ability from your FAKE rank? I would be too.

I’ll bet you so flippin’ fast that there will be a revolution of players taking down these ‘elitist’ players that are relying on MMR to stay high up in their ranks.

The only good thing about MMR is that it really produced players that are actually very good at this game; the irony is, it is this very MMR itself that is keeping these said players stuck down in their ranks.

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isnt that what the owl is for tho. real competitions with elite players. i know most of them arent popular streamer/influencers but they are the cream of the crop. or so im told lol. dont have a clue really i just play overwatch for fun

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they said the MM creates matches that it thinks the teams have between a 40-60% chance of winning. They wont give us the algorithm, if you dont know fairly advanced computer science you wouldnt be able to read it anyway

its proprietary

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its not hard forcing that. it creates matches that it thinks you have roughly a 50% chance of winning every time

It does not make it harder if you are on a win streak or easier if you are on a losing streak. still goes for roughly 50 every match no matter what kind of streak you are on

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And why are they still the “elite”? Because of MMR keeping them there. MMR will never allow other players to challenge them. Elite players are only elite players if they can MAINTAIN and DEFEND their elite status. This principle is UNIVERSAL in all of competition. If you can’t defend your rank, then have someone else take your place. This is a fundamental principle to make competition, competition. Without it, it no longer becomes competition.

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I disagree with that, I remember I used to be in silver and then I was “boosted” one holiday season into Gold and then, I was back in Silver and then I went solo into Platinum. Then again back into low gold and then back into platinum.

After a year break, I am now again in low gold.

What utterly annoys me in this game is that I must have certain perception about how things work in order to understand why I am losing 10 matches in a row after having in each match 4 gold medals.

If you want to climb, you must change your perception and find devil in details.
“Simple” as that.

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i would like to try the game without MMR actually but i have the weird feeling that losing streaks could be longer and more consistent since if you lose a ton of games isnt the matchmaker suppose to find better players to carry you. if true it is a faulty system but its good for low-skilled players or new players

would be interesting to not have it tho