MMR question (please help devs)

I’ve seen a lot of people going around saying that your quickplay performance affects your first ever placement matches. I’ve got a friend that’s trying to get a new account placed high up so he’s stressing out about doing well in quickplay. I’ve been trying to look around and find out if it actually does, but I’ve yet to find anything that wasn’t anecdotal- and therefore not really admissible as evidence. Personally, I’ve placed 3 new accounts besides this one and no matter my performance in quickplay I’ve always started out against gold players (2300-2500). That makes sense, because that would put my first ever placements against people in the 50th percentile. I’ve also seen that a lot of top 500 and pro players get put against golds and plats on their first placements with new accounts too. Without getting told by the devs we can’t really know for sure whether your first placements are affected by quickplay or not, though. Are they?

Overwatch doesn’t give out information about mmr calculation. The more that is known about it, the more possible it is for players to try and abuse the hinges of it’s functionality.

So unless someone does a statistical study. You’re only going to get anecdote and hearsay.

Your data is correct. Quick play does not affect competitive in any way, including initial placements. Forum rumors are just that. See Initial Competitive Skill Rating, Decrypted for more systematic data.

Also, the devs rarely respond directly to questions about MMR/SR. Sorry.

2 Likes

Thanks for the link to the other post. That’s more like what I was looking for but couldn’t find, a real statistical analysis. Granted, it IS only a sample size of one. Your findings do generally agree with my experience and what I’ve seen from top-tier players that’re placing new accounts, though.

All my alts have started around there too. QP doesn’t matter at all.