Hey everyone,
Been working on a new project that I think I am ready to share. I have been busy making a fun spreadsheet which ROUGHLY calculates how fair a Competitive match of Overwatch was using the publicly displayed information from a match. The goal here is to statistically evaluate the worst-case scenario and best-case scenario of a match even if all you have is a screenshot of the Tab screen and can only see the skill tier icons. The sheet is programmed however to override any precise skill ratings for individual players or the team average skill rating that you input into the appropriate fields.
VERY IMPORTANT! This is a calculator that only relies on the skill rating which is NOT directly used in matchmaking. Skill rating is your presented value that closely chases your hidden Matchmaking Rating, which is not viewable. Matches of Overwatch are supposed to technically have a 40% chance of winning or greater for either team, otherwise, the match is not made. This calculator only bases that calculation purely on the skill rating/tier values that you input. We do not know if the statement of calculating a fair match from the devs includes any other factors such as group stacking, frequency of play, or other quantitative values that we would not know about directly in each match. As such, you should try to interpret the odds of winning and the match validity assessment with the understanding that this calculator is prone to unknown margins of error.
Also note, calculating matches with a wide number of Bronze-ranked or Grand Master-ranked players will increase uncertainty in the calculation. This is because those two ranks have wider skill rating ranges. You can avoid this by trying to find their precise skill ratings. The more precise numbers (actual player or team skill ratings), the more accurate the calculation will be. This calculator is also not going to produce accurate when a high number of players in that match are doing placements and you can’t look up their previous season skill rating (it will try to assign a rank based on the average of all players who do have at least a skill tier assigned.
TL:DR - Use this spreadsheet to get an idea of how fair a match was, but it’s not going to be 100% accurate, and maybe wildly inaccurate in some cases.
Click the link below to view and adjust the form online on Google sheets (note, ANYONE can edit this but only in the valid fields, so please take turns if multiple are logged on). You can also save a copy to your own Google Account if you wish.