The overall problem with matchmaking in this particular game is that Overwatch is first and very-foremost balanced for organized 6v6 play. Thus you have characters who fulfill wildly-different roles with no single character being able to do it all, PLUS the ability to switch characters in the middle of a match.
As Seagull stated during his discussion on the state of Overwatch with Jayne, Competitive Overwatch was NOT supposed to have solo-queueing at all, you had to come in with a full 6-stack, but there was player outrage for not having solo-queue, so thus, the ability to queue with less than a 6-stack emerged. “Proper” Competitive Overwatch (that isn’t league play) would be clan-only play where clans are ranked and play against other clans, thus clans move up or down the ladder.
You could argue that maybe Blizzard shouldn’t have tried to make a very team-reliant game in the way that Overwatch is, but I’m fine with it. I played American football for a long time, so I’m comfortable in playing a certain role but with variance to it, even “switching” to a different role when the game flow calls for it.
My friend let’s discuss this as I do not believe there are many variables at all to include in a proper competitive matchmaker. A competitive matchmaker is different in a great way to a quick play matchmaker. This is because the quickplay matchmaker should be creating fair teams by looking at how the player has been in performance lately, how good they are, their ability to win match, ping, etc etc.
On another side of the token: A competitive matchmaker should never under any kinds of circumstance balance teams in any way, this would be a disaster. A proper matchmaker for competitive should be at random grabbing 12 player of similar SR (plus or minus 50 SR) and place at random onto two teams and only factor in ping and nothing else what so ever. After many games players will be where they should be.
This process exclude extreme example like top 500 player or bottom 500 player, I am speaking on the vast majority of game.
Also please note: a proper matchmaker can never include multiple game accounts allowed on one ladder. This is so boggling to my mind.
That’s my opinion, too. And I also defend it in the forum again and again.
Nevertheless, the matchmaker is much more if you take time into account.
It is not always good to instantly start a match once 12 necessary players have been found.
Certain criteria must be fulfilled in the player pool, which specify how long a game search should take at least. An approximate planning will be given consideration. Depending on the region, the player pool and the current day and time.
It would also be bad if the same 12 players played against each other several times.
It would be bad if the same map had to be played several times in a row.
There are many of these kinds of problems.
These tasks should by no means be given out of hand.
There’d be a user revolt if you could only match up w/people +/- 50 SR for comp. It used to be +/-500 and that got expanded to +/-1000 due to user demand (for Diamond and below).
Also, don’t forget to factor in the ripple effects of “Avoid as Teammate” as well as general QoL issues of repeated maps, how many concurrent players are in each server region, being matched with/against the same players repeatedly, longer queue times to hit such a narrow range, etc.,.
While I’ve never made a match maker, I have developed production workflows and one of the first things learned is that what looks like the best/most optimized way to do things in theory rarely is the best way to do things in reality.
I remember a number of years ago when people were complaining that their iPod was repeating songs too frequently when it was in ‘shuffle mode’. The software was properly randomizing songs, but in the mind of many users random meant ‘once I hear a track I won’t hear it again for a long time’, not ‘every track has an equal chance of being played at any time’.
So in response to people wanting their playback to be more randomized Apple adjusted it’s algorithm to be less random by making recently played songs less likely to be picked and songs that haven’t been played for a while more likely to be picked.
In Overwatch the majority of users don’t really want the most evenly balanced match possible because it will mostly likely prevent them from playing with their friends, require very long queue times, etc.,. What people want is to group up with a friend or two, avoid toxic people on their banned lists, avoid playing the same map over and over, queue times of less than a minute, and a match that feels fair (‘fair’ meaning the odds of them winning are tilted in their favor). Easy as pie.
Hello, how I would handle this is allow players to group within 800SR. So let us say that a rank 2500 and a rank 3000 group up and want to play, they will receive message that say “long wait to find match” and it will only launch match when it find a 2 player group of 2500 and 3000 (+ or - 50sr) and it will place them onto the other team. Realistically it should take these player maybe no longer than five minute (at peak time it will be within 1-2 min)
If people want to play together then they will at times need to wait so there is an exact match found to place onto the other team. Does this sound fair to you?
Well now, that just shows how little you understand how things in Overwatch work. The matchmaker does not rank people. That is the ranking system. The matchmaker uses the results of the ranking system (specifically MMR), among other things, to group players together. After a match, the ranking system determines how one’s MMR and SR are adjusted. So which are you going to fix first? The matchmaker, the ranking system, or your understanding of how these systems actually work? If I were you I’d start with the latter of the three.
My friend I am using the word “matchmaker” as some word to identify everything with the ELO system together. I know almost everything about this matchmaker, and let me tell you, it is stinky.
If you want to your own matchmaker / ranking system why don’t you go and make one?
Create discord server, invite some people, make a post on Reddit or here on the forums or even make a web-page for it. I’m sure people will eventually come if it’s better and they get to know about it.
People can then play together in Custom game lobby.
You’re still showing a lack of understanding. Firstly, do you realise the Elo system was named after a person, Arpad Elo? So only the ‘E’ should be capitalised. Secondly, the Elo system is a way of calculating skills of players of a game relative to each other. So “everything with the Elo system together”, as you wrote, can only consist of the MMR system in the context of Overwatch, not the matchmaker. Again, those do separate things.
In analogy to a tennis tournament, the MMR system is the same as the ATP rankings - simply a number determined by player’s wins and losses. The matchmaker is the same as the tournament organisers - they choose who plays against who (using the ATP rankings as a guide). But the tournament organisers (matchmaker) do not have any control over how the ATP rankings are adjusted based off the matches in their tournament.
Tell me again how you know everything there is to know about these systems (yes, this is plural as they operate independently and should not be considered as a single system).
You are over complicating simple things my friend. You are trying to argue about the capitalization of the letter and missing the big picture. I will not argue about silly things at all, what I explain above is the correct way to create a matchmaker, and not the way this stinky steampile matchmaker work.
Nah I got the big picture… The problem is there are two pictures which you are seeing as one.
The only reason I brought up the capitalisation was to demonstrate that you do not know everything there is to know about Overwatch’s MMR system - you didn’t even know the origin of the system it’s based on.
Ooh I remember that post from back in the days, that’s indeed a load of BS and shows severe lack of understanding of matchmaking and ranking systems in general.
Thanks for showing it though, because OP hasn’t really gone any further than “I know it all but won’t tell anything”
There is a reasonable approach if you want to know how the current Matchmaker works.
First of all, you should be aware that the most important factor in the success of a game is the player base. All sources of income are linked to this. No matter whether it is OWL or the sale of merchandise.
If a certain number of players is not reached, the quality of the matches decreases for the remaining players.
If a certain level of quality cannot be met, the probability increases that players will stop playing the game.
A large number of players, I would say the majority of players, understand by high-quality matches that the team is ideal and that these matches are won by the respective player. Jeff Kaplan himself once said that he believes that a match in which you lose quickly is perceived more positively than a match that takes a very long time and is also lost.
Not everyone can win every game. Considering the previous points, it would be ideal if every player had as exactly as possible a 50 percent win rate. That’s exactly the purpose of matchmaking.
There’s a problem with the whole thing. That is my personal view and I have really played a lot on different ranks.
It all comes together at one point.
Players who belong in a significantly lower rank and players who belong in a significantly higher rank are located there.
This point is pretty much in the middle of the rank system. And that’s where most of the players are.
At this point, I think the matchmaking system takes
the greatest influence.
At this point it is no longer possible for most players to carry the game on their own using only mechanical skills.
Suddenly a team is required to decide the outcome of a match reliably.
This uncertainty is compensated by the matchmaker in the long run over and over again.
That way it can lead to streaks of “luck” and “bad luck”.
Theoretically this should be perceived as ideal for all players.
In practical terms, however, most players are bothered by the fact that they feel they have no influence on their matches.
It is not impossible to climb to a higher rank. However, the effort required at this threshold is significantly higher than in other ranks and the actual quality of the games there reaches high and low peaks.
Here is another source for players who want to know which criteria are taken into account.
To fine-tune the matchmaking process, the system may include an analytics and feedback engine that analyzes player and match data to determine whether a given match was good. A match may be deemed “good” when a player is determined to have enjoyed gameplay associated with the match based on one or more quality factors that are used as a proxy for player satisfaction. The quality factors may include, for example, a duration of a gameplay session (e.g., via analysis of player historical data), player psychological state (e.g., frustration level), and/or other information.
In one implementation, the analytics and feedback engine may analyze game data (e.g., whether a given game level or match favors play styles), historical player data (e.g., types/styles of player, strengths/weaknesses of players, etc.), and/or other information to assess a quality of player experiences.
The analytics and feedback engine may analyze game data to determine satisfying types of gameplay that should be provided through the matchmaking process. For example, the analytics and feedback engine may determine whether given combinations of role types (e.g., sniper, run-and-gunners, etc.) lead to satisfying gameplay. Such analysis may be performed for specific portions of a game (e.g., a game level) and/or generally for a game.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts my friend. I agree on all points, they are good. I am only disagreeing on this point number 4, at this part:
I am going to give strong opinion here, this is my view that the matchmaker should not have this purpose at all. A 50% win rate should be side effect of matchmaker, not the goal. Maybe we are talking about the same thing though.
What that means is simply that all players are of equal skill level. That’s the objective of matchmakers. You oppose this?
I think I get what you’re saying though, you think there are just really “good” and “bad” players at all ranks…but the objective of all matchmakers are to rank the good players up and the bad players down. Overwatch does this, but due to the nature of the game (it can’t predict someone will switch off dva to reaper just bc he’s bored) and smurfs (players abusing the system) it may seem at times like it’s not doing a very good job. Also, sometimes, just a zarya Hanzo ult or something like that can win games and make it seem like a steamroll. That doesn’t mean it’s doing a bad job though.
And their system is much more intricate than, “put the overperforming player with the underperforming player.”
At any rate, I think the matchmaker is pretty good. I’ve found that in general, bronze players are worse than silver are worse than gold etc.
