QP Losing streaks, quantified and explained

General Discussion
1

I’ve seen lots of complaints of losing streaks recently. Say, the past four months. I’ve got numbers for my own accounts.

I’ve described my experience in bronze competitive (tl;dr: not even worth playing), and lately I haven’t even been able to find fair QP games. They’ve always been mostly roflstomps, but lately I’m always on the losing end. It doesn’t seem statistically realistic. It’s supposed to adjust to my skill and match me with people I can beat half the time, right? Yeah, that’s not happening.

So I created a new account. I figured there might be some anomaly that has crept into the data associated with my main account such that match maker is failing. So I created a new account. Its profile is here:

https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/career/pc/ninemeow-1198/

My win rates for my main account, which includes lots of games prior to when I was having trouble finding fair games, are:

Lucio 53%, Mercy 49%, Orisa 55%

That includes a lot of recent losses, and games I played before I even knew how to WASD. And its still way better than my new account.

My new account, which has 100 games, including about 8 easy games until the matchmaker figured out I was not inexperienced:

Lucio 38%, Mercy 36%, Orisa 45%

Remember that includes about 8 easy games the MM put me into before it figured out I was not inexperienced, so the current loss rate is even worse. Those who are saying losing streaks balance out with winning streaks: you’re wrong.

28 games as Lucio and two environmental kills. The couple weeks since I started the new account have been that bad!

My theory is that recent games are more affected than older games by MMR manipulation. People throwing QP games so they can be matched with less skilled players. Not as bad as de-ranking in competitive, but clearly there are people in all modes who get their rocks off griefing less experienced players.

What I can’t figure out is how the balance still doesn’t work. I disadvantage my team by not being a smurf. There are six spots for a smurf on the enemy team and only five on my team. But there are six spots on the enemy team for throwers and only five on my team, so they should balance, no?

The only thing I can figure is that both MMR and SR are such that you can kill all the noobs in more games than you throw. That is, the game punishes losses more than it rewards wins. That is my experience in competitive. If I win ten games and lose ten, I’m going to have a net loss in SR. Maybe that’s how griefers are able to enforce losing streaks on actual players. They kill all the noobs in 60% of games and only have to throw 40%. I disadvantage my team not being a smurf more than I advantage it not being a thrower.

Blizzard, this needs to be fixed. It is costing you players. This game is becoming very much not fun. Take all the reports of losing streaks as a warning that something is wrong. It’s probably not just players’ perception. It is probably MMR manipulation in QP and de-ranking in competitive.

Blizzard, if you look at my account and determine I’ve just had a really bad spell of bad luck, lemme know. But at this point it is running 100 games on my new account, and way more than that on my old account. You’re going to have to be really persuasive.

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Before they made player profiles private by default, i was recording quite a lot of my games for review afterwards and checking the stats of my teammates.

You can even go to overbuff to look them up in more detail.

What i’ve found is that players in QP rarely use their mains. Almost no one uses heroes in their top 5, and it’s not uncommon to run into people that play heroes that’s not even in their top 10. That guy that has a ton of hours in widowmaker, could actually be a diamond Tracer in competitive.

Don’t rely on MMR to get proper placements in QP.

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You also lose because stacks are not balanced. You can’t see the indicator anymore. So you have a high chance fighting one side that has a 4 stack. And you’re all solo. Also, if you pick tank. You are most likely forced into higher games no matter what. Don’t even bother playing games with low levels. The smurf chance is too high.

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On my new account I’m being put on teams with a lot of silver, gold and plat borders. Moreso than my old account. I’ve paid less attention to the enemy teams, but I’m assuming they are similar.

With so much data available to it, even if these aren’t “main” accounts, shouldn’t the MMR of these players be pretty well determined?

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It doesn’t matter when they don’t care who is in a QP game. Just find whoever and that’s it. Basically they just care about your ping range. Doesn’t care about stacks. Either in amount or role. Doesn’t care about level. Doesn’t care if Master is in a group with silvers. It will make them go in a gold game. Instead of making the silver suffer in a Master game.

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Ive actually noticed a loosing streak on comp bronze too, I got placed right at the limit between silver and bronze, and I figured, well, might as well play and rise to silver, see if I can keep climbing… to this day I’ve won only one of the 10 games I’ve played… I was playing tank (Sigma only) but I still cant win, I feel like if it was more organized I could do stuff, but healers wasting cooldowns on only themselves or Dps going for endless flanks, get me down.
Anyway, I probably have a lot to work on in my own gameplay, so is there a discord or something where people review other peoples games and give advice? If not we should make one!

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You think the game would eventually get you to a level to stop losing. It’s probably because the game blocks you from crashing so far, to not smurf. But it won’t do the reverse, if you win lots of games in the row. Than it moves you up and doesn’t stop.

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Yeah, but the Sr system isnt very good, as op said, you loose more than you earn most of the time (or at least thats what it feels like for me)

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Blizzard isn’t done gaslighting me:

https://i.imgur.com/XEQHY50.png

Won two games with my old account, though. Old account is unrealistically unlucky and maddening to play. New account is just broken and unusable.

ETA five more losses, zero wins.

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Unbalanced matches should logically be more common now that the player base has shrunk drastically. Majority of the remaining players are likely above the skill level that was statistically “average” when the matchmaking system was last adjusted. New and below average players suffer the most from this.

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11

There are vod review subreddits for each of the heroes, if I recall. I remember them not being terribly active, but each post was getting multiple responses.

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Awesome! Thanks for the info!