Quickplay Matchmaking isn't random, nor is it based on MMR. It's trash

General Discussion
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Made another account because my other 5 have been systematically banned for raging at smurfs over time, and just ran into a match at level 8, with my entire team being bronze borders, and the entire enemy team was silver borders. It was an agonizing win for us, I had to go bastion and we had to bunker turtle for 6 minutes at a chokepoint just to scrape a win, got lucky and shot the enemy junks riptire or else they would have won via ult spam.

Either the games dying and barely anyones starting from a low level or quickplay has some serious matchmaking issues because It’s been a while since I even got into a matchup with other low levels, it keeps putting me in gold and silver level 500 border matches and I get facerolled and almost every match we lose. Unless I manage to get lucky and get put into a team where i’m the only low level, then it’s boring because they just win it without me while i’m being spawn camped by a sombra or reaper or some crap.

Ive managed to make it to 25 and actually qualify for ranked ONCE on an account before being reported too much by snowflakes, and I placed gold. When I ask people their rank I always get responses like ‘‘Oh yeah I’m plat’’, or ‘‘Yeah I came from console, was master’’, or something.

Why does quickplay do this? I know like ‘‘iTs JuSt QuIcKpLaY’’ and everything, and that I should ‘‘Git gud’’, but ive been playing for a while, and I ain’t good enough to compete with plats and diamonds, and when you start an account, you HAVE to play quickplay for a while just to get to level 25.

So does blizzard just want people to die a lot for a week or so when they start the game in order to learn it? That does not make people better. It just annoys the hell out of people and probably makes them quit. Why won’t blizzard work on the matchmaking system in quickplay to put similar ranked new players together? OR create a different game mode similar to quickplay, but not ranked?

and inb4, ''why do you keep getting banned? Why are you so toxic? ‘’ I’ll tell you why I’m toxic, I’m sick of some enemy widow soloing our entire team, or just getting plowed in general by higher mmr players when I’m freaking level 8 and quickplay is my only game option.

4 Likes
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As in its name, Quickplay is always going to prioritize quick matchmaking over matching players by skill. Competitive is for prioritizing matching players by skill if that’s what you’re looking for.

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I’d love to skip onto competitive, is there a boost or something I can get that will allow me to not get plowed for 25 levels in quickplay first? Also, wouldn’t a more casual MMR based game mode be nice? Not having to worry about having voice coms or being all serious, but also having actual similar mmr players in your match? Like an in between mode of quickplay and comp.

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There’s not a way to skip to level 25 right now. You don’t have to play quickplay to level up, though. You can also play arcade modes. I’d enjoy an in-between game mode like that but I think the reason there isn’t one is so that the player base won’t be split too much, which would cause even more queue time issues with quickplay, which has been plagued by that since role lock was implemented.

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as you queue in quickplay youll eventually get matched into lower and lower games

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It seems like a silly way to go about the games development on blizzards part. They either say ‘‘well if you want to play you can go into quickplay and fight basically anyone, or you play competitive’’. Overwatch has a ton of players, the vast majority aren’t pro’s. Having a two game modes fit all system seems weird, there should be a casual mode for 95 percent of the playerbase where you can just play, but not run into people 2000 mmr points above you.

2 Likes
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There is a soft MMR in quickplay, it’s just not visible by us and nobody is sure how it’s tracked. I can say from my years in this game, though, I get matched with higher-ranked players when I play QP by myself (masters in comp) and lower-ranked players when I queue with friends who are also lower-ranked (gold-plat).

It’s just that there’s a breaking point where it needs to fill the match and expands the pool to try to quickly find people. There aren’t enough high-level players in QP to match them together all the time so they have to go somewhere.

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I can honestly say I don’t even believe that whole soft MMR system even exists, and this is off of playing quite a bit of quickplay on other accounts. You basically get your first match against other new players, then it starts putting you against basically anyone else. If it does equal out eventually, you’re gonna be way past level 25 before it finally puts you against equally skilled players. Maybe the problem is, the system they have designed SLOWLY, and I mean REALLY slowly adjusts your matchmaking, and it’ll jump around and place you high at first then gradually decrease if you do poorly. Which, like I said, if you’re just leveling to 25, does you no good whatsoever, because while the system takes it time doing that you’re leveling up to comp.

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There’s merit to this. It does take a while for a new account to settle in but I’m thinking most new players wouldn’t think much of it because they’re still just trying to learn the game anyway.

It can be rough on alt accounts, though. I’ve been a console player since launch but, when I started my PC account, I got one game against other new accounts, in which I shredded with Tracer because I was GM on console at the time and know the game very well while they mostly walked in straight lines everywhere. In the very next game, I was put against masters+ players even though my mouse and keyboard comfort wasn’t up to their level yet since all my muscle memory was with a controller. Made grinding to level 25 a chore for me but that’s from a veteran player’s perspective. Not sure how a legitimate new player would’ve felt about it.

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This is what happens to me. I’m not even that good, iv’e only played casually on PC, and got placed into gold once, and that was off playing sigma lmao. My first match on this account I bought yesterday, I didn’t even do that well, got a few kills as DPS, but certainly didn’t dominate like a smurf would. The VERY next match I was put in with gold and silver border players, with like 5 stars and stuff. Barely got a kill, had to ULT just to kill someone. It’s been like this now until level 8 so far. Every game is a faceroll by one side, not even close games. I die sometimes to a mercy gun. That’s right, I have mercy shooting me to death sometimes.

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Quick play does utilize MMR. Tested this with a few accounts and one of my accounts routinely is matched with players who are still struggling to handle pressing a combination of WASD keys together while my main account is normally match made with Gold and Plat players. It doesn’t however factor in account levels when assigning the teams together. New accounts still trying to find the proper MMR will fluctuate for the first 15ish levels I found.

5 banned accounts? Sounds like you’re not taking a behavioral hint.

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Yeah I rage a lot at smurfs, but i’m also not poor so, twenty bucks is nothing to me. I’ll just keep buying new ones until IP banned, then switch to a paid service to mask it or whatever, if that happens.

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Wasn’t commenting on your financial status. Quite the statistical anomaly to play against enough smurfs to get enough chat bans to warrant a permanent account ban… Five times… Weird flex but okay.

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So um, you keep raging at smurfs… while making more smurfs yourself? Okay lol.

Consider taking some anger management therapy if you’re having issues with it online or in general.

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heh, I still +1’d but yeah. this is kinda an odd post.

“rages at smurffs”
“buys smurff account to rage at OTHER smurffs”. :rofl:

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Aight time to log off and drink for the night, pretty sure ima be banned when I wake up tomorrow. Told a bunch of nerds to kys lmao.

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@TwistedMedia

While your post is from 2020, I think some of the things you mentioned merit a reply in 2022, so here it is:

Please help me understand this: so basically, you keep buying accounts on a game you are not truly happy about. Raging is NOT acceptable in any way, especially if you’re an adult.

As someone else in this thread has already said, perhaps get some help to manage the rage issues if a video game upsets you this much. Alternatively, try not to get banned for the first 25 levels and then play competitive exclusively (and don’t rage in competitive either for you worked so hard to get to your 25th level).

Honestly, I actually try to avoid players like yourself. I play only one account and I avoid competitive like the plague precisely because of toxic behaviour. I favour mystery heroes because it lowers people’s expectations for those of us who just like to play casually AND teaches me to play against the odds and sometimes develop ehm, unconventional tactics.

That said, even when frustrated in most matches I try to stay friendly and have earned a reputation among those on the friends list as the friendly Hamster as a result. Then, when I play some game due to someone looking at my border, they immediately assume I must be good at every single character so when I go QP classic or QP just to have a change of pace, I get scoffed at and told to go “kill myself” over a game.

Young kids are playing this game (by kids I mean 8 year olds, not teenagers). Yes, often under adult supervision, but still.

It is NOT appropriate to rage like that. Consider that there are differences in maturity levels and be more mindful of those on the receiving end of your comments. All they did is click “Play” and then the game matched them up with you – it works both ways.

Perhaps even consider playing a different game? Everyone has to learn somewhere and border means almost nothing other than time spent on the game (but not necessarily competitive or even QuickPlay), especially when not playing their so-called “main” (if they have one).

I won’t ever be ranked top 500 or anything but that doesn’t mean I do not enjoy a challenge.

One thing I do agree with you on though: the match making in QuickPlay and QuickPlay Classic and in arcade modes does leave a lot to be desired.

Apparently, what I call “player whining” also works wonders, because Blizzard has already dumbed the game down by removing two maps from the QuickPlay and Arcade modes entirely as players did not understand how to use tactical skill, character choice and/or teamplay to navigate a few chokeholds on a TEAM BASED shooter, which they incidentally have no problem with on other similar maps, such as Hanamura, Temple of Anubis or King’s Row.

So who knows, perhaps if you buy a few more accounts, someone will listen and introduce a modified ranking system or perhaps you are stuck keeping a game alive that you have rage issues with.

Personally I really wish things like borders and ranks were not revealed at all to players. But then new players would get even more grief and not be encouraged to learn to play the game due to such toxic remarks.

My friendly advice if you’re open to it:

  • get some help in dealing with frustrations
  • treat others with the same respect as you would have them treat you
  • everyone deserves a chance to learn, no matter their proficiency level (for all you know they only ever played one character or never played it properly because only playing with friends or vs AI or whatnot)
  • do not make assumptions
  • think of something nice to say to people (believe it or not, it helps)
  • teach rather than preach