I’ve had 3 losses in a row all expected to lose, followed by 2 more matches I was expected to lose which both had the volatile modifier too.
Why am I being being given 5 forced losses in a row. And then why is my rank volatile for losing matches you expect me to lose?
Utterly braindead developers.
Edit:
6th match was a win. So easy it felt like the enemy wasn’t even playing… yep, you guessed it. “Uphill Battle” 
Forced losses?
No, they’ve never been a thing.
Not sure what the modifiers have to do with it. They are just linked to the slight SR variations in teams.
You lost 5 in a row, and dropped enough for the game to be a bit easier. Same would be the case if you deliberately deranked a bit.
The game doesn’t have to give me a lopsided match. This was open queue with probably <2 min queue time. It chose to create a match where I was expected to lose, 5 times in a row…
How is that not a forced loss?
The wide matches are getting ridiculous too. Again, open queue. 30 second queue. Plat 4 - diamond 3… Why?
Yeah. Some games do end up a little onesided. But that isn’t the game “giving” you that.
Some times people just pick badly, wiff things, don’t pay attention and a billion other things.
Remember, if some think something scuffed is happening… First Sherlock Holmes it… Rule out all the logical things, before you jump to the mad one.
That was perfectly acceptable in OW1… 2550 SR to 3350 was perfectly fine.
This is nothing to do with people picking the wrong heroes. This is literally the game telling me on the rank adjustment screen that it deliberately put me in a match I was expected to lose.
That is defintely not what the modifiers mean.
Bring it back, and think about all the logical options. Because it “forcing results” is completely illogical.
How do people win 80% of games. How do people derank. Just 2 things that suggest “forced” matches are complete balls.
It’s not forced, it’s expected. The queues would be insanely long if it waited for perfect 50/50 outcomes. You realize this means you get expected wins too, right?
If you have 5 games in a row you are expected to lose then the system is giving you 5 games it doesn’t expect you to win… in other words its planning for you to lose several times in a row.
How is this so hard to understand?
That’s not forced. You just lost. I win uphill battles. I’m sure you have as well. Just try again later when not feeling down about your losses.
Do you do this 5 times in a row? Just interested.
Last session I went 9-0. A good chunk were uphills. I don’t recall how many in a row. None of them were expected. It’s just bonus SR to me. The games were really close. Any of them could have been a loss. It seems we get a tiny bonus when the average SR is higher on the other team. Just try again later when you’re feeling good about playing. I had lost my rank(almost 3 divisions!)prior to that and got it back in that long session. I was playing my best.
So you went on an extended loss streak, then bounced back on an extended win streak?
This sounds manipulated, to be honest. Like the match maker is overcalculating something.
It wasn’t a loss streak. It was just enough to lose 2 divisions. It wasn’t a loss streak from 1 session. It was several mixed with wins.
We don’t know how they calculate that. Is it based on the old 1 SR diff, 1 % diff or last game(s) performances or something else. But yeah sometimes the text (uphill battle) is WAY OFF which is natural.
Honestly I hate that they throw this (insert word Blizz bans) in but have zero explanation for what any of it means. I know what Volatile means it means something is unstable and the slightest touch could make it explode…so wlskdfjalkfj does that mean in ranked!!! Blizz seriously needs to start explaining stuff. These Team 4 idiots are incapable of balancing a ledger much less a game.
You get volatile after losing a few after ranking up I think. But what annoyed me to the point of venting here is that all those losses which lead up to the volatile modifier being applied were unfair, expected losses. I lost because I was expected to lose, then my rank was uncertain, I should not be given more expected losses at that point. That makes no sense to me.
I gained my rank back. But it all just feels such a waste of time. Like I only lost those matches because I was at a disadvantage, and so all the wins it took just to get back to square one felt like losses too.
Every time I jump on with a positive attitude, it seems like the game beats it out of me within short and shorter times. To the point where sometimes after even just one match I think to myself, why am I even playing?
I think it’s just an extreme case of rose tinted glasses and nostalgia. Need to face up to reality that the Overwatch I enjoyed has gone and is not coming back.
Exactly why I like the modifiers. Note the modifiers were “always there” since ow1 days.
So there’s two factors. 1, yes the game can never provide a clear 50/50. There will always be an underdog. In machine learning we ask the machine to give an outcome, then we tell it if it’s right or wrong - thus the learning. It’s the same thing here, the machine has to predict the outcome, we play the game and we tell it if it’s right or wrong by the result of the match. I always ask and never given an answer, there’s nothing to stop the machine from placing you on the expected to lose side multiple times in a row. - that’s unlucky, that’s the coin flip to the system.
But at the end of the day, that’s why I aim train and watch videos cause you have to prove the system wrong.
No it doesn’t. It sounds like someone lost some games, then won some.
Let’s be clear, the word “manipulation” has some negative connotations, but manipulation can be neutral.
Every match maker is manipulating matches. If it were random, or making matches by sr only, it’s still manipulating players to form matches. We the player do not make our own matches, so this the system is forming them.
There’s no rigging in the sense that it / blizz wants you to lose. They want you to lose only to find you a challenge and provide high level of play.
Are there issues? Well yes. Blizzard is still employed by people. People make mistakes. Can an algorithm be perfect? Yes actually, but only deterministic ones. But The player placements is a non deterministic problem, and thus only approximations can be done, that leaves imperfections.
How often do imperfect matches happen? Well, that depends on how well they analyze the algorithm and find occurrences and try to fix them.
How to fix imperfections? You have to experiment and not rely on any fundamental notions. The fact we still have this hidden Mmr and sr… the fact that years have passed and we still have reports of bad matches and wrong modifiers… means there’s lots of improvement to be done. That’s why like the modifiers, hopefully they play their own game and can see now how their “on paper” was radically wrong.
ok so I can play a game and go 15-4 as tracer while my team barely has 10 elims then the other team counterswaps because it gets more value than it should and solo target me while my team is “helpless”. I lose and get deranked. So I should be punished for being better? Why is it that I can hard pop and show I’m better but the enemy that has been mid at best can just swap and win? I don’t know I think ranked in OW is extremely bad. Dev team has zero idea what they are doing. If I was Microsoft I would fire the team and rework ranked. It’s competitive and you have to have integrity and stop punishing good players for playing well.