Suggestion for SR gain/loss

Competitive Discussion
1

Before we can have a discussion about this topic, which is an issue in every single season, we need to admit that the current SR system is not that good. Regardless what you may think or what blizzard says or even if they provided evidence to support their claim, personal performance does not matter even if you lose. Dropping 40-50 elims with 3-4 golds in a loss usually nets you 21-23 SR loss. And before any of you claim that the above scenario is not very good, we can check out your profile to see how you fair against this hypothetical scenario. The above scenario is good even with a win. Even if you disagree with my suggestions, please feel free to add some of your own and be constructive.

Also, we need to accept that my proposal or any of the suggestions in this thread (or in this forum) are not perfect but a needed step in the right direction. We need to consider the good performance of losing players when they are playing well (high elims, damage, playing the objective, high accuracy, etc).

I think the first step to addressing this and kicking off this convo is simply adding a +gain per medal.

Now, you will argue that people will play for medals and not for the win. Not necessarily true. If you have a high(gold) objective time and high(gold) objective kills, obviously you are not going solo and rambo. You are trying to stop the other team from capping the objective. It is clear that you are trying to win and not just doing your own thing. That is a positive in my book and I would want this person on my team even during a loss.

You may argue that people will see a loss coming, see a gold or two that they have and fail to switch off just to keep their golds. True, this may happen in some cases and we cannot prevent all unfortunate greedy scenarios from being realized. But what if the person is also the only one putting out a decent amount of kills. Wouldn’t you want him/her to stay dps? Hes the only source of damage you have at that moment.

Subject to change:
+3 SR gain per gold medal
+2 SR gain per silver
+1 SR gain per bronze

Assume a normal 21-24 SR loss.

A player with 2 golds and a silver will see the following rank decrease: 21- (3+3+1) = 14. His/her rank goes from 2500 to 2486 instead of 2479.

Maybe the next game he wins and goes above 2500 . This is good and allows the player to feel like he or she can climb a bit despite some losses and being on bad teams so long as he or she plays well. Currently you can win more games than you lose in a night and still come out in the negative. That isnt right.

Lastly, we and blizzard need to step out of the mindset of working around the marginal cases and scenarios. Early on in Overwatch’s life they removed the ‘avoid player’ button because one high skilled player saw insane queue times because everyone avoided him (I think he played widow). The result of this was that for years we continued to get into matches with highly toxic players and people we did not want to be teamed with. Eventually Blizzard put this feature back into place, but not before all of the big name streamers (ex. timthetatman) left the game because trollers and stream snipers targeted him and caused losses. Tim could not avoid these players and created bad experiences. This happens to a lot of us. We need to stop making arguments and cases for the minority and start thinking about the majority and player retention. If a large swath of your playerbase stops playing each season because they do not see any progress they make regardless of their performance, how is that good for the game?

Open to constructive feedback and suggestions.

2

What if I told you that ladders aren’t intended to be climbed? If you aren’t consistently winning why should you climb? This is worse than a participation trophy. You’re competing against everyone else. And the medals are jokes. They literally mean nothing and we’d be far better served by removing them outright. If you cannot perform more than adequately at X rank why do you think you deserve X+1 rank? Ladders are to find where you best fit and leave you there unless you demonstrate you deserve better or worse consistently. It’s as simple as that.

3 Likes
3

This assumes that the way you measure the performance is correct. As the thread opener correctly states, this is not the case.
You can perform much better than everyone else and at the end of the day you have won as many games as someone who plays much worse.

4

I think it does a fine job with all things considered and I have seen my SR rise as my skills grew. So um…

IF what you said was true (it’s patently false) how exactly does anyone climb? I’m not a pro yet have escaped two ranks and am on the cusp of a third…

5

you are cesmode? Then why are you having a discussion with yourself? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

It is of course possible to climb up the ladder. With some Heroes it’s easier (regardless of skill).
The basis on which it is decided when one player is better than another is secret and that is a big point of criticism.
There’s more to this system than winning and losing.
Before new features and improvements can even be discussed, current systems must be transparent.

6

I read this was from the wrong post (9/10 of my recent pings have been from my post). Let me fix that and reread what I missed as this is NOT mine.

Edit: IF it was known it’d be exploited. The relevant factors are all understood well enough for folks to understand climbing in the game well enough to do so consistently.

7

not really.
It’s why some players want a pure performance system but they seem to forget that stats alone are not worthy of a rank up. They just show one is at least decent for their current rank (I guess) but that doesn’t mean a person is ready to +1 up a tier if they can’t impact games at their current rank enough to win more than they lose.

there is a lot of non-stat stuff that goes into winning games and that’s why the system is winner takes all.

8

What if I told you that there are 5 other people on the team and their performance contributes more to your win or loss than your performance does.

9

You’d be wrong. Firstly everyone could say that and diffuse all of the responsibility. Secondly you may never see any of those five again yet you are in 100% of your matches.

1 Like
10

So youre saying that my win/loss potential rests squarely on my shoulders and the other 5 people on my team have no bearing on if I win or lose the match? The other 5 could throw the match, but if we lose its because I performed poorly?

It is a team based game, thats how it was designed. One person (99% of the time), cannot carry a team to victory. You play as a team or you lose.

11

Yes, yes it does. You’re just looking for excuses but if you cannot win consistently then that is where you belong as you aren’t having a significant impact.

12

Not true…i have been in several games where i am giving it my all…and we still lose due to not working as a team/throwers/leavers etc. Im not saying that im a pro or anything…but i do know how to play and when to switch. There have been several games that i have been in where i am the only tank/healer and everyone else goes dps…doesnt make sense right…but still happens.
If you dont have a well balanced team a loss is almost guarenteed, reguardless of how well u as an individal play.

13

I’ve won with 5 DPS, triple off tank, 5v6, etc more than once each. They can be won at times and against far better comps. Beating Rein-Zarya as Dva-Hog is always a funny feeling!

14

Sr is not about how good your performance is, it’s about how good your performance is compared to everyone else playing the same hero. This makes sense and makes the game more competitive.

15

Statistically this is impossible on either end. You take a plat level player and put them in a group of bad gold or silvers and you will lose. You take a competent player and put them in a group of competent players and you win. Most people end up with a 50% win rate because they dont want to climb not because they cannot. I’ll follow up on this below, but typically your significant impact is not what leads to victory. Your significant impact means you get the max SR you can and lose the least SR. You still have the flip of the coin if your team will win or lose that match.

FWIW i agree with the assessment that if you are good enough you climb. MMR is a stat that just says your team has a 50% probability of winning. No matter the hero choice, level etc…

For example: the best thing you can do in solo q is to insta lock a DPS and pray that you can make enough of an impact to tip the scale in your favor. The only other side to this coin is that your team has the ability to somewhat coordinate and make a comp to rival the oposing teams. Even then you will typically end up with a 50% win rate.

Yes, it is possible for people to climb. On another post you commented that you are a testament to climbing. Just because you climbed does not mean the system is fundamentally flawed. For instance if you can ONLY play on weekends that person has less of a chance of climbing than someone who plays at peek hours.

Basically the mentality is, if you want to climb turn off comms, insta lock a DPS and work on your own skills. The reason why is you gain more SR this way and loose less SR. This does not mean you are helping your team. It means you are gaming the system.

Im 100% in agreement that skill somewhat equals the place your are at. I also know that silver-plat is not that giant of a skill leap (look at stats for each if you dont believe me). The difference is game sense. This game caters to maps and comps. In silver and even gold no one switches and the majority of people are not on comms. Take any map with 2 CP and the defense will mostly win because some type of bunker comp. Ending up in a draw or battle of the ults.

So sure, anyone can climb. Only lock down 1- 2 characters per season and insta lock those. Dont swap no matter the team comp and pray to make an impact. Because you are good at that one character you force your team to choose and fill around you making this problem even larger because no role q. This guarantees you will climb. It’s still a flawed system.

16

But I barely touch DPS and climb… and I take the dreaded main tank or main healer role usually depending on what the team needs more. Soooooo?.. maybe you don’t have it all figured out despite thinking that. Do you think GM tanks/supports played DPS til there then magically swapped to tank/support to play at that level? They didn’t!

17

This is in no way a shot at you so please dont take it that way. You win most of your games on moira. She is easily one of the easiest characters to climb and gain SR with. Below diamond no one even calls out when her fade is on CD. Allowing you to basically live forever, do a good bit of dps to squishies, self heal + heal the team. It’s an easy character to gain more SR than you lose.

Your other characters are 50% win rate and below. So you would either stay stagnant but probably drop based on stats. Take rein for example, your damage vs other reins does not seem as high. This does not mean you didnt do your job, you are probably a great rein. It means the system thinks you should do more damage to not lose SR.

Again, these are in no way shots at you. You are higher than I am so there is that. It’s more that you are the prime example of what im talking about.

I never said I have it all figured out. Im literally just echoing what other people in every single thread have said.

No, but we are not talking about GM level tank / supports. Most people here will never see that, nor does most people aim to get there. OW is your full time job if you get to GM level. So you have to really tune all your skills. If you miss a rein charge your team dies and you fall. This is where skill truly matters. Plat and below skill still barely matters.

I know for a fact that people have 1 tricked their way on mercy and brig to masters. This does not mean they are good at the game, this means they 1 tricked a character and gamed the system. They only climbed because the impact their character makes allows them to climb.

Again, im not disagreeing with you. If you are skilled you will climb. I disagree with the system. OW when it came out was about paper, rock, scissors . You see what the other team is doing and you swap to counter them. Because of SR and the way they calculate it they actually almost force you to main and 1 trick.

This already happens though. Typically, if someone has gold medals they will tell you “Im not swapping I have gold x”. So i feel this would not change that mentality.

I’ve often thought about why Blizz doesnt do this. If you are making a huge impact on your team then you should not lose a ton of SR. I had a game where we had 2 throwers and I was healing. The other team capped both points in about 1-2 minutes. Resulting in a 30 SR loss for me.

The results should be calculated on a match per match basis and everyone on your team should be put in to a pool of how hard they tried. At that point they should calculate sr gain / loss.

The algorithm would not be that hard. You have a baseline of sr. Lets say 5 and you have a scale where the MVP is on top and the weakest link is on bottom. You use the same “on fire” calculation to see how well that person did in comparison to his team mates.

18

The goal is winning and you can’t track stats for that.
Most losses are the results of stupid yet simple decisions/choices. Stuff like PBSR actually allows players to climb despite being of no use sometimes…
What’s the point of a mechanical skilled player if he can’t use those skills to secure a win?
And winning is the only thing that matters in a match. So nice 360° headshot while you team lost the match.

Push for Role Q and the seperation of groups and solo players.
Less disturbance allows for easier measuring of skill while skill refers to your ability to use your specific skillset in order to win matches despite what team you are playing with.

Groups allow you to climb in more steady environment but those players aren’t necessarily able to compete in more random environment.

_PS: You require a min. of mechanical skill in a match. The amount is determined by the task. _
Awareness however allows for more efficient usage of said skillset.

19

If this is true, then SR opposes the very fabric of Overwatch. Overwatch is a game of chess. See an enemy Winston tearing up your healers and squishies, switch to Reaper.

If you stick with the Soldier or Symmetra that you’ve had the hot hand with because “SR is how good your performance is compared to everyone else playing the same hero”…then that doesnt make sense in the Overwatch world. The game is about counters. Sym doesnt counter a winston, but a reaper does.

20

MMR and SR oppose this. Look at profiles on tanks that ONLY solo q. They mostly have 50% win rate. It’s harder for a tank to climb because the system cannot actively calculate a tanks job. For instance take WB, how do you asses his skill? The only metrics you could take is how many piledriver kills he has, how much damage he has done and how much damage his shield has absorbed. From there you could gain metrics on his landmines. The system has no way to quantify how much space the WB makes.

Also lets use the tank again. Lets say the tank is doing their job making space, peeling etc… but the DPS is not doing a great job killing things. There is a chance they will lose more SR than they gain. Their MMR also drops because of the loss, even though they may have done a stellar job as a tank.