Talk about the matchmaking before we talk about balance

General Discussion
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Not matchmaker problems. They can’t be fixed in code. - and MMR rigging is something you have to prove is having an adverse effect because non MMR mathcmakers get all the same complaints put against them.

Yes, massive amounts of alt accounts, and smurfs cause havok. But the matchmaker isn’t responsible for fixing that.

That is a Blizzard policy and policing problem, not a matchmaker problem. The matchmaker can’t fix that and it is unreasonable to try to do so in it’s code.

Matchmaking is a problem which covers those, but the matchmaker isn’t.

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opinion

philosophical opinion

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rank meaning emerges as a result of matchmaker code.

try again.

it exists therefore the ranks become fake. it’s not self-concordant if you’ve taken your measure theory classes with Tau. Random matchmaking around SR neighbourhood is more robust to noise and always builds the measure as it goes. We showed this many times in other threads but it’s not my job to teach people the basics. Just accept the expert advice and move on.

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for what it’s worth, I’d like people to see another post I made, so they can argue that matchmaking is wonderful and doesn’t need to be changed. If your points are true, please provide constructive feedback as to how a player like myself who is sweating bullets for days and playing very well for my elo can effectively climb while not getting games like these listed in the post below where players are doing things such as I detail there: (a game code is even provided)

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26

Better players in higher ranks. That is what we get now.

So yeah, SR has meaning whem smurfs are not janking it.

I’ve played in different ranks, higher ranked games have MUCH more skilled people than lower ranked ones.

If you think that isn’t the case, then you would be able to grab and alt and go straight to GM, since you are implying they are disconnected.

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27

That’s only specifying an ordering or even a partial-ordering. As I said, the order of the rungs is more important than the gaps between them. The gaps is what have become meaningless with no-resets (entropy), alts (multisampling), and mmr-rigging (non-transitive percolation).

It’s trivially easy (algorithmically) to get the rungs approximately correct and you get that within 11 matches or so (depending on your parameters) during a reset. It’s the gaps between the rungs on the ladder that lose meaning with MMR.

Thanks for coming out btw.

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28

ok. lets talk about those games.

first game. Leaver

People sometimes leave games, how is the matchmaker meant to know if they are going to or not?

second game. legit loss due to the entire team being bad.

Yep.

third game. leaver

Again, what is your magical code which determines if someone will leave so the matchmaker can know that before the game has started.

AND, even if you could how do you make it so no one gets them? You could block them BEFORE they hit the matchmaker, but it isn’t the matchmakers job to handle this.

fourth game. win.

fifth game two healers named MilfsRus (screenshot ready also) threw the game.

Yep, smurfs and throws are bad news. They are ALSO not something the matchmaking code can fix. That is a Blizzard policy and policing issue.

You are obviously hating on the leavers and throwers, but…

The matchmaker is a SPECIFIC piece of code which can do nothing about those issues.

If you want to suggest something the Matchmaker (the piece of code which DOES the matchmaking can fix that, then lets hear it.

You are complaining about the WRONG THING. The matchmaker can’t do a damn thing about your issues.

You want smurf detection? You want playing fingerprinting so it can tell if the same person is playing on more than one account?

You want it to try to fingerprint what it looks like when someone is throwing? There is research in that area, and stuff can be implemented…

Good stuff, it can be done.

But NEITHER of those are the matchmaker. Ok? The Matchmaker isn’t your problem.

It CAN’T solve those issues. They are other problems, well outside what the matchmaker can do.

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29

Regarding this topic title, here’s my opinion:

Valorant has just as bad of a matchmaking sometimes as Overwatch, especially in unrated mode. But even then, the gameplay experience is vastly less tilting and superior to that of Overwatch.

Why is that? Because every single player has a very high solo carry potential and if you are good enough, you can make up for your entire team playing badly. You can essentially 1 v 5 into victory.

Now, the caveat to that is that on some maps, utility becomes too strong and can be impossible to break through them. But those kind of high level utility play only happens in pro games so it isn’t an issue in unrated.

But in Overwatch, you can’t carry your 5 other bad teammates into victory no matter how good you are. Why? Because team work is much, much more impactful than single player’s impact in Overwatch. With good team work comes broken hero synergies and hard counters which shuts down a single player’s potential to carry the game.

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30

Because it wasn’t an issue post nerf, on top of the fact that most team comps after goats were either double barrier which the freeze didn’t even work with. Or some hog ball mix where the team was to spread out to actually freeze more then one target at a time.

Like Mei was their to basically be the counter to the Damaged focus death ball comps. but outside of that has consistently proven to be on par. Or below average to most other DPS.

The genji bit was a bit odd, but it was most likely do to the first two not getting the result they wanted from him.

then in turn adding buffing an aspect that doubled down with the other two buffs.

it even returned a little latter on once with a compensation that that his ult was nerfed in favor a stronger base kit.

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I asked for a solution. I’m open to you being correct in my comment that you were replying to, there. I just want to be able to play and not have these issues. If we the players can come up with something, maybe we can make a post where enough people can get behind it, and then we can cause real change which will make most people, if not, almost everybody happy, and then you will by default be vindicated, as the matchmaker was shown as not being the issue and players will also have nothing else to complain about. We the players just want games that dont take days to get to a simple elo that we feel we deserve to be at, and in time, prove that we deserve to be there by climbing there.

My issue is that i am not there yet after three days due to disconnects, one power outage due to the recent weather that I’m sure you’ve heard about, and leavers/throwers mentioned above.

I and we just want solutions. Let’s use our intellect to come up with it and agree on it. Let’s not accept the belief that we cannot agree on something. Something HAS to be done, and there is always a way.

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32

Ok, the fix for MOST of them is guilds. Having a large group of players which you trust to join you in matches which won’t throw or bail out of games.

That fixes, game 1, 3 and 5, since they would be thrown out of the guild if they keep disconnecting, or throwing games.

And game 2 and 4 you were ok with.

Basically, teaming up with randoms gives you randoms, and that is hard in a team game.

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technically you are right on all accounts. I assumed that it was understood that I wanted a fix for solo queue. I believe that most players of overwatch (past and present) also want or wanted the game to embrace solo queue in a much better way, because the quote I have heard for six years being tossed around is “you are where you belong” to which i vehemently have always disagreed with.

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I’m not sure it can be fixed WITHOUT Blizzard coming down hard on throwers / smurfs / etc.

What you are asking for is… “I want a team game, which, when placed in a game with randoms, doesn’t act random.” - which CAN be done, but only got games where the players don’t get a lot of impactful choices.

Team based snakes and ladders where everyone gets to roll the dice is balanced, since they don’t get to make choices.

The problem is cursed, and I mean that in a very technical way.

see

…

Ok, but lets see if we COULD solve it in a matchmaker kind of way… people would hate on it, since it would place people in games with wider SR, but, you could do something about it…

What you could do is look at how much SR drift people had compared to others playing the same hero in the same SR range.

Then you could nudge the matchmaker to place the people who are consistent together against other grounds which are consistent.

The more “I get drunk and play overwatch some nights” some people are, the less likely they are to match with the more consistent players.

In the end IF someone was playing in a consistent way, they would be in games with other people like that, and would get better games.

There are tradeoffs, since you would basically be creating a “You’all are dumpster fires” group.

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35

Having a strict solo Q ranked system would help. Too many boosted players.

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36

You can’t design away the randomness of sport without consequences for the labelling (i.e. it ceases to be a sport and more of a puzzle).

But you can preserve the agency and affectance over a random sample for your rank. Stop trying to rig and stop trying to back rigging lmao.

What many are advocating for is a simple SRD system. The SRD system will drive you to your proper SR at which point things should feel 50-50 (and you would see 50% winrate over longer runs). It’s data-free, non-invasive, more fair, and certainly more verifiably competitive.

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37

Yeah, I was thinking about that, I put a solution under the cursed problem video, I was editing my answer when you wrote your answer.

You kinda can, but it would be “interesting” to see if it would work, and I can see a lot of downsides.

But you COULD get the match maker to try to match “random with random” and “consistent with consistent”

Which would make people who took the game seriously, get the games they are after, and the people who just get on for some chaos to get the games they are after.

I think the downsides would make it not worth it, but you know, it could be a thing.

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I knew i could speak to your CSP background and maybe get some reasonable discussion going.

I have no issues with MMR/SBMM even EOMM in casual modes because the point there is fun-first with some notion of ‘closeness’ associated with the fun. But for ranked competition pre-selecting for a specific lobby outcome (i.e. 50-50, maximally hedged away) independently of the labelling and reward structure is just false contest.

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39

i.e. 50-50, maximally hedged away

But we ALSO know they don’t do that.

If they did, then you would see Silver and Diamonds average win rate would be the same.

They are EXACTLY what you would expect if you balanced for avg SR <-> avg SR. But NOT for 50% win rate.

if I went for 50% win rate in a matchmaker, you bet I’ll give you a 50% win rate.

I wouldn’t have large differences in win rate by ranking.

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50-50 in expected outcome != 50% winrate

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41

Lower ranked players will have a lower win rate, if you do Avg SR <-> Avg SR matching.
which they do.

They are not expected to have a 50% win rate. The matchmaker isn’t even trying to give them one.

Likewise, high ranked players are not expected to have a 50% win rate. The matchmaker isn’t even trying to give them one either…

The briefest look at overbuff shows what the win rate curve looks like, and it is really interesting.

I think they COMPLETELY lucked into it, and wasn’t trying for it either.

If they were trying for 50% win rate, they do a extremely rotten job, and it would look different if they were going for that.

from an EVIL game designers point of view, they got REALLY lucky.

Yeah, but people want to be able to play with their friends as well, so it is hard to give that up from a game design point of view.