Also, as to your point that the matchmaker does a poor job because OW is essentially too complex for the system to accurately measure player skill, Cuthbert is again opposed to that idea:
Cuthbert thinks the matchmaker measures player skill virtually perfectly. It’s just that he also thinks that it perfectly makes for balanced matches. And this combination thwarts players from climbing because they will always have something close to a 50% win rate. What Cuthbert thinks should happen is what you describe as the problem (lopsided matches), which would allow the best players to have something more like 90% win rates, because he assumes he would be one of those best players.
Yes, that’s stupid. Both teams should be really strong players. Creating teams with wild variance in skill is the issue.
I want both teams to be approximately the same skill. As stated above, I don’t believe that can be done algorithmically in OW. In fact I believe it’s impossible. Not only is it impossible, it’s delusional.
The solution to this is to run an independent competitive ladder, with fixed teams, using round robin for placement in the knockout round, then best-of-five until you get to the grand final. First map pick is by coin toss, then alternate map picks until there is a winner. I’m surprised this is not a thing, but given the OCD of the publisher of this game, it’s probably frowned upon.
I am actually somewhat hopeful that we will get a tournament mode with OW2 once guilds are implemented. And I agree with you that this would be the optimal way to play the game. Everyone should be able to have an organized play experience in OW. Without that, it’s sort of a shadow of what it could be.
Of course, some people don’t want to compete in that way. And that is perfectly fine. OW2 will also have PVE, which should be great for many players. OW1 just sort of lumped everyone into the same few baskets and that was probably not helpful.
The ability to create matches is right there in OW1. I know there have been some independent tournaments organised, but I’m surprised it’s not an ongoing thing. Paying ten bucks to change your handle might be part of the problem. SMH.
Thinking about this some more, I don’t think the matchmaker is broken, in as much as it doesn’t really work at all, and it’s a bad idea in the first place. An interesting experiment perhaps, but ultimately one that ended in failure.
Okay, you are correct then, because I don’t think the MM estimates skill at all. How could it?
How could the matchmaker know which tank you will pick before the match starts? You might pwn like Yeatle on Ball, but play Winston like a Bronzie. You might be a wicked Widow, but place into a map that has almost no long sight lines. You might be a two-trick DPS, and the opposing team has a player who can hard counter both of them, or neither of them. It would literally take 1000s of games against players who have played 1000s of games to estimate your skill level as a single number. And even then, it would still be wrong.
The only way this could not be true is if there is some other factor other than mechanical skill or experience that is an over-bias. One that comes from picking the right hero to play at the right time, or be in a position relative to your team, or something else. I have personally witnessed these inexplicable buffs or nerfs in game. When you can do 500 damage in 3 seconds and not get a single tick off the enemy’s health bar.
There are times when the game seems completely non-deterministic, like Adam Smith’s “unseen hand”, but this time of the game developer, not the cumulative actions of the actors in the game. So maybe “skill” comes from understanding these hidden advantages, which comes from playing the game “the way you’re supposed to”.
I hear a lot of religious dogma in voice chat about certain rituals and methods you are supposed to follow. I used to dismiss this as superstition akin to a pigeon flapping it’s wings to get food. But maybe there is something to it. Maybe there is a real game underneath the surface game. A hidden advantage to be gained from following the dogma and the rituals.
The thing is, if people are “complaining” about the fact that they can’t get their win rates above 50%, then it’s working well enough. The fact that people claim to “go on win streaks only to lose” is further evidence that it works as intended.
The issues you noted. Yes. They are issues, but just because skill is a range doesn’t mean it can’t be measured, it just means that the measurement will hold some uncertainty.
But you see his arguments are flawed too. You have absolutely no proof that there is 2000 sr worth of disparity in any given match. It’s impossible to prove in the first place because the only way that would even be possible is if most people are on alt accounts. So regardless of whether that’s true or not, it cannot be proven so it is a pointless argument.
There is a reason this philosophy has been phased out for the most part in the last decade, It isn’t competitive. Call of Duty has used it for a dozen years and what kind of reputation has that brought. People would hop onto the game on holidays when new players were in abundance and farm them. That’s that kind of system you are promoting to have more competitive integrity. A random match brings team variability up infinitely.
I’m not sure why this even remotely matters. There is different ladders for competitive CTF and other side modes. Why should a mode in a completely different style of the game take that into account. You acknowledged why doomfist farms in those games already. There is no teamplay. So why is it a bad thing that a doomfist has to play different in a totally different environment.
Also wrong. League of legends comparison again. There are characters specifically built to be strong in 1v1s, but be weak in teamfights. Don’t even try to bring out the argument that you shouldn’t use hero specific scenarios when we are talking about a game with the same thing.
Yes it does. Every competitive team game does it. If it was so bad then there would have been an uproar a decade ago. Yet all these games continue to use the system. You act like the game puts you into one game, and decides whether you are good or not off of that. So if you get a bad team, the game thinks you are also bad. It doesn’t work like that. That’s why the more you play, the more accurate your rank will be, and the more chance you have to climb elo.
It is irrefutable that the system works. LoL is a character based game that is even more punishing because you can’t swap mid game, and in many games you specific counters are chosen against you, and it has one of the most respected ladders in gaming.
Good thing I wasn’t arguing for that then! Maybe quote what I wrote instead of someone else when replying. I want a balanced game of equal skill between teams.
Because successfully playing Doom in team play requires a team to play around, something that is NOT in your control (your team mates are selected by the MM), and has NOTHING TO DO WITH INDIVIDUAL SKILL. So if you win a game with Doom it is because your team won the game, not you, so how could SR be a reflection of your skill. It can only be a reflection of the team you were given at random if you are solo-queuing. The only solution to this is to group up with other players you can co-operate with, which is a social skill, not a game skill.
Wrong kid. ELO was invented before you were born.
It is irrefutable that the system produces a particular type of outcome desired by a particular cohort of gamers on a particular class of games. That outcome is a commercial outcome, not a gaming outcome. It’s no different to the sort of brokenness we see in certain “sports”, like Formula One.
Why do you continue to act like players have no agency on their own games. Doomfist in particular is one of the most independent characters in the game. Your team could literally be in spawn and you can still assassinate the backline and get kills.
SAMPLE SIZE
READ THIS!
ONE GAME MAY NOT BE YOUR FAULT. LOSING HUNDREDS OF GAMES OR BEING UNABLE TO CLIMB FOR HUNDREDS OF GAMES IS YOUR FAULT.
Why else are others able to climb. What sets apart a diamond player from a platinum player. Answer me. Stop looking at a single game and look at the bigger picture.
lol at these people defending a broken system in a broken game by a broken company.
The game is littered with hacks, bots, throwers, smurfs and on top of that a broken comp system. Defend it all you want, people defend M.Jackson, Hitler, Trump, etc…some people are broken and support broken systems for w/e reason.
I’m actually a bit sympathetic to the “remove the matchmaker” people, because it would force people to manually create a team of friends to play, rather than letting some system do the work of finding them for you, which it obviously can’t do all that well.
The game is meant to be player as a team, after all.
I really don’t think people who say this really understand what they’re saying, though. I’d take the complaints more seriously if they came with acknowledgement of the tradeoffs involved.
I mean, I’d like everything to be perfect, too. I’m just not a crazy person who thinks that’s realistic.
More likely feeding the cRee or Brig. How did you ever play this game? Were you boosted by a friend?
Grouping, boosting. Basically.
What about the hundreds of games you won while you were losing those hundreds of games. Are they your fault as well?
If you win 100 games in Gold and lose 104, does that mean that you are not a Gold player? If not, how did you win the 100 games? Just answer that one question. How did you win 100 games in Gold if you are not a Gold player?
While it’s quite the philosophical debate whether mathematics is discovered or invented, I was more referring to the fact that people who fully capitalize Elo like it’s some sort of acronym clearly have absolutely zero idea what they are talking about and are clearly out of their league when discussing the mathematics of ranking systems.
I kinda assumed you’d look it up when I mentioned it, the fact that you just went in full force with this “invented” idea really shows who you are.