No, that’s not a hypothetical, it’s experience. I’m not lying, but I’m beginning to suspect you are.
How would I produce a screenshot like that if I am no longer in Gold?
Ah well, at least you’ve come right out and said it, so let me return in kind. You’re a liar.
Right, so you are just talking out of the back of your hat then.
As I suspected, because you’re a liar.
Well yeah, I could be trolling.
There are personal factors in LFG that don’t work in my favor, so for me personally MM is really all I have. The pool of OW players are not a random distribution of people from the entire population. They are highly concentrated within specific demographic, which makes systems like LFG exclusionary.My preference would be to form up in clans.
I think if I have the mental fortitude to read the endless chest-thumping waffle on this forum I have the mental fortitude to slough off the occasional tilt. Like the whole “git gud” argument is an attempt to tilt rather than address any particular issue raised.
Well, informed discussion, even argument is a sub-goal of mine always. Taleswapper has been good enough to provide that. What’s your point in replying? Did I upset your little bubble?
Sure, but what has that got to do with discussing those flaws in a forum? Are they inextricably linked in your mind?
Really? Like what specifically? What specifically is fundamental to the game that I have said I don’t like?
I’m not being facetious here, I’m trying to understand your understanding of what I have written.
Actually I’m rather enjoying “smurfing” in low bronze. Full of hilarious C9s, funny boops, solo team kills, gold medals for that sweet sweet dopamine rush. I’m starting to wonder why anyone would want to rank up when they have it this good in Bronze. It makes games miserable for 6 other people, but why should I care about them? I’ve got mine.
From what you said here, I’m guessing you don’t like playing well with other people, which is fundamental to a team game like this.
For non-trolls, I try to understand the argument and then either explain to the person or catalog, depending on whether the person is asking a question or ranting about a conspiracy theory.
I feel I’ve completely understood your argument here. You can’t possibly believe that the skill ranking is impossible if you also feel like you’re smurfing in bronze.
Just in case neither of you have read this thread, I think you should.
It’s endorsed by WyomingMyst (not that, that carries a lot of weight) but the point is, Wyoming is more affiliated with Blizzard than any of the players who don’t understand how the ranking system works.
Lol…back in the day Kaawumba and I were accused of being the same Blizzard employee. I’m quite familiar with his work.
Omegalul… That’s funny.
Well… Just in case, Taleswapper has not read it. I definitely think he should take a gander.
He never responds to any of my posts so if he misses it, please make sure it is brought to his attention. 
Sorry if I have not responded to a post. I mostly try to respond to people when I see some misunderstanding I think I might be able to clarify. In any case, thanks for the link. That’s pretty exhaustive. The more I dig into some of the older posts, the more I discover that this really has all been explained (and quite well) before.
While I recognize that some posters may simply have never read one of the very many good explanations of how the matchmaker works, I think most of the long-term “matchmaker is broken” crowd must have read one or more of these explanations.
I think, in those cases, there is a lot of willful ignorance. And that sort of weaponized proliferation of ignorance sort of pains my educator’s soul.
Did you ever come across my catalog of the various theories? I linked it 2 posts above.
Not a worry dude!!
Bro, you’re over here doing Gods work!! Please continue (for as long as your fortitude holds out). You’ve clearly seen I’ve lost most of my patience with the subject.
Believe me when I say, you’ve provided a different perspective that I learned something different from that I hadn’t even thought of previously (implicitly perhaps but not explicitly).
Its either that, or they understand the system and are just intentionally trying to misguide other players out of frustration (the former being the most likely result).
I think your list does a good job of explaining most of the people I’ve seen opine about forced win rates. I’m not sure it describes everything I’ve seen though, in that the people who seem to have thought about this the most have some really complex Rube Goldbergian matchmakers that they’ve constructed in their head to attempt to explain the following contradiction:
I’ve seen Rigged literally suggest that the matchmaker somehow whitelists these streamers and that they get treated differently by the matchmaker than others. Rigged has also suggested that he is blacklisted by the matchmaker.
And he will sometimes suggest that the game will literally adjust things like hitboxes in real time in order to ensure that he (and presumably others who are blacklisted) lose matches and to ensure that streamers (and presumably others who are whitelisted) win matches.
I think there was someone in this thread above who mentioned something similar about the behavior of the game literally changing for streamers who are in bronze.
And I think this is interesting for a couple of reasons. The first is that it reminds me of the extreme lengths that some went to in order to continue to assert that the universe was geocentric. I sort of think of these bizarrely complex matchmaker conspiracy theories as “sphere” theories, they begin simple enough:
But they quickly run into problems.
And every time they encounter a problem, they add another sphere (just as those who tried to justify a geocentric model of the universe did.) And, at some point, you find yourself adding so many spheres you get to the point that Rigged is at, where you essentially throw your hands up in disgust at how complex your model has become and just assert that the game literally shifts things like hit box size depending on whether it likes you or not.
I suppose the second reason I find this fascinating is tied to the first- it becomes increasingly clear as people construct more and more bizarrely complex models that the only methodology involved is the following:
I will do whatever I have to in order to believe that my rank is not tied to my skill as a player.
And that is a very poor methodology indeed. If one is not careful, it will inform one’s other intellectual inquiries. There’s a decent amount of evidence that people who believe one conspiracy theory will tend to believe other, unrelated conspiracy theories.
This whole “rigged matchmaker” thing is a pernicious intellectual virus that sickens none more than those who espouse it.
The post was from 4 years ago. I can update it to account for the “literally rigged” argument. If you can think of any others I’d appreciate it. I kinda caught whiff of that one, but it’s so outlandish that I wasn’t really sure if it was actually meant.
I think Rigged means it. There’s a post somewhere (I apologize that I don’t remember which thread) in which Rigged suggests that he can literally see the game adjusting things as he plays matches (because he’s really good at computers and runs diagnostics in real time or something).
He “knows” that the game changes its ruleset for him as he plays.
The rigged theory, word, and person weren’t around last time I was active. I took it to be just another way of saying “forced” or “handicapped”, which you know are just nebulous terms to describe a variety of things. This is the 3rd time in my life I’ve been wrong.
I really do think you did a good job, though, of describing something like 95+% of what I’ve seen. And a lot of people believe combinations of those things. At it’s core, it’s something like:
Sometimes I feel like I cannot lose a match, but sometimes I feel like I cannot win a match.
And for whatever reason, people seem really reluctant to recognize that there are a lot of player behaviors that explain a great deal of that. (So they start constructing their theories about how the game is rigged. But they’ll latch onto multiple of them, because they really just want to believe that player behaviors and skill are a small part of what causes a match to be won/lost.) And part of what really gets me about that is that I think the more the “rigged matchmaker” theory is taken up by the community, the more problematic player behaviors seem reasonable to people. (Why shouldn’t I give up after one lost team fight? The whole thing is rigged anyway.)
So people are actively causing the issues that are making their matches worse.
Yes, I’ve seen him make these outlandish claims as well.
He once posted a YouTube video of himself playing Lucio (doppelganging as a torb turret btw) where he claimed the game automatically changed how much Heals/sec was being provided by the aura.
I’ll ask Abdullah if he can find it. If I recall correctly, he was using the amplification ability which changes Lucio’s healing output from 12 (or 16 
) H/s to 50 H/s for a short duration. As expected, the ability timer ran out and the ability went on cooldown which resulted in the healing aura returning to the original 12 (or 16) H/s.
I would never have imagined that people could be so egotistical to not accept that (while playing a game against other human beings) that they could be so much less capable than others.
I mean. I get it. I was super pissed off when I first ranked down to Silver. Hell, I was mad in the first couple of seasons when almost everyone I had been playing Quickplay with ranked higher than me when Comp was released.
But I had to get over that.
And I had to do some honest self-assessments. I basically did what I tell my students to do after they get slapped in the face by their first practice test score. Step one is always, always an honest self-assessment:
But it seems like a lot of players short-circuit this whole process by immediately answering the self-assessment with something like “I am a god gamer and have little or nothing to improve. The only reasons I am not climbing are things beyond my ability to control. The universe is profoundly unfair, and OW is simply a microcosm of this cruel reality that seeks nothing more than my personal destruction.”
Preaching to the choir here, I was hard stuck gold for 5 seasons and HARD STUCK platinum for 6. I did finally push into Diamond with a tank and support player but after that I climbed my other 2 accounts (which I had made expecting to escape elo hell) to Diamond with relative ease.
That’s awesome. People who improve some skillset that they set out to improve make me feel better about humanity as a whole. I’ve sniffed Diamond, but I’m more of a 2800 Plat player if I’m honest. I’ll probably make a hard push for Diamond when OW2 releases. But I really have no idea what that’s going to look like in terms of the playerbase at that time, new systems, new implementations of old systems.
There could even be a soft or hard MMR reset (I’d be a bit surprised if they did a complete MMR reset, but if they were ever going to do it, it would make the most sense to do it with OW2’s release.)
I’m excited for the opportunity to dig into things anew.
When I hit diamond, I effectively stopped grinding comp because I preferred scrims. But I got dared/called out that I’d never be more than a Diamond player so I grinded for 3650 and hit Masters DPS (much more easily than the grind TO Diamond by the way).
I think Overwatch 2 will be a great experience for you. I’m going to miss 6v6. I think the concept is so unique and somewhat revolutionary in regards to the required cohesion to be successful that most people won’t understand the 5v5 environment once it comes to us.
But, individual carry potential will be significantly higher which should allow for players who genuinely believe they deserve higher (but muh temmets) no excuse.
As for me, I’ve done my competitive Overwatch grind. I will never be an OWL player. Could I grind for GM and make it? Yes. Am I willing to sacrifice what it would take? No. So I’ll grind for Diamond (maybe Masters 
) and call it good.
He is clearly having laugh lol