When people start complaining that they’re performing like drunken donkey poop in their games but they’re still winning and gaining SR, I’ll take the idea that there are “special modules” more seriously.
As it stands, “everyone is performing their best but the MMR won’t let them rank up”. Riiiiggghhhttt.
It is useful to the extent that there are people on the ladder whose current skill differs significantly from their current ladder ranking. This can include new accounts (which will rank up/down quicker because of PBSR until they find their level), smurfs, unskilled players who bought high ranked accounts, etc.
To the extent that those things are not an issue, PBSR has very little utility. So if someone says something like, “I don’t think smurfs are an issue or that people who do unranked to GM streams are an issue, and I don’t think PBSR should be in the game,” that is a tenable position to hold.
What gets me is when someone rails against smurfs or throwers or leavers or whatever but also does not want PBSR- PBSR exists to more quickly rank those people up/down, so they are in fewer games that are lower/higher rated than their actual skill.
Depending on exactly what is meant by “smurf”, PBSR is just a minor annoyance. People doing the throw/smurf cycle should be dealt with outside the MMR system.
But yeah, a lot of what people say they want is contradictory.
I see a stronger case for PBSR in Bronze than Plat, which shouldn’t be too controversial. But I think the strongest case would be time played, or levels.
I’m 100% in agreement that if we really want to promote competitive integrity in ranked (that is, if that is what we want to be our highest priority) we should do something like link ranked accounts to a phone number or whatever other way we want to ensure that people are not intentionally playing outside their skill level.
It is a tradeoff though. While there are certainly high ranked players who would agree, there are also high ranked players who never want to off-role or practice new heroes on their main account. They want new accounts to not be tied to the skill level of their main.
Whatever is implemented would tug at the fundamental divide between competitive integrity and things like fun, lighthearted play that allows people to decide how they want to play on ranked. The other big thing that pulls at this divide is grouping with friends (particularly those of significantly different skill.)
I like the idea of really prioritizing the competitive integrity of the ranked mode and using other modes for more fun, lighthearted play, off-roling, whatever. I’m not sure that most of the player base agrees though. So we’ve got kind of this frankensteinian monster of a ranked mode which tries to serve multiple masters.
They don’t. You start talking about not being able to play with friends or going to category only ranking (Silver 3) and people freak out. Even the 1000SR differential is controversial because most people think it’s too restrictive, where you and I seem to agree that it should be tighter.
I think this is why they’re comfortable with these crazy internet theories. Complaints about things they cannot change are better than complaints about things that would anger half of the players no matter what they did.
That is silly. If anything, they are trying to get the company to be more transparent with the algorithm. In my opinion, the players that think everything is fine and trust the algorithm completely are reminisce of an ostrich with it’s head buried in the sand.
Are the producers just protecting their IP, or is there something more insidious going on under the hood? We’ll probably never know for sure, and that is a big problem and a logical argument for the belief that the matchmaker is rigged.
It was transparency with the system that led to this mess. They mentioned the game theory concept of equal skill applied to computer directed matchmaking and BAM, “why are they forcing 50% win ratez!?”
People simply don’t understand how it could work. Even if you tell them. I’ve seen no evidence that what they describe isn’t exactly what’s actually happening. There’s no strange behavior that needs rigged matchmaking theory to describe. In fact, the complaints people have would actually be lessened by such a system. These types of systems are well described in peer reviewed papers that anyone can read. It looks like SBMM, it acts like SBMM, they say it’s SBMM, the complaints are what you expect from SBMM. Yet people seem to still think it’s some over complicated EOMM that actually reduced engagement. Like, how? Why?
It’s really not a mystery, but you can always doubt anything and everything if you would rather not actually try to understand at all.
Or you could just blindly believe everything a company tells you because even considering that they are not being fair about something would cause your self-worth to crumble.
A rigged matchmaker benefits lower-ranked players most of all. Why would they complain that they get thrown a win every now and then? The obfuscation really disappears in the middle of the ladder where anyone can tell that most of the players probably do not belong there. Some belong higher and some belong lower, but all of them get shuffled around the team-average spectrum so brutally that there might as well not even be a matchmaker at all.
Yes. This all began because there was some measure of transparency in how the matchmaker operates. People who had no real expertise with these systems then formulated a whole lot of theories based upon statements made by the devs that they were misinterpreting.
It’s not this though. It’s not blindly believing everything a company tells us. Think about it this way:
An actor makes a statement about how films are made. They say, “after the scene is framed using stand-ins and shot for several takes, the scene is then turned around and filmed again for several takes. The director (or more often an assistant director) then yells, “check the gates!” and they begin setting up the next scene.”
2 people hear this statement. One of them has some prior experience with film-making and the other does not.
The one who does not could say all sorts of things about the importance of “gate checking” maybe they would discuss the need to maintain security on a film set. They could say all sorts of things about who decides when the scene is finished filming (is it the director or the assistant director and how does that hierarchy function?) And they could say all sorts of things about turning scenes around and what that entails.
Someone who is familiar with filmmaking, however, would say pretty much the same thing about any of those topics that someone else familiar with filmmaking would say.
That doesn’t mean they are blindly following the statements of that actor. It just means that people who have some familiarity with the topic will hear pretty much the same thing. But people who are not familiar with the topic will hear all sorts of things.
I don’t think the idea of a system rigged like in the casinos ever went through your mind. They let you win a little just to take it all back from you, so you want to take it back again, because “obviously” if you reached it once you can reach it again… “just one more game and I’ll be on the rise again”. You can see this from the experience, that I described above and many others over the internet. If MM would be working correctly we wouldn’t see so many threads about it popping up every minute. This section is so flooded with complains about it, that it could be renamed “Failed Matchmaking Discussion”. I wasn’t specifically looking up the forums of other competitive games, but I don’t reckon any other game being so infamously hated for it’s MM and bad experiences with comp. (not including toxicity, that’s present everywhere)
Why would they create such system?
It’s affecting mostly already older accounts, accounts that somehow have to be kept active. What better method is there to keep them active than a little bit of addiction? New accounts can have their fun with climbing, it’s everything new and fun for them anyway.
About smurfs… Dealing with smurfs through MM is one of the dumbest ideas ever. Not only does it let them ruin a lot of games in the first place, but can also so easily be abused by just not performing again, what a lot of these smurfs do. Can’t tell how many times I witnessed them underperforming until they get triggered by something and with just a switch of the hero they start to carry the whole team…
Many of my friends played Overwatch. Quite a few came from LoL or CS - both games have their ladder, but about no other game they openly said that they dislike the game for it’s MM, that it’s weird etc. and doesn’t feel good to play.
I may not understand this system, I may fall victim to conspiracy theories that somewhat align with my experience, but if you’re blindly defending this system while so many people are complaining, there has to be something wrong with it. If you can’t see that, then I don’t know anymore.
If you’re saying that skill based matchmaking benefits lower skilled players more than those in the 50-70 percentile, then absolutely, and that is exactly the point. You don’t have to be good at the fun video game in order to have fun playing the fun video game for fun.
If you’re saying that correctly assessing skill is hard, then sure. That is one of the drawbacks of SBMM, that people’s skill changes over time.
If you’re saying that you disagree with the design decision to at least try to give everyone in the game balanced matches, in a effort to maintain the long term health of the game, that’s just, like, you’re opinion man. They’re not going to connection based matchmaking, if that’s what you want, go play Destiny.
If you’re complaining about throwers, leavers, smurfs, small player base, then sure, but that’s outside the scope of what a matchmaking system can do.
Are you by any chance liking all your posts with an alt account?
Every post of yours I checked is liked by this account:
Seriously?
You should do this. It’s a very common complaint with online games.
Look, i don’t know why you think that a game makes more money by keeping accounts active after they’ve paid the initial fee. Not that a game can’t be designed like that, but this one simply isn’t.
SBMM was fairly revolutionary, but suffers from retention. To make up for that, it’s very inclusive. You can be 500SR and have good games, in theory, until bad actors enter the mix and break the system.
I don’t know why you think we’re “defending” the matchmaker. What part of “the problems you experience are real but you’re barking up the wrong tree” do you not understand?
No one is saying that these issues don’t exist, but “fix the matchmaker” isn’t anywhere near the correct solution.
That is not me, i don’t know who that is but, they do like all my posts, you’re correct.
Since i can’t prove it’s not me, i won’t argue the point. I’ve been accused of worse.
Ah the ability to live rent free in someone’s head just by clicking like on a post. Anyone who likes a post first is clearly that person’s alt didn’t you know?
It’s not like you like any post, but specifically his. Every single one. Also weirdly enough the replying indicator of one disappeared when the other showed up. Strange.
Kaawumba and i have been accused of being the same Blizzard employee.
I mean, if you get a consistent story over time surely that’s a very skillful, elaborate lie rather than just a verifiable fact, right?
Really stretching on the conspiracy theory there.
I’ve learned a long time ago that these forums aren’t worth investing time attempting to discuss with people as 90% of the time it’s just being done in bad faith on either end of the argument. So rather than waste my time I simply show support for points and people I agree with. Not that hard.
You do seem quite fond of my writing.
Eh. Really you more just post that much lately.