What a kind thing to say, thank you.
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I guess I didn’t make it clear, but I figured that was just a random number thrown out by you. Lol!
There are basically two schools of thought on the MMR/SR duality. One group thinks that MMR/SR should be more the same number, down to not using SR at all. There are a few different ideas in this range, such as simply explaining it better, making MMR:SR a 1:1 ratio using a known formula, and just not using the SR facade at all.
As my primary concern is that SR is OVER precise in that it makes no sense to say that someone lost 1 SR, I don’t like this idea. Also (and this is assuming it works like TrueSkill, which it’s often described in the same way), MMR is 2 numbers, a mean and a range, so unless they give the uncertainty value they’re not actually giving us MMR. Though I do think there is a case that could be made to give the uncertainty value, in some format anyways.
I, and it looks like you as well, are in the opposite school of thought in that I think SR should be basically removed and the Tiers only should be given, maybe with additional breakdown of the tiers. My primary motivation is that a skill tier is about as accurate of a rating as you can actually get and it would stop this “Blizz pls give me back my 20 SR LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE” stupidity we see too often. You’re right that either LoL or DOTA does this (both?), it makes so much more sense to me, but they did go from a more appropriately precise version in Season 1 to this one, so I’m not expecting an overcorrection anytime soon.
I can’t stress enough, that we “detractors” of this thread are perfectly comfortable with the idea that the current MMR/SR system has problems, but the problem isn’t that your MMR can be correct while your SR can be undervalued. I assume that they didn’t design the system that a 7 year old would see was absolutely stupid.
Good. I thought that was rather strange. I hope you understand how I got that out of what your wrote. My apologies.
Ok. You’re saying that there is no reason to base gains or losses on chances of wins if games are balanced on SR and the wins are 50% chance anyway, right?
You’re not wrong, but we’re getting into the practical nature of the system. So in theory a game of 1000 SR against 4000 SR could be made and appropriately measured, in practice this isn’t done for two reasons. First, that game would suck for both parties. Second, you wouldn’t be learning anything about the players.
The little thing you’re missing is that balancing on SR IS taking into account who the win or loss is against. It’s part of the same feedback loop. So your quoted sentence basically says “if the games are SR balanced then there is no reason to take into account SR”, which…you know…you’ve already done when you balanced it. 
I’m not sure if you read my linked post above so: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/competitive-matchmakings-mmr-system-is-very-good/43184/28?u=ozoneooo-1681
To not take into account who you won or loss against, it would have to be completely random team assignments. That would technically work, but you’d have all the problems I explained earlier…which is basically all the problems people complain about now, but either REAL or WORSE.
I think most people would agree that if you beat someone better than you, then you should get a bit more points for it. I think some of the discontent isn’t so much THAT they do it, nor HOW they do it, but how it’s all EXPLAINED.
Which is fair as long as the basics of how the system works is actually understood. All too often it’s not.
Well that’s interesting. I’m saying to remove Match Making Rating, because it corrupts the Skill Rating system. You seem to be saying the opposite: remove Skill Rating because it corrupts the Match Making Rating system?
But the Skill Rating system is what determines rank, based the record of wins and losses over a player’s career. Are you suggesting that MMR should be the new ranking system?
My concern is that players should only be placed in matches according to their rank. Having a sub-system that gauges individual player performance from match to match, and handicaps teams according to that system, is wrong in a ranked competitive environment.
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Having a system that determines player skill and then makes balanced teams according to their skill is wrong in ranked play? What?
It’s brutal.
I love the mechanics of this game, but competitive is a mess.
I don’t want to have to carry, nor be carried.
Let’s just have some close games, please?
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I got news for ya, Cuth…MMR has ALWAYS been the ranking system. That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you.
I’ll say this as many times as you need before you understand it: this is simply factually incorrect.
You are ranked based on where in the ladder you maintain a 50% win rate, not wins and losses. You can’t rank on wins and losses with so many people playing so many different numbers of games. That classic system breaks down and fails. A new system was developed. It’s awesome. You should try to understand it.
I’m saying nothing of the sort.
First, I don’t know what you mean by “corrupt” since nothing is changed and no bribes are taking place, but some people think that the use of SR isn’t worth the problems it solves. SR is a tool. It allows decay, punishment, sense of accomplishment, and translation of statistical data to something humans more easily recognize. They could use just the MMR number, but they would lose what SR does and not gain anything at all.
When you see SR as a tool to DESCRIBE your rank (MMR), and not your actual rank, maybe it will make more sense to you. Personally I think SR would be best expressed in Tiers only. There’s lots of ways to use SR, but one thing remains the same in every version…
your MMR is the pure mathematical expression of your rank and we are currently matched based on our rank only.
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amen brother amen!!!
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Nice and concise answer that one would think could clarify much of the misunderstanding that this whole series of topics is build upon but unfortunately this topic will keep on running until the mountains of the world have eroded, the seas have dried out and mankind have seized to exist…
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Then why doesn’t the user interface of Competitive Overwatch show Match Making Rating, or refer to it in any way? Why does Skill Rating exist?
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Like you’ve been told, it lets them apply modifiers like decay.
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It also allows them to control volatility in the system by using a bit of rubber banding and potentially smaller increments. Rank only would obviously offer the least volatile presentation but I suspect a number that goes up / down with every game offers a bit more excitement.
I’m not necessarily saying volatility is a bad thing but I suspect that less volatility would offer less frustration. Also please keep in mind that whatever the representation of your MMR is it doesn’t really matter as matchings still are based on your MMR and usually a very narrow interval around it (yes you’re equally likely to be matched with players better than you as players that are less skilled than you - no matter how good you are).
As to why it exists at all, I explained out above, but if you would like more specifics I understand, but would need to know which part or parts need clarifying.
The MMR/SR system sees who won but not WHY. We have a system we are blind to and the system is blind to us, trying hard to rank to a place we want/feel comfortable to.
IMO, not only is MMR a measure that should be available to the player and correctly documented, but I should queue as a hero and then MMR ON THAT should be used to match me.
If I pick whatever the team needs, what is my MMR? I can be Zen and stay back and juggle orbs because Widow is after me, or I could have a good tank with shields and I could be up front DPSing.
From this perspective, Cuthbert’s post seems a lot more reasonable. The MMR does nothing but annoy me and everyone else whenever I pick whatever the team needs. I know, I know, every Silver is a victim-of-the-system Diamond but I can tell you this: I know plenty of people in DPS Plat that are Silver healers and Dirt tanks.
I’m not sure Overwatch CAN be balanced. Not only throwing is a thing, but people can be in vastly different skill classes from hero to hero, let alone role to role. How do you propose to balance a match in which people can switch heroes freely?
I don’t know what Blizzard will do or if anything CAN be done. If it were up to me,
a) Everyone will have per-role MMR with the highest MMR being the “official” one. (I know per hero is not realistic)
b) In addition, all game modes should have their own thing. You can hide it if it annoys you that QP has a MMR, but I would very much like to see my rating because my QP matches are of a higher quality. Because I play more. Because toxicity.
c) You should be able to tweak your matchmaking to your liking, knowing that will affect queue times. A person should be able to choose how long they have to wait.
d) You can “avoid teammates” all you want, but each avoided teammate adds a second to your que time. 30 people, 30 seconds “cooldown”.
e) To avoid “gaming” the system, blocked player list only works for not-ranked. To block a player in ranked, you have to go into the blocked list and manually block that player for ranked which would add a cooldown so you can’t mass-add. Say, 1-2 a day. This would help make fun modes more fun.
f) I should be able to pay Blizzard 10 bucks to have my MMR reset. I don’t want to buy another copy just to be forgotten. I want to keep my skins and my games played, just reset MMR/SR/my game history.
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Some how my MMR gets worse every season (I’ve gone from high plat x1, gold x2 and silver x2) even though I’ve played since the beta and took a few seasons off cause of the BS over the years. I know the typical mouth breather on here is gonna say “git gud” and you’ll climb…sorry but if the game constantly likes to put you in groups of people when you’re the 2nd highest dmg on the team as Brig and the widow and genji who refuse to switch when the team has a winston and DF…
This games MMR is fubard
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Reset eveyone mmr at the start of every season. I don’t care if pros seal club their way to the top.
- They are few.
- They will most likely play dps and it would ve beautiful to get stomped and learn from them.
- It is already a turdshow in below diamond so it won’t create more one sided stomps than they already are.
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I assume hidden mmr is used to create lfg matches also?
Yep I believe the best thing to do would be to reset sr every season. Would be fun to climb and those that do placements only and stay in a high rank ever4y season because they only play 10 games is a crock.
Hidden mmr, why hide it?
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They won’t do it cause it shows “they fubard up their own system”
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I think you underestimate how big a difference even 500-800SR can make when it comes to match balance. Last season I took an alt from 1550-2050 in 11 straight stomps while my main was at 24XX and this season I took the same alt from 2000-2500 with a 70% win rate while my main is sitting at 26XX.
Basically I am saying that it’s not just the GM players that will do the stomping on the ladder with a reset. In bronze for example 80-90% of the player base will stomp and yes it would waste a lot of people’s time but the good players will always get back to were they were while the players that aren’t so good will have to endure a whole season worth of stomping - and no these kind of stomps are not even comparable to the normal stomps in some of today’s slightly unbalanced matches within the same MMR interval.
I kind of feel like youre trolling at this point and pretending youre not understanding what im saying.
If the matchmaking is balanced then you are not getting matched against someone better than you, so there is no reason for you to get more points. By matching you with someone better than you the game is basically saying: hell this guy is better than you and you should lose this match by all accounts but lets see what happens. If you do win this match we expect you to lose we will give you more points.
I cant imagine this mentality in any other competitive sport. Oh hey well just randomly throw you into a match with people of a higher bracket and if you win… -I get into the higher bracket?
No, no, we just give you a bit more points than we normally would on the leaderboard, sound good?
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You sound like you’re deliberately misinterpreting what’s happening yourself. Matchmaking attempts to make as balanced a match as possible given factors like geography and available players. Since an exactly fair match is not always possible in a reasonable time-frame, it simply takes the obvious step of modifying its rewards after the match to match the expected outcome. If you’ve played at off-hours or at high ranks you’re probably quite familiar with the “long time expected for fair match” warning, which means it’s struggling to find you a fair match; they’ve discussed in the past how lenient it will eventually get as time goes on, and I think right now it won’t ever go past 40/60 odds at absolute worst.
The ultimate limit on how unbalanced the match can be is there to address your exact concern that it’s lame to be dumped into an inappropriate bracket even if scoring is adjusted accordingly.
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