Algorithmic Handicapping (MMR) is Wrong for Overwatch

Competitive Discussion
296

My most generous interpretation of the OP is that the use of MMR is “wrong” because rank is measured in terms of win ratio and MMR ensures win ratio stays near 50%.

(More) Formally:
Rank is measured by wins.
MMR controls win rate.
Therefore:
MMR controls rank. (This is wrong.)

The first premise is factually incorrect, though I understand the confusion as in some systems it IS correct, such as most sports leagues.

The system we usually see is an absolute system. The system that large scale games like Overwatch use is a relative system and isn’t really possible (or necessary) prior to computerized large scale gaming.

In an absolute system, a 50% win rate means you’re average and the win rate IS your rank, in a sense.

In a relative system a 50% win rate means you are accurately ranked as your rank is relative to your opponents rank. More confusing, maybe, but not morally wrong.

297

After reading your follow up I have a bit better idea what you’re trying to say, but let me “repeat back” and then respond so we’re on the same page.

(1) "Skill tiers should be more closely matched.

(1a) If they aren’t willing or able to match within 200 SR then zero points should transfer when loss happens against higher players."

(2) “SR should be based solely on performance statistics and not at all on a win or loss and the SR of who that win or loss was against.”

(3) “Every unbalanced match is a waste of time and/or energy”.

Assuming my understanding is accurate, here is my response:
(1) I don’t disagree. There is a trade off between how close the matches are and the time of waiting in queue. Everyone has their own opinion on the matter and you’re entitled to yours, but there are lots of people who would have an opposite opinion. I don’t have much opinion on the matter, though there is some limit of allowed SR ranges in a game I would find acceptable. Like you said, I shouldn’t be up against Jjonak. I think 1000SR range groups is way to much, also.

(1a) While I disagree that zero points should transfer, I do think that the SR system is over precise. So you wonder why 5 points are transferred where I wonder why something as small as 5 points should even be seen. This is a valid topic of conversation and one I like to have, but it’s a bit irrelevant to the OP. It’s an implementation detail of the MMR and SR, where the OP wants the system thrown out (i.e. “MMR is wrong”).

(2) You’re in fairly rare company here. They removed PBSR to prevent stat chasing and encourage teamplay. If I’m understanding you correctly (I may not be) you would prefer your “rank” be decoupled from your team’s performance completely. You’re not the only one with this opinion but I think the more common consensus is to remove PBSR for all ranks. I don’t go that far, I think PBSR has its use, but if it got patched out I wouldn’t fight it.

(3) Mostly I agree. I wouldn’t say “every” (but then, technically, neither did you) but the more UNBALANCED the match the more useless it is, I agree.

However, I direct you to the following quote from the OP, which argues the opposite of what you state:

This is the part I’m mostly arguing against and you seem to agree with me.

298

Im not sure how to best organize this answer so sorry if it seems all over the place.

(1) 1000SR range is too much, when you can get anyone from the range of Silver to Platinum in one game, its too much (yes I saw this happen yesterday). I mention 200SR not because I think thats the optimal number, my assumption is that IF we want the SR system to be a measure of someones skill and rank, than the match making should be based on your SR skill tier. Match silvers with silvers, golds with golds etc unless they are about to rank up, or derank. A lot of games have implemented ‘‘promotion matches’’ and ‘‘demotion matches’’ or promotion and demotion ‘‘series’’. The reason for being matched against someone higher than your official skill rank is obvious and you know that if you win a few more games (depending on the system in place) you will be promoted to a higher rank than you are in currently. Compared to well I play with people of a higher rank than me but I need to grind a solid 10 games (without any losses) to get to that rank.

  1. No, I dont believe SR or MMR should be based solely on performance statistics. My logic is that if the games are SR balanced then there is no reason to take into account WHO the win or loss was against, a win is a win and a loss is a loss, and theres no need for an SR adjustment in gains and losses. I can understand mild adjustments in SR gains and losses based on performance stats, but I would prefere it gone, since there are way too many variables that affect it. Like you said yourself, stat chasing isnt what wins games. But maybe you could make a case for SR gain/loss adjustment based on overall team/map stats.
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299

What a kind thing to say, thank you.

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300

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. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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.

301

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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302

Having a system that determines player skill and then makes balanced teams according to their skill is wrong in ranked play? What?

303

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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304

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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305

amen brother amen!!!

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306

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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307

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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308

Like you’ve been told, it lets them apply modifiers like decay.

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309

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).

310

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.

311

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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312

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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313

Reset eveyone mmr at the start of every season. I don’t care if pros seal club their way to the top.

  1. They are few.
  2. They will most likely play dps and it would ve beautiful to get stomped and learn from them.
  3. 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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314

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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315

They won’t do it cause it shows “they fubard up their own system”

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