There is a range of SR for which there is no discernable difference in skill. I find this to be a huge problem as I think people (reasonably) expect that if your SR is 2553 and you play with someone else that is 2553, they will be about as good and knowledgeable as you.
I’m curious what range of SR you, personally, would expect a skill level close to yours? There’s no wrong answer here, I’m wondering about your thoughts on the matter.
For instance, if your SR was 2500 would you expect the same skill out of someone at 2200? 2400? 2475? How far away do you expect a SR gap to describe a skill gap?
This is a reasonable misunderstanding of how it works, but it’s simply false. It looks true because we play people of similar SR values, but the truth is more similar to the situation I described above with decayed players.
I hear 2 things when someone says “hidden MMR”. First, some people think that the system actually knows how good someone is and that is their “hidden MMR”. This is absurd, it’s not psychic.
The second thing that people sometimes mean is some second matchmaking value that’s completely independent of SR. This is also wrong, but more reasonable to believe.
You have a system that gives SR, gives players icons based on SR, and shows other players SR because SR is the clean, visual representation of MMR which is actually two values, mu and sigma. It also allows for decay, punishment, and ease of understanding (for most).
What you want is what you have already. For most people MMR and SR are just different descriptions of the same thing.
Lol I made a near impossible scenario because they tend to explain things better than regular examples. Thanks for clarifying how it works, I’ve seen countless posts that explain it in different ways. Hopefully yours is correct!
I don’t like decay in this system. It’s meaningless. SR loss from leavers I can get behind, since it’s implemented well. Since nobody starts at the same SR, losses of SR outside of winning and losing don’t have a crazy impact that it would if everyone started at the same level.
To me it really feels like the system keeps adding more convoluted mechanics to fix ( or perfect) the system. SR is lost if certain criteria are met outside of the game, hMMR makes regaining it easy. Placements help put new people in (hopefully) the correct skill level. However, the hMMR makes placements for returning players useless since it isn’t reset ( I understand why, but I think removing placements for returning players to be the better option).
Unfortunately, it isn’t. The issue is that we have two numbers. If just mmr is visible, but SR is still a thing, there would be no point. We really just need 1 number.
The funny thing about decay is that it’s actual purpose is what the OP says is the purpose of handicapping, i.e. to get people to play more.
Another example of why the concept is silly, if they wanted to make people play more through SR manipulation, they could just implement decay for everyone. You’d have to play to keep up your SR.
Lol. I believe it.
You could also say that the decay is there so you have to work for those bragging rights. Which would mean that anything below that point is meaningless. Why even have tiers down there in the first place?
The not losing SR was a misunderstanding on my part. Some games where I would lose, at the SR screen the numbers wouldn’t drop. It was already at the lesser amount. (Compared to them being at the amount I was at before then dropping lower visually)
OW isn’t the first game to have decay. Chess has it too. It’s there to keep people from camping their rank. You can’t lose rank if you don’t play unless there’s decay.
It’s literally a way to get people to play more, but for the purposes of having enough game volume to ensure some accuracy of rankings.
It’s not bad…but I’m not sure if diamond is the place to put it. Top500 certainly, but below that debates could be made.
Just to be clear, it is absolutely correct. “Lot’s of post” intentionally ignore the facts about the matchmaker, because than their own theories about why they are unfairly held down would be disproven (just like this thread). See a great explanation with all the details, all CITED:
Funnily enough, I agree with you to some extent. The first couple seasons we had the “fresh start” of MMRs, and it was fun.
What it was, by no means, was create fair matches or accurate ranks. It was chaos and random luck an order of magnitude more severe than what we have now. With this approach, GMs will literally being thrown into games with bronzes. As a high ranked player myself, and someone who enjoys some chaos in my games, it was fun crushing people and feeling like a pro. The same reason some people get smurf accounts.
This scenario is why OW is the only multiplayer FPS game I play. It’s a legitimate stance, I guess. It’s like my idea of moving to only Tiered SR though, exactly the opposite of what the Dev’s seem to want.
Blizzard should be giving players fresh SR and MMR at the start of every season. Again I don’t think MMR should exist in the first place…and the fact that Blizzard relies on legacy data proves their reliance on handicapping to make the game addictive.
But if SR and MMR are practically the same why do we even need the MMR? No the fact the MMR is hidden tells you all you need to know, its dirty and rigged, if it wasn’t why hide it? But why kid ourselves Activision the other face to the blizzard coin have patented a matchmaker that specifically places people who have purchased micro transaction based in game weapons against lower skilled players to give them gratification in their purchase and to try and goad lower skilled players into buying said items. This right there shows you game companies CAN NOT BE TRUSTED to create fair games!!
How in the f do you know that a players MMR and SR are close? WE cannot see our MMR ergo we have no idea what it is or if it is close in general to SR. More over we have no idea how matchmaking is effected by MMR.
Here is a quote from the principal designer over Overwatch matchmaker:
The simple and primary goal of our matchmaker is creating fair matches. To do that, it evaluates potential matches by synthesizing an expected win %. The matchmaker is normally really good about creating matches with a win % that is close to 50%
If all the matchmaker did was grab 12 people of similar MMR and place them randomly on teams then why would it have a need to synthesize an expected win %? The answer is obvious, because it doesn’t just grab 12 people of similar MMR. Instead, it grabs 12 people of similar MMR and keeps re-arranging people among the two teams until it finds a way to arrange those players so that each team has a very close to 50% chance of winning which is what handicapping is and it is bad.
The matchmaker should completely do away with MMR, and only match people of similar SR and do nothing else, don’t synthesize a winrate or any garbage like that, it is a stupid idea. Those things are for quickplay where fair matches should be created, competitive shouldn’t be about creating fair matches, it should be about getting people to their proper rank as the #1 priority.
I know right to me it always seemed so strange that you have quick play that finds games base off balanced skill. So why create a competitive game at all if it is still micromanaging who is on what team with the added layer of SR on top. Comp should be a messy trial by fire and good players overall climb bad players overall fall. Otherwise you get a worse version of quick play. And its not like it even works that well at balancing anyway as many games have been absolute stomps.
You can tell if it’s close by looking at the amount of SR you win and lose. Taken a large number of games, the amount of SR you lose and win should be roughly the same.
You can tell your MMR based on the matches you get (assuming the amount of players online at the time is large). It should be roughly equal both team averages in that case.
Look at me for example. Statistically I am not a bronze player, however I started at Bronze and will remain there for as long as the SR and MMR decides I should be there. I have had games where I had 40 eliminations and 4 deaths and received the same SR as a game where I got 20 eliminations and 10 deaths. The problem is that this isn’t a fair system, but a system that games the scoring in order to put you at a rank it believes you should be at.
Thanks S23, that really puts it in a nutshell. This is not such a complicated issue as some people make it sound. Probably not even as complicated as I make it sound in the OP.
Blizzard, if you’re reading I want you to know that I will never let this rest. Competitive players are entitled to fair and objective ranking. They deserve not to be messed with by your big data and unethical game design practices.
