yea this is exactly what i was talking about. MMR changes quickly and accurately depicts your skill. SR “can vary by 1000 SR in extreme cases, and 500 in normal cases (27)”.
1000 is a huge variance. And that is just based on players limited testing, not reported by blizzard officially. It is quite possible the variance is larger.
If MMR was shown, players could use that as a reference for determining skill of themselves and their peers. But I get why they hide it, they are afraid players would exploit how it works to “game” the system to rank up. But the current system is not player friendly, so not sure how much worse it can get?
No. MMR and SR are close to each other. Errors in SR shadow errors in MMR.
Yes.
That link is not a blue post. It is based on a player’s (that is my) testing and data gathering.
Blizzard doesn’t really comment on SR/MMR accuracy. The only post I’ve seen was a statement that top players who try hard on new accounts get their new accounts up to GM+ quickly.
Because 1000 is a huge variance, and all the players compare skill levels based on the SR, don’t you think this creates tons of toxicity and animosity towards blizzard and their system? Lack of transparency and an inaccurate rating system is not healthy for the playerbase.
Transparency is a problem that Blizzard can and should fix.
I’m not sure they can fix the accuracy problem, more than a few slight improvements. It’s a fundamentally very difficult problem to rank people quickly and accurately when you have teams of six, solo-queue, 27+ heroes, team-focused game. All proposed ways of improving this: role-queue, more performance SR, easy grouping, heavier punishments for toxic behavior, etc. have negative side effects that you may or may not find acceptable.
Yea, its a super hard problem to fix. I think the reason Cuthbert wants MMR removed is how it is non-transparent and created distrust. Having a hidden metric to determine skill creates lots of speculation, and accusations that are probably incorrect. Blizzard just doesn’t listen well to its player base and is extremely slow to respond to change.
The suggestion of showing Match Making Rating has come up in this thread before. On the one hand, it would give players some recognition for their skill. But on the other hand, it would not change the handicapped nature of the game. And it would make handicapping into something players could monitor with their own eyes. If we could see how the system works on us, that would prompt outrage. Blizzard has a clear interest in keeping MMR veiled.
These are the most sensible things you’ve said on the subject! Yes, impartial matchmaking might make groups impossible to accommodate. Blizzard might have to restrict participation in Competitive Play to solo-queue only.
‘Rigging’ was the term I used for this, before I settled on handicapping. But the hidden nature of Match Making Rating (handicapping) makes it feel a lot more like a rigged carnival game. It’s the patent dishonesty of it, because nobody knows exactly what MMR is or how it works.
Thanks for appreciating both sides of the argument. I think you are on to something, about Match Making Rating being a better measure of player skill than Skill Rating itself.
Documentation isn’t that expensive or hard to do. Blizzard doesn’t explain how Match Making Rating or Performance-Based SR Adjustment work because they don’t want us to understand. They are artificial means of manipulating our game experience, and corrupting the win-lose results of every match.
To me it’s a case of false advertising. Blizzard can’t call an abomination like this “Competitive Play.”
Not sure if that’s related to handicapping, sounds a bit like Smurfing.
I hear some players defending the status quo, when they know practically nothing of Match Making Rating. But the polls in my threads indicate the majority of players would like to know more about this. And many of us want to abolish it.
You’re confusing me with another poster, I’ve never said anything about “forced losses.” Please read the original post, which is about Match Making Rating/handicapping.
Right? These sanity checks are refreshing, thank you.
Probably because it’s a pretty accurate, and fairly simple ranked system.
Win = Go up
Lose = Go down
MMR only really impacts players on the extreme, and those in Diamond and above. The average player in Plat and below playing consistently wouldn’t notice a difference.
I’m just complaining about how there is not an official rule book for competitive. I think Blizzard should publish all the DPS numbers for soilder, how fast Orisa can walk etc etc…
That’s a fair request. I just take issue when people go from a reasonable request like that to implying that MMR is somehow handicapping, or even nefarious.
I cant wait for LFG just because of this. The teams I find are pitiful and laughable in their blatant disregard for team construction and communication. Beyond saying 2 words then getting silent after dying once or twice, No one seems to have any game sense, or ability to NOT walk right into a fight that’s already lost. I am trying my BEST to keep communications live, but when you LITERALLY have to tell someone, “don’t do that, your going to die” and they repeat their mistakes more than twice, how can you say you’ve been equally matched with someone, let alone a team of people you want to call “teammates” but end up calling “Idiots”. No matter how good I get, or better I become, the adjacent players I match with are seemingly getting worse and worse. And sure, that’s probably a good allusion to where I WAS in rank and skill, but after hours of play and clear reflection of better skills, HOW CAN YOU SAY THEY ARE MY EQUAL. They are easily less then. The Matchmaker seems to deem ones personal growth at such a small scale Null and Void.
I gave up on Competitive Overwatch when I realized the ranking system was not separating inferior players from superior ones. When you see players making the same mistakes over and over again, like running into the enemy spawn doors, it is easy to dismiss them as morons. And some of them are. But most of them are just inexperienced players who have not had time to figure out the things that one figures out before getting the first star under their portrait.
Why are experienced, skilled players inexorably surrounded by inexperienced, unskilled players? It is because all of our matches are being handicapped by Match Making Rating. Let’s try to keep that in mind and treat each other kindly, even if we are just crabs in a barrel, constantly churning in the machinations of Blizzard’s corporate psychopathy.
Looking For Group. It’s a tool to assist in getting groups of players together. There’s a version of it on the PTR that allows people to look for teammates. It’s a way to increase your chances you get a group of people that have similar desires as you, so you aren’t stuck with 100% random stuff.
It’s a pretty neat feature. If you want voice chat, you can request that. If you want to play quick play or comp, you can request that. If you want a 2-2-2 comp where your tanks aren’t allowed to swap to a DPS in the middle of the match, you can do that, too. I’m sure it will come with its own set of headaches, but it’s at least a step in a good direction for the average user.
That’s great! I’d love to return to the game and experience these features. I still hope Blizzard will remove Match Making Rating (handicapping) from Competitive Play. Or at least disclose to players their terms of use. Until those things happen the game just seems deceptive and evil to me.
I don’t think they’ll ever disclose all of that, unfortunately. Look on the bright side, though… you can use the LFG tool to build your own six-stack. At that point, you can only handicap yourselves.
I kid… mostly… but if you keep track of the good people you work with, you might be able to get a decent squad of people you like on a fairly regular basis.
Oh god not this again. The whole premise of this concept is that Blizzard use anything other than MMR to form matches and teams. And Blizzard have neither said nor suggested that anywhere.
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=5" ":stuck_out_tongue:")
