Read the Second post by Kaawumba.
I don’t know why I waste my time on these forums.
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You misunderstood what Kaawumba explained.
First of all, unless you underwent SR decay (for specifically Diamond and above), your SR is going to be your MMR, translated. And your MMR is solely what you’re matched by, so it’s even stricter than simply matching people in, say, gold. So a game of 12 SR 2400 players would have 12 people with the same MMR.
He also used the “wrong MMR” example to illustrate that someone who is misranked will screw up the actual winchance of a match, and the prime example of that would be Bronze-to-GM runs or a player who paid for a boost by 3 ranks cannot actually play in the rank he got boosted to, even though the matchmaker sees 50/50.
ok, now i see. the system is perfect.
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Sarcasm aside, no one’s claiming that. The real problem is that you believe Cuthbert and other people who claim rigged matchmaking and other nonsense.
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You assume that I stopped reading, because I found nothing else to comment on? The first sentence of any piece of writing is not only fair game; it’s crucial.
I’m not asking a purely rhetorical question. There are things both wrong and questionable (respectively) about the premise of your post:
Wrong - Blizzard does not use the system you describe in Competitive Overwatch. They use a system that tailors matches to all sizes of groups.
Questionable - Is it really “a hard problem” to “measure individual players’ skill through solo-queue 6v6 matches?” I think if Blizzard ran competitive play as solo-queue only, it would be rather simple.
This is the only thing I agree with you on, but I only agree with you partially. Yes, it would be simple as hell to matchmake if competitive was solo-queue only. The biggest problem with the matchmaker is having to reconcile premades (of the partial type, so 2-5 stacks) with solo-queue players. However, the selling point of Overwatch is playing with friends as a team.
Proper Overwatch is actually supposed to be clans vs clans ONLY, but that’s not feasible for the entire playerbase.
I assumed that you stopped reading because you only commented on the first sentence and the entire 3000+ word article is describing how and why the first sentence is true.
Your response shows about as much thought as “O RLY?”.
The simulation was never intended to model groups. Things are bad enough with pure simple-minded solo-queue.
*Interpreted.
No, you were right the first time- you missed the point.
The same as how S23 is showing a philosophical design flaw but it is being interpreted as Martha. Martha. Why does my autocorrect change maths to Martha?
Can we apply a logic test here? If x = y then why use x? Can I get an answer other than decay? SR gains are done differently in 3000+ so matchmaking could be too if they wanted.
Has anyone wondered why in 3 years no dev has come into this thread to say something?
But, as I have experienced, being right is.
Down with MMR
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Cuthberts thread demonstrates extreme misunderstanding of the subject matter. The only thing a dev can do is come and say “Everything you said is wrong”.
To this day, I cannot and will never understand why this thread is so popular, while others, more coherent and logical ones, where the OP demonstrates, that at least he knows how the system is supposed to behave, those are forgotten rather easily.
To me, Cuthbert’s post can be described as Controlled Oposition.
It basically strawmans everyone, who can bring up waay more coherent indications, that there are irregularities with the current implementation of the matchmaking, the personal performance factor for Plat and below and so on.
I read it and it seems like a flat earther wrote it.
If he is entirely wrong, this would have been done 3 years ago. Instead in the old forums this thread was made uncapped.
Follow the logic, and it means there is something of merit here.
So, if something he says is true, and it would be negative to the state of the game for a blue post to confirm, what could that possibly be?
A blue post either way would be great.
Sometimes the first to gain traction will always be considered the main. Hopefully you understand now.
Ok sure, but only if you believe empirical evidence (confirmable by anyone) is the same as theories on a carefully hidden data set. Honestly that comment sounds like something a flat earther would say.
Flat earthers exist to this day, so no.
I have read his post and trust me, there only thing of some value is the overall sentiment, that there is something wrong with the system in place… but then you go into the specifics, and it undermines the whole thing.
Just the title, that basically demands for matchmakign rating to be removed is pure stupidity and reaks of ignorance. What should instantly pop into your head then is “what about 4k+ players, that decay to 3K after not playing for some time?” But nah, remove MMR!!!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with matchmaking rating’s existence by itself. It worked just fine in other games…
My problems with MMR is that
- It’s no visible the way it is in other games (say World of WarCraft). To me, Blizzard refusing to making visible suggests, that there are irregularities.
- Not sufficient knowledge on what affects your MMR aside from a win. Can you lose MMR even though you’ve won. Things like that.
MHz had a much more coherent hypothesis on reddit. It was called:
I have finally done it: I have Understood the Matchmaker
Much more enjoyable read, that is at least coherent.
My current hypothesis is, that the system (that was designerd for chess, in other words 1v1) can only handle well two units and it’s not really good for finding allies. How can we have two units in a game with 12 people? How can the system operate without having to find allies for you?
Well, by treating an entire team as a unit, the way it worked in WoW during TBC and WotLK.
The devs have said repeatedly, that they believe the best way to play their game is, if you were to play only full premades. WoW Arena was like that. You make a team, you stick to it, you improve and steadily climb.
Overwatch’s implementation currently does not match that… There is no dedicated Team League mode (the way it was in Heroes of the Storm).
And surely one can say “you are free to do pugs right now”, but from what I gather, unless you’re GM, there’s really no benefit to running pugs right now. It’s less rewarding and there are plenty of indications. Check this video for example:
IMO, unless premade vs premade is standazed, basically made THE MAIN mode, there will always be comlaints about the matchmaking. But if does get standardized, then even losing to better oponents will not be that big of a deal. You’re not going to lose a lot of points, but you’ll get the opportunity to learn from them… again, like it worked out in WoW.
Equating a game to that is insanity. You realise that right?
Why have decay at all? You still play at the non decayed levels, and place as if you hadn’t decayed. Decay doesn’t actually exist in this game, so this argument is just uninformed, but unfortunately used a lot. They could ditch decay and nothing would change.
After this point you started to make good comments. So whilst I don’t agree 100% with it I don’t see anything to call wrong or misguided.
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Well I did read past the first line of your post. I still don’t understand your assertion that competitive play is “solo queue only.” Did Blizzard change the format? At the time I stopped playing Overwatch, groups were allowed. And most players were finding games through groups, not solo queue.
As for the rest of it…you and I may never see eye to eye on MMR/handicapping. The problem is that you look at the system the same way that Blizzard does. You think that the role of the matchmaker is to “give the players a positive experience.” You think its purpose is to produce a transcendental Overwatch experience with every match, even if that’s ‘hard to do.’
You’re an apologist for the matchmaker, saying that it can’t be perfect. But it was never good to begin with. It serves Blizzard’s corporate need for marketability; not the fair and objective ranking of competitive players.
You say “It is a truth that is generally acknowledged that solo-queue competitive Overwatch can be a frustrating experience,” but that is just another qualitative statement, missing the forest for the trees. You’re not thinking about how the systems of matchmaking, Match Making Rating, and Skill Rating actually work together. They work together to effect a handicap. Handicapping is wrong for competitive play, because it makes ranking a futile and inaccurate process.
Blizzard makes changes to heroes so why not try removing the MMR and going really simple, let factors be e.g.:
- Your SR
- Ping
- Maybe level?
Let’s try this for one season and see how it goes?
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Yes, MMR is based on Elo which was made for chess. And yes, having teams makes it harder to find a players rank, but not impossible. There has been actual academic research on this topic, I can link you published papers if you like.
MMR systems have a large amount of both theoretical and empirical proof that they work. The impact of your teammates can be thought of like random noise, which averages out as you play more games.
But they don’t work together. Matchmaking and MMR work together, completely independent of SR.
SR is just the pretty output you get as an achievement, which also happens to let Blizzard punish you by lowering it without messing up matchmaking (for leaving/decay). They could remove SR entirely and nothing would change from a matchmaking perspective.
- They could do visible MMR
- They could just use the tiers (silver/gold/plat etc) without showing you a more precise number
- They could come up with a whole new representation of rank to give to players, like a percentile.
Nothing about how your rank is displayed impacts how the underlying MMR system works.
I know you already know this too, but I get your position. If you accept how the matchmaker is proven to work, it undermines your entire theory. So you have to deny it.
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Doubt they’ll get rid of MMR. It’s too beneficial to them, even if they players hate it.
It increases game activity by forcing a grind.
It inflates lesser skilled players rank to keep them from feeling discouraged about only being a bronze player.
It lowers the chance of win/loss streaks occurring
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I never made such an assertion. This conversation is a waste of time, as you lack either the ability or the desire to understand what is written. Good bye.
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I would absolutely love to read more on the matter.
Mind you, I have no problem with matchmaking, MMR and their existence like the OP does.
My issue is with Blizzard’s implementation.
I do believe, that there are some irregularities… and not necessarily when it comes to where a person should be on the ladder, because for the few people I play with, I would argue it’s more or less accurate.
My issue is with how we arrive at where we are, whether the matchmaker provides Support players with Tanks and DPS of similar proportion of skill (which I don’t believe it does).
I also see an issue with climbing as a support when it comes to the points exchange (there were ridiculous examples when at the start of Overwatch supports would not get enough points to the point, that it would split teams).
I also see issue with the whole idea of personal performance factor in Overwatch, because in a heavily team based game, where the roles are dependant on each other, your performance can suffer due to that of your team.
I am 100% certain, that if Blizzard were to implement a replay system, I would be able to demonstrate why some people shouldn’t be on my team in the first place.
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I still don’t get this thread tbh.
Probs no. Maybe to avoid exploits?
Because you would get a NO from them. I think they don’t plan removing MMR anytime soon. What do you expect them to say? What would you get by removing MMR?