Why is MMR hidden?

Competitive Discussion
21

If there is no one to properly match, what do you think the matchmaker does, it expands it’s “acceptable” matches based off the time you have waited for a match.

You can see this increase in match time starting high diamond/masters, especially DPS queues as they are the most over saturated.

It’s due to lack of active players in your matching MMR. Which could be due to either situation, but given the age of this game, which do you think is more likely?

People get bored, burnt out, or kindle interest in other media that takes them out of the pool of available players.

For a game this old with no real progression besides a few skins and a few fancy numbers the only thing to look forward to is new maps / heroes / gamemodes and many of those haven’t been plentiful.

22

We don’t see eye to eye on this. You think that “balancing” (handicapping) is a good thing, and I think it’s evil.

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23

I don’t recall ever stating MMR was good for the game, just noting it’s not the only problem.

If there isn’t something keeping fresh players coming in and retaining old players, who is there for the matchmaker to match with.

It’s a symptom of a bigger issue which has been getting worse every year (player retention).

A guilds/clan system would of helped and people asked for such for a long, long time without results.

24

You are a gentleman and a scholar. Here’s to you, a toast. :beers: :face_with_monocle:

25

Okay, sorry for misunderstanding you. You said:

When you say “properly balance,” I take this to mean you think that handicapping competitive ranked matches is good or okay under the right conditions. I assert that it is bad and antithetical to ranked competitive play under all conditions.

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26

What if MMR was not hidden? What if MMR was calculated based on how little you die for example?

What would the majority of players, especially low ranks do then? Do everything they can not to die, even if it would mean staying out of the fight the whole game, just to keep their death count as low as possible. People would abuse the hell out of the MMR.

The same way it was done with priority tickets. DPS players who have never touched a Tank in their entire OW carrier have suddenly started playing Tank, making all of your OW lives miserable because they were throwing by not knowing how to play Tank.

How would it be any different if MMR was visible or if it was revealed how MMR is calculated?

The more kills you have the higher your MMR will go. You will see people feeding more than they do now just to stack up on their kills so they could increase their MMR and hopefully get to a higher rank. People would sell their mothers if they could just to win a game or get to a higher elo without ever putting any effort into it. That would bring the “I have gold x, y, z” to a whole new toxicity level never known to human kind before.

You have a cheater in your Plat games, they are on the enemy team, you call for a draw, but the enemy team refuses, because hey free SR. I will do whatever it takes to get free SR or maybe rank up. They do not even know that their skills is not up to par for higher ranks, but in their mind they deserve it for whatever reason, you name it.

I can bet my left kidney that if the algorithm for calculating MMR was ever released, people would be complaining more than they ever did about their bad matches, low quality of matches because everyone, especially low elos, would be doing everything they can to pump up a specific statistic that would make their MMR go up irregardless of the fact whether that would mean them throwing or not.

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27

The problem with your argument is that you’re saying “What if Blizzard had an absolutely absurd algorithm calculating where you “should be” and it’s not actually based on your skill as a player? People would abuse it!” Whereas what you should be saying is “We should be able to see how Blizzard is calculating where we are, and if their algorithm is absurd, then they should modify it to reflect people’s actual skill level.”

Imagine if they didn’t tell you how they calculated baseball player’s ranks out of the fear that “If they find out, they’ll actually try to hit more balls! And strike out more people! And score more points! Let’s just keep it a vague number and let them assume that ‘we know best, and their rank is actually what their rank is.’”

The only reason Blizzard would keep the MMR hidden is because they know it’s a flawed system, and at this point it’s most likely a /highly/ flawed system, and if people found out that it was even slightly rigged, there would be massive backlash.

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28

Tbh, I was not talking about myself or what I would personally want.

If they were to reveal how MMR works tomorrow, I would have no problems with that, the same way I do not have problems with the MMR being hidden now. Every time I play this game, MMR is not even at the back of my head.

I do not suffer from what the majority of people in my elo suffer. I do not Q up thinking “here we go again, let me see how Blizzard is going to handicap me now and make me lose.”

It is sad, sad, oh so sad that people Q up with those thoughts in mind. When I Q up, I think about my team comp, my hero choices and how I can personally bring value to a specific team comp. But hey that is just me.

What would you personally gain if MMR was revealed or if MMR/SR reset happens? A false sense of hope, where at one point you would tell yourself “I f-ing knew it, I knew it, I placed higher than I ever was.” There is a Noobhunter video of a player who literally has no arms and got to Master’s while playing with his feet. Why did’t MMR or matchmaking, or the System or whatever influence his gameplay and prevented him from climbing? He literally has a physical limitation and is higher than me, and I have both arms and legs.

The thing that I continuously fail to understand is how revealing how MMR works is going to make you aim any better? How is it going to make you hit your sleeps any better?

Also, according to you, how should one be placed or measured?

If I spend more time than you do perfecting my aim or my gamesense should I be placed higher or lower than you?

Also, let us just forget about the MMR for a moment. Let’s say, hypothetically that there is no MMR, only SR, 1500 players against other 1500 players for example and you lose the match. You Q up again and you lose another, and another one and you end up in Bronze. Whos fault would it be then? There is no MMR you can fall back on.

Your team? Your heals, DPS, Tanks? Your teammate being on open mic and you hear his baby crying in the background hence messing up your concentration?

My point is, no matter whether it was MMR or smth else, low elos will always try to find an easy way out or find a blame for why they are in the elo they are. It is literally much easier to write a post about it then spend that time actually improving on things you as a player lack. Lacking something as a player should not be something that you should complain and get angry about, I see nothing wrong in admitting you lack something, you cannot do something, you do not understand something. It is also not something one should, if, be ashamed of and/or try to mask it by getting angry at something else. I’ve spent months trying to actively do superjump as Mercy, while I know people who have done in the first 5 mins after someone told them how to do it. I never felt bad about it.

In general people will always find a way to complain about anything. If it is not left it is right. Go to the general discussion forums and see how people complain about the new Baptiste skin, something I personally never even noticed until I read a topic about how Baptiste’s new Terracotta skin has a blue stripe on the right side of his machine gun and it does not match his overall look.

Never in my mind would it occur to me to look at something like that, but there are people who noticed it and felt bothered by it, bothered enough to open a topic about it. Same with anything else.

I just do not get the part where if there was no MMR, handicapping and rigging as you say, smurfs etc. you name it, would make you play any better personally than you are playing now? I do not understand, if all of that was taken way, how it would make you any better of a player?

29

Because at least then you would know by which metrics you were being graded.

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30

Don’t you mean, “So players would know what stats to farm and artificially raise rank?”

31

I already know how I am graded.

I get tilted a lot by the matches I play in, or people I get Q-up with, often saying in my head (not in VC or in written form) “why am I q-ed up with such idiots, how does this even happen?”

The difference between you and I is that I after my tilt wears off, realize that I am in the same elo as those “idiots” and if I were any better I would not even be in the same elo as those “idiots.”

No amount of MMR/SR reset, MMR reveal or not, a different grading system or whatnot is going to change that, unless you yourself change. That is how I got out of Bronze and that is how I will get further than my current Gold rank.

32

just get rid of mmr completely. offer solo-queue and watch the game prosper.

33

I stopped here, simply not true. I reached my career high near 1900 and twice I drop down to bronze.

Been playing since season 1.

34

I myself have spiked to Platinum a few times, but mostly I am a Gold rated player. I have been playing since season 1. More play time does not equal to an increase in skill rating, only focusing on improving your actual skill will result in more consistancy in your win rate and that will increase your skill rating.

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35

This response is so scripted it’s starting to hurt.

  1. General statements are often never true. (Kinda joking if you get it).
  2. I guess I am the counter example, cause when I started to work from home I knew I’d dig into OW since March 2020. - got aimlab, got a gaming mouse, started to send in my vids to sty and look at jake more in-depth. I even got multiple work shop codes for specific chars for training.

And yes I think improved. But I still drop.

So yea, different text color same script- maybe your right to 99% of these folks but I wish it were true for me. Ultimately with all the coaching I’ve seen, I just see others make mistakes.

Aww man just remembered getting into an argument with like my whole team on kings row offense after camping first point. Our tank, me(dps) and support were chasing people down to stagger folks, and our rein refusing to leave the escort! Everyone else falls back and I’m like we can control this space up to point 2. But the team wanted 3 people on the escort so it can move faster. I died inside a little that day.

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36

your internal MMR depends on your stats of your weapon accuracy
eg, if you have decent weapon accuracy, you will likely face account boosters

37

Do you have evidence to support this? Or is it just what you think, because i think its nonsense.

38

And this is your biggest problem, unless you are referring to the mistakes enemies make.

Focusing too much on the mistakes your team makes, makes you less focused on the mistakes you yourself do or prevents you from thinking straight, thinking what you could have done differently and only pumps up your tilt meter.

I know it is not easy not to notice those stupid, noob mistakes your team does, I have had the same problem and learned it the hard way.

Used to nano my Rein when he would charge in 1vs6 thinking I could save him or help him, would use all my cooldowns on him and he would still die.

Used to follow my feeding DPS, damage boosting him, thinking how I am helping, then he dies and I die with him. It ended being 4vs 6 instead of 5vs 6because I was too stupid and followed him.

The biggest thing I learned, as a support is to let your idiots teammate die. If they are suicidal, does not mean you have to let them take you down with them. Even if you see that they are right by making a certain move, if the rest of your team is not there to back them up, they, together with you, end up feeding even if it looked like a right choice.

You cannot push up if your team does not push up with you. Sure you can tell them that it is ok and safe to push up for example, or tell them to back up when you know the point is lost to prevent them from staggering themselves, but you cannot control them unfortunately.

It is gg, go next right there. Not every match is going to be like that, but in such situations, if I call it out and they refuse to listen, there is not really all that much I can do on my own. You cannot 1vs6 and you cannot teach stupid.

I’ve stopped focusing on the mistakes my teammates do, I just let them die if they themselves decide to feed and lack the awareness to realize it. Better a 5vs6 than a 4vs6.

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39

Exactly. I also think that MMR favors players who behave in certain ways that influence their statistics, whether they are doing so consciously or not.

40

No it does not. I have given an example of a player with no arms playing with his feet reaching Masters. I think I gave that example like million times by now.

How come he never got handicapped by the System? I with both arms and legs cannot reach Plat, but he can reach Masters? How? Why?

The thing that people fail to understand is, hence why the majority complaints about matchmaking come from people below Diamond (I am not saying that DIamond players or above do not complain, but their complaints are in a huge minority compared to players in the Bronze-Plat range), low elos are incredibly inconsistent in their gameplay.

I do not have to talk in general in this case, I can take myself as an example. I feel like am wrecking one round and the other I seem to forget how to use keyboard and mouse properly. That is why I for example never click on “stay as a group” after I have won a match, because if we have won this match for whatever reason does not mean we will win the next one.

Consistency in your play whether that is your mechanical skills, awareness of your surrounding, cooldown and ult management is what is going to make you rank up, no matter how bad you think your team is. Of course you will still have unwinnable games, stomps, but those happen at all elos. Even OWL players lose matches in ranked, but that does not make them any less of OWL players nor does it diminish their skills.

I see no reason how MMR, System, teammates or whatever influences your own personal performance or you skills or lack thereof. Even if hypothetically the System is favoring this or that, I still do not see how it is going to favor your ability to hit your sleeps on Ana or your ability to miss them.

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